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Under Leonid Brezhnev, seen saluting on board the flagship Admiral Senyavim during a 1978 inspection of the Pacific Fleet, the Soviet Navy has been organized around submarines and missiles, with powerful ASW ships such as the Kiev, left, designed to support Soviet strategic missile submarines and to make life difficult for U. S. submarines.
Nikita Khrushchev was determined to maintain a powerful Soviet military posture while at the same bme diverting resources from a swollen military establishment to other sectors of the economy. To accomplish these objectives, he established, in I960 or 1961, the Strategic Rocket Forces as the most important branch of the armed forces, while ruthless cuts Were made in the establishments of more traditional arms such as the Ground Forces and the Navy. Khrushchev boasted proudly of the mighty rockets which had hoisted the Sputniks into orbit and implied that they could just as easily have hurled nuclear warheads onto American cities. His bluster was widely believed abroad. The so-called “missile gap became a heated issue in the U.S. presidential campaign of I960, and John F. Kennedy came to office pledged to eliminate it.
In fact, the gap was largely a product of Khrushchev’s fertile imagination and the willingness °f a certain segment of the American public to believe bluff and bluster. The U.S.S.R. had been slow to deploy its missiles operationally. In I960, only about 35 Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles IlCBMs) were ready for launching, compared with 18 for the United States. A year later, even this rather tenuous advantage had disappeared, with the Americans leading in the ICBM race by 63 to 50. More importantly, American intelligence had already discovered that the United States was leading. In November 1961, Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric announced that no missile gap existed. With the strategic balance tilting so obviously in favor of the Americans, Khrushchev decided to take the gamble of placing intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in Cuba. Had this bold stroke succeeded, it would have redressed the balance and restored something approaching strategic parity. It did not succeed, however, since Kennedy called Khrushchev’s bluff, and the IRBMs were removed.
There can be little doubt that Kennedy’s successful challenge to Khrushchev was made possible to a large extent by the Soviet Union’s lack of naval power. Kennedy could easily afford to throw a blockade around Cuba because it was manifestly impossible for the weak Soviet Navy to break such a blockade. The U.S.S.R. had only six submarines in Caribbean- Atlantic waters at the time of the missile crisis, and all of them were readily detected and continually tracked by the U. S. Navy.1
During the years following the crisis of October 1962, there was a rapid buildup of Soviet naval tonnage, particularly that of the highly visible surface forces. At the same time, in what became known as “forward deployment,” the Soviet fleet left the home waters to which it had been largely confined since 1917 and ventured out onto what its commander, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergei Gorshkov, has called the “World Ocean.” Today, there is hardly a body of salt water anywhere on the globe where the presence of a Soviet warship at any time would be totally unexpected.
The timing of the Soviet buildup led some observers to conclude that it must have been triggered by the missile crisis. According to this view, the ruling circles of the U.S.S.R. decided that they must
‘Eric Morris, The Russian Navy: Myth and Reality (New York: Stein & Day, 1977), p. 49.
have a powerful fleet capable of projecting “state power” into distant corners of the world if they were to avoid similar humiliations in the future. But while superficially plausible, this argument has a number of weaknesses. For one thing, it overlooks the obvious factor of lead times. The helicopter carrier Moskva, for example, seems to have been laid down in 1962 or 1963, which suggests that the decision to move toward a seaborne air capability must have been made even before the missile crisis brewed up. For another, it makes the fact that the U.S.S.R. has only occasionally engaged in “gunboat diplomacy” of one sort or another in recent years rather puzzling. Why, for example, if the expanded navy was meant to flex its muscle at points far from home, did it not make even a gesture of support for the U.S.S.R.’s North Vietnamese ally? The answer is that “forward deployment” was not particularly intended as a tool to be used in future diplomatic confrontations at all. Rather, it developed because of the changing nature of the strategic threat to the Soviet Union in the early 1960s.
