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_ he greatest continental power in the world in surface area has set out to become the greatest sea power as well. Far ahead of Great Britain, once the ruler of the waves, and in intense competition with the United States, the Soviet Union is pressing forward on the high seas with the creation of an oceanic navy. People speak of the greatest challenge to the West since the birth of Soviet imperialism. The ship, not the tank, is the military element to which the Soviets give priority today. The sea, an indestructible highway, is open to all. The Soviet Union has grasped the meaning of command of the sea. Behind the maritime ambitions of the Kremlin leadership is the realization that confrontation in the East-West conflict is shifting ever more strongly from land to sea.
Naval policy is foreign policy. It holds ready a military threat, but has its principal sphere of action in the demonstration of political power. In view of the atomic stalemate of the two superpowers, the Soviet Union cannot want a big war. Its naval buildup is primarily intended to add another means of expansive pressure to
land-based military power, and not least to win political predominance in Europe.
That may sound declamatory or exaggerated. Yet in a phase of East-West relations called "detente,” the Soviet Union most recently demonstrated its strength on the high seas in the last half of April with the naval exercise "Okean 1975.” The Red Fleet let it be known that it has the ability to operate far beyond the coastal seas of the Soviet sphere on a global scale. Above all, these farflung fleet movements proved the capability of Soviet commanders to move units from one ocean area to another.
Only hesistantly did the West abandon the traditional military picture, only reluctantly did it begin to recognize in the Soviet advance on the seas a revolutionary change in the world scene. The immense continental empire which covers a sixth of the world’s land area has with the construction of an oceanic navy broken the fetters of inland confinement and transformed the claim to be a world power into direct intervention on every continent. For the first time, a navy operating on all the oceans gives Soviet power- dedicated to "world revolution” by V. I. Lenin over half a century ago—the means to direct, worldwide action.
According to Western understanding, armed forces are at their most useful in times of crisis. According to Soviet military doctrine, armed forces are a prominent instrument of policy, even in peace, through presence, pressure, intimidation, and threat. It is exactly in this respect that by the construction of a world-ranging oceanic navy, the Soviets have attained a second option vis-a-vis the Western alliance. In striving to expand their power, they no longer need defeat the enemy on land, and the battle no longer need take place in Central Europe, where in view of the concentration of military forces on both sicjes of the Iron Curtain, an advance by the Red Army would raise the risk of a fhird world war.
The NATO alliance caq be paralyzed from the sea even without force of arms. In conventional Western thought the security of Europe is still identified with a line, the Iron Curtain, which in case of aggression must be defended, with or without atomic weapons. But why should the Russians attack across the Elbe when a less risky way is open fo achieve their aim, the establishment of hegemony over Western Europe? It is high time for the West to redefine its idea of the threat. In view of the danger to the sea-lanes, in view also of the extension of atomic potential to the sea, it has acquired a broader spectrum. It transcends the existing definition of indirect strategy, which sought mainly to incorporate insurgency and guerrilla tactics into the modern military picture.
The continental empire ruled from Moscow, stretching from the Elbe to the Pacific, is economically sel sufficient. It needs no Red Fleet to protect its supply lines. For the West, however, the basic arteries of h e run through the sea. What this can mean even m peacetime—but all the more in periods of tension—the Mideast crisis in the fall of 1973 gave a glaring ex ample. The Arabs’ attempt to force Israel into isolation and ultimately capitulation through boycotting 01 supplies to the Western countries should not be re^ duced to the "energy crisis” formula and measure solely by its economic consequences. Equally important and in the long run still more critical are its security aspects.
