Team B

Team B was a competitive analysis exercise commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to analyze threats the Soviet Union posed to the security of the United States. In May 1976, President Ford invited a group of outside experts to evaluate classified intelligence on the Soviet Union. The purpose behind the invitation was to put a fresh pair of eyes on the same data-sets that analysts within the intelligence community were looking at. The intelligence community was in the process of putting together its own assessment on the Soviet threat as the Team B panel of outside experts produced its assessment. Team B, approved by then Director of Central Intelligence George H. W. Bush, was composed of "outside experts" who attempted to counter the positions of intelligence officials within the CIA. Team B concluded that the National Intelligence Estimate on the Soviet Union, generated yearly by the CIA, underestimated Soviet military power and misinterpreted Soviet strategic intentions. Its findings were leaked to the press shortly after Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential election win in an attempt to appeal to anti-communists in both parties and not appear partisan.

The Team B reports became the intellectual foundation for the idea of "the window of vulnerability" and of the massive arms buildup that began toward the end of the Carter administration and accelerated under President Ronald Reagan.

Some scholars and policy-makers, such as Anne Cahn of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, later criticized the Team B project's findings.