On 15 November I960, the USS George Washington (SSBN-598) began her first operational patrol. The
ships of the George Washington class were equipped with the Polaris A-l missile, which had a range of 1,200 nautical miles. In order to hit worthwhile targets in the U.S.S.R., they had to approach very close to the coast; for all practical operational purposes, they were confined to the Barents Sea. However, as early as 1961, the Polaris A-2s carried on board the Ethan Allen (SSBN-608) class made it technically possible to extend the operational area of American ballistic-missile submarines to include the Norwegian Sea and much of the Mediterranean, since the maximum range had been improved to 1,500 nautical miles. The first deployment of Polaris to the Mediterranean was in fact announced in the spring of 1963. The A-3 version extended the range to 2,500 nautical miles in 1964. With the A-3, and with the multiple-warhead Poseidon introduced in 1969, *c has been possible to hit the more valuable Soviet targets from virtually anywhere in the Mediterranean and from a large portion of the North Atlantic. It has even been possible to destroy targets in the southern part of the U.S.S.R. from positions in the Arabian Sea, although Polaris ships have apparently not been deployed there. If Polaris were to be combatted, the Soviet Navy would have to leave its bases. As the range of the missiles increased and as the submarines stood out farther and farther from their targets, the Soviet Navy too would have to move progressively farther afield. This is precisely what has happened.
On this analysis, then, forward deployment may
be seen to have been at first a largely defensive measure. The fact that the Soviet fleet appeared ever farther out on the world ocean merely reflected the fact that modern technology, as exemplified by the Polaris threat, had extended the zone of defensive operations far wider than it had ever been spread before. If this is indeed the case, forward deployment roust have been a rather frustrating experience, since £he American claim has it that no Polaris/Poseidon submarine has ever been detected while on patrol. The Soviet Navy was never able, apparently, even to locate the threat against which it was supposed to defend. Still, Soviet antisubmarine warfare (ASW) directed against ballistic-missile submarines has probably not been without some utility. It forces the misfile ships to remained submerged, where the problem °f ascertaining their own positions (which must be known if missiles are to be accurately targeted) is eonsiderably more difficult. The resulting degrada- fion in potential missile accuracy has made it unlikely that Polaris/Poseidon can be used as a counterforce weapon directed against hardened point targets such as missile silos. Thus, ASW has helped to preserve the credibility of the Soviet land-based missile force.
Nevertheless, it would be hard to credit even the bl-S.S.R. with such amazing stubbornness as to have Maintained the counter-Polaris task as the primary Mission of its fleet over the course of a decade and a half with so little hope of real success. Yet this is Precisely what some people have suggested. The counter-Polaris and even the counter-carrier tasks Probably have indeed remained in the forefront of Soviet naval activity in the Mediterranean, which is a Particularly favorable launch location for attacks against the U.S.S.R., yet restricted and confined enough to make ASW against ballistic-missile subMarines something other than hopeless. However, as a Worldwide phenomenon, forward deployment in recent years can best be explained by reasons other than a desire to deal with Polaris.
