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By Lieutenant Niel L. Golightly, U.S. Navy
Would you buy what this man is selling?
Early in 1986 the U.S. Navy publicly unveiled its maritime strategy, a blunt declaration of how it intends to fight tire Soviet Union should the need arise. One year later Mikhail Gorbachev responded with his own maritime strategy, an artful plan for wetting NATO’s powder with an aggressive program of naval arms control.1
In the battle for the hearts and minds of Western popular and academic opinion, Gorbachev’s strategy has been far more successful. The Communist Party leader has attracted the hopeful enthusiasm of those in the West who take him at his word and who consider, virtually by definition, any arms control agreement as inherently desirable. The U.S. maritime strategy, on the other hand, has had to beat its way through squalls of bitter controversy, and its plan for smashing Soviet naval power offends the prevailing public taste for East-West reconciliation.2
The United States and NATO may not be able to maintain their stout refusal to talk about limiting naval forces. For a variety of political, economic, and strategic reasons, an eventual negotiated limit on arms at sea may not only be inevitable but—if intelligently negotiated—actually desirable. Gorbachev’s proposals for naval arms control, however, should not serve as a model for such a limit.
The Gorbachev Proposals
The Soviet leader outlined his program for naval arms control in a series of speeches beginning in Vladivostok in 1986. Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers Nikolai I. Ryzhkov picked up the theme during his visit to Norway and Sweden in January 1988, and in September of that year Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Akhromeyev weighed in with a lengthy article in Pravda. The proposals fall into three broad categories.
First are measures designed to limit naval weapons themselves. Of special concern to Soviet planners is the Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM). SLCMs are excluded from the nuclear warhead counting rules already established for the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (START). In early February 1990 Secretary of State James
Baker and Gorbachev agreed to “a declaratory approach” on SLCM limitations, in which each side would publicly state its limits on the weapons. This would be a side agreement to START, and probably not subject to Senate ratification. But not all issues involved in SLCM side agreement have not all been resolved.3 Soviet negotiators have long insisted on constraints on both the conventional and nuclear versions of Tomahawk, including a limit on the number and type of naval vessels from which they can be deployed.4 At the December 1989 Malta summit, Gorbachev advocated the elimination of all tactical nuclear weapons from surface ships.5
Second are confidence-building measures, which in theory decrease the chance that deployments and exercises by one side can be misinterpreted by the other as preparations for war. The Eastern bloc’s opening position at the negotiations on confidence and security-building measures in Vienna included proposals to limit naval exercises to no more than 50 ships (including nuclear attack submarines [SSNs]), exchanging observers for exercises involving more than 25 ships or 100 aircraft, and banning exercises in “straits of international significance.”6
The third and most extensive set of proposals is designed to restrict the activities and range of naval forces. In a 1987 speech in Murmansk, Gorbachev suggested that the Nordic region be converted into a naval-nuclear- weapons-free zone, adding that the Soviets would support such a move by pulling its six Golf Il-class ballistic- missile submarines (SSBNs) out of the Baltic Fleet.7 He further advocated restricting antisubmarine warfare activity in the Baltic, North, Norwegian, and Greenland seas. He went on to suggest limits or complete bans on naval activity in a variety of high-tension ocean areas, including North Atlantic sea lanes, seasonal fishing areas, international straits and their entrances (including the Greenland- Iceland-U.K. Gap), and even the entire Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.8
From a purely military point of view, these proposals clearly reflect Soviet priorities to defend their homeland and the security of their SSBN bastions in a war at sea. They also address specific strategic threats from the West. Most notably, the Soviets’ pointed desire to exclude naval forces from the approaches to their waters reflects their need to blunt the U.S. maritime strategy and its provision
for deploying multilayered strike forces into key Soviet strongholds. Their long-standing insistence on limiting SLCMs is an attempt to parry NATO’s ability—and apparent determination—to strike targets on Soviet or Warsaw Pact soil in a general war. Finally, Soviet emphasis on limiting ASW operations in and around their SSBN bastions reflects not only their desire to defend their submarine force but also a concern with U.S. strength in ASW technology.
