The variety of options open to the Soviet Union in achieving the defeat of the West has been the subject of intense debate in Western defense counsels. So, too, have been argued the steps needed to counter each form of aggression. Not the least among the possible options open to the Russians is that of an attack on Western sea communications, in toto, or in a limited area of great political importance to the Soviet Union.
What does not seem to be sometimes fully appreciated in the West is the geographical problem facing the Kremlin in initiating a maritime war. An all-out war on the West’s shipping, in all parts of the world, would require all the naval resources available to the Soviet Union. This would, therefore, mean concentrating Soviet naval power in the Pacific and the Arctic, for a purely maritime war could not remain such for any length of time, if Soviet warships first had to break out from the Baltic and Black Sea. To achieve such a breakout would mean land operations against Denmark, Norway, Greece, and Turkey and this would almost inevitably lead to rapid escalation of the conflict to the level of a full-scale nuclear exchange.
It would therefore seem fair to say that a build-up of Soviet naval forces in the Pacific and Arctic areas, particularly at the expense of their Black Sea and Baltic fleets, could be taken at least as an indication of the Russians’ intention to threaten a war against Western shipping. Whether such a threat matured into an actual act of aggression would depend on political and strategic factors and the extent to which the Kremlin was prepared to gamble to obtain a particular objective. But it would seem sufficient to examine what they could do, since trying to see what they might do falls almost into the realm of the infinite.
It is perhaps not digressing too far at this point to consider one rather important factor in the composition of the Soviet Fleet which may be at least a slight pointer to the way in which Soviet naval planners are thinking. This is evident in the employment and operation of their conventional, diesel-electric submarine fleet.
The current rate of construction of Soviet nuclear submarines of all types is thought to be about seven boats a year. In view of the technological advances made in Russia in the past few years in many fields, it seems highly doubtful if such a number of nuclear submarines represents anything approaching their actual construction capability. In addition, construction of diesel-electric submarines is continuing, even though neither U. S. nor British shipyards are today building such boats.
Advances in the past 25 years in the development of Western anti-submarine weapons are such that a slow-moving diesel- electric submarine would face far greater hazards today than would have its World War II predecessor.
Yet, as a destroyer of commerce, the diesel- electric submarine is still a powerful threat. Her detection equipment has much improved and in addition she can fire torpedoes over a longer range with greater accuracy. She also may have high explosive or nuclear cruise missiles available to her. Average merchant ship speeds and performance have certainly improved in the past quarter of a century, but probably not to an extent which would seriously inhibit an intrepid captain of a conventional submarine.
It is dangerous to try to assess a potential enemy’s intentions entirely by the forces he has or is planning to have. Nevertheless, the comparatively small annual Soviet construction rate of nuclear submarines and the continuation of a conventional submarine building program indicate that the Soviet Naval Staff believes the latter still have an important role in war. The most obvious role is that against shipping, upon which the entire Western Alliance depends.
It is possible only to guess at the disposition of the Soviet naval forces between the four main fleets. Still, in view of the ease with which it would be possible to lay defenses against submarines in the entrances to the Baltic and Black Sea, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that the bulk of Soviet submarines is deployed in the Arctic and Pacific.
Since this discussion is concerned with the NATO area, the Soviet Arctic or Northern Fleet only will be examined here.
Of all the four main Soviet fleets, probably more information has been released about the Northern Fleet by the Russians themselves than about any of the others. They have revealed, for example, that the nuclear attack submarine Leninsky Komsomol made a cruise under the Arctic icecap; that the nuclear icebreaker Lenin is deployed in the far north, and that the latest large diesel icebreakers building, or on order from Finnish shipyards, will be deployed in the Arctic. During the NATO Exercise Polar Express in June 1968, a Kresta-type DLG gave a rare public appearance before a Western audience on board NATO warships. (Admittedly, the composition of the Soviet Mediterranean squadron is well known, but at least the Russians have not themselves sought to publicize it, except when the force was actually employed to achieve a political objective such as boosting flagging Egyptian morale and warning the Israelis during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.)