These have opened a new panorama of threats reach ing—in previously unparalleled dimensions—far be yond the various Mideastern crises into the East-West conflict. The oil countries could hardly have apphe their risky restriction policy so ruthlessly if the grcat naval power of the Soviet Union had not backed them. Moscow realized that the Arabs had finally succeeded m what, despite all its efforts, the Soviet Union had never achieved: the precipitation of a serious crisis which tested the solidarity of the Western alliance. This can be called an "economic war through proxies.” Indirectly through the Arab countries Moscow staged a sort o dress rehearsal of what can be achieved with economic weapons, with control, and—if need be—constriction of the sea lapes to weaken and wear down the Western industrial nations and Japan. In combination with the Soviet Fleet, the Arab oil reserves are conceived as a means of pressure to isolate Western Europe frorn America, to neutralize and, in the sense of recognizing the hegemony of the Soviet Union, to "Finlandize ll-
Closely linked with this is the intention to take Europe in a pincers on both its "wet flanks.” ^£ relaxation of tension in Central Europe, where today Moscow is at pains to attain international legitimization of its annexations through the "Conference f°t Security and Cooperation,” has automatically sharpene Soviet pressure on Europe’s northern and southern flanks. In shifting pressure from the relatively stable central sector to Europe’s flanks, Moscow sees the effective method of overcoming the stalemate which developed in Central Europe, in spite of the growing conventional imbalance in favor of the Warsaw Pact-
Militarily checked in Central Europe, the Soviets ate reaching around the continent to put primary pressure on its edges. There Moscow believes it has found a fiel of action for wide-ranging initiatives, which combine military with political and subversive operations to outmaneuver the "Western European bridgehead ’ °n the Eurasian land mass from the sea. All the more regrettable is the general tendency in the West in regar
to the Vienna talks on troop reduction to look only at Central Europe and to ignore the unprecedented Soviet ^al buildup.
, The principal concern of the Western alliance today ls Europe’s elongated southern flank, which stretches fr°m the Atlantic through the Mediterranean to the Center of unrest in the Middle East. In a sort of chain ^action, crises have flared up around the Mediterranean kasin. Winston Churchill’s phrase, "Europe’s soft underbelly ,” has achieved an oppressive reality. With the ^fideast crisis, aggravated by the oil situation and the Cyprus conflict which burst into flame in the summer °f 1974, the Eastern Mediterranean has become more tEan ever a storm center of international affairs. The Southeastern flank of NATO has lost its reputation as the pillar” of the Atlantic alliance. Crippled through the Cfeco-Turkish quarrel, it has become a question mark. ^C*th the outbreak of the centuries-old "hereditary ar>tagonism” between the Turks and Greeks, both peoples—for better or worse—lost sight of their dependence upon the alliance against the pressure from tue Soviets to the north.
Still another danger sign is Moscow’s understanding ^dth Libya. By massive arms shipments, the Soviet C’nion acquired rights to military bases on the southern sEore of the Mediterranean. With the construction of
The eight-year closure of the Suez canal ended for the U. S. Navy with the transit in June 1975 of the USS Little Rock (CLG-4). The principal strategic advantage of the canal's opening will accrue, not to the United States, but to the Soviet Union.
air bases on the North African coast opposite Italy and Greece, in the very center of the Mediterranean basin, the Soviet Mediterranean squadron would receive the air cover it has lacked until now. The minimum objective of this squadron is the diminution of Western influence, especially American. The maximum objective is hegemony in the Mediterranean—to secure the claim to Soviet superiority. Between its minimum and maximum objectives, Soviet naval activity is designed to outflank Europe from the south by weakening the position of the Western alliance.
A fundamental concept of the Red general staff is the envelopment of Europe on both its wet flanks. The critical situation on the southern flank must not obscure the danger on the northern flank. That applies to the Baltic, which with its construction and training potential, is the starting point of the present worldwide Soviet expansion at sea. That applies most of all, however, to the concentration on the Arctic Ocean front, where the Soviets have assembled a mass of naval, air, and land forces which can be characterized as the greatest military complex in the world today. The Baltic and the North Sea, bounded by the Danish Straits, are not just a strategic naval unity in the view of the Soviet Union. The superiority of the Soviet naval forces in the Baltic facilitates operational cooperation with the Norwegian Sea fleet, which forms a sort of pincers around the Scandinavian peninsula. Moscow’s flanking concept is in turn inseparably intertwined with strategic land objectives in Central Europe—another sign that the northern, central, and southern sectors of NATO should not be partitioned into individual districts.
