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Armed forces have always been one of the effective means of state policy. In our day, proof of this is evident at every step. For example, the U. S. attempts immediately after the end of the Second World War to take upon itself the mission of "representing” the interests of all mankind, while having a monopoly at that time on nuclear weapons, is still fresh in everyone’s minds. Thus, in one of his speeches, U. S. President Truman asserted that "The U. S. today is the strongest power. . . . While possessing this power we must assume the responsibility for the leadership of the
The author hopes that this African sentry and all of his countrymen will welcome this call by a Soviet combatant as a neighborly display of Russian technology, friendship, and resolution to thwart U. S. imperialism. Conversely, a visit by a U. S. warship should be regarded as saber-rattling.
world.”1 American policy and strategy, in aiming at one goal—the achievement of rule over the entire world by American monopolistic capital—at that time reduced its own entire state policy and diplomacy to a nuclear policy and diplomacy. The creation and testing of nuclear weapons in our country was the sole factor which forced the latter-day pretenders to world supremacy to restrain their aggressive zeal.
As a result of the intensive efforts of the Soviet people and of Soviet scientists in creating their own nuclear weaponry, in the early 1950s the American nuclear monopoly was dashed, the world Socialist system received its own shield, and the imperialist powers lost the material basis for conducting a policy of nu-
1 Yu. N. Listvinov. Pertyy udar. (Nekotoroyye tendentsii razvitii amerikamkikh kontseptsiy ”total’noy cily”) (First Strike) (Some Trends in the Development of American Concepts of "Total Power”) International Relations Publishing House, 1971, p. 12.
58 U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 1974
clear blackmail, the "from a position of strength” policy vis a vis the Socialist countries.
The U. S. pretensions to world supremacy were not curtailed even after the loss of the monopoly on nuclear weapons. The longing for world domination has been rather openly proclaimed by the idealogues of American imperialism; they have mainly counted on nuclear weapons, aviation, and later also on the Navy. The journal "Military Review,” for example, noted: "Nuclear power plus naval superiority gives our country such a freedom of action that it could easily implement its God given right to lead the whole world.”[1] An active proponent of the establishment of U. S. world supremacy is Colonel George C. Reinhardt, U.S.A. (Ret.) who, in stressing in his book "American Strategy in the Nuclear Age” that nuclear weapons are the key to the establishment of world supremacy, wrote: "Technology, in making the world smaller, is for the first time in history creating conditions which permit effective rule over the entire world by a single government.”[2]
However, the U.S.S.R. and the other Socialist countries have stood as an immovable force in the path of these aspirations of American imperialism. And the fact that, despite all threats to destroy Communism, imperialism has not decided to unleash a new world war is explained primarily by the enormous growth of the might of the U.S.S.R., which has altered the relative strength of the forces in the world arena. This serves as convincing proof of the fact that only the vast economic and defensive might, the unprecedented political unity of the Soviet people, and their devotion to the ideals of the Communist Party have a sobering effect on the aggressively oriented circles of the imperialist camp, which has not given up its shameful ideas of crushing the countries of the Socialist community, and above all the U.S.S.R.
The leaders of the U.S.A. themselves have been forced to recognize this situation. Thus, as early as 1959 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee noted in its report that the end of the American nuclear monopoly and the growth of the strategic capabilities of the Soviet Union have increased the difficulties associated with supporting a military posture necessary to achieve established American goals.[3] This awareness by bourgeois figures means a great deal, especially if you consider that the imperialists provide acknowledgement of one achievement or another of the Socialist
countries only when life itself forces them to do so.
The economic might and defensive strength of the Soviet Union ensures the security of all the countries of the Socialist community and is altering the fundamental form of the relationship of forces in the world arena in favor of revolutionary progress and universal peace. This was stressed with the utmost force at the 1969 meeting of Communist and workers’ parties by representatives of many fraternal countries.
Among the main means supporting the high defensive capability of the Motherland we must cite above all the Strategic Rocket Troops and the Navy, which incorporates as many means of armed combat as practical of those which the other branches of the armed forces have at their disposal. The Air Force, the Ground Forces, and the other branches of our glorious Armed Forces, which we shall not examine here since our main attention is being devoted to the Navy, to a great degree are an instrument of deterrence to the aggressive acts of the imperialists.