That the Northern Fleet has been somewhat publicized is also a part of deliberate Soviet political policy. Many Norwegians are Understandably nervous about their powerful neighbor, and every demonstration of Soviet naval power serves to intimidate some Norwegian politicians. Indeed, a point has now been reached where some members of the Storting are seriously suggesting that Soviet military observers be invited to attend all Exercises held in or around Norway. Frequently, Soviet warships shadowing minor Norwegian naval vessels, such as fishery protection ships, infringe on Norwegian territorial waters—but usually without protest from Oslo.
There is also some justification for the claim sometimes put forward by NATO officers in AFNorth that the refusal of successive Norwegian governments to permit foreign troops to be based on Norwegian soil results more from the desire in no way to upset the Soviet Union than from any strong feelings of national pride. Senior Norwegian officers are often the first to admit the disadvantages stemming from this peacetime Policy.
Yet, the Storting Defense Committee, in its report on the next five-year defense plan starting in 1969, admitted that the technical Possibilities for limited aggression against North Norway have become substantially greater in the last five years. The Committee recommended a 2.5 per cent annual increase in the defense budget over the next five years compared to a 4.0 per cent annual increase over the past five years. Such apparent inconsistencies were augmented by the Committee, which pointed out that in the next five-year defense plan, U. S. assistance would have been phased out. But the Committee concluded by saying that, in view of the political detente that had gradually become evident in Europe, there was but slight probability that any power would risk its international prestige in order to secure strategic advantages in North Norway.
Is such a view entirely realistic? Just what actions the Russians might be prepared to take at the expense of their standing in the world cannot be calculated, though events in Czechoslovakia indicate that they are still extremely sensitive to any move that might take away the “buffer states” which separate Soviet territory from that of the West. Similarly, during NATO Exercise Polar Express, Soviet protests and reactions to the presence of NATO forces on the ground, at sea, and in the air were probably the strongest yet made. Certainly, their patently absurd claims can have done little else than make them appear ridiculous in the eyes of the Norwegian public. For example, their shadowing, by ships and aircraft, of NATO ships was intense at all times while the ships were in international waters. In various diplomatic and press outbursts they protested about the presence of NATO troops about 100 miles or so from Soviet soil and then held their own exercises almost in sight of Norwegian frontier posts. Just before Polar Express started, the Norwegian Foreign Office in Oslo received some unexpected requests from the Soviet Embassy staff to visit war graves in the exercise area; some Soviet officers in Tromso stayed in the same hotel as that used by some NATO officers. A Soviet merchant ship tried to enter Harstad for repairs a few days before the arrival of NATO warships.
Yet, with usually one brigade group in the far North supported by light naval forces and tactical aircraft, the Norwegians could by no stretch of the imagination be considered as a threat to the Soviet Union. A demonstration, such as Polar Express, of NATO’s willingness and ability to support the Norwegian forces, by arousing the full fury of the Soviet propaganda and protest machine, must therefore indicate that any Western move to strengthen defenses in the area helps thwart at least an option the Kremlin believes could lie open to it in pursuit of its aim of the Communist world revolution.
Briefly, that option would be the acquisition of an ice-free fjord opening directly into the North Sea. To gain such an objective, the Russians would isolate the 30,000 or so Norwegian fishermen, farmers, and others living in the far North. The area’s small economic significance and lack of major centers of population and industry are the main reasons why some Norwegian officers remain dubious about how far NATO support in the far North would go, in the event of an aggressive move by the Russians. In view of the present mood of public opinion to be found widely in the West, it is perhaps not too cynical to suggest that the Norwegians have some grounds for doubt about Western reactions to Soviet aggression in North Norway.
But if Norway’s NATO allies, the United States and Britain particularly, might find it politically disastrous at home to effectively counter such aggression with overwhelming force in order to maintain the freedom of a few thousand Norwegians, then Western leaders might ponder what could be the effect upon the West’s shipping lifelines if large numbers of Soviet submarines were suddenly freed from the climatic inhibitions of their present bases at Murmansk and Archangel- Thus, the defense of the Atlantic must begin at Kirkenes, in northeastern Norway, some two kilometers from the Soviet frontier.