The Hidden Persuaders
The Gorbachev proposals are seductively appealing to those who assume that security means only the absence of war and that fewer weapons anywhere necessarily proward deployed, and equipped with nuclear weapons. Akhromeyev in his Pravda article declares that NATO’s refusal to consider a negotiated reduction in its naval forces confirms the “offensive thrust of the U.S. and NATO bloc navies” and proves its intent to “maintain superiority, to keep other states subject to tension from the seas and oceans.”9
The proposals furthermore carry the formidable weight of Gorbachev’s charisma. The New York Times has suggested that a Martian landing on earth and saying “Take me to your leader” would be taken to the Kremlin, for the Soviet leader has woven himself a mantle as supranational visionary for world peace. He has shaken off traditional Soviet Cold War bluster and many of the medieval instruments of state social, economic, and political oppression,
motes greater security everywhere. Gorbachev’s program, according to its proponents, would decrease military tension in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, allow the West to roll back substantially its naval investments, encourage the process of perestroika by strengthening Gorbachev’s domestic political hand, and build another span in the bridge of trust between the West and the East. According to this line of reasoning, the United States and its allies are frustrating the progress of East-West normalization by maintaining navies that are ready for combat, for- and his startling reforms—even the ones that exist only on paper—have helped him capture the political high ground in the West.
Robert Legvold writes in Foreign Affairs that the revolution in Soviet foreign policy has altered fundamentally Moscow’s thinking on Soviet national security, that the ideas of reasonable sufficiency, defensive defense, and strategic stability represent the new basic Soviet doctrine, and that the West should join the East in working out avenues of arms control and peaceful relationships.10 George
Kennan, author in 1947 of the West’s long-standing policy °f containing the Soviet Union, says that the Soviet Union “should now be regarded essentially as another great Power like other great powers,” rather than as an extraordinary, ideological threat to U.S. security.11 And in West Germany, where during a visit last June Gorbachev was greeted with unabashed euphoria, public opinion holds, by a 90-58% majority, that Mikhail Gorbachev is a stronger force for world peace than U.S. President George Bush.12
Some military professionals share in the enthusiasm. Retired Navy Captain Gerald O’Rourke argues that the Cold War is over, that naval leaders should abandon their Preoccupation with the Soviet threat, and that the West should reduce its military strength in favor of increased social spending.13 Admiral Elmar Schmahling, head of the West German military’s Department of Training and Education, asserts that even a flawed arms control treaty— one that leaves open the possibility of cheating—is better than none because it contributes to arms control progress and helps build mutual East-West trust.14 And former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William J. Crowe, broke ranks with prevailing naval opinion when he Urged the United States to consider Gorbachev’s SLCM Proposal seriously.
Looking Out for Number One______________________
An analysis of Gorbachev’s naval arms control proposes, however, lets some air out of the hopeful assumptions nbout perestroika and its post-Cold War rhetoric.
From the point of view of NATO’s maritime security, Gorbachev’s proposals are politically beguiling, but fail fhe most elementary condition for arms control: An agreement is successful only if it enhances the security of all the Parties to it.15 In other words, arms control is not an end in hself, and the notion that the elimination of any arms anywhere is a good thing is seductive but false. Military planners must define and guarantee security in terms of a potential enemy’s ability to threaten vital interests, and one °f NATO’s most vital interests is the ability to use the seas that connect and surround its members. The Soviet Union, an enormous continental land mass with an imposing army and air force, numerous landlocked borders, and tradi- t'onal insularity, obviously depends much less on command of the seas for its national security. It follows that any sweeping restrictions on the freedom of navies to opiate on the open seas would technically affect both sides equally, but would have a disproportionate and deleterious effect on the ability of the West to defend itself. In short, m evaluating an arms control proposal that would offer equivalent risks and benefits to both parties, one cannot depend on a simple bean count of hardware and personnel strength. One must consider its relative strategic impact on each side.
