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ncluding the appalling depredations of .in—are dispirited. Obnovleniye, re- ahzation or rebirth, is mandatory and gent. The many tools of reform include ^restroika and glasnost. While Gor- ^chev’s own political genius animates reforms, it is clear the leadership c ely shares his conviction that the untry cannot continue in its old ways 'ut risking complete collapse.
0r s lhe Soviet Navy part of the problem ,, Part of the solution? Obviously the ^v'et military, dominated by the Red n tfy, will retain prominent status. The
‘luesti,
ttaki
c°uld
make special contributions to the
oned their drive for global leadership, ut their methods have had to change. A Peace offensive” and Gorbachev’s n'ghly engaging personal diplomacy Promise influence in developing coun- ries where decades of military threats and fomented revolutions have backfired.
Moscow now believes security and saPerpower status are to be achieved r°ugh economic strength and diplo- ma[ic stature. But the plain fact is that, CXceP' for military strength and the space Pr°gram, the Soviet Union is a wreck. 1,6 economy is in a shambles, public ahh is declining, environmental pollu- °n >s mounting, the vaunted apparatus . Central planning is discredited, and the izens—who have endured so much.
Without
'on here is whether the navy can e a case that, given a global role, it
reformers’ drive both for world influence and for domestic revitalization. Gorshkov, V’yunenko et al seem to be so wide of the mark as to risk their navy’s future. They consign the Soviet Navy to a defensive role in wartime, waste their chapter on wars in the Third World with the dredging up of more antique rhetoric about American Imperialism, and see change only in terms of new technology. Likewise Admiral Chernavin, though up- to-date with Gorbachev’s terminology, seems limited to a vision of his navy as principally relevant to defense in war. Admiral Chernavin also is careful to recite the catechism that all branches of service must operate in unity (i.e., there is no thinking of an independent navy role). None argue for naval forces to take a larger role in the front rank of those institutions actively contributing to the Soviets’ attempt to pick themselves up by their bootstraps.
Gorbachev and his close adviser Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Akhromeyev seem to agree. Their actions suggest a maritime strategy that allows the Soviet Navy to subside into a less expensive status in the defensive safety net. The only bold strokes they promise are to divert a portion of the successful and efficient naval building industry to domestic production and to aim an offensive campaign at chopping down the U. S. Navy through arms control. Admiral Chernavin illustrates this latter theme with his allegation of an “aggressive bent" in U. S. thinking and his attack on U. S. aircraft carriers, battleships, and Marines as sea strike forces without defensive purpose. Chernavin is not alone. This full-scale assault is being voiced by every top-level Kremlin official at every opportunity.
Moscow seems to have calculated that large, forward-deployed naval forces are destabilizing and are to be deemphasized. Gorshkov’s 30-year campaign has failed to sell the idea of a positive correlation between a global navy and global influence to a nation that is now maneuvering for breathing room while it tackles daunting problems of internal revitalization.
'Soviet sources for this paper include the book under review, the interview with Admiral Chernavin in the February 1989 Proceedings, recent press accounts of speeches by Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, and Ahkromeyev, plus the important article by Soviet Professor V. Dashichev, “East-West: Quest for New Relations. On the Priorities of the Soviet State’s Foreign Policy,” Literaturnaya Gcizetci, 18 May 1988. A special thank you to Defense Intelligence Agency Soviet analyst Ron Krueger.
Captain Seaquist, having recently completed a tour as the commanding officer of the USS Iowa (BB-61), is now serving on the Joint Staff, working in the Field of strategy.
^ Uniquely Naval Design_________________
^ Commander Robert W. Herrick, U. S. Navy (Retired)
_____________ CVs and SLCM-Equipped Ships_____________
"Carrier forces and other groupings of surface ships carrying long-range cruise missiles are an important reserve of the strategic nuclear forces . . . [This] makes it necessary to include significant fleet forces as well as units of other branches of the armed forces for battling them."
qq striking feature of Admiral 'he Sf. ov’s last testament is that it marks %it.,lrst appearance in Soviet military sttVn8s of what are termed “the basic hik 6"lc missions of the Armed Forces,” s,^10ns said to be “vital” for the Soviet
Th
for C *~lrst °f these three overall missions fie(jexecution of the Soviet Union’s uni- rCn tTlllitary strategy for nuclear war is to lhis f3n enemy s aerospace attack. While Hr,C|e Ormulation of one of the general is h ar War missions for the armed forces nav ,tlevv- the book’s spelling out of the den.^ s r°les and missions is unprece- tole • ^e authors imply that the navy’s stratels.to search for the enemy’s “basic log* weapons platforms” so as to and destroy them.