The most likely of these reasons is that the kf-S.S.R. has given increasing emphasis to the conduction and forward deployment of its own subMarine deterrent forces. Numbers of ships, numbers °f missiles, numbers of warheads—every index suggests that this is indeed the case. As the table demondates, some 28.3% of all “major” Soviet naval tonnage is now devoted to “strategic” submarines— deltas,” “Yankees,” “Hotels,” and “Golfs.” If only chose classes of ships which began to enter service since I960, on the eve of forward deployment, are considered, the proportion rises to 35-7%. And if °nly classes entering service since 1964, when for-
Major Soviet Warship Types hy Date and Mission
A. ALL MAJOR CLASSES
Mission/Type | Tonnage | Percent |
Strategic Submarines' | 640,000 | 28.3 |
ASW Submarines2 | 140,000 | 6.2 |
ASW Surface Forces3 | 665,000 | 29.4 |
Antisurface Surface Forces4 | 190,000 | 8.4 |
Antisurface Submarines5 | 630,000 | 27.8 |
| 2,265,000 tons | 100.0% |
B. MAJOR CLASSES DELIVERED SINCE I960 | ||
Mission/Type | Tonnage | Percent |
Strategic Submarines | 550,000 | 35.7 |
ASW Submarines | 140,000 | 9.1 |
ASW Surface Forces | 515,000 | 33.4 |
Antisurface Surface Forces | 0 | 0.0 |
Antisurface Submarines | 335,000 | 21.8 |
| 1,540,000 tons | 100.0% |
C. MAJOR CLASSES DELIVERED SINCE 1964 | ||
Mission/Type | Tonnage | Percent |
Strategic Submarines | 550,000 | 44.4 |
ASW Submarines | 140,000 | 11.3 |
ASW Surface Forces | 425,000 | 34.3 |
Antisurface Surface Forces | 0 | 0.0 |
Antisurface Submarines | 125,000 | 10.1 |
| 1,240,000 tons | 100.0% |
‘“Delta I,” "Delta II,” "Delta III," | “Yankee,” “Hotel II,” ‘ | Hotel III,” |
"Golf I," "Golf II"
2“Alfa,” “Victor I,” “Victor II”
''Kiev, Moskva, “Kara,” “Kresta I,” “Kresta II,” “Kynda,” “Krivak I,” “Krivak II,” “Kashin,” Modified “Kashin,” “Kildin,” “Kanin,” “Kot- Iin,” “SAM Kotlin I,” “SAM Kotlin II,” “Skory”
ASverdlov
5“Papa,” “Charlie I,” “Charlie II,” “Echo I,” “Echo II,” "November,” “Tango,” “Juliett,” “Bravo,” “Foxtrot,” “Zulu IV,” “Romeo,” “Whiskey,” “Whiskey” Long Bin, “Whiskey” Twin Cylinder All figures derived from Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1978-79. Figures include ships under construction and are slightly rounded.
ward deployment had begun to get under way, are counted, the figure rises to 44.4%. On the strength of this hypothesis, much of the remaining new Soviet construction is also readily explainable. Whether directed against Polaris or against American attack submarines which might threaten Soviet missile submarines, one would expect that a good deal of Soviet surface tonnage would be dedicated to antisubmarine warfare. This expectation is certainly borne out by the facts. Indeed, virtually all recently built Soviet surface vessels are formally designated as large or small antisubmarine ships. This is true even of the Kiev-class carriers.
There have been those who have argued, of course, that by calling the Kievs “antisubmarine ships” the
Soviet Union is engaging in some devious sleight- of-hand designed to circumvent the Montreux Convention, which limits passage of the Turkish straits to one capital ship at a time. This argument is not particularly convincing. In the event of a genuine war emergency, the U.S.S.R. is not likely to pay much attention to the niceties of 40-year-old treaties in any case. In anything short of such an emergency, the number of Soviet carriers is so limited that scrupulous adherence to the terms of the Montreux Convention should not be a particular hardship. Given that half of the aircraft carried by the Kievs are “Hormone” antisubmarine helicopters, there seems to be little reason to suspect that the Soviet Navy has chosen to call these vessels “large antisubmarine ships” for any reason other than the most obvious one: they are designed to destroy submarines.
The hypothesis that the strategic strike mission has become the primary task of today’s Soviet fleet is underscored by the recent words of Admiral Gorshkov himself:
“The experience of naval warfare has shown that the principal, most universal and most effective naval weapons are submarines and aviation. . . . Today the chief branches of our navy are therefore its submarines and naval air force, and its chief weapons are ballistic and guided missiles with nuclear warheads. To give our submarines reliability in combat and all-round protection, our navy includes surface ships of various types and aircraft designed to deal with the enemy’s submarine and anti-submarine forces and for other specific
tasks. . . . Surface ships . . . remain the essential—and often the only—combat weapon for securing the deployment of the chief striking force of our navy: its submarine fleets. . . . [T]he struggle between our navy and the enemy navies has become a secondary task compared with the tasks of our navy against land targets.”2 The fleet ballistic-missile submarines constitute the sword, while the naval air forces (both land- and sea-based) and the surface forces constitute the shield, not of the state, but of the sword itself.