Policy, as V. I. Lenin taught, is a concentrated expression of the economy, whose condition determines the power of that most important weapon of policy, the armed forces of a country, whose condition is a reflection of the economic might of the state. A navy is a graphic indicator of the level of development of a country’s economy.
"A modern warship is not merely a product of major industry, but at the same time is a sample of it . . . ,” F. Engels pointed out. "The country with the more developed major industry enjoys almost a monopoly on the construction of these ships . . . Political power at sea, based on modern warships, is not at all wielded 'directly,’ but just the opposite, it is exerted indirectly through economic strength.”[4] This thesis remains true even today. With further development, the Navy, as well as the other branches of the armed forces, ever increasingly is embodying the latest achievements of science, technology, and production.
Actually a high level of development in all sectors of industry and science is needed to build a modern warship. As a rule, several hundred industrial enterprises take part in the construction of a combatant. Only a state with a well developed economy is capable of creating a Navy as a whole, with an inventory sufficient to carry out the missions with which it is charged and with all the support means necessary for its normal functioning.
The long periods of construction of the main ship types (in comparison with other branches of armed forces) and the relatively short service life, due to rapid
5F. Engels. Izbrannyye voyennyye proizvedeniye (Selected Military Works), Voyenizdat, 1957, pp. 17-18.
Navies in War and in Peace 59
obsolescence, make especially great demands on science, which determines the path of naval construction, anticipating it by years or even decades. This is why throughout the course of history the navy, to a greater degree than the other branches of the armed forces, by concentrating in itself the latest achievements of science and technology, has reflected the level of economic and scientific-technical development of a state. This thesis permits the navy to be regarded as a unique indicator of the development and economic might of a country, and as one of the factors of its ability to firmly hold a definite place among the other powers.
Owing to the high mobility and endurance of its combatants, the Navy possesses the capability to vividly demonstrate the economic and military might of a country beyond its borders during peacetime. This quality is normally used by the political leadership of the imperialist states to show their readiness for decisive actions, to deter or suppress the intentions of potential enemies, as well as to support "friendly states.”
It should be noted that the arsenal of instruments of such demonstrations is constantly being expanded. In recent years, as is well known, this has included displays of missile weaponry, combat aircraft, and diverse military equipment conducted on an international scale. Such propagandists measures by the imperialist states are aimed at a clearly evident goal: to surprise probable enemies with the perfection of the equipment being exhibited, to affect their morale, to intimidate them right up to the outbreak of war, and to suggest to them in advance the hopelessness of fighting the aggressor. However, this far from always leads to the desired goal, primarily because all countries demonstrating the means for waging war appear only as a potential threat to peoples.
In contrast to the displays of missile weaponry, combat aircraft, and military equipment, warships of the imperialist powers which appear directly oft foreign shores represent a real threat of immediate operations. And whereas in the past, the threat was rather great in scale when its dimensions were characterized by the firing range of smoothbore guns, and later by rifled shipboard guns, today it has grown even further, since today’s combatants carry not only guns, but also nuclear-missile weaponry and aircraft, whose operating ranges can cover the entire territory of a foreign state. Therefore, the capability of navies to suddenly appear close to the shores of different countries and immediately proceed to carry out their assigned missions has been used for ages by various aggressive states as an important weapon of diplomacy and policy in peacetime, which in many cases has permitted the achievement of political goals without resorting to military operations by merely threatening to initiate them.
Consequently, the role of a navy is not limited to the execution of important missions in armed combat. While representing a formidable force in war, it has always been an instrument of policy of the imperialist states and an important support for diplomacy in peacetime owing to its inherent qualities which permit it to a greater degree than other branches of the armed forces to exert pressure on potential enemies without the direct employment of weaponry.
And today the imperialists are striving to use the quality of navies, such as the capability of making a visible demonstration of force, to put political pressure on other states and to support the diplomatic moves of one’s own country in order to threaten potential enemies.
Many examples are known when the presence alone of a powerful navy in one area or another has permitted the achievement of political goals.