For example, NATO must be able to suppress enemy airborne and undersea forces to keep supplies flowing across the Atlantic sea lines of communication (SLOCs). Any treaty that, like Gorbachev’s proposals, excluded ASW and antiairfield strike forces from parts of those sea lanes would cut deeply into NATO’s ability to secure this vital interest. In addition, Gorbachev’s proposals conspicuously neglect to address the activities of SSNs under (or long-range bombers over) those same areas; this makes one think that Soviet arms control strategy aims at securing the Red Navy’s ability to strangle Western Europe’s Atlantic SLOCs—just as Adolf Hitler planned.16 A recent West German study bluntly concludes:
“The Soviet proposals, viewed objectively, must also be seen as being of an offensive nature. The realization of these proposals would prevent NATO from meeting the minimal requirements of naval defense. . . . The Atlantic sea lines of communication, the very lifeline of NATO, would thus be placed in extreme jeopardy.17
The Gorbachev proposals are asymmetrical in other, less obvious ways as well. For example, as nuclear policy analyst Captain Linton Brooks has written, “With the removal of Pershing-IIs and ground-launched cruise missiles from Europe under the terms of the recently ratified Intermediate Nuclear Forces [INF] treaty, sea-based systems, especially sea-launched cruise missiles, will play an increasingly important role.”18 The utility of tactical nuclear weapons is the subject of intense debate in political and academic circles, critics contending that NATO’s governments would never authorize their use and that therefore they lack credibility as a deterrent.19 Nevertheless, the threat of tactical nuclear strikes against the imposing weight of a conventional Warsaw Pact invasion remains an important part of NATO’s security policy, and Moscow’s overt desire to get U.S. nuclear weapons out of Europe suggests that the Soviet Union, at least, considers them a credible threat.20
If Soviet strategy depended in the same way on its own arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, then Gorbachev’s itch to restrict or even eliminate such arms—including SLCMs—would be a promising starting point for enhancing the security of both sides. However, the Soviet concept for war in Europe aims to avoid the use of nuclear arms, preferring instead to rely on the Warsaw Pact’s enduring conventional superiority. They plan to hamstring NATO’s nuclear deterrence through sabotage, special forces operations, and—clearly—a shrewd arms control policy.21 It follows that, like the INF treaty, a mutual ban on SLCMs would strengthen the Warsaw Pact’s strategic hand at the expense of NATO’s—unless conventional arms negotiations produce a nonoffensive balance of forces on the ground in Europe.22
Even as benign a goal as building mutual confidence poses problems of symmetry.23 Moscow complains that the United States and NATO “are seeking the further extension of confidence-building measures to the activities of ground forces in Europe, yet as soon as the issue of naval armaments—in which they possess an advantage— is raised, suddenly there is a multitude of excuses.”24 But even here Gorbachev’s proposals are strategically lopsided. Soviet arguments for limiting the number, size, and location of naval exercises rest mainly on the proposition that navies are offensive and destabilizing and threaten peace wherever they are allowed free rein. Akhromeyev cites the Tomahawk, along with the U.S. fleet of aircraft carriers, as proof that “the U.S. Navy’s strike force—no matter how much people might try to convince us to the contrary—is incalculably greater than is necessary to meet U.S. defense requirements” and therefore presumably an intrument of aggression or coercion. Western critics of the U.S. maritime strategy (which bluntly proposes to sink as many Soviet SSBNs as possible at the outset of a general war) echo the destabilization theme when they argue that Moscow may be forced to launch its submarine-launched ballistic missiles in a preemptive strike during a superpower conflict if U.S. ASW operations threaten to destroy its submerged nuclear reserve.
But naval forces, with the possible and arcane exception of strategic-missile submarines, cannot by themselves be fundamentally destabilizing. Moscow’s frequent attempt to equate the Warsaw Pact’s preponderant conventional army with NATO’s sea power advantage dodges the necessary distinction between land forces, which can invade, seize, and occupy territories, and naval forces, which cannot. As former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman was fond of observing, the Navy cannot win the war but it certainly can lose it. Even considering the self-consciously offensive nature of the U.S. maritime strategy, it is strategically and politically absurd to imagine that NATO would arbitrarily assemble a fleet and hurl it against the Kola Peninsula—or even threaten to do so—unless its ground forces were already engaged in full-blown conflict on the central front.
Furthermore, NATO’s ability to keep its vital SLOCs open and to support through power projection a defensive land battle in Europe rests heavily on its unrestricted and
The Bear’s ‘Great Universal Embrace!
“When the animals had gathered, the lion looked at the eagle and said gravely, ‘We must abolish talons.’ The tiger looked at the elephant and said, ‘we must abolish tusks.’ The elephant looked back at the tiger and said, ‘We must abolish claws and jaws.’ Thus each animal in turn proposed the abolition of the weapons he did not have, until at last the bear rose up and said in tones of sweet reasonableness: ‘Comrades, let us abolish everything—everything but the great universal embrace!’ ’ ’1
Sometimes no arms control agreement is better than a bad one. At present, there are too many uncertainties for the United States to agree to negotiate on Mikhail Gorbachev’s proposals. However pleasing each one may sound to peace-loving ears, the Soviet Union does not seek any advantage but its own. Therefore, doubt must underlie each proposal by the other superpower to cut or limit naval arms.