Since 1972, a new class of strategic missile submarines, the “Deltas,” has been entering Soviet service. Carrying the SS-N-8 missile with a nominal range of 4,200 nautical miles, such ships are capable of hitting many American targets while deployed relatively close to home. And already a new “Delta, armed with the 5,000-nautical mile SS-N-18, has appeared. These recent developments will considerably complicate the Western ASW task. The older Soviet “Yankee”-class ships, with their short-range SS-N-6S, have had to approach American waters in order to take up firing positions. Probably because of the risk of being spotted and tailed while en route, few them (ordinarily two in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific) have ever actually been deployed on station at any one time. The bulk of the remaining “Yankees” are apparently held in reserve near home, to be ready to move to their war stations in the event of
2Sergei Gorshkov, “The Sea Power of the State,” translated by Reuben Ainsztein, Survival, January/February 1977, pp. 27, 29.
Crisis. The support of such a “Yankee” breakout into the broad reaches of the ocean from confined base arcas may well have been a major mission of the ^°viet surface forces and of the growing numbers of Backfire” bombers, which are capable of covering a substantial portion of the North Atlantic. The “Yankees” will doubtless continue in service for many Hiore years, since the Soviet Union seems unwilling t0 discard a weapon system merely because it has be- c°rne obsolescent. Therefore, support for a potential breakout will continue to be required. Eventually, though, the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) filings on missile submarine strength may make it ^esirable for the Soviet Union to phase out the Yankees” in favor of the “Deltas.” Once this happens—and perhaps sooner, if it proves possible to retrofit longer-range missiles into the “Yankees” — lhe Soviet surface fleet will no longer have to be 'fttite so prepared for sudden long-distance dashes in Support of the submarines as has recently been the Case. The Navy’s principal striking arm, the ballistic-missile submarine force, will be able to lie back in areas close to home which can be secured by relatively modest surface forces and by air power. Western antisubmarine warfare in such areas will be hrnited to probes by advanced attack submarines, binder such circumstances, submarine noise reduc- t|Qn, a field in which the Soviets have lagged consid- etably) becomes less significant to them.
If this hypothesis is correct, the future may well r'ng something of a shift away from forward deployment toward deployment in home waters. To the
extent that forward deployment was mandated first by Polaris and then by the short range of the SS-N-6 on board the “Yankees,” it will have become irrelevant to strategic requirements.
The hypothesis has a number of interesting implications. One of them is that the Soviet Union is unlikely to construct a full-fledged strike carrier. While the Kievs have a limited strike capability, that is not their primary mission. They are powerful ASW ships designed to cover the “Yankees” and “Deltas” and to make life difficult for Polaris/Poseidon. If the “Yankees” are to be eventually phased out and will no longer need surface unit support to break out into the Atlantic, the role of the Soviet surface forces in general comes increasingly into question. They will probably continue to be built, because Admiral Gorshkov has consistently indicated that he wants them. What priority they will be assigned by the Politburo is another matter. Even if Gorshkov wanted a strike carrier (and there is no evidence to suggest that he does), he would have a hard time justifying one to his superiors. As interim “Yankee”-support measures, the Kievs are not numerous, and they may well have no successors. If the Soviet Union really wanted a strike carrier, it is
difficult to believe that, in view of its remarkable successes in other fields of military and naval technology, it could not have built one by now.
