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SOVFOTO
Although we’ve long been taught that “actions speak louder than words,” we’d do well to pay attention to the words in Admiral Gorshkov’s book. They provide revealing insight into his actions—past, present, and future.
T
JL he overriding theme of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei G. Gorshkov’s 1976 book Sea Power of the State (Morskaya Moshch Gosudarstva) is a justification of the Soviet Navy. In order to accomplish this, Gorshkov constructs a logical argument through demonstrating:
► The basic importance of the sea
► The resultant importance of sea power throughout history
► The necessity of constructing a unique Soviet Navy fully capable of defending the Soviet Union and acting as a vehicle which is specifically qualified to implement the policies of the Soviet State.
The arguments in Gorshkov’s book can be reduced to the following essential points:
► Sea power is an essential component of economic power.
► Today, the Navy is the most important aspect of sea power because of the existence of “Western imperialism.”
► In addition, due to the application of nuclear technology to the traditional mobility of naval forces, the Navy has assumed the preeminent position among the several branches of the Soviet armed forces.
► The Navy fulfills two missions in that it is not only prepared to engage enemy naval forces at sea, but it can also conduct operations against enemy territory. In the contemporary context, due to the existence of Soviet ballistic missile equipped, nuclear- powered submarines, the latter is the most important mission of the Navy.
► The submarine is now the main striking arm of the Soviet Navy. A primary role of surface combatants is to support submarine operations, while naval aircraft are best utilized in antisubmarine warfare.
y Traditionally, maritime nations have had difficulty producing balanced naval forces during prewar periods. The additional types of ships needed to win wars thus have had to be built after the beginning of hostilities. Gorshkov feels that the situation is different today in that the nuclear exchange which would probably occur if there is Soviet-U.S. general war in the future would preclude the construction of additional ships. Thus, the balanced force must exist before hostilities ensue. This argument conforms with the larger context of the Ivanov thesis concerning the necessity of adequate Soviet war preparations in the prewar period and has led many, including Professor Joseph Schiebel of Georgetown University, to conclude that the Soviet Union is preparing for war.[1]
Prior to analyzing the above points, a few comments on Gorshkov’s methodology are helpful, since—judging from many of the reviews of Gorshkov’s “Navies in War and in Peace,” a superficial knowledge of Marxism and the Soviet Union led some commentators to misinterpret Gorshkov s work.2 Gorshkov is a proponent of a strong Soviet Navy and thus argues along traditional lines when discussing naval tactics and strategy. However, he is also a Communist and the Commander in Chief of the Soviet Navy. As a Soviet leader, he honors the Marxist approach in writing books and obeys the dictates of Soviet censorship.
As a Communist, Gorshkov employs the Marxist approach, particularly the dialectical method, and must also conform with the Soviet view concerning the progression of history. Gorshkov, for instance, sees a dialectical relationship between sea power and the state and has stated that maritime nations made initial expenditures to build navies. These navies enhanced the wealth of the nations through trade and plunder, and the nations then built stronger navies which brought more wealth, and so on. Gorshkov would feel that a dialectical relationship can be either benign (such as the creation of the Soviet state) or malignant (such as the application of nuclear technology to enhance the strength of imperialist navies).
The Soviet view concerning the progression of history envisions the creation of the Soviet Union as the initial instance of the movement from capitalism/ imperialism to socialism. In its quasi-religious context, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is the sole arbiter of truth. As such, all of its decisions are “correct” because only it can truly ascertain all the conflicting trends existing and, through the correct application of Marxist-Leninist principles, discern the correct course. This may create a difficulty for Gorshkov, since he appears to claim a much larger role for the Soviet Navy than is accorded to it by the omnipotent party which relegated the Navy to the position of being merely an adjunct of the Army- Gorshkov does his best to resolve the problem, primarily through discussing sea power across the broad spectrum of Western civilization, which is filled with a multitude of non-Soviet examples from which Gorshkov freely chooses to prove his points. On the other hand, Marxism-Leninism is of great help to Gorshkov, because it enables him to advance as qualitatively and morally superior contemporary Soviet policies which are otherwise similar to those employed by other nations throughout history. Current instances of Soviet “gunboat diplomacy” are justified because they abet the so-called “progressive” forces of the world, while U.S./NATO naval activity is condemned because it prolongs “imperialism.”
