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By Commander James McCoy, Royal Navy (Retired)
Is it raise or call? The U.S. Navy is afraid that naval arms control will force it to relinquish its winning hand. But budget cuts are causing the fleet to make haphazard reductions anyway. Uncle Sam will have to end his poker face on naval arms control sooner or later, and when it does, just how many submarines will equal one aircraft carrier?
The rapid pace of change in the world means that cuts in naval weaponry are inevitable—like it or not. Both the United States and the Soviet Union fear the cuts in the systems they most value, and yet each greedily eyes the most threatening naval systems of the other side. At some point each superpower is going to have to weigh its own insecurities against those of its counterpart and come up with a naval arms control regime that will bring the fears of each into balance. The ongoing Conventional Armed Forces Europe (CFE) talks in Vienna increase the urgency of this imperative, because as ground and air forces are reduced, the relative importance of naval forces during a war in Europe is thrown into sharper relief.
Cuts—Planned, Not Haphazard: Reductions are essential—indeed, they are already occurring, even without an official naval arms control treaty.
Defense budgets all over the West are coming under scrutiny. Naval arms, being “big-ticket” items, are particularly vulnerable. The past year has seen the U.S. Navy lose one carrier battle group (CVBG), a substantial number of escorts, and a variety of cherished projects; more cuts are to come, and the plan for the 600-ship navy has been shelved. The Royal Navy, shouldering the heavy burden of the Trident project, has placed its third antisubmarine warfare carrier in inactive status and is slowly running down its escort and submarine numbers. The French have extended the construction schedule of their new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier by two years and have downrated her speed. Their Cassard-class guided-missile destroyer has been stopped at two ships, and a number of their smaller frigates are being replaced by ships more akin to Coast Guard cutters than warships. Among the smaller NATO navies, Canada has abandoned its plan to acquire a nuclear attack submarine (SSN) force, the Netherlands and Belgium have cut their reequipping and modernization plans, and the West German Navy is making gloomy noises about future force levels.
Without any input from operational authorities, modification of force goals, or consensus in NATO councils, budgetary pressures are thus generating dangerous, unstructured reductions that threaten to erode NATO’s naval advantage. Formal naval arms control negotiations with the Soviets would be better than such haphazard financial expediency.
But naval arms control has a cloudy history. The conventional view is that earlier regimes of naval arms control were unsuccessful. After all, the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Treaties of 1930 and 1936 failed to prevent World War II. But one could equally say that without them, the war might have come earlier. Nevertheless, two things are certain. First, the existence of the treaties provided a framework for the limitation of defense expenditure in a period of economic difficulties; and second, evasions of treaty provisions provided advance indicators of belligerent intent. These treaties were, to be sure, created in a simpler age, when defining ship types and operational roles was easy. Despite the differing strategic requirements of the participants, a common framework of measurement was largely applicable. This is no longer true.
Changes in technology and naval warfighting mean that like no longer fights like. U.S. cruisers are designed and armed for a different role than Soviet cruisers; “capital ships” are no longer easily defined. Perhaps most significantly, the role that land-based forces play in maritime warfare and the influence of sea-based forces upon the land battle have changed markedly.
Other changes, however, brighten the outlook for a prospective regime. First, the overarching threat of nuclear warfare has awakened national leaders to the dangers of escalation. Improved technology enables them to maintain
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ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERIC SMITH
a much tauter grip on crisis management. Second, satellite imagery has made cheating much more difficult. Third (unlike the interwar years), all potential participants now seek to reduce—not increase—their armed strength. Last, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty provides a precedent for intrusive verification—one that CFE will further
extend. .
An obvious starting point for naval arms control is identifying which antagonists’ capabilities generate insecurity.
Naval Causes of International Insecurity: The overwhelming superiority of Western navies, except in submarines, is clear if one looks at the numbers (see Tables 1 and 2). On a more subjective level, however, the Soviets have a historically based, recurrent nightmare of a “bolt from the blue’’ attack similar to that which they suffered in June 1941, so forces with this capability receive their particular attention. Two elements of allied naval forces fall into this category: carrier aviation and cruise-missile launchers, particularly submarines. Leaving aside, for the present, the nuclear potential of both, the Soviets teel genuinely threatened when U.S. carrier groups venture deep into the Norwegian Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the westernmost Pacific. Submarines armed with sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs), which they can neither track adequately nor counter, induce a state of positive paranoia. These weapons’ proclaimed usefulness in follow-on attack adds to their disquiet.1 A third Western capability, strate-
gic ASW, appears to rank lower on the totem pole of Soviet insecurities. .