► Doubts About Nuclear- weapons-free Zones: The Soviet plan for a Nordic nuclear-free zone prohibits the presence,
overflight, port call, and transit of ships and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons in a zone comprising Greenland, Iceland, the Faeroes, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. Furthermore, this region would be declared unilaterally exempt from nuclear strikes by nuclear- weapon states.
The purpose of this Soviet proposal is to exploit sensitivities within the NATO alliance and, ultimately, eliminate significant Soviet worries in the Northwestern and Arctic theaters. In some respects, the Nordic states are already de facto nuclear-free zones. Denmark, Iceland, and Norway are members of NATO, but still refuse to allow the permanent stationing of foreign troops on their soil. This forces U.S., British, and Dutch Marines to hold annual exercises practicing the reinforcement of Norway in the event of a war. The continuation of these exercises year after year demonstrates the strategic importance of the region to NATO.
As Admiral Carlisle Trost,
U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, said, what the Soviets call a “zone of peace” simply translates as a “zone of exclusion” for Western sea power.2 The
Soviets propose restrictions on U.S. and NATO forces where their own forces are inadequate. This is true not only in the Nordic zone, but also in the Mediterranean Sea, where in March 1988 Gorbachev proposed limiting the number of warships to 15 major combatants and 10 auxiliaries.3 Such restrictions would equal or exceed the number of Soviet warships normally deployed in the Mediterranean, yet would drastically reduce the strength of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the region. As a result, if a crisis were to occur in the Mediterranean, U.S. naval reinforcements would face a long transAtlantic crossing, whereas the Soviets, whose Black Sea Fleet is next door, could respond much more rapidly.
The creation of naval nuclear-free zones has absolutely no utility for U.S. and NATO maritime forces. Only the Soviets would benefit from such arms control initiatives.
► Doubts About ASW-free Zones: Should deterrence fail, the U.S. Navy’s maritime strategy calls for the detection, tracking, and sinking of Soviet ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs). In response to their
Practiced ability to operate its sea power in large, integrated groups. “You can talk about it all you want,” said Admiral Charles Larson of a recent 150-ship Northern Wedding exercise. “You can sit around a table and plan it. You can wargame it. But until you put it all together, until you go to Norway and . . . coordinate with other NATO commanders, you really don’t know it will work.”25 Knowing if the maritime strategy will work is obviously essential to any plan for deterring—or fighting—a world War.
Therefore, confidence-building measures that require both sides to announce certain naval maneuvers in advance and to host observers at major exercises might benefit both NATO and the Warsaw Pact by limiting one side’s Uncertainty about the other’s intent. But any agreement to restrict the size, number, or location of naval activities would, as Gorbachev is sophisticated enough to realize, slice deeply into NATO’s security while barely fazing the Warsaw Pact.
Perhaps most disingenuous of Gorbachev’s proposals are those calling for naval-nuclear-weapons-free zones. Untutored popular opinion tends to equate nuclear weapons with all things bad, and the beguiling conclusion is that any place where such weapons are not allowed is necessarily a safer place. Gorbachev certainly shares no such delusions, but he is canny enough to understand that antinuclear sentiment is a powerful political force within the Western democracies; simply by stimulating it with talk of denuclearized zones, he can threaten NATO’s political flank. Whether or not they are ever adopted, they inflame the ongoing intra-NATO problem of sharing the risks and
By Lieutenant James G. Foggo III, U.S. Navy
fear of such actions, the Soviets have incorporated the discussion °f ASW-free zones and SSBN sanctuaries or bastions into their naval arms control offensive. An ASW-free zone would restrict SSBN deployments, the ASW Patrols of the adversary, and the number or type of sensors that |nay be stationed in the ocean or ‘n space.4
The U.S. Navy believes that strategic ASW operations against Soviet SSBNs would make it easier for NATO to wage a conventional war in Europe. Such °perations would force the Soviets to dedicate naval assets to Protect SSBN bastions and thus mean that they could not interdict the Atlantic sea lines of Communication (SLOCs) effec- fively. Moreover, every Soviet SSBN sunk would change the balance of forces in favor of the West.
Critics of this aggressive strategy argue that strategic ASW is destabilizing because it would encourage the Soviets to launch a preemptive strike with their SSBNs for fear of losing them. This in turn would lead to global nuclear war.
