The NY Times triggered a stir of reporting, analysis, and sheer speculation on August 5 with “Russian Subs Patrolling Off East Coast of U.S.” The bare facts, confirmed by official spokesmen from both countries are these: An Akula and an Akula II, fast-attack (SSN-type) nuclear powered subs among the very best in the Russian Navy inventory, have been sailing submerged on separate but concurrent long-distance voyages within about 200 nautical miles of the United States East Coast. One is supposed to have proceeded on toward Cuba, a destination highly favored by Soviet sailors for shore leave way back when.
The other sub reportedly is still nearby.
A flood of commentary in print and on-line media rapidly became available since the NY Times broke the news. There’ve been various assertions made about the possible Kremlin agenda(s) behind these deployments — so “rare” since the end of the Cold War — along with prognosticating about the possible significance to America’s 21st century defense posture. My own careful reading of 10 different pieces shows that opinions are varying across the map, literally and figuratively.
The NY Times said these sub patrols “raised concerns inside the Pentagon,” although the U.S. Navy’s Integrated Undersea Surveillance System did detect and track both subs from early on. Neo-Communist Pravda.ru’s sensationalized headline said “Two Russian Nuclear Submarines Make USA Shake With Fear,” which hardly seems to be the case. The Daily Mail (UK) called them “rogue subs,” though it sounds like they’re anything but that. DOD Press Secretary Geoff Morrell emphasized that “it doesn’t pose any threat and it doesn’t cause any concern.” Russia’s deputy chief of general staff, General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, stated “any hysteria in such a case is inappropriate.” He went on to emphasize that “The navy should not stay idle at its moorings” — something with which that great American seapower theorist and practitioner A. T. Mahan would have wholeheartedly agreed. All involved emphasized that the Russian subs’ behavior was fully in compliance with international law.
Even so, as respected naval commentator Norman Polmar points out, it’s been about 15 years since the Russian Navy is known publicly to have been able to and/or wanted to send nuclear subs on missions so far from home. Articles that DefenseTech readers can go read for themselves discuss and interpret possible connections to Russia’s recent greatly stepped-up long range flights of strategic bombers, Russia’s efforts to sell or lease its nuclear subs to foreign nations such as China and India, Russia’s desire to overcome the embarrassment of recent fatal accidents and test failures involving some of its other main naval assets, President Obama’s efforts to reset relations with Russia’s President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, recently tense relations between Russia and NATO for various reasons and political posturing by the Kremlin mainly for domestic consumption.
What I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere yet — and granted, here I’m speculating myself — is the possible connection between the sorties by the Akula and Akula II and Washington’s current and ongoing deliberations about America’s present and future defense spending. During the Cold War, to oversimplify things, President Reagan helped bring down the Soviet Union by fomenting a strategic arms race that the wobbly Soviet economy simply couldn’t afford to keep up with. Nuclear submarine cat-and-mouse operations on each other’s doorsteps, and in deep water, were a crucial part of this non-lethal use of naval force to leverage the soft power of financial competition. Now that America is profoundly challenged by huge conflicting social and defense demands in the midst of persisting recession, is Russia trying to do a bit of the same thing to us? And is this gambit simply part of the jocking for strategic position that’s bound to occur between nations, as relative winners and losers emerge from the Great Recession into whatever geopolitical scenarios play out next? Surely Russia watched with interest the heated controversies during our last presidential campaign, about military power projection versus home front progressiveness.
One way or the other, the tale of two Akulas gives added urgency to programs — approved so far by the House of Representatives, but not yet voted on by the full Senate — to double the annual rate of construction of the world-beating Virginia-class SSN, and begin serious R&D for the next-generation SSBN. What single event might be more persuasive to the U.S. Senate than this clear demonstration that the Russian Submarine Force is making an assertive global comeback?