Turning to the West, the main threats posed by Soviet naval forces are their dual ability to oppose allied naval forces deployed forward in support of weaker allies, and to attack transoceanic shipping in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Their attack submarine force of some 280 boats (191 in European waters) continues to attract verbal hostility, and Western authorities highlight the continued high levels of Soviet submarine building.2 Second, Soviet Naval Aviation deploys more than 700 aircraft with formidable antiship capabilities that pose a similar direct and severe threat to U.S. maritime activities in support of exposed allies—particularly Norway, the key to the northern flank.
The challenge for arms control is to balance these asymmetric threats and find a means of achieving stabilizing reductions to both.
Securing Insecurity—Balancing Asymmetry: Soviet bids for Western cuts thus focus on three operational capabilities: the capacity for strategic ASW, the carrier force, and land-attack SLCMs. The West seeks reductions in two areas: Soviet submarines and shore-based aviation. On inspection, these five areas of concern can be assigned to two main categories:
► Submarines—in all their roles and manifestations except strategic deterrence
► Transcoastal Weaponry—U.S. weapons inward bound to the Soviet Union, and Soviet ones outward bound to NATO shipping
The causes of insecurity are but one side of the balance: we must also examine the importance of these forces to the security of those deploying them.
Western strategic ASW, the coded phrase describing a possible campaign against Soviet nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs) early in a war, has attracted considerable criticism as both risky and destabilizing. Its continuing technical feasibility depends upon the acoustic advantage Western ASW forces, principally submarines, enjoy, and the geographic handicaps early Soviet SSBNs had to overcome. This component of the forward maritime strategy, which to many lacked operational and political realism and contributed little to U.S. security, is no longer valid and should be formally renounced.
The U.S. Navy’s 14 CVBGs, the battleship groups, and the Navy-Marine Corps amphibious and expeditionary task forces represent a capability for conventional force projection wholly unmatched on the world’s oceans. Recent and forthcoming budget cuts notwithstanding, the U.S. Navy fields a comprehensive package intrinsically capable of launching a surprise attack. Whether it can initiate large-scale offensive action depends on one’s definition of large-scale. These are precisely the capabilities the CFE talks are mandated to reduce.
The U.S. Navy says its commitments require a force of at least 15 carriers, but examination of the process by which commitments are generated reveals that
“These ‘commitments’ are missions generated through international agreements, Presidential direction, Secretary of Defense initiatives, or Joint Chiefs of Staff and CINC-imposed requirements. Presently we have very few hard commitments [author’s emphasis—hard being defined as written direction for specific force levels and reaction times]. Most deployment force levels [primarily for crisis response] are developed by the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff], and CINCs [Unified Commanders-in- Chief], and the services and approved by the Secretary of Defense to achieve national objectives.”3
This is a circular argument. What are the really hard commitments? Could not 12 CVBGs, employed at a lower level of forward deployments, meet them without placing U.S. interests at risk?
Finally we come to the land-attack SLCM. These weapons are economical, technically elegant, and militarily ubiquitous. Moreover, they are stealthy, difficult to counter, and destabilizing because of their dual nuclear and conventional capability. They thus combine all the ingredients that the Soviets find most deeply disturbing. The U.S. President and commanders-in-chief will wish to retain possession of a few such discreet, conventionally headed weapons with which to excise specific targets surgically without hazarding aviators. They would be especially useful in limited conflicts. But in war-fighting terms, the planned total of 758 nuclear warheads and some 2,650 conventional land-attack thousand-pound bomb equivalents is unlikely to change the outcome of a general war between the superpowers. The Soviets are likely to insist upon their control as the price of implementing either a START treaty, a second-phase CFE agreement, or both.4
Required cuts in Soviet capabilities are self-defining. Simply enough, substantial reductions in the Soviet submarine force and in both the weight and reach of the antishipping capability of Soviet Naval Aviation are needed. If the Soviet high command felt their SSBNs were not under threat—that is, if there were fewer carrier group sorties into the Norwegian Sea—the Soviets might reduce their inventory of naval aircraft.