The nature of the Soviet threat in the far North is, judging by outward signs, an amphibious one. The few highways in the area could easily be mined and defended by small groups of determined men for a very long period. But defense against assault from the sea is more difficult. It would be manifestly impossible to give adequate protection to every fjord and inlet. In World War II, the Germans mounted four 15-inch guns on the hills above Harstad and these commanded a very wide area of sea approaches. The Germans feared a seaborne assault, particularly after the early British success in the raid on Vaagso and the Lofoten islands in 1941.
Significantly, the few offensive operations carried out by the Russians in the closing days of World War II on the northern front involved small amphibious operations to seize Ports needed to supply the German garrison in the far North.
Today, the Norwegians still rely on coastal batteries and specially on their large force of gunboats and PT boats. But the latter were Proved to be vulnerable in daylight, at least to missile-armed helicopters. During Polar Express, helicopters from the British LPH Bulwark, “sank” 11 such craft using SS-11 wire- guided anti-tank missiles. However, the picture might have been different had the Norwegian craft possessed fixed-wing close air support to the extent which should be available in war.
As yet another pointer to Soviet military linking in this part of the world, a number of their 70,000-80,000 “garrison” troops between Murmansk and the Norwegian frontier are members of the recently re-formed Marine Corps.
The most likely shape which Soviet limited aggression could take would be a surprise assault on or near the port it was intended to Secure. Speed would be essential in order to Present the West with a fait accompli, since from long experience, the Communists know the value of talking from a position in which the victims of aggression must negotiate for what is rightfully their own.
Because the Norwegian forces are small in peacetime, the bulk of them, not surprisingly, concentrated in the far North, Norwegian defense plans lay great store ' on the swift mobilization of reserves. It is claimed that within a matter of a few days about 350,000 men could be under arms. As the vastly outnumbered Norwegian forces proved in 1940, much can be achieved by a defense based on something akin to guerrilla tactics in which every use is made of the troops’ local knowledge of the terrain and their ability to move quickly and independently over ground impassable to heavily equipped forces.
But the factor which did more than anything else to bring about the defeat of the Norwegian and British forces in 1940 was German air superiority. Thus, the Storting Defense Committee comments on the next five-year defense plan that, in the opening phase of a conflict, naval and air support would be the main Allied assistance. Facilities for receiving such aid must be built in time of peace.
In recent years, under NATO auspices, a number of airfields have been built in Norway. In North Norway, the most important are Bardufoss and Bodo. But there are also basically civilian airfields available at Alta, Banak and Tromso, as well as, of course, at Kirkenes on the frontier. But whether any of these airfields could quickly be used to receive and support aircraft manned by crews unfamiliar with the weather conditions prevalent for much of the year in this area seems doubtful. Moreover, it must be assumed that these bases would be primary targets for the Soviet Air Force.
Any Western plans to reinforce Norwegian defenses in war must therefore provide for either long-range (based elsewhere in Western Europe) or seaborne air support to be followed, if required, by the landing of troops and equipment from the sea.
The British decision not to purchase 50 F-111 aircraft for the Royal Air Force was deplored by the Norwegian defense leaders because it meant that the British armory in the 1970s would be devoid of any aircraft with the range needed to operate over North Norway from bases in Britain. Thus, in talks with Britain’s Defense Minister Denis Healey in spring 1968, the Norwegian Deputy Defense Leader, who had gone to London at the Norwegian government’s request, stressed Norway’s desire for Britain to keep its carriers. No statement was made by either side after the talks, but it seems unlikely that much was said to calm Norwegian concern about air support in the far North in the 1970s.