In response to these concerns, °ne must first remember that the Soviets themselves will be waging strategic ASW against U.S., British, and French SSBNs. Second, the Soviets view their SSBN force not as a second- strike capability, but as a strategic reserve force or third-strike capability. To the Soviets, loss of all or part of these assets would not be as severe as loss of their second-strike mobile intercontinental ballistic-missile force, for example. Third, the Soviet submarine force is stealthy enough today that the U.S. Navy is by no means guaranteed success in a preemptive strike against Soviet SSBNs.
And finally, the Soviets are rational; they realize that a preemptive nuclear strike on the United States or Europe in response to loss of part of their strategic submarine force would certainly lead to mutually assured destruction.5
Strategic ASW is a fundamentally sound aspect of the U.S. and NATO maritime strategy. It only makes sense that the West engage in the same tactics that the Soviets would pursue in time of war. The West should respond negatively to Soviet proposals for ASW-free zones and SSBN sanctuaries.
► Doubts about Limitations on
Sea-launched Cruise Missiles: Part of NATO’s deterrent is the sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM), a dual-capable force multiplier in the inventory of the U.S. Navy, which the Soviets fear could be effectively employed against its troops and tanks during a conflict in Western Europe.
As far as the Soviets are concerned, after execution of the provisions of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the threat of intermediate-range nuclear missiles ashore will cease to exist. Their focus on arms control therefore has shifted to the U.S. Navy’s maritime nuclear assets, especially SLCMs. As Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf has said,
“The [U.S.] Navy went from 15 power projection platforms [aircraft carriers] to a force capable of putting ordnance on target from on and beneath the seas and from hundreds of launch points. This distributed offensive capability means that the map on the wall in the Kremlin that tracks U.S. Navy ships capable of striking the Soviet Union went from a few pins to a forest.”6
responsibilities of Western defense. It would be unfair, in other words, for certain NATO members to enjoy apparent immunity from the danger of nuclear warfare while living in the peace that those risks, through collective deterrence, protect.26 Even the supposed benefits of living in a nuclear-free zone are suspect. As Admiral Hill says, “A weapons-free zone covering the land and territorial sea areas of the Nordic countries alone would do nothing to improve their security, and indeed might reduce it since any moves by nuclear-armed assistance forces could be inhibited in times of crisis.”27 And to enter nuclear-free zones, the U.S. Navy would have to declare which of its ships carried nuclear weapons (in itself an unacceptable breach of a long-standing policy) or to sacrifice altogether its presence, influence, and defensive posture in these zones.
What Does Perestroika Really Mean for NATO’s Navies?
Skeptics of Gorbachev’s new thinking hold that the Kremlin, hard-pressed by domestic economic failure as well as an erosion in the credibility of its Marxist-Leninist ideology, is trying to create breathing room in which to shore up the ‘‘historically inevitable”—but faltering- socialist revolution. To improve the Soviet Union’s competitive military edge while rescuing its economy, Gorbachev and his team of new thinkers want to modernize their strategic doctrine and hardware, cut the bloat out of their armed forces (the military budget consumes 15-25% of the Soviet gross national product), and manage the threat through an aggressive program of arms control.28 The most pessimistic view concludes that arms control is for the Soviet Union a continuation of war by other means,
Arms control cooperation on the nuclear version of SLCMs has two problems—verification and modernization.
Simply put, it is impossible to tell the difference between the nuclear and the conventional versions of SLCM. To do so would involve a verification scheme so intrusive that neither the Soviet Union nor the United States would wish to accept it.
The other problem, modernization within NATO, dates back to the Montebello Decision of 1983, in which NATO resolved unilaterally to withdraw 1,400 nuclear warheads from inventory and maintain the credibility of its remaining nuclear deterrent with an ongoing program of modernization. After the signing of the INF Treaty, the NATO modernization program evolved into one that met the restrictions of the treaty, but at the same time attempted to fill the tactical missile gap. This called for modernizing the multiple rocket launcher system and the follow- on to Lance, a single-warhead nuclear missile, not yet in production, that has a range of just less than 500 kilometers. Since intermediate-range nuclear missiles began to be withdrawn from Europe, the modernization debate within NATO has become heated. Belgium and the Federal Republic of Germany recently expressed severe concerns about the follow-on to the Lance missile and declared themselves favorable to a third zero in the cadre of INF—that is, elimination of all short-range nuclear weapon systems (ranges less than 500 kilometers) from the continent of Europe.