Gorshkov handles the traditional problem of strict Soviet censorship in the customary way by turning to recitations of foreign naval activity to support his contentions. Thus, the reader should not expect to see such phrases as “We need four more Kiev-class carriers and X number of nuclear submarines if we expect to dominate the Atlantic.” Rather, he will ascribe the German defeat in World War II to inadequate and unbalanced naval power. It is up to the reader to apply the stated examples to the current Soviet context.
Gorshkov defines the sea power of a state as all the means employed by the state for mastering the world’s oceans and the means of the state for defending its interests. To do Gorshkov’s argument better justice, his ideas of sea power comprise the capability of a country to divert every conceivable military, economic, or strategic resource and asset of the ocean for the state’s own purposes. The main components of sea power include the navy, the merchant marine, the fishing fleet, and the nation’s oceanographic research capability. The importance of the various components varies in accordance with the existing political-strategic context. A nation’s navy, however, has always been the most important component. The Soviet Navy is now—and always has been—the most important component, because the world revolution has not yet occurred, and imperialism still exists. However, Gorshkov implies that once the revolution does occur and imperialism and capitalism no longer exist, then the need for a Navy will subside. At that time, the Navy will decrease in importance and possibly even be less important than the other components of sea power. Sea power, because of the benefits it provides to its possessor, is an integral part of economic power and is also integrally related to a nation’s foreign policy.3
Having defined sea power, Gorshkov then presents an argument in which he first establishes the general relevance of the sea and then discusses both the history and importance of Russian and Soviet sea power in order to justify his claim that the Soviet Union needs a strong Navy.
Gorshkov states that Marxism considers geography to be among the crucial factors influencing the development of human society. Gorshkov’s argument for a strong Navy follows the Marxian geographic- determinist model when he argues that the location of a nation on the shores of the sea was a prerequisite to a strong maritime economy which in turn brought world power status. (Now the conventional Marxist unilinear progression of history doesn’t include this maritime explanation, and Gorshkov may be vulnerable to Marxist-Leninist criticism on this point.) Through the ages, the world’s oceans have played a vital role in the progression of history. This role has intensified, and, in the current context of impending world food and energy shortages and of the recently acquired technology requisite for the extraction of minerals, chemicals, oil, and gas from the ocean, the world’s oceans, with their bountiful quantities of food stuffs, mineral resources, and tidal energy, have achieved unprecedented importance. It is prudent in such an era, Gorshkov implies, for a nation to have a strong navy to protect its rights to its share of these resources.4
Having established the importance of the sea, Gorshkov attacks the opponents of a strong Soviet Navy. Quoting a 1970 statement by President Richard M. Nixon who implied that the Soviet Union, a land power, had no need for a powerful Navy, Gorshkov attempts to link the argument with an “imperialist” desire to keep the Soviet Union from the seas.’’ In this context, Gorshkov is probably addressing two audiences, opponents in the West, and those in the Soviet Union who argue against a strong Navy. There are Western observers who surmise that among these opponents are members of the Army who may compete with Gorshkov for the funds with which to build an even stronger fleet.
Gorshkov then launches into a detailed survey of naval history to demonstrate the evolution of naval combat and to justify his claim of the Soviet Union’s right to be a leading sea power. Briefly, Gorshkov notes that sea power has contributed to making some nations great powers, and that as navies developed, their missions changed, and they assumed a more prominent role vis-a-vis the other components of the nation’s armed forces. The transition from capitalism to imperialism at the turn of the 20th century was also reflected in naval history and was operative in such “imperialistic” adventures as the Spanish- American War (1898), the Boer War (1899-1902), and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Both the importance of the sea and the threat to the Soviet
Admiral Gorshkov has been the guiding power behind the Soviet Navy’s emergence as a major naval power, capable of operating far from the homeland.