A Proposed Control Regime—Apples and Oranges: Consensus is growing that there are simply too many nuclear weapons at sea and that their continued military usefulness is doubtful. But control measures here may not be too difficult. Admiral William Crowe, the recently retired Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, proposed considering the total abolition of seaborne nuclear weapons.5 But the Soviets, the weaker side, would be unwise to give up all of their naval nuclear weapons. Recognizing this, Admiral Richard Hill put forward a logical argument to allow both sides to retain enough maritime nuclear warheads to strike in extremis against those enemy forces, bases, and facilities threatening catastrophic conventional defeat.
Returning to conventional arms control, the difficulties at sea arise when, recognizing that like no longer fights like, we are compelled to match apples against oranges. The balance we seek must encompass submarines on the one hand and transcoastal weaponry on the other.
► The Underwater Balance: The Soviets, somewhat grudgingly, accept that Western concerns about their fleet of 280 submarines are justifiable. But what is the right number? Are boat numbers even the right way to assess the acceptable level of a submarine arm? Plainly one cannot equate a U.S. Los Angeles (SSN-688)-class nuclear submarine with a Soviet Whiskey-class conventional submarine, nor an Oscar with a German Type-206.
One physical factor distinguishes the submarine from all other vessels: For it to function efficiently submerged, its density must approximate closely that of seawater. Its volume is closely related to its payload—which includes not only weapons, but crew, fuel, and general stores. Submarine design is a complex tradeoff between cost, size, weapon load, dynamic performance, and endurance. Differing operational requirements lead to a wide range of designs. In general, the smaller the boat, the more weapons it carries per displaced ton and the more defensive its role, since size largely determines endurance and patrol range.
Total submarine tonnage thus appears to offer a means of control over submarine fleets. Individual nations would remain free to select their mix—whether many low- performance, short-range submarines, or fewer but larger, farther-ranging boats.
The current balance of submarine tonnage between East
Table 1 The Global Naval Balance*
U.S.A. & Allies
U.S.S.R. & Allies
Tactical Submarines Carriers
Cruisers and Battleships Destroyers and Frigates Amphibious Ships Combat Tonnage
254
20
50
521
130
4,760,000
312
4
37
254
113
2,693,000
♦Figures derived from The Military Balance, 1989-90, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1989. U.S. allies include all of NATO plus Japan, Australia, and South Korea. Soviet allies include all of the Warsaw Pact plus North Korea.
Table 2 Naval Balances in the Principal Regions* Northern Flank Mediterranean
U.S.A. U.S.S.R. U.S.A. U-S:SR- & Allies & Allies & Allies & Allies
Pacific
U.S.A. U.S.S.R.
& Allies & Allies
Tactical Submarines Aircraft Carriers Cruisers and Battleships Destroyers and Frigates Amphibious
135
9
22
225
42
169
2
16
120
70
51
4
4
100
32
36
0
10
68
22
68
7
24
193
56
107
2
11
66
21
Balances derived as for Table 1; Spanish forces counted to Mediterranean total, French as deployed. Totals do not sum to those in Table 1 because of forces permanently deployed into other regions.
Table 3 Comparative Submarine Tonnages*
U.S.A. & Allies U.S.S.R. & Allies
618,000
210,000
828,000
997.000
- 1,390,000
SSGN/SSN
SSG/SS
Total
♦Table based on submarine numbers listed in The Military Balance 1989190, with dived tonnages (in metric tons) from Jane s F'Shn''S Ships, 1989-90, Alexandria, VA: Jane’s Information Services, 19»y.
and West is shown in Table 3. The East-to-West ratio is thus currently 1.68:1. If the Soviets decommissioned their hundred oldest boats, say first-generation nuclear ones and half the Whiskeys and Foxtrots, their tonnage would drop to just more than one million, and the ratio would become 1.27:1. Could the West accept a limitation based on this new ratio? Perhaps it might insist upon parity. At least this approach offers a basis for negotiations. Within agreed overall limits, nations (or perhaps alliances) would remain entirely free to structure their submarine forces as they chose.
► The Transcoastal Balance: The second main asymmetry to be balanced is that covering transcoastal weapon systems; it is much harder. What does one count? One could start with naval guns used for shore bombardment and their counterparts, coastal defense batteries. At the other end of the spectrum lie land-attack cruise missiles and the sophisticated payloads of specialized naval attack aircraft such as the Tu-26 Backfire and the F/A-18 Hornet.
Clearly one needs to count all the “smart” weapons, but a lower cutoff must be established. Historically, the limit of territorial seas has been set at or around the range of shorebased ordnance. Territorial waters have been gradually extended until now the United Nations Conference on Law of the Sea allows a 23-mile band of territorial seas plus a further 12-mile contiguous zone, which is approximately horizon range. This appears to be a practical approach, and we might exclude weapons with an autonomous range of less than 24 miles from arms control.