As early as the 17th century it was believed among the major sea powers that a fleet was capable of threatening a potential aggressor by the very fact of its existence and by its readiness for immediate and decisive actions. This thesis was recognized by all capitalist powers and, essentially, transformed navies into a diplomatic threat and deterrent force, and raised naval construction to the level of one of the most important problems of the political and ideological struggle in the international arena. For example, England took economic, military, diplomatic, and propagandists measures in order to ensure the primacy of her Navy over the navies of other states. This permitted her to create the strongest navy of that day which supported Britannia’s unpunished seizure and plundering of colonies, her enrichment by imperialistic robbery, and the acceleration of her rate of industrialization. A vivid characterization of the fact that England’s policy was supported by the power of the Navy was the credo of her bourgeoisie: "God and the Navy—the two foundations of the wealth, security, and greatness of Britannia.” As for the first foundation, God, his significance was more evident to the British; however, the Navy actually played the main role in achieving the goals of British policy, not only in wars, but also in peacetime, and it fostered the transformation of England into the greatest colonial power.
Navies also made it possible for other imperialist states to extend their supremacy to new areas and to maintain colonial rule in them. So-called "Gunboat diplomacy” arose in accordance with these aims, when the naval forces of the imperialist countries, in moving along the seacoast and penetrating up rivers into the depth of the area being colonialized, put down the freedom movement of the oppressed peoples and aided in plundering them.
The diplomatic significance of navies in peacetime is confirmed by many examples from the history of maritime states, including also Russia. Thus, evidence of the influence of the Navy on the growth of the international weight of Russia during the lifetime of Peter I is the report of the French ambassador to his king in which he said: "Russia, who has never had much of a name, now has become an object of attention of a majority of the European powers which are seeking her friendship, either being afraid of her hostile attitude toward their interests, or hoping to gain from an alliance with her.”[5] The French ambassador explained the main cause of these changes was that many "had already seen how he (Peter I) had crossed the Baltic Sea with these ships and was able in a very short time to transport a significant army to conquer his neighbors.” [6]
The use of the Russian Navy in peacetime as a political instrument is of no little interest. Thus, in 1780, Russia, owing to the growing might of her Navy, emerged as the initiator of a declaration on freedom of neutral maritime commerce. All of the main sea powers joined in it (except for England) which fostered the development of world sea trade and was a blow to England’s unfounded pretensions to her sole right to conduct sea trade and to ship only in English bottoms.
In 1863, the international situation was fraught with the possibility of war between Russia and England and France due to the so-called "Polish question.” In the same period relations worsened between the U.S.A. and England, leading to armed conflict against ocean communications. Under these conditions, Russia felt it expedient, not expecting the outbreak of military actions, to move her squadrons to the trade routes to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to put pressure on her enemies in order to obtain a peaceful solution to the conflict which had arisen. Admiral Lesovskiy’s ships secretly crossed the Atlantic and put into New York harbor. At the same time, Admiral Popov’s squadron appeared off the Pacific coast of America. The surprise arrival in U. S. ports of two Russian squadrons capable of cutting the vitally important oceanic communications of the English and French made a strong impression on the leaders of England and France and forced them to change their political position.
The special significance of navies to states as an instrument of policy in peacetime is confirmed by a series of acts regulating international relations. Thus, under the Treaty of Paris of 1856, which concluded
the Crimean War, Russia was prevented from having a fleet in the Black Sea. And only in 1871 did Russian diplomacy succeed in achieving the lifting of the humiliating restrictions on the sovereign rights of the Russian state. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902 specially stipulated the need to retain a combined fleet in the Pacific Ocean exceeding Russia’s Fleet there. In discussing the draft of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty in August 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan tried to include in it a demand to limit the composition of the Russian Fleet in the Pacific. However, the demand was not met because England, France, the U.S.A. and other countries were afraid of the excessive strength of Japan.
The important diplomatic significance of navies is also attested to by the fact that in the peace treaties concluded after World War I and World War II special attention was devoted to limiting the naval forces of the defeated states (the characteristic earmark of the treaties was the requirement to completely destroy submarines and the unconditional prohibition against these countries building or acquiring them). Moreover, the victors deprived the vanquished of the fleets remaining after the war. Thus, in the Berlin Conference (July- August 1945) the three great powers, the U.S.S.R., U.S.A., and Great Britain, determined the procedure for dividing up the Navy of Fascist Germany. They divided all of her surface ships (including those under construction and being repaired) equally among themselves, and destroyed the submarines (except for 30 submarines which also were divided equally). In addition to the warships, all of the stores of the German Navy were turned over to the conquering countries.