Personally, I think that if an attempt at putting bigtime financial pressure on America was really ever part of Russia’s intent, then it’s going to have some unintended consequences. Though admittedly fiscally challenged and politically polarized right now, about everything from deficit spending and tax policy to health care and jobs, if we can avoid any outright blunders ours will for the forseeable future remain the strongest economy and military in the world.
– Joe Buff
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Shake with fear? Bwahahahahahahahah.
I was at Ellsworth AFB during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That was a little fearful realizing that we were just a few moments away from launching everything but the kitchen sink and knowing that we’d be ashes in around an hour as retaliatory/first strike Soviet weaponry destroyed a good sized chunk of South Dakota realestate.
Why did someone even tell this to the New York times? Oh no 2 subs are off our coast! They might be able to launch cruise missiles at us at most. These are attack boats. They are just out on a normal peacetime patrol. We have our boats doing the exact same thing near their waters and lets not forget about our surface ships, like the ones off the coast of China. This is routine stuff, even if it hasn’t been done in years by the Russians.
2 Akula class attack boats is about as threatening as a flight of SU-27s are. Both are capable systems but keep the threat in context here. The Russians don’t need to use Attack boats to threaten us when they can fire their missiles, the ones that aren’t the Bulava bottle rockets, from near their own waters.
The essential fact, it seems, IS THAT WE KNEW THEY WERE THERE!
“That was a little fearful realizing that we were just a few moments away from launching everything but the kitchen sink”
That’s what you think! I guess I can talk about it now, it’ll get declassified soon, but I was part of a Top Secret UMBER program to develop a system of last resort to actually launch kitchen sinks at the USSR. Whew, fortunately we dodged that bullet.
200 miles out = outside the Exclusive Economic Zone
Whatever the Russkies have now, their future might not be very bright:
http://www.defencetalk.com/russia-in-talks-on-buying-french-warship-20916/
Jack,
Except for perhaps some Badgers and Bears what did the Sovs have in 61 that would have reached Ellsworth?
The whole point of the IRBMS in Cuba was to threaten North America as their total number of ICBMs was something like 20. I suppose you might have been on the list for a few of these, but as inacurate as they were I expect they would have gone city busting with them.
Any of you squids care to comment on the state of ASW thse days? The article seems to indicate SOSUS is still up, but I’ve heard nothing about it lately.
They may not carry ballistic missiles …BUT they each carry 12 cruise missiles with nuclear warheads and a range of (I believe) 2500 miles. That means thay can cover half the country. Considering our air defense is laughable due to continous reduction of equipment and manpower, I would think this is a wake-up call. I definitely am not denigrating the brave Military involved, they are doing the best they can with what little they have.
I bet the SOSUS guys were awake after this one. No concern; good training.
Good Morning Joe,
I’m not sire what the big deal is here. As you said the Russians have been absent from routine submarine patrols for at least fifteen years. The last numbers I saw the current Russian Federation has maybe a dozen nuclear and equal number of conventional diesel boats that can put to sea. This is hardly enough boats to get back into the 24/7 patrol business even in just one area of the world.
The Russians made no attempt to hide their submarine activity so one has to come to the conclusion that Putin wanted this known and that could only be for domestic consumption.
You speculation on this stunt being a advertisement to China or India for Russian build submarines see kind of a stretch Joe. Both these countries have domestic production of nuclear boats and successful hulls in the water. The Russians meanwhile have a $2 billion contract to build two nuclear boats, Akula Class II, 12K ton Nerpa Class ?,, for a 10 year lease program, an at sea accident, on the first boat has set back the project.
Meanwhile India has put into the water the first of is domestically built with an Indian designed reactor, the Serverodvinsk Class. Not much is know about the indian sub sub it will have vertical launch tubes (same as all US attack subs from the end of the Los Angeles Class onward with a gross tonnage of 4K to 6.5K.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
I can’t believe this is still being discussed. It’s a complete non-story. The Russians have been trying very hard to rebuild their image as a military superpower, and deploying a pair of Akulas to the U.S. cost is just one more way for them to do that. They are trying to get lots of attention on token deployments like these to try to hide the fact that their military, especially their navy, is still in complete shambles.
