ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a wider context for understanding the meaning, nature and importance of the Anglo-American assessments. They are in many cases tantamount in nature to the intelligence estimates that, for example, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made during the Cold War, regarding Soviet intentions and capabilities. It also focuses on an overview of what war potential was in the World War II era. It is of interest to know this in order to understand what contemporary US and British observers of the USSR focused on. World War I is often referred to as the first total war in history, forcing all the major belligerents to convert their civilian societies to the needs of the war effort. This war, which before World War II was called the Great War, exerted a heavy influence on the interwar military mentality.