The division of the Japanese Navy took place according to the same principle after her capitulation.
The special role of navies in the policy of the major imperialist states is also attested to by the repeated attempts in the period 1922-1935 to limit and regulate the construction of warships, undertaken at specially convened international conferences. True, they fulfilled only a delaying function in the naval construction of the largest states and then only up to the mid-1930s (thereafter the naval arms race proceeded without any sort of limitations.) It is interesting that no such attempts were undertaken until our day with respect to the other branches of the armed forces. Even today, when the arms limitation talks have become a reality and ways of solving this problem have been defined, arms control is still only being extended to strategic missiles, including also those belonging to the navies.
The role of navies as an instrument of policy of states is also evident when examining the events which led to the weakening of England who, for a long time, was the leader of the capitalist world. We would note
Navies in War and in Peace 61
that her ally—the U.S.A.—has evicted England from the throne of "Mistress of the Seas.” In this connection, the Americans succeeded without a war in achieving what Germany could not achieve in two world wars.
The weakening of England began as early as the First World War and became evident immediately after its completion, when the "Mistress of the Seas” was forced to drop the "Two Power Standard” and to agree to an equality of forces between her own and the American Navy.[7] In the course of World War II, the decline of England as a great sea power accelerated, which was due to the effect of the law of the nonuniformity of development of capitalist countries and also to the revolutionary and national freedom movements embracing the entire world. One manifestation of this law is the change in the power of navies. The fact of the matter is that the U. S. Navy operated not only against the navies of the Hitler coalition, it also simultaneously ousted the navy of its old imperialist competitor from the oceans. The U.S.A. followed this policy over a long period of time, but especially in the second half of World War II and after its completion. The Americans succeeded in ousting the British from the ocean areas contiguous to the American continent, and in liquidating her former power in the Western hemisphere, in the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean, in the Far East, and in the Pacific Ocean basin.
As a result of British payments to the Americans for the aid rendered them in World War II, the entire gold reserves of England migrated across the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, in the most difficult period of the war the U.S.A. posed the question to England about the withdrawal of her fleet to American bases in case of the threat of capture of the ships by the Germans. Along with this, the U.S.A., taking advantage of the inaccessibility of her territory to attacks by the enemy and her economic might, furiously expanded naval construction. As a result, the American Navy was twice as strong as the British Navy after the end of World War II.
The growth of naval forces has permitted the Americans to expand widely in countries overseas, including also in the colonies of the British empire. The U.S.A., and not England, became the center of a system of postwar aggressive blocs. In this case, it is the American Navy which is the element binding these blocs together. The role of suppressor of the national freedom movement of peoples who are freeing themselves of the colonialist yoke finally was transferred from
England to the U.S.A. Not the British, but the U.S. Sixth Fleet is today constantly in the Mediterranean Sea, the traditional region of the former supremacy of Great Britain.
This was one aspect of the role of naval forces in the policy of bourgeois states which was clearly manifested in the course of World War II and after its end. It is evident that, in addition to the economic potential, the naval forces played a significant role in advancing the U.S.A. among the leaders of imperialism. The conditions which arose during the war and a powerful economy permitted the Americans to direct their main efforts toward the development of their Navy and to build tens of thousands of various warships during the war. By the end of the war, with respect to number, the main ship types of the U. S. Navy were equal to the navies of all of the other capitalist states taken together. The U. S. Navy also exceeded the navies of the other imperialist powers with respect to quality. In 1945, this was the most modern Navy in whose inventory more than 75% of the warships of the main types were less than five years old.[8]
American naval leaders have strived to convince world opinion that under peacetime conditions and in a possible future war, the U. S. Navy will remain the main power. At the same time U. S. ruling circles are widely using the Navy as an instrument of imperialist policy. It is precisely for this purpose that the American Sixth Fleet, which is constantly in the Mediterranean Sea, far from its home shores, is putting political pressure on the Mediterranean states. By its presence it is supporting a reaction in the struggle against progressive democratic forces on Cyprus, in Italy and Greece, and against the national freedom movement of the Arab peoples, is inspiring the aggressive actions of Israel, the henchman of the American monopolies in the Near East; and is supporting economic expansion in a series of states of Europe, Africa, and Asia.