During the NATO summit of 29-30 May 1989, President George Bush proposed linking any negotiation on the future of short-range nuclear weapons to progress in the Conventional Armed Forces Europe talks currently under way in Vienna.
This proposal was well received by the allies. The Soviets have since accepted Bush’s proposal in principle, although during his recent speech before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, Gorbachev once again called for an immediate denuclearization of Europe.
The recent events in Eastern Europe and the general perception of a declining Soviet threat increase the possibility that the debate concerning the modernization or denuclearization of NATO arsenals will be revived soon. There is a real danger that the NATO alliance could split over this issue. The decision whether to modernize will certainly affect the decision whether to negotiate on the fu
ture of nuclear SLCMs. If the credibility of the Flexible Response Strategy cannot be maintained with an inventory of limited nuclear options ashore, then that mission will be relegated to the Navy and the Tomahawk nuclear land-attack missile will be an important part of it.
► Doubts about Naval Confidence-building Measures: A recent Armament and Disarmament Information Unit report points to two previous international accords involving information exchange and naval confidence-building measures as models for future agreements between naval powers. These accords are the multilateral Montreux Convention of 1936, still in force, and the Incidents at Sea Agreement, signed by the United States and Soviet Union in 1972.
These treaties are not exactly models. The Soviets have been able to find holes in the Montreux Convention. Soviet Admiral Mikhail N. Khrono- pulo, Commander of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, was asked if the construction of the new aircraft carrier Tbilisi would pose any problem to Soviet compliance with the Montreux Convention, which restricts aircraft carriers from entering the Straits of the Dardanelles in the Black
that negotiating proposals are merely diversions, while the real battle is won or lost on political points and strategic position.
That bleak picture is probably overdrawn. The radical shake-up of Soviet thinking does indeed offer the free world exciting opportunities to shed some of the tiresome burden of waging Cold War, and the outbreak of World War III seems a comfortably remote possibility.29 Nevertheless, while the window dressing of Gorbachev’s program may be enlightened, underneath there remains the long-standing Soviet goal of tilting the correlation of forces in its own favor.
As master of a one-party authoritarian regime, Gorbachev enjoys relative freedom of maneuver on the diplomatic field; NATO, however, is hobbled by the need to achieve a consensus among its 16 disparate and politicized members. Gorbachev has built an image, seized upon by Western public opinion, as an imaginative, progressive force for peace; and he is able to use his acute understanding of the mechanics of modern democratic politics to exert pressure on Western governments.
Through naval arms control, that pressure has taken the form of oblique extortion. For example, by scrapping worn-out and redundant weapon systems (e.g. Romeo- class conventional submarines and Skoryy-, Kotlin-, and Kanin-class destroyers), Moscow clears out dead wood and streamlines its navy while claiming credit for generous unilateral military reductions.30 But “although the announced reduction has been portrayed as a unilateral measure having no connection with current arms negotiations, the most recent Soviet statements frequently tie it directly or indirectly to demands or expectations that the
Sea. He replied that there would be no problem whatsoever, since the Tbilisi was not an aircraft carrier, but a large cruiser instead.7 And while it is true that the Incidents at Sea Agreement—intended to prevent the collision or the inadvertent outbreak of hostilities between U.S. and Soviet warships—has reduced the number of “reported” ■ncidents at sea between the United States and the Soviet Union, the record of Soviet compliance is not ideal. Soviet mtelligence vessels continued to harass U.S. Navy warships entering or exiting port, prompting President Ronald Reagan to pass a law extending U.S. territorial teas from 3 to 12 miles.
Furthermore, the Incidents at Sea Agreement did not prevent the Soviets from creating an international incident in the Black Sea on 13 February 1988. While exercising the right to innocent Passage through waters near Sevastopol, guaranteed by the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, the USS Yorktown (CG-48) was rammed by a Soviet frigate.8 No international agreement could have prevented this incident. Regardless °f the fact that the U.S. vessels were perfectly within their rights to sail in these waters, the Soviets attempted to exploit this incident as an act of U.S. aggression and a threat to Soviet sovereignty.
If the bumping incident in the Black Sea is any indication of Soviet unwillingness to avoid dangerous confrontation at sea, why then should the United States extend confidence-building measures that would
“include the extension of the provisions for notifications of dangerous actions to mandatory notification of all naval exercises, and reconsideration of a distance formula, which would regulate how closely US and Soviet ships could approach each other which could not be agreed upon in 1972.”9
The U.S. Navy’s and NATO’s principal objection to naval confidence-building measures is that they limit the autonomy of Western naval operations. Furthermore, the fundamental basis of the maritime strategy is the flexible and offensive use of naval forces. Any restrictions on this basic tenet of operations would increase the threat to NATO because the Soviets would no longer have to dedicate a certain portion of their forces to engage U.S. and NATO navies in time of war. [1][2] the Empty Trenches,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1988, p. 15.