A second implication of the forward deployment hypothesis presented here is that the Soviet Union is not directing much effort toward attacks on NATO sea-lanes. A good deal of ink has been spilled by Western analysts over the question of whether or not the Soviet Union can cut Europe off from the United States in the event of a major war. This problem is certainly worthy of attention, as the experience of two World Wars suggests. Nevertheless, most of that portion of the Soviet submarine force which is not devoted to the strategic strike mission is aging rapidly. This factor and the short-war orientation of the Soviet ground forces in Europe indicate that the U.S.S.R. does not consider the prospect of a lengthy war of attrition, in which a submarine blockade would assume great significance, to be very likely. As Commander Robert W. Herrick noted in 1968: “It may ... be that the current Soviet strategic estimate finds that the USSR’s ballistic missile submarines have made such a substantial contribution to the Soviet Union’s missile deterrent that the increment of deterrence afforded by the threat of unrestricted submarine warfare against Free World shipping can be dispensed with and the large economies effected thereby can be of great help in meeting higher priority requirements.”3 A third implication of the hypothesis is that the dichotomy sometimes pictured between the Khrushchev Navy and the post-Khrushchev Navy may be somewhat overdrawn. There is no doubt, of course, that under Brezhnev the Soviet Navy has assumed a more important role than the one it had played under his predecessors. At the same time, however, it should be borne in mind that Khrushchev’s Navy was to have been organized around submarines and missiles, and they remain the key elements today. Indeed, the Navy’s growing importance results precisely from the fact that the missile submarine is proving to be the most important factor in strategic sea warfare. The major difference between the Khrushchev strategy and what one might call the “Gorshkov strategy” is the realization inherent in the latter that submarines which lack support from other weapon systems are too vulnerable. The theme of a “balanced fleet” runs like a thread through all Gorshkov’s writings. A “balanced fleet” is not necessarily one in which no one type of ship receives priority, but one in which the high- priority ships, the missile submarines, are adequately backed up by surface and air power.
With the deployment of the “Delta III,” the U.S.S.R., a country not notably renowned for military innovation, has for once stolen a march on the United States. Trident will not, apparently, be ready until at least 1980, and then only after stupendous cost overruns. Meanwhile, a possible early retirement of the George Washington and Ethan Allen classes, which do not carry Poseidons, may result in an actual reduction in American missile submarine strength at a time when such weapons will be more important than ever because of the uncertain future of the other elements of the strategic triad: the manned bomber and the fixed, land-based intercontinental ballistic missile. Even when Trident-armed ships are ready, they will not, as the “Deltas” will, be able to operate in a secure home waters environment, since they are to be based on the U.S. West Coast. In order to strike at targets in the populous and industrialized western regions of the U.S.S.R., a Trident submarine will first have to cross the broad Pacific to assume a firing position somewhere off the Soviet coast. Thus, Soviet ASW against missile submarines will not be quite the hopeless task that it otherwise ought to be. It will be interesting to watch Soviet deployments once Trident finally enters service. The extent of the shift, if any, of antisubmarine vessels from the western fleets, and in particular from the Northern Fleet, to the Pacific Fleet should provide a reasonably clear indication of Soviet priorities. If the shift is not unduly large, than it may be presumed that the ASW forces will continue to be used to hinder the operations of NATO attack submarines in the “Delta” home deployment area.
Forward deployment, in short, is and has been the outgrowth of a Soviet doctrine which is focused squarely on strategic issues of the first importance. and which is not distracted by peripheral concerns- Since the Soviet Navy now possesses a strategic waf' fighting capability of the highest order of mag' nitude, that doctrine has succeeded admirably.
\
A native of Minnesota, Mr. Charbonneau received h*s bachelor’s decree in history and philosophy from University of Minnnsota-Duluth in 1972. In 1974, was awarded a master's decree in military history W Kansas State University. While at Kansas State, ne served as editorial assistant on the staff of two mW[1]' zines, Military Affairs and Aerospace Historian■ 1976-1977, Mr. Charbonneau was enrolled in the history Ph.D. Pr0' gram at Indiana University, and he did separate work in Russian arC,i studies. He is now on the staff of the Indiana University library and l*ve* in Bloomington. As an outside interest, he serves on the staff of Fire an Movement, a magazine which publishes reviews of military simulation-
[1] Roberc Waring Herrick, Soviet Naval Strategy: Fifty Yectri of Theory and Practice (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1968), p. 87.