Exercise Polar Express was to a degree notable for its lack of realism. It was intended to train the Norwegian Army in countering a helicopter assault from the sea by a force of two battalions and to see what problems were likely to be met in operating an LPH with an embarked battalion in this area. But as things turned out, the assault had to be made with LCVPs from the LPH, HMS Bulwark, as the ship’s helicopters lacked the engine modifications needed to enable them to operate in freezing or near-freezing misty conditions. The exercise was also unrealistic in view of the paucity of fixed-wing air support for the attackers, which would have resulted in crippling losses among the helicopters when later in the exercise they did manage to fly. Nevertheless, the defenders had considerable problems overcoming the mobility inherent in a ship-borne force. The attacking Royal Marine Commandos frequently surprised not only the Norwegian but also the British, Canadian, and Italian troops of the ACE Mobile Force. One further note of unreality was struck by the use of the Bulwark as a transport to bring in the British Army battalion of the ACE Mobile Force. It is difficult to see how this demonstration was what the Shorting Defense Committee referred to as the importance of holding joint defense exercises in peacetime in order to give Norwegian and Allied forces a chance to get training in transporting men and material from NATO countries to Norway.
The responsibility for this lack of reality must be laid at the door of Britain’s Defense Minister, Denis Healey. The Bulwark’s helicopters had returned only a month previously 0m the Far East, and insufficient time was available to modify their engines to meet climactic conditions in North Norway—even though planning of Polar Express began early in 1967. In the May 1968 meeting of NATO Ministers, Mr. Healey pledged Britain to give greater military support to the Alliance after her East of Suez withdrawal in 1971, and it was widely believed in London political and defense circles that a major British contribution to Polar Express was therefore politically essential to the British Cabinet. The result Putting political expediency before military Preparedness was that the Exercise achieved e reverse of what the British government had hoped to gain politically.
In conclusion, the politico-military threat to North Norway, and the various antidotes needed to counter aggressive moves, can be tabulated as follows:
Possible Soviet aims:
- To obtain a warm-water port to give naval forces freer access to Western shipping routes and to improve the competitive factor of Soviet shipping on European routes.
- To carry out limited aggression with the utmost speed, thus allowing any subsequent Peace talks to start from a position of strength.
- To use the forces best suited for a swift move; most probably air and amphibious forces.
- To ensure local air superiority, particularly by pre-emptive strikes on airfields.
- To continue to play upon obvious Norwegian fears by employing “cold war” tactics to encourage “neutralist” Norwegian opinion.
NATO aims:
- To reaffirm that any attack upon the territory of a member of the Alliance shall be deemed an attack upon all other members.
- To ensure that everything possible is done to provide swift reaction with both air and seaborne forces. Frequent exercises in air and sea mobility in the area are essential.
- To train Norwegian forces much more than hitherto in countering both amphibious and helicopter-borne forces.
- To assist if necessary with provision of funds for airfield SAM defenses and to maintain other means of deploying air power—notably carriers.
- To ensure that Norwegian leaders remain fully aware of the value to them of remaining staunch supporters of the Alliance.
In an area such as North Norway, it may never be possible for democratic powers to ensure completely adequate defenses, because of the geographical factors in what is among the most inhospitable regions to man anywhere on the globe. But by means of sea- power, it should be possible, without incurring vast expense, to affirm the words of Earl St. Vincent about an earlier threat; that of a French invasion of Britain in the Napoleonic wars: “I do not say they cannot come, I only say they cannot come by sea.”
The presence, during Polar Express, of the NATO Standing Force, Atlantic, including U. S., British, Dutch, German, and Norwegian ships and that of the ACE Mobile Force, as well as U. S., British, Canadian, and Belgian aircraft, should at least underline for the Kremlin the problem of conducting aggression against Norway without involving other NATO powers at the outset. But, since the NATO ground and air forces cannot be based on Norwegian soil in peacetime, the Standing Force ships are a shield of no mean significance.
Unlike Napoleon’s Grand Army, which never looked upon the British fleet, the Russians know the Standing Force well. But, apart from this, the parallel is a fair one, for it is basically seapower which is once again helping to prevent and deter aggression.