The concentration of naval striking forces off Northern Europe aims at a breakout into the open Atlantic, across which run the vital lines of communication of the Western alliance, the arteries binding Western Europe with North America. While the Soviets still pursue limited objectives in the Mediterranean, the north European coastal seas form the basis of their grand strategic offensive, with which they would attempt to cut off Western Europe from its American "hinterland” and thereby automatically cause the European defensive front to collapse. The defensive line Liibeck-Hof-Passau (Liibeck-Trieste) would be overcome from the outside— the sea.
with
The Atlantic stategy takes on a new dimension
War at sea knows no frontlines which opposing forces can change by attack and counterattack. It does not lend itself to Maginot thinking. It can be grasped only in flexible, spatial terms. This fundamental proviso does not exclude a central question: where in the North Atlantic are the West’s crucial rallying points to be found? The Barents Sea, extending from the Kolafjord with Murmansk as a nodal point, has already become a Mare Sovieticum, removed from Western inspection and control. But the Norwegian Sea also appears to be earmarked to become a sort of Soviet lake in the plans
of the Red naval command. From the Red Navys maneuvers it becomes ever clearer that much of Not' way is already behind the forward Soviet operationa line. The Soviets refer publicly to the calculation that the Western defense would be deployed in the 'nar" rows” between Iceland, Scotland, and central Norway- the extension of atomic warfare to sea. This exceeds the bounds of classic naval warfare. Nuclear weapon-carrying submarines are not a means of naval warfare, but rather submerged, seagoing missile batteries aimed at land targets. The navy is thus reduced to the role of a trustee. Besides the intercontinental missiles and the far-distant strategic bombers, the U. S. missile submarine fleet is the most effective means of deterrence. An important reason for the current Soviet naval buildup the intention to paralyze the seagoing atomic potentia of the United States in the North Atlantic if at a possible. In the same connection, the Soviet fleet |S moving to threaten the NATO coastal areas of both Europe and America through the creation of its own ballistic missile-armed submarine fleet.
The alliance founded a quarter-century ago as a North Atlantic union considers only the North Atlantic as its defensive zone. This self-imposed limitation or confinement of NATO to the ocean area north of the Tropic of Cancer has become more and more questionable with the oceanic expansion of the Red Fleet. The vacuum which the South Atlantic exhibits in the pic" ture of the Western alliance represents a growing temptation to the Soviets. The role of Cuba as a Soviet base is connected with the development of Conakry into a naval and air base in West Africa. Thus a control line, patrolled by Soviet aircraft, runs across the narrowest part of the ocean, the "wasp’s waist” from Conakry through the Cape Verde Islands into the Caribbean to Cuba. Today the South Atlantic is anything but a no man’s sea.” It has gained significance through the rerouting, necessitated by the blocking of the Suez Canal, of the great shipping lanes between Europe and Asia around the Cape of Good Hope. Most important of all was the rerouting of the oil stream, which follows a course from the Persian Gulf—the richest oil region on earth—around the southern tip of Africa to Western Europe. Due to the trend toward supertankers an containerships, the Cape route remains one of the great arteries of world traffic even after the reopening of the Suez Canal.
To be sure, the NATO doctrine that an attack on one alliance partner will be regarded as an attack on ai alliance partners can hardly be extended to the South Atlantic. Yet the limitation of Western solidarity to the area of the North Atlantic pact need not mean that NATO naval forces cannot undertake sea control and defensive functions in other areas. Brazil, following the Japanese example, has begun to emerge as a potential Oew world economic power. By a wide-ranging naval Pr°gram, she has demonstrated a recognition of her responsibility in the South Atlantic. This in turn relates to the defensive efforts of South Africa. Thanks to her key geostrategic position between the Atlantic and the lndian Oceans, South Africa forms an extremely inconvenient obstacle to the offensive plans of the Soviet fleet. Thus, it would be in the generally understood defensive interests of Western Europe and America to SuPport South Africa through military collaboration.
