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{
    "localId": "225249258",
    "label": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Appendices to ORE 58-48, The Strategic Value to the USSR of the Conquest of Western Europe and the Near East (To Cairo) Prior to 1950",
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    "id": "225249258",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Appendices to ORE 58-48, The Strategic Value to the USSR of the Conquest of Western Europe and the Near East (To Cairo) Prior to 1950",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/225249258",
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 27,
            "logicalDate": "1948-10-27",
            "month": 10,
            "year": 1948
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{
    "seq": 33,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
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    "ocrText": "b. Advantages.\nThe acquisition and assimilation of the experimental engineering, design and\ndevelopment facilities, and trained personnel of the subject industries in Western\nEurope could, by overcoming existing Soviet deficiencies, speed up the industrial plan-\nning and output of the USSR in all fields by an estimated 15-30 percent.\nc. Disadvantages.\nThere are none foreseen.\nd. Discussion.\n(1) General.\n(a) Nine countries in Western Europe and Scandinavia have significant\nand well established applied research, process engineering, and product development\nin one or more of these industries. Of the competent engineers and technicians who\nsupervise this development, many possess high skill and creativeness comparable to the\nbest technical ability in this country and consistent with the highly developed art of\nthese industries.\n(b) In the aggregate the combined industrial potential of these coun-\ntries\nis large. How large may be best visualized by considering an indirect measure\nof industrial activity, such as, the relation of installed electrical capacity to the popu-\nlation. These countries have a total electrical capacity of over twice that of the entire\nUSSR and half that of the United States, whereas the combined population is slightly\nmore than that of this country and almost equal to that of the USSR.\n(c) In total technical potential for the six industries under discussion\nthe countries are in the order of their importance: France, western Germany, Italy,\nSwitzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark. Other European\ncountries and those of the Middle East have practically no important industry, except\nthe production and refining of petroleum. Since the petroleum companies of the Middle\nEast are foreign owned, the process development is carried on in the country of the\nparent company and not in the territory under discussion.\n(d) Important as the applied research of these European countries is,\nconsidered merely as an integral part of their industries, the significance to the Soviet\nUnion is much greater because in general the skills and equipment of the development\nstage of an industry are equally applicable to a wide variety of problems within the\nindustry, in fact, oftentimes to those of related industries. Therefore the assimilation\nof the applied research, engineering and design facilities of Europe within the USSR\nindustrial pattern should advance the over-all industrialization within a year's time\nsubstantially beyond that attributable alone to the acquisition of the production capa-\ncities of these countries.\n(2) Precision Machinery.\n(a) Even though precision equipment plays an important strategic role\nin the production of war material as well as normal civilian commodities, the Soviet's\nprecision machine tool industry was initiated just prior to the war and in 1941 produc-\n32"
}