The Soviet Naval Enigma

Abstract

FOR years admirals and naval commentators from half a dozen Western countries have been warning the world of the dangers of the steadily reddening sea. For years they have been answered, not in the cautious ambiguities of Russian professional writing, but by Western exponents of the thesis that the capacities of the Soviet Navy have been exaggerated; that this is the inadequate and essentially defensive instrument of a circumspect régime determined to avoid any adventure or initiative capable of provoking a confrontation with the superior Navy and the devastating nuclear capability of the United States. The experts being in such disagreement, the intelligent layman has tended to conclude that no opinion is certain and to dismiss the whole controversy as of secondary importance. The SS-9 inter-continental missile is such an appalling threat, the presence — and the recent use — of the Red Army in central Europe is so evident, that the conjectural and only potential dangers of Soviet warships tend to be dismissed as bogeys yet to be substantiated.

En cas de troubles ou de conflits limités intéréssant des pays satellites ou amis une intervention de la Marine soviétique est non seulement possible, mais probable et cela avec efficacité.

Cabanier¹