The U. S. Seventh Fleet, which is in the waters of Southeast Asia, is an instrument of American policy in the struggle against the national freedom movement, democracy, and progress in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. This Fleet, the leading grouping of the imperialist armed forces, has repeatedly acted as the instrument for unleashing wars in this area of the world, including also the barbaric war against the progressive forces of the young states of Indochina.
It would be difficult to find an area on our planet where U. S. leaders have not used their pet instrument of foreign policy—the Navy—against the progressive forces of the peoples of various countries. It imple-
9Potapov, I. N. Razvitiye voyenno-morskikh flotov v poslevoyennyy period (The Development of Navies in the Postwar Period), Voyenizdat, 1971, p. 24.
merited a blockade of revolutionary Cuba, landed counterrevolutionary bands on its territory, put down the democratic movement in the Dominican Republic, etc.
Like the U. S. politicians, the British imperialists, using their Navy, have taken reprisals against the inhabitants of the British Isles who are trying to free themselves from the colonial yoke, and also have supported reactionary regimes on the coast and islands of the Persian Gulf.
After the war, the U.S.A. became the organizer of a system of military alliances of the imperialist states. The American Navy, as the most powerful in the imperialist camp, is the most important element cementing this system together. It is also being used in pacts to pressure its own allied partners who have relatively weak forces at sea. In this connection, not only direct pressure is used but also a unique flattering bribery. Thus, each time tension rises due to interimperialist contradictions within the military alliances, U. S. politicians advance plans to create various groupings, so called "combined forces,” thereby trying to impart a semblance of equality among the pact members. For example, in 1962, Secretary of State Dean Rusk proposed creating "multinational naval nuclear forces.” Later it was proposed to organize a surface nuclear fleet of 25 ships with crews consisting of mem-
bers of the pact countries. However, the U.S.A. was unable to go any further than the creation of a symbolic Atlantic squadron of three to five ASW ships of different NATO-member countries. Later, they widely used their own fleet to put political pressure on the participants of the military alliances who displayed "centrifugal” intentions.
Times are changing and the methods of employing the navies of capitalist states as an instrument of policy in peacetime are also changing. Thus, in the postwar years in the antagonistic struggle between systems, the leading circles of imperialistic countries are resorting to more and more refined methods of demonstrating force, not stopping even short of crimes against mankind in order to retain or restore their supremacy over the peoples of former colonies and countries who had extricated themselves from the vice of capitalist exploitation.
Demonstrations of naval force by the leading capitalist sea powers have been employed more than once to put pressure on the Soviet Union and the countries of the Socialist community. The U. S. Navy has especially distinguished itself by special activity in these operations. In the initial postwar years, it was handed the role of a connecting link in a chain of bridgeheads and military bases created by American imperialists around the perimeter of the borders of our country. The American Navy with its attack groups of nuclear forces was supposed to fill in the gaps of this "ring of fire” from the direction of the sea. The aggressive, openly anti-Soviet trend of deployment of the naval forces and the formation from them of various types of NATO strike forces, carrier strike forces, and later also squadrons of nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines, were employed for numerous threats to our country in the speeches of military leaders, served as an instrument of nuclear blackmail, and were the foundation of their military doctrines. It was precisely for this purpose that the patrols of the nuclear-powered submarines in different areas of the World Ocean were widely advertised, demonstrative operations by aircraft carriers in seas contiguous to our country were undertaken, systematic overflights of our combatants and auxiliaries were carried out by aircraft, and demonstration visits were made by American ships in the Black, Baltic, and Japanese Seas. Up until the signing in 1972 of the Soviet-American Incidents at Sea Treaty, there were numerous attempts at provocative clashes by American and British ships with our ships, etc. All of these actions received definite opposition on the part of the U.S.S.R. and the other Socialist countries and did not achieve those goals at which the organizers and executers were aiming; they merely exposed their initiators.
Navies in War and in Peace 63
The Soviet Armed Forces, including also the Navy, have emerged as one of the instruments of U.S.S.R. policy. However, the goals and methods of employing them in this capacity in the international arena differs fundamentally from the goals and methods of the political employment of the armed forces of the imperialist powers in peacetime. The Soviet Army and Navy are the instrument of a policy of peace and friendship of peoples, a deterrent to military adventurists, and a resolute opposition to the threats to the security of peace-loving peoples on the part of imperialist powers.