I wonder how many we have off their coast?…
Russia is a farce and a non threat. They’re trying to recapture their glory days. They were beat 20 years ago and still can’t accept it.
AlexD, Byron, et. al. I agree it’s interesting that this “non-story” as you say has gotten so much ink. Well, the NYTimes treated it as a story, and loads of other commentators started commenting. I couldn’t resist throwing in my two cents. BTW, the idea that the Russkies are advertising their SSN wares to China India etc. isn’t my idea, I mention it as having been mentioned by others. Those who first suggested it in their own media pieces thought Russia wanted to get China to buy more SSNs from Russia instead of building their own, for the foreign trade.
Also, the IUSS is definitely still in operation. Details about what parts of SOSUS nets are currently in use seems to be classified, but the answer seems to be definitely more than zero parts, tho certainly with much-updated sensors than those that were used in Cold War 20+ years ago.
Or when will these subs “crap out” & we have to rescue those sub crews?
Cool – now we have their sound signatures, pictures of every inch of their hull, know what they eat for dinner and what music they listen to – they can go home now.
IN RESPONSE TO:
Since they enter our territory (USA), Can we confiscate this 2 sub and declared it as tropies, like they did our 4 Humvees in Georgia?
THEY DID NOT ENTER OUR TERRITORY, THEY ARE IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS, WHICH IS WHY NOTHING HAS HAPPENED TO PUNISH/REMOVE THEM. THEY ARE NOT BREAKING ANY LAWS.
IN RESPONSE TO:
Why did someone even tell this to the New York times? Oh no 2 subs are off our coast! They might be able to launch cruise missiles at us at most. These are attack boats. They are just out on a normal peacetime patrol. We have our boats doing the exact same thing near their waters and lets not forget about our surface ships, like the ones off the coast of China. This is routine stuff, even if it hasn’t been done in years by the Russians.
2 Akula class attack boats is about as threatening as a flight of SU-27s are. Both are capable systems but keep the threat in context here. The Russians don’t need to use Attack boats to threaten us when they can fire their missiles, the ones that aren’t the Bulava bottle rockets, from near their own waters.
UGH! SO VERY TRUE! THIS IS TOTALLY A CASE OF ” LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS”! I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE ARE MAKING A BIG DEAL OUT OF THIS, OUR EASTERN SEABOARD AS WELL AS THE REST OF THIS COUNTRY ARE WELL PROTECTED BY OUR OWN SUBS.
Maybe they’re trying to defect. See if we can get them to give us one ping, one ping only
These are unlikely to be the only submarines that are off our coasts. On any given day, there are several nations that have the capability and desire to use the international waters for transit and training, and other potentially more covert uses. Some of these nations are our nominal allies, we do not trumpet on mass media that these submarines are there. Some of these nations operate with our naval forces to integrate training opportunities, and to assess capabilities and levels of training. The idea that we need to be concerned about the pair of SSNs is silly, I would like to believe that they have a shadow while they are training off our shores. More of the games of the past..:).
These are unlikely to be the only submarines that are off our coasts. On any given day, there are several nations that have the capability and desire to use the international waters for transit and training, and other potentially more covert uses. Some of these nations are our nominal allies, we do not trumpet on mass media that these submarines are there. Some of these nations operate with our naval forces to integrate training opportunities, and to assess capabilities and levels of training. The idea that we need to be concerned about the pair of SSNs is silly, I would like to believe that they have a shadow while they are training off our shores. More of the games of the past..:).
SOSUS is still up. We always had to “be quiet” when we ran through, apparently so we could get a noise profile on our boat.
Don’t disagree at all, USW.
Is there any connection between the pair of Akula SSN’s and the missing Russian ship? I notice the timing is coincidental? Just a thought,what is on that missing ship that has recieved so much attention?
Typical Russion hardware…you have to sent two and then hope one works…