The reopening of the Suez Canal early in June of this 'Car brings strategic advantages principally to the Soviet ^nion. For warships of even the largest Soviet cruiser class—indeed even for the soon-to-be-operational Soviet a'rcraft carriers—the canal is sufficient in its present ^Intensions. The central issue is Soviet access to the Delian Ocean, which is drastically shortened with the reopening of the canal. The concentration of the Soviet Scpiadron in the Mediterranean remained abortive so *°ng as the connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean by the direct north-south passage was assured. The massing of the Soviet Fleet in the Astern Mediterranean signifies more than a threat to Europe’s southern flank; it is applied on a still greater strategic scale.
The Indian Ocean is the only great sea to which the Soviet continental empire has no direct access. Yet Respite all the disadvantages of geography, the Soviet Effiion has increased its naval presence in the Indian Ocean tenfold in the last five years. The thrust of the Soviet leadership toward heightened presence in the Indian Ocean is anti-Western, but also in part antiChinese. Here Moscow is moving to contain its great dval China, which shows increasing maritime ambitions, on the sea side as well. Even in the Indian Ocean, Moscow will "show the flag” to increase its influence. Tet stripped of its local psycho-political effects, the general mission of a Soviet fleet in the Indian Ocean emerges as a plan to work in conjunction with the Pacific fleet massed around Vladivostok to alter the strategic situation in South and Southeast Asia as occurred in the Arabian region.
Thereby the Soviet position in the Mediterranean would coalesce with that in the Indian Ocean into a strategic combination which surrounds the Arabian peninsula, extends into the Persian Gulf, and stretches to the coast of India, which is in close military cooperation with Moscow. In regard to the Persian Gulf, the Middle East is now the "Near South” for the Soviet Union. Oil interests mesh with strategy there. The prospect of being able to shut off gulf oil to the West is a major impetus to Soviet global strategy. Consequently, the Red Navy is endeavoring to build a system of bases along the tanker route from the Persian Gulf. This applies to the eastern flank of the African continent as well as to positions on the Red Sea, which like the Eastern Mediterranean ranks as a potential Soviet lake in the planning of the Red general staff.
While the Western countries were inclined to view the navy as a weapon of yesterday, the Soviet Union proceeded to make the fleet a weapon of tomorrow. Behind the smokescreen of the vocabulary of detente, Moscow opened through its naval buildup a whole spectrum of new possibilities of direct—but principally of indirect—strategy to the hegemonial aspirations of Soviet imperialism. From cold war to hot peace—the West has every reason to be on guard against a concept which would replace the Pax Atlantica with the Pax Sovietica. A maritime epoch has dawned; sea power will be the decisive factor in world power. The Soviet Union is determined to draw the conclusion from that, and with an intensified maritime dynamic to attain not merely equality but superiority.
Dr. Hopker is editor of the weekly Bonn newspaper Deutsche Zeitung: Christ und Welt and author of the following books on naval strategy published by Verlag Seewald, Stuttgart: The Baltic: A Red Lake?, How Red is the Mediterranean?, World Power at Sea: The Soviet Union on the Oceans, and Thrust for the Atlantic: The Threat from the North. Hopker’s most recent book is Storm Center of World Politics: The Indian Ocean in Great Power Rivalry, published by Verlag Seewald in July 1975. His Proceedings article on Soviet naval strategy is an enlarged and updated version of a contribution which appeared in the June 1974 issue of NATO Review.
_______________________ And Having it Too
Shortly before arriving back in her home port after a three-month deployment during which all clocks had been set on Zulu time, the USS Billfish (SSN-676) posted the following in the Plan of the Day: "In order to get a full working day in on Monday, and still give a half day off, the clocks will be reset after entering port.”
Lieutenant (junior grade) Bruce S. Lemkin, USN {The Naval Institute will pay $25.00 for each anecdote published in the Proceedings.)