vvar e second of these overall nuclear forrnt'|llss'or,s, according to the unique sup u ati°n found in The Navy, is the ‘‘r11j|.ess'0n of the enemy’s so-called c0 '^-economic capacity,” meaning Cr~value strikes against industrial/
e<l,n8s / Naval Review 1989
urban targets of military importance. The navy’s role in degrading the enemy’s industrial capacity is to “substantially” weaken it. This involves three missions: counter-value strikes; anti-SLOC operations; and anti-seabed exploitation.
In the final Soviet overall nuclear war mission, the traditional one of destroying the main war-fighting forces of the enemy and occupying his territory, the authors see the navy playing twin roles.
Clearly the most important one, although the authors list it second, is “to defeat the enemy’s main naval forces.” Of lesser importance, although listed first, is the mission of providing “cover and support for the coastal flanks of the ground forces.”
A notable thing about the Soviet naval missions as this book describes them is the high degree of redundancy. The Soviet Navy’s overall mission makeup is
147
Defeating the main U. S. naval forces remains the Soviet Navy’s principal mission. Here a Soviet Bear aircraft flies over the USS Kitty Hawk (CV- 63), under the watchful eye of an F-14 Tomcat.
something of a Procrustean bed. However, The Navy makes it clear that there is a reasoned basis for this redundancy: The overall missions call for different levels of efforts in accomplishing each naval mission, thereby permitting an economy of forces.
The book gives several examples in which the naval force levels are “substantially different” depending on the overall mission for which the naval mission is being carried out. In one example, the authors note that the ASW force requirements are much less for repelling an aerospace attack than for destroying the enemy’s main naval forces; the former requires only destruction of forward- deployed missile submarines while the latter requires the destruction of forces in port and rear areas as well. Another example involves anti-SLOC operations. For the naval mission of destroying the enemy’s main naval forces, only shipping and ports involved in supplying NATO’s European ground fronts would have to be interdicted. But for the second overall mission, that of suppressing the enemy’s military-economic capacity, something akin to a “tonnage war” would have to be waged against a vastly greater number of merchant ships.
The extent of the navy’s interest in economy of force is indicated by the note The Navy takes of the current “insufficiency of forces for carrying out all of the missions assigned the Navy.” The book emphasizes the need, once one mission has been accomplished, for the “timely reassignment” to another mission of the forces thus freed.
No meaningfully detailed formulation of the Soviet armed forces’ nuclear war missions has ever appeared in any military or other non-naval writings; and these so-called “strategic” missions are characterized as enabling the navy to practice economy of force. Together, these facts suggest that this overall mission structure is a uniquely navy design for efficient war planning and not an accepted tenet of the Soviet Union’s unified military doctrine. Be that as it may, the more important point is one Admiral Gorshkov makes in his foreword:
“The further development of the Navy is directed at making it fully correspond in its capabilities to the
nature of the real threat from ocean|L" directions and to the nature of the mlS sions assigned it for the defense ot1,11 country.”
This is really the legacy left the So' ^ * Navy by the man who for nearly 30 yea . I guided its development from a coas force to an oceangoing, largely subfl13 fine aviation navy. And it is a very ^'r order indeed. As revealed in The Vu'T I Soviet war planning for the naval side a general nuclear war calls for the a ^ struction of all enemy aircraft carriers an strategic submarines before they c _ launch nuclear strikes at the Soviet ho[1]”1' land. The book states that both sup1- power coalitions have the “objective requisites” for accomplishing this-"^ > the far weaker Soviet Navy someho"' supposed to be the winner against a vas stronger U. S./NATO naval coalition- ** wonder that Soviet officials are calling ,
• n|lv
every turn for naval arms limitation “ reduction . . .
148
Proceedings / Naval Revie"
[1] Ted1
Commander Herrick works for Rcckenthaler nology Associates, a defense consulting fin11: served as an assistant naval attach^ in Moscow 1 J mid-1950s. His new book, Soviet Naval Tlie°'\^cJ Policy: Gorshkov’s Inheritance, is being pu^ this year by the Naval Institute Press.