Union from imperialistic navies have increased since that time.6
Noting that it is military power that frequently makes it possible to implement an advantageous foreign policy, and that the Navy is the branch of the armed forces most cable of supporting the state interests of a country beyond its borders, Gorshkov again draws on the history of the Russian and Soviet Navies. He avers that the Soviet Union inherited a great Russian seafaring tradition that dates from the third century, A.D. (Throughout the discussion, Gorshkov tends to overstate the importance of Russia and the Soviet Union. This tendency, perhaps most clearly demonstrated in his discussions of Slavic naval exploits of the 3rd century, A.D., the importance of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet role in the defeat of Japan in World War II, and the deemphasis of Tsarist imperialism during the 17th-19th centuries, may possibly be attributed to great Russian chauvinism.) At any rate, Gorshkov contends that Russia could not become a great power without a strong Navy, and that whenever Russia failed to develop adequate naval power, it either suffered military defeat or failed to achieve its desired peacetime aims and objectives. Gorshkov does not carry this argument into the Soviet era, but the tone of the discussion of the Russo-Japanese War causes the astute reader to wonder just how much more successful the Soviet Union could have been in both Europe and Asia in World War II; just how many more European governments, possibly Greece, Italy and others, and how many other ex-colonies in the Pacific Ocean and Southeast Asia could have been brought into the Socialist camp had the Soviet Union possessed a strong Navy. To us, the question is now academic, but to Soviet strategists, the argument could be convincing evidence to support Gorshkov’s current desires for a stronger Navy.7
In his discussion of the development of the Soviet Navy, Gorshkov establishes the service’s credentials as a consistent component of the Socialist revolutionary vanguard which played an important role in the Bolshevik Revolution, Civil War, and World War II. It is interesting to note that such incidents as the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921, which might make the
Navy appear to be an anarchistic, undisciplined counterrevolutionary force, are ignored. This establishment of the Navy as a revolutionary force is important in that it provides theoretical justification of the Navy in terms of Marxism-Leninism, a prerequisite for ideologically accepting the missions (many of which smack of gunboat diplomacy) which Gorshkov wishes his Navy to accomplish.8
Gorshkov then turns to the current situation, and it is here that he introduces his final justification for a strong Navy: the American threat. He states that as a result of the “great victory of the Soviet Union over . . . fascist Germany and militarist Japan,” the forces of world imperialism were considerably weakened. The United States assumed leadership of the imperialist forces and was influential in uniting the anti-Soviet European forces in NATO, which is essentially an alliance of maritime states. American policy in the postwar period was consistently antiSoviet and has evolved into an “oceanic strategy with heavy reliance on submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles as the main instruments of imperialist aggression. In addition to directing its military power against the U.S.S.R., the West, according to Gorshkov, has conducted a series of “local wars of imperialism,” a category which encompasses every application of Western naval power since World War II. In all these encounters, he avers, Western navies have been the primary vehicle for interjecting Western power. In the Mediterranean, for example, the Sixth Fleet threatens the Arab
national-liberation movements, while in the Pacific, U.S. naval power has been used extensively in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.9 Implicit in this argument is that Soviet naval power could be employed in the future to force gains for the world’s “progressive movements” if the Soviet Navy continues to evolve into an even stronger force capable of accomplishing such operations.
Thus, Gorshkov has attempted to demonstrate the value of the world’s oceans, the vital relevance of sea power to the Soviet Union, the value of the Soviet Navy as a revolutionary force, and the threat posed against the U.S.S.R. by American sea power. He then turns to an examination of the ideal Soviet Navy. Each nation constructs its Navy in accordance with its perspective, experiences, and the missions assigned to it. Gorshkov states that the current Soviet Navy has been built on sound logic, based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism, and through the use of scientific theories and cybernetics, which permitted the formation of the ideal force. Again drawing on historical antecedents, Gorshkov demonstrates that the construction of the balanced Navy has traditionally been extremely difficult to achieve. In World War II, for example, the contending “imperialist” nations—due to faulty naval doctrine— were ill-prepared to conduct the naval operations required in the war. As a result, the United States, for example, embarked on a massive construction program to produce the amphibious capability necessary to operate in the Pacific. However, the acquiring of such a balanced Navy after hostilities commence is extremely difficult, and in the next war, the nuclear exchange will probably negate any possibility of accomplishing a balanced Navy through wartime construction. Thus, the balanced force must be constructed in the prewar period.10 Gorshkov pursues this argument no further, but we can surmise that he argues that the development of the hypothetically balanced Soviet Navy, coupled with the unwillingness of the American Congress to construct an opposing balanced U.S. Navy, will give the Soviet Union the edge and enable it to defeat the U.S. Navy while receiving acceptable losses and emerge with a naval force (i.e. the ultimate weapon) which can insure Soviet success in the ensuing postwar period.
