← The Soviet-Led Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968

The Soviet decision to invade was taken late, leaving little to detect in advance.

contestedconfidence: low

Supported by a CIA memorandum of 21 August and by NIE 12-68's "some reluctance"; in tension with the command-post-exercise pattern of 13–20 August.

Supporting and corroborating evidence

The Soviet leadership's decision to invade and occupy Czechoslovakia was apparently arrived at with some reluctance.

FRUS 1964-68 v17 D26, CIA / USIB (interagency), 1968-11-07 · source ↗

must have come very late in the game

CIA-STRATEGIC-WARNING-1968, CIA (historical study), 2009-09-01 · source ↗

Contradicting evidence

The Warsaw meeting was the third in a series of meetings on the Czechoslovak question.

Petro Shelest — WILSON-SHELEST-1968-07-18, Communist Party of Ukraine, 1968-07-18 · source ↗

They had command post exercise during a period from August 13–20 in which they went through all the necessary planning and practicing… Their actual intervention followed rather precisely the pattern of those command post exercises.

Earle Wheeler — FRUS 1964-68 v17 D85, White House, 1968-08-23 · source ↗