3Gorbachev’s first call for a Mediterranean zone of peace was reported in the article: “Soviet Urges Naval Cuts in Mediterranean,” The Washington Post, 16 March 1988, p. A33;
The Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy, Adm. V. Chernavin further elaborated on this proposal during a press conference on 25 April 1988. Adm. Chemavin’s remarks are cited in “Chronology/Summary of Soviet Proposals on Naval Arms Control and Matters Related to Limiting Naval Forces,” a continuously updated chronology compiled by the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel [OP-OOK], Washington, DC, p. 6.
4K. Voigt, “The U.S. Maritime Strategy and Crisis Stability at Sea,” a draft report for NATO delivered before the Military Affairs Committee during the NATO General Assembly in Hamburg, 15 November 1988, p. 44.
5R. O’Rourke, “Nuclear Escalation, Strategic Anti-Submarine Warfare, and the Navy’s Forward Maritime Strategy,” Congressional Research Service Report, No. 87-138F, 27 February 1987; Author’s Interview with O’Rourke, 3 February 1989.
6VAdm. J. Metcalf, USN (Ret.), “The Maritime Strategy in Transition,” a paper delivered to the Conference on Maritime Strategy, Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich, England, 15 February 1989, pp. 7-8.
7Trost, p. 15.
8B.H. Brittin, International Imw of the Sea for Seagoing Officers (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1986), p. 96; NATO Political Affairs Committee, “Special Report on ConfidenceBuilding Measures: Next Steps for Stability and Security,” NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Hamburg, West Germany, November 1988, p. 44.
9G. Gunarsson, Armament and Disarmament Unit Report, July-August 1986, pp. 2-3.
Lieutenant Foggo is the navigator and operations officer in the USS Mariano G. Vallejo (SSBN-658). He recently completed two years at the University of Strasbourg in France, where as an Olmsted Scholar he studied the history and civilization of Europe, as well as political science.
West respond in kind.”31 Meanwhile the Soviets have made it clear that limits on SLCMs will be a prerequisite for reaching a START agreement. Moscow has gone to extraor
dinary lengths—such as inviting Western journalists to make an “intrusive verification” visit to the
guided- missile cruiser Slava—to discredit the objections to such limits.32 And an Izvestia author, writing for the Economist on the subject of European disarmament, enigmatically observes that “the mandate of the Vienna [conventional arms] talks does not include the naval forces in the waters washing Europe, but this fact does not make [these forces] less powerful. They may not be neglected in an assessment of the alignment of forces.”33 One cannot miss the broad hint that the Soviet Union will at some point pressure the West to match any asymmetrical cuts in Soviet land power with corresponding cuts in its own sea power.
In short, the naval arms control genie is not likely to stay in its bottle, and as Rear Admiral James Winnefeld points out, “We need to understand the options, arguments, and counterarguments more fully if we are to protect the Navy, the nation, and the NATO alliance from important potential adverse effects of naval arms control agreements.”34 We also need to shed any illusions about Soviet new thinking. Only then can we build with the Soviet Union an agreement on limiting naval arms that genuinely improves the security of both sides.
Measures in Europe,” Arms Control Today, May 1989, pp. 14-15.
7K. Voight (General Rapporteur), “Draft General Report on Alliance Security,” North Atlantic Assembly, Military Committee, November 1988, p43.
'F. Bomsdorf, “The Soviet Union’s Nordic Initiative,” Aussenpolitik (English Edition), January 1989. “Akhromeyev Urges Naval Force Reductions,” Pravda, 5 September 1988. (English translation in FBIS-S0V-88-172, p. 6.)
I0R. Legvold, “The Revolution in Soviet Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 68, No. 1 (1988/89).
‘Quoted in “Kennan Tells Congress USSR Undergoing Fundamental Changes,” Arms Control Today, May 1989, p. 25.
12ZRD West German Television network poll, 23 June 1989.
13Capt. G. O’Rourke, USN (Ret.), “Our Peaceful Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1989, p. 79.