In realistically appraising the growing threat to the security of our country, the CPSU Central Committee and the Soviet government have seen that the way out of the situation which has been created lies in opposing the forces of aggression on the World Ocean with strategic defensive counterforces whose foundation is made up of the Strategic Missile Forces and an oceangoing Navy.
The creation at the will of the Party of a new Soviet Navy and its emergence onto the ocean expanses have fundamentally altered the relative strength of forces and the situation in this sphere of contention. In the person of our modern Navy, the Soviet Armed Forces have acquired a powerful means of defense in the oceanic areas, a formidable force for the deterrence of aggression, which is constantly ready to deliver punishing retaliatory blows and to disrupt the plans of the imperialists. And the Navy, along with the other branches of the Soviet Armed Forces, is successfully fulfilling its main mission—the defense of the country from attacks by aggressors from the direction of the ocean. The warships of our Navy are a threat to no one, but they are always ready to decisively repulse any aggressor who dares to infringe upon the security of the Motherland.
Thus, the inspirers of the arms race and of the preparation for a new world war, in counting on speeding up the development of their own naval forces and the creation of new problems which are difficult for the defense of the Soviet Union to resolve, have themselves been faced with even more complex problems with the strengthening of our Navy on the oceans. The former inaccessibility of the continents, which permitted them in the past to count on impunity for aggression, has now become ancient history.
But there is still another side to the question.
With the emergence of the Soviet Navy onto the ocean expanses, our warships are calling with continually greater frequency at foreign ports, fulfilling the role of "plenipotentiaries” of the Socialist countries. In the last three years alone, some 1,000 Soviet combatants and auxiliaries have visited the ports of 60 countries
in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. More than 200,000 of our officers and rated and nonrated men have visited the shores of foreign states.
All of these calls are visits of the most representative delegations of Soviet people. Indeed, aboard every combatant and auxiliary serve men of various professions—workers, collective farmers, and engineers. All of them are representatives of different oblasti and rayony of the country, of different republics, of different nationalities—Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Belorussians, Azerbaydzhanians, Georgians, Armenians, Jews, Tatars, Latvians, Estonians, and other equal members of the friendly family of peoples of our multinationality Motherland.
The friendly visits of Soviet navymen make it possible for the peoples of many countries to become convinced with their own eyes of the creativity of the ideas of Communism, and of the genuine equality of all nationalities in the Soviet state, and to gain a concept of the level of development and culture of representatives of the most varied regions of our immense Motherland. They see warships embodying the achievements of Soviet science, technology, and industry, and establish friendly contacts with representatives of the most diverse strata of population of our country. Soviet navymen, from admirals down to seamen, are bearing the truth about the first Socialist country in the world, about Communist ideology and culture, and about the Soviet way of life to the masses of peoples of other states. They are clearly and convincingly spreading the ideas of the Leninist peaceloving policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet government through many countries of the world. It is impossible to overestimate the significance of this ideological influence.
In turn, Soviet navymen, in visiting the ports of various states, are also seeing for themselves the achievements of the peoples of countries who are friendly to us and who have won the right to govern their own fate, and to see the results of centuries of rule by the colonializers, and the social contrasts of capitalist society, which bourgeois propaganda so thoroughly conceals.
Official visits and business calls of the warships of the Navy are making a significant contribution to improving mutual relations between states and peoples and to strengthening the international influence of the Soviet Union. This is convincingly confirmed by numerous examples of the display of warm feelings toward the country of Soviets by the inhabitants of those cities and countries which our navymen visit. Many official representatives of these countries warmly recall the visits of our ships. The statement by the Foreign Minister of Southern Yemen is characteristic of this: "For the first time in history, ships of a friendly country
have visited our country. In the past many warships have arrived in Aden, but they did not carry the banner of friendship, but threats, force, and enslavement.”[9] The major OKEAN exercises conducted in April and May 1970 were completed with the calling of its ships at more than ten foreign ports of the different continents of the world. Normally, after major exercises, the forces participating in them are inspected. However, due to the global scale of these naval exercises, it was impossible to conduct such an inspection. Therefore the calls of Soviet ships at foreign ports was not only a unique inspection of the Soviet naval forces, but also a demonstration of the defensive might of the great Soviet power who is standing guard over the peace and security of peoples, fostering the strengthening of friendship with peoples of other countries, and the development of international ties between the Soviet Union and developing sovereign states. During these visits, Soviet navymen once more demonstrated a high
10Al-Kifah al- Watani, 10 May 1970.
degree of conscientiousness, orderliness, and culture and a deep respect for peoples, for national traits and customs of those countries which they managed to visit.