Even more difficult is the balancing of system against system. How does one balance AS-6 Kingfish missiles against conventional land-attack Tomahawk missiles? How many Backfires equal the USS Nimitzs (CVN-68) carrier air wing?
As an experienced dieter, the author knows the answer to the apples-and-oranges conundrum lies in the calories. And the calories of war are easily expressed as ordnance on target. This suggestion has historic and current prece-
Confidence- and Security-Building Measures
Although the only species of his own military to escape Gorbachev’s ax thus far has been the Soviet Navy, Gorbachev has not been shy about subjecting the West to a steady chorus of demands for mutual reductions and restrictions on naval activity. The West cannot reject these calls indefinitely; there is growing pressure for a response.
Some who vigorously oppose structural arms control react to this pressure by advocating a regime of naval confidence- and security-building measures (CSBMs). Soviet authorities, of course, welcome this trend because it represents a softening of previous Western insistence that navies are off limits. Compromises in this area may satisfy both the Soviets and domestic critics without significantly eroding Western material superiority. In addition, since disarmament cannot proceed without mutual confidence, its building is an essential first step. But this is all CSBMs can be. .
Confidence and security can
be improved in numerous ways, and many writers on the subject have sought to categorize the available measures.1 But in essence, there are only two main types: .
- Informative: All measures that involve the exchange of information, whether declaratory or negotiated, public or protected, long-term or perishable. This process starts with broad declaratory statements regarding overall governmental naval policy and programs, budgetary details, building warships and weapon acquisition, and the disclosure of information on day-to-day naval activities and exercises. At the lowest level, the participants establish a framework for on-scene exchange of real-time information by way of agreed communications arrangements.
- Regulatory: Those measures that place limits on the behavior and activities of naval units, again whether widely por- mulgated or highly classified, worldwide in their applicability or restricted by geographic zone.
These measures are often targeted on particular areas and can be interpreted as another manifestation of the phenomenon of coastal jurisdiction slowly extending onto the high seas.[1]
The Soviets vocally promote zoned CSBMs. The connections they wish to see drawn between information exchanges and limitations and prohibitions of activities are well illustrated in a recent submission to the United Nations.[2] In a curious demonstration of Soviet logic, this document claims to promote freedom by proposing restrictions:
“The maintenance of the freedom of navigation and other uses of the sea is an important objective for all States. Measures to guarantee the safety of shipping could include, inter alia, the prohibition of exercises, manoeuvres and the concentration of major formations of naval forces in international straits and zones of intensive shipping and fisheries as well as
dents—a means of measuring fleet potential by weight of broadside, or as a conventional analogue to the throw- weight measurement familiar to nuclear arms controllers. For every missile with an autonomous range greater than 24 nautical miles, warhead weights would be put into the balance.
Whether the balance between the sides should be equal or asymmetrical remains to be determined. So must the question of double-counting for those Soviet naval aircraft counted in the CFE negotiations. Antiship missiles carried by West German naval Tornado attack aircraft must also weigh in the balance.
The restrictions thus applied would solely limit the ability of the superpowers to injure each other. The freedom for either side to use its naval power in limited-conflict situations would be unimpaired. The important, historical freedom of the seas would be preserved, as would the flexibility of the operational planner, since there would be no hint of a regime depending on notional loadings or other unrealistic assumptions about platform capabilities. The objective is to control inventories of weapons.
Conclusions: Far too many nuclear weapons are at sea;
ity to exert influence—or project power—without territorial infringement. They provide governments with immensely flexible and legally unobjectionable means of adding weight to their diplomatic arguments. Freedom of navigation on the high seas lies at the core of this strength, and naval powers have always rejected measures that erode this freedom. They should continue to do so.
in the airspace above them”
The Soviets have proposed many types of restrictions:
SSBN havens, nuclear-free and ASW-free zones, as well as limitations on the location, frequency, size, and duration of major exercises. Soviet maritime doctrine is based on defensive zones, the penetration of which by Western forces triggers specific reactions. The Soviets want the West to recognize these zones.