14E. Schmahling, “Seestreitkrafte und Rtts- tungsbeschrankung,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 8/89, 17 February 1989, p. 36.
15RAdm. J.R. Hill, RN (Ret.), Arms Control At Sea (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989), pp. 8-9.
16See Cdr. C.W. Mayer, Jr., USN, “Looking Backwards into the Future of the Maritime Strategy,” Naval War College Review, Winter 1989, pp. 33-46.
17F. Bomsdorf, p. 59.
l8Capt. L.F. Brooks, USN, and F.C. Miller, “Nuclear Weapons at Sea,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1988, p. 42.
l9For a succinct statement of the case against tactical nuclear weapons see J. Mendelsohn, “Logic Defuses Tactical Nukes,” Defense News, 26 June 1989, p. 32.
°For a clear discussion of the INF issue and asymmetrical strategies see Cdr. G. Rhys-Jones, RN,[3] ‘Greeks Bearing Gifts: Impact of the INF Treaty on European Security,” Naval War College Review, Winter 1989, pp. 56-65.
C.N. Donnelly, “Heirs of Clausewitz: Change and Continuity in the Soviet War Machine, Institute for European Defense and Strategic Studies, Occasional Paper No. 16, 1985, p. 29.
22For discussions on the INF Treaty’s effect on European security see Rhys-Jones; see also J. Record and D.B. Rivkin, Jr., “Defending Post-INF Europe,” Foreign Affairs, Spring 1988.
“See J.R. Hill, Chapter 13.
24 Akhromeyev.
“Quoted in Department of the Navy Report to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1988 (Arlington: Navy Internal Relations Activity, 1988), p. 11.
26“U.S. Policy in the High North,” policy paper issued by the U.S. Delegation to NATO, 25 February 1988.
27J.R. Hill, p. 163.
2&The Military Balance, 1988—1989 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies), p. 32.
29For a cautiously optimistic view of perestroika's prospect of burying the Cold War hatchet, see R. Mandelbaum, “Ending the Cold War,” Foreign Affairs, Spring 1989, pp. 16-36.
30RAdm. T.A. Brooks, USN, Statement Before the Seapower, Strategic, and Critical Materials Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee on Intelligence Issues,” 22 February 1989.
3iA. Krakau and O. Diehl, “The Unilateral Reduction in Conventional Arms by the USSR,” Aussenpolitik (English edition), February 1989, p. 125.
32R.J. Smith, “Glasnost at Sea: U.S. Visitors Get to Look at a Soviet Missile Cruiser,” International Herald Tribune, 7 July 1989, p. 1.
33S. Kondrashov, “The View from Moscow,” Economist (European Edition), 13 May 1989, p. 21.
"RAdm. J.A. Winnefeld, USN (Ret), “Avoiding the Conventional Arms Control Bottle,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1989, p. 32.
Lieutenant Golightly was selected as an Olmsted Scholar and is currently attending the University of Konstanz in West Germany. He has served as a flight instructor in Training Squadron 25, and as landing signal officer, line division officer, NATOPS officer, and assistant operations officer in Fighter Squadron 14. Lieutenant Golightly was the winner of the Naval Institute’s 1990 Arleigh Burke Essay Contest. The author would like to thank the following individuals for their support and assistance in preparing this article: Rear Admiral J. Winnefeld, USN (Ret.), RAND Corporation; Captain P. Swartz, USN, U.S. Mission, NATO; Commander J. Tritten, USN, Naval Postgraduate School; Professor M. Kreile, University of Konstanz. None bear any responsibility for the arguments expressed herein.
‘Quote attributed to W. Churchill.
[2]Adm. C.A.H. Trost, USN, “The Morning of
'Although this article has confined itself to NATO’s arena, many of the issues addressed in it clearly apply in the Pacific and other theaters.
2One of the most comprehensive critiques of the maritime strategy is J. Mear- sheimer’s ‘‘A Strategic Misstep: The Maritime Strategy and Deterrence in Europe,” International Security, Fall 1986.
3D. Oberdorfer and A. Kamen, “Gorbachev Accepts Troop Cuts; Progress Made in Arms Talks,” The Washington Post, 10 February 1990, p. 1.
4VAdm. C.R. Larson, USN, “Statement Before the Seapower Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee on Naval Arms Control,” 26 April 1989. 5R.J. Smith, International Herald Tribune, 7 December 1989, p. 1.
J. Borawski, “From Stockholm to Vienna: Confidence- and Security-Building