Soviet diplomatic representatives and officials of various states affirm that our navymen worthily represented their people abroad and, as always, greatly fostered the growth of sympathy and friendship toward the Soviet Union and its highly humanistic ideals. Thus, on 10 January 1969 the newspaper Afro-American wrote: "The Kenyans were surprised by the fact that the Soviet navymen, in contrast to the navymen of the American and British navies, did not leave the slightest trace of chaos behind them in port. . . Soviet navymen are so serious and conduct themselves in such a manner that it seems as though these men are from another planet.”
From what has been said it quite clearly follows that navies, being one branch of the armed forces and the instrument of armed combat at sea, therefore, have played and are playing the role of an instrument of state policy in peacetime.
Commentary
Admiral McDonald graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy in 1928 and became a naval aviator in 1931. His early service included duty in the battleships Mississippi and Colorado, in an air squadron on board the Saratoga, and with the aviation unit of the cruiser Detroit. Service with the Navy Rifle Team at the National Matches, and later as an instructor at NAS Pensacola was followed by a tour from 1938 to 1941 with PatRon 42 at Seattle and later in the Aleutian Islands. When the U. S. entered World War II, he was flag secretary to ComAirLant and then, from 1942 to 1944, he served as flight training officer at Jacksonville. During the latter part of the war he was operations officer, then XO of the Essex and, later, operations officer for ComAirPacFlt. After a tour in BuAcr and as aide to the AsstSecNav (Air) and later, to the Under Secretary of the Navy, he commanded the carrier Mindoro. A tour as ACof S (Operations) at CinCPacFlt preceded command of the Coral Sea. Tours at the Office of CNO and at SHAPE were followed by command of CarDivSix. In 1961, Admiral McDonald became Commander Sixth Fleet. In April 1963 he became CinCNavEur and CinCNELM; in August of that year he became the CNO.
By Admiral D. L. McDonald, U. S. Navy (Retired)
Navies in War and in Peace 65
ral says was intended specifically, if not solely, for Soviet naval officers.
It is not surprising, then, that much of this article, perhaps only slightly paraphrased, could have appeared in our own Navy League’s magazine under the byline of one of their editors, or as a verbatim transcript of the testimony of one of our CNOs before an Armed Services Committee of the Congress.
I agree with Admiral Gorshkov that navies reflect the level of a State’s economic and scientific-technical development to a greater degree than does any other branch of the Armed Services. Yet, it is not necessarily true, as he infers, that a country’s navy is a graphic indicator of the level of development of a country’s economy and, ipso facto, the more modern a country’s navy, the more healthy its economy.
Such a philosophy fails to take into consideration that there are countries—and Americans live in one of them—that are cantankerously unwilling in peacetime to permit their navies to benefit to the maximum extent possible from the country’s economic and technical progress. While there is much to be said for frugality—an authentic American folk hero is the self-made millionaire who still rolls his own cigarettes—playing penny-wise with our defenses in this day and age is like issuing derringers to our police or buckets to our firemen.
No, the good admiral’s argument is specious.
Were he right, the Soviet Navy—which is considerably more up-to-date in certain respects and in some ways more modern on the whole than the U. S. Navy—would reflect a Soviet economy and technology that is superior to the United States. And our friends in the Kremlin who, from time to time, discover an earlier Russian inventor of the light bulb than Edison, or a hitherto unrecorded 13th century Russian circumnavigation, have always stopped short of claiming either economic or technical preeminence.
Still, if I was right earlier in detecting a note of envy in some things the admiral said, I must put that tight fitting shoe on my own foot and confess my envy of his navy’s impressive progress—and my chagrin and sadness at our country’s complacency. Moreover, he has emphasized the unique role of naval power in other than combat situations, and he has stressed its extreme effectiveness in such situations. No countryman of mine in recent years has been able to inculcate these universal truths for Americans with the vigor and singlemindedness of this tenacious Russian admiral.