The most significant flaw of both informative and regulatory CSBMs as a means of promoting stability is that they cannot effectively be applied to the submarine—the most destabilizing maritime weapon of all. Many experts who otherwise advocate CSBMs recognize this limitation and are unable to advance practical ways to overcome it. For example, the official Norwegian study explains that “in principle submarines might be included. But submarine-free zones have to our knowledge never been
promoted as a possible measure. This probably due to the fact that no naval power has seen this as advantageous, and to the problems of verification.”[3] 2 3 [4]
More honestly, Admiral J. R. Hill says: “If there is one word that summarises the obstacle to confidence-building measures at sea, it is, quite simply, submarines.”[5]
Finally, if the superpowers endorsed zoned maritime limitations, the restrictions would spread rapidly to lesser powers that have maritime pretensions and seek to exclude foreign navies from their sensitive areas. The navies of the free democracies currently provide a powerful deterrent to “authoritarian states which decide to flout international law for their own purposes.”[6]
CSBMs that limit the movements of naval forces inhibit the options of the maritime powers. They are impotent as regulators of the activities of nuclear- powered submarines. The advan- I tage of naval forces is their abil
many with experience of war-gaming and tactical exercises remain puzzled about their military usefulness. Drastic reductions—but not total elimination of nuclear weapons at sea is recommended.
That proposals for Western reductions have been concentrated on the U S. Navy is not accidental, little consideration has been given to whether bloc-to-bloc or bilateral negotiations are the better course. Although the burdensharing polemics have eased since the 1988 U.S. presidential election, there are still valid arguments that the load might be more equitably shared. One way might be for the United States to spend less.
Continued refusal by the West to enter into naval arms negotiations is myopic and will prove counterproductive. A much wiser course is to recognize that negotiated, balanced reductions must be preferable to unstructured cuts forced by budgetary and demographic imperatives. NATO’s maritime security thus need not be weakened.
For the Soviet Union to join the democratic world is an end devoutly to be wished. The West must encourage perestroika. A step along this road might be to offer the prospect of naval arms negotiations if CFE ground and air force reductions remain on schedule.
'Adm. C. A. H. Trost, USN (Ret.), in evidence to the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, quoted in Defense News, 20 March 1989.
'‘■The Military Balance 1989190, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1989, p. 233; See, for instance, Adm. L. Baggett, Jr, USN (Ret.), “Eight to ten per year.” Royal United Services Institute Journal (UK) Autumn 1988; Adm. of the Fleet Sir John Fieldhouse, RN, opening Underwater Technology Conference , 26th October 1988: “A new Submarine every seven or eight weeks”; Soviet Military Power 1989, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989, pp.
130-131 et al. , . . .
3From a letter from Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucct to the Chairman ot the Subcommittee on Projection Forces and Regional Defense, Senate Anncd Services Committee, 23 March 1988, quoted in Published Hearings for FY ’89, Part 3, pp.
10-11. . J “See for instance comments by Yuri Nazarkin, Head of Soviet delegation to U.S.- Soviet Geneva talks on nuclear and space weapons, quoted in Pravda, 17 August 1989, (Novosti Press Release VOVP2-890817DR37).
5Adm. W. J. Crowe Jr., USN (Ret.) “Crowe Urges Talks on Reducing Naval Weapons,” International Herald Tribune, 9 January 1990, p. 1.
Commander McCoy joined the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 1987 as the Naval Information Officer. His primary responsibility is to compile the naval sections of The Military Balance. He also monitors and analyzes all areas of naval and maritime activity, particularly arms control and Far East and Indian Ocean affairs. He served 30 years in the Royal Navy, where, as a navigation specialist, he served in all classes of surface ships and commanded two frigates. He was assigned on exchange duty with the Canadian and Australian navies and spent five years in the Ministry of Defence.
[1]Hill, p. 71.
[2]Working paper submitted to United Nations Disarmament Commission by Bulgaria, East Germany and the Soviet Union. Naval Armaments and Disarmament, A/CN. 10/119, 10 May 1989.
'See for example RAdm. J. R. Hill, RN (Ret.), Arms Control at Sea, London: Rout- ledge & Keegan Paul, 1989 (Chapter 13), Sir J. Cable, Navies in Violent Peace, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 198 (Chapter 10), and of particular interest, R. H. Solstrand et al., Norwegian Defence Research Establishment Rapport—88/5002, Confidence Building Measures at Sea, 10 November 1988.
“Solstrand, p. 33.
"Hill, p. 198.
[6]Capt. Richard Sharpe, RN (Ret.) in foreword to Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1989-90, p. 81. Alexandria, VA: Jane’s Information Group, 1989.