Forecasting Nuclear War:
Stasi/KGB Intelligence Cooperation under Project RYaN
By Bernd Schaefer, Nate Jones, and Benjamin B. Fischer
Between 1981 and 1989 the foreign intelligence branches of the Soviet KGB and the East German Ministry of State Security launched a combined effort to develop a system for detecting signs of an impending western nuclear first strike. Codenamed “Project RYaN”, this early-warning system constituted one part of the Soviet response to the perceived threat of a surprise “decapitation” strike by NATO nuclear forces.
233 pages of newly translated documents from the Stasi’s Hauptverwaltung A and analysis by Bernd Schaefer, Nate Jones, and Benjamin Fischer below give unprecedented insight into the capabilities and fears of the Eastern Bloc intelligence services from the Able Archer ’83 War Scare to the end of the Cold War.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Vicious Cycle of Intelligece
Comments on the Soviet-East German Intelligence Alert
Document Appendix