But, before I say too many nice things about this man who is saying such terrible things about us, I must chide him for applying a double standard. On the one hand, he condemns the imperialistic navies
for displaying naval weaponry, appearing off foreign shores, conducting operations on an international scale, making in-port visits for the purpose of propagandizing their capabilities and putting pressure on their hosts to support diplomatic moves, and exerting pressure on potential enemies without the direct employment of weaponry. Such reprehensible conduct, however, becomes immediately defensible if these activities are carried on by the Soviet Navy. They are then viewed as deterrents to the imperalis- tic military adventurists—a forthright opposition to the threats, by the West, to the security of "peace- loving peoples.”
It would seem, then, as in the moral of the fable of the lawyer, the farmer, and the farmer’s ox, that it does make a great deal of difference whose ox is being gored.
But for all that, there does seem to be a difference between the way Admiral Gorshkov views the peacetime activities of his navy and the way a modern U. S. Chief of Naval Operations might view his.
And it seems to come down, not to where a navy will go and what it will do when it gets there but, rather, to the questions of why and how it will do what it does.
It seems to me—and, I sincerely believe, to most Americans—that the ultimate objective of each of our countries is to expand our respective political and commercial philosophies. We in the United States believe that if others see enough of us and our way of life they will want to adopt our form of political philosophy. Thus, it is our aim to afford peoples of all lands freedom of choice.
The Soviet Union, on the other hand, seems to be so sure that their philosophy is so much better for everyone than any other system that they have no hesitancy in imposing it on any "oppressed peoples,” presumably for the good of those people.
When one stands back from the admiral’s words and thinks only of his deeds—the superb navy he has fashioned ostensibly for the defense of the motherland—it seems very clear that the admiral is a firm believer in the axiom that a good offense is the best defense.
Finally, it is always difficult to determine what the leaders of States—either friendly or unfriendly—have in mind. It is particularly so of those leaders of a closed society whose political philosophy is so different from our own. Just why Admiral Groshkov chose to put so many of his thoughts on paper for distribution we may never know, but nevertheless he has and all of our citizens—especially those in whose hands the guidance of our Navy reposes—would do well to give careful consideration to his words.
[1] Cited in Z. M. Solontsov’s book Diplomaticheskaya bor’ba SSLA za gospodstro na mope (The U S Diplomatic Struggle for Domination of the Sea), Foreign Relations Publishing House, 1962, p. 385.
[2] Yearbook of World Affairs, Washington, 1958, p. 5.
[3] See the book Voyennaya strategy a (Military strategy) edited by Marshal
of the Soviet Union V. D. Sokolovskiy (Voyenizdat, 1968, p. 71).
[5]Cited in Yc. V. Tarlc’s book Sochinentye (Works), Izdvo AN SSSR, 1962, Vol. 12, pp. 184-185.
[6]Yc. V. Tarlc. Russkiy flot i vneshnyaya politika Petra I (The Russian Fleet and the Foreign Policy of Peter I), Voyenizdat, 1949, p. 100.
[7]The 1922 Washington Conference of five powers—the U.S.A., England, Japan, France, and Italy—officially established the ratio of the total tonnage
of the capital ships of these countries as 5:5 :3: 1.75 : 1.75, respectively (htoriya voyenno-monkogo iskusstva [The History of the Naval Art], Voyeniz- dat, 1969, p. 179).
Although Admiral Gorshkov sometimes uses what might be termed "poetic license” in certain of his interpretations of historic events, he does indeed demonstrate a thorough knowledge of history and a great appreciation of the role navies have played throughout the years.
While reading those portions of his article which deal with the historical past and the influence of Western navies thereon, his remarks seemed to me to be tinged with both admiration and envy. He is, in effect, telling his Soviet naval officer readership, "Anything they can do, we can do better, but, of course, in our own humane way.”
As we read this and other articles in this series, we ought to keep the thought of Admiral Gorshkov’s audience clearly in mind. Perhaps he was writing with one eye on the 21st century’s history books; perhaps, too, he chose this forum to speak, however obliquely, to his fellow members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. But these are only speculations. We have been told, and thus we accept the explanation, that what the admi-