Censorship prevents Gorshkov from being more specific concerning the composition of his balanced naval force. However, he provides several generalizations concerning the composition of the force that bear repetition.
In his discussion on naval operations, Gorshkov notes that the Navy fulfills two missions: fighting naval engagements and participating in anti-shore operations. Throughout history, naval engagements or naval encounters have entailed the lion’s share of naval operations. However, recently, due to the application of nuclear technology to naval construction, anti-shore operations have become the most important mission of the Navy because it is a strategic mission and has replaced engagements of naval forces which, with few exceptions, were non-strategic in orientation. He acknowledges that operations against the shore date back hundreds of years in naval history, but that such operations took on new importance in the 20th century due to technological advances and included amphibious operations, shore bombardment, and later, carrier strike operations against land targets. Finally, the application of nuclear technology to naval warfare which resulted in the ballistic missile-equipped, nuclear-powered submarine, vastly increased the strike capability of the Navy and made anti-shore operations the primary mission of the Navy. Further, the submarine has projected the Navy into the preeminent position among the several branches of the Soviet Armed Forces. This is because of the facility with which a submarine deploys to an area proximate to its target, coupled with her mobility and the associated difficulty which antisubmarine forces experience in locating the submarine, make her both the ideal launch vehicle and extremely difficult to destroy, certainly possessing greater accuracy and higher survivability than land-based strategic systems.11
Concerning the composition of his fleet, the submarine is the backbone of Gorshkov’s Navy. His
emphasis on the submarine stems from his perception of the excellent performance of the submarine in World Wars I and II, coupled with the subsequent application of nuclear technology which has both increased the submarine’s survivability and made it a strategic weapon system. Surface ships, which had lost their role as the main arm of the Navy to naval aviation and submarines in World War II, remain as the primary weapon to support the deployment of submarines. This categorization is also based on Gorshkov’s analysis of operations in World War I and II, in which he feels that German submarine operations ultimately failed because the Germans did not provide adequate surface ship support, and submarines could not insure their own invulnerability. Surface ships also have important roles in amphibious operations, mine warfare, and interdiction of sea lines of communication. Antisubmarine warfare is the main mission of naval aviation and has vastly increased the importance of aircraft within the Navy.12
In addition to its wartime mission, the Soviet Navy has a significant peacetime mission in that—- due to its ability to operate in international waters and thus bring significant military power to bear on a target distant from the Soviet Union without violating the territorial integrity of other nations—it is the only branch of the Soviet Armed Forces qualified to act as an instrument of state policy. Naval demonstrations often have insured the accomplishment of political goals through the exerting of pressure of potential power in place of a victory in a military engagement. The Navy also promotes state policy through Soviet naval port visit activity, which affords developing nations a view of Soviet naval power and allows for interaction (however limited and controlled) with Soviet naval personnel.13
Conclusions: Equipped with an impressive knowledge of naval history which spans the spectrum of the Western maritime experience since the third century, A.D., coupled with a thorough mastery of the art of naval warfare, the admiral has created a noteworthy thesis in his Sea Power of the State. In it, he convincingly posits the ever-increasing importance of the sea, the indispensability of adequate sea power for the economic prosperity of a great nation, and the increasing importance of the sea and the submarine as a launch area and a strategic weapon system, respectively, in the current political-strategic context. In one sense, this work is perhaps Gorshkov’s magnum opus, a work that the aging leader of the Soviet Navy leaves to his successors to guide them in commanding the fleet which he has been so instrumental in building. In another sense, it is a justification both for what has been built and for what will be built in order to produce the Soviet Navy Gorshkov envisions.
And just what are the parameters of this Gorshko- vian Navy? Speculation is always risky and Gorshkov certainly isn’t explicit concerning what he desires in terms of Soviet naval strength. However, he does provide hints as to the size, composition, and scope of operations of his Navy. Concerning the size of the Navy, Gorshkov provides his best insight when he discusses the failure of the United States and Great Britain to have balanced navies prior to World War II because of the nations’ failure to deduce the proper conclusions from the naval experience of World War I and to determine the nature of World War II and the position of navies in it. From this we can surmise several factors. First, drawing on the World War II experience and duly considering the advancements in nuclear technology, Gorshkov wants a powerful Navy with heavy emphasis on strategic weapon platforms. Secondly, Gorshkov implies that the Soviet Union must have a Navy capable of supporting its foreign policy aspirations. Since we know that Marxist-Leninist doctrine has messianic aspirations concerning world revolution (and implied Soviet domination), and we know that Gorshkov was extremely impressed with the totality of naval operations in World War II, we can conclude that he envisions a Navy capable of global operations, far superior to the combined sea power of the Western “imperalist” camp. The scope of operations will include thwarting Western (primarily U.S.) naval initiatives in combating insurgency anywhere on the globe through the interjection of superior naval power.
Concerning the composition of this Gorshkovian Navy, we can expect to see continued emphasis on submarines, antisubmarine warfare ships, and naval aviation. The application of nuclear technology to subsurface platforms will continue and result in even more impressive attack and ballistic missile submarines. In the realm of surface combatants, primary emphasis will be placed on antisubmarine warfare platforms, to include additional Kiev-class carriers and even follow-on classes of antisubmarine warfare- oriented, air-capable ships. Advances in amphibious warfare ships—so useful in Soviet participation in local “wars of national-liberation”—and in the support ships necessary to project Soviet naval power into any area of the globe, should also be anticipated. Finally, the role of naval aviation will continue to increase in importance. Concentrating on antisubmarine warfare, these aircraft will pose an even greater threat to U.S.-NATO submarine operations.
In the final analysis, Gorshkov’s postulations concerning the construction of a balanced Navy prior to the commencement of hostilities are the key. He intends to have his balanced navy before the potential Soviet-American exchange. He is counting on American unpreparedness, and rightfully so. The United States has been poorly prepared for every major conflict in the 20th century, and neither the American public nor its elected representatives seem fully aware or properly concerned with looming naval shortcomings in any future Soviet-American confrontation.
HA graduate of Rutgers-The State University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1964, Lieutenant Commander Watson was commissioned upon graduation from Officer Candidate School in 1965. He was assigned to the USS Mitscher (DL-2) and then served on board the USS Sellers (DDG-11). From 1967 until 1970, he served at the Naval Scientific and Technical Intelligence Center in Washington, D.C. In January 1970, he began an 18-month tour on theJ-2 Staff, U.N. Command/U.S. Forces, Korea. He was then assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency. In March 1975, he completed a 47-week Russian language course at the Defense Language Institute. He is now assigned to the Naval Ocean Surveillance Information Center, Suitland, Maryland. Lieutenant Commander Watson completed an M.A. in Russian History at Georgetown University in 1970. He is now pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Russian Area Studies at Georgetown University and is currently writing his dissertation on the missions of the Soviet Mediterranean Fleet.
*S. P. Ivanov, Nachal’nyy Period Voyny (Moscow: Voennoe Izdatel’stvo, Ministerstva Oborony SSSR, 1974).
2Gorshkov’s “Navies in War and in Peace” was an 11-part series of articles originally published in the Soviet journal Morskoy Sbornik and subsequently published in English in the January through November 1974 issues of the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. They were then republished in the Naval Institute Press book Red Star Rising at Sea.
3Sergei G. Gorshkov, Morskaya Moshch Gosudarstva (Moscow: Voennoe Izdatelstvo Ministerstva Oborony SSSR, 1976), pp. 3-4, 11-14, 22-81.
4Ibid., pp. 3, 20-33, 51-75.
5Ibid., pp. 14-16, 120.
•ibid., pp. 104-5, 107-37, 140.
7I bid., pp. 6, 8-9, 114-6, 186-7, 191-2.
8Ibid., pp. 154-5, 203-12, 217-25, 227-53.
•ibid., pp. 257-63, 266-70, 275-6, 278-9, 344-5, 380-6, 407.
'•ibid., pp. 103, 305-6, 412-5, 438-41, 448.
"Ibid., pp. 105-7, 200, 348-9, 351-61.
"Ibid., pp. 165-7, 170, 176, 196-7, 201, 296, 308-9, 317, 319-20, 327, 431-2.
"Ibid., pp. 398, 402-4, 409-10.