Charting the Course of the Voyenno-Morskoy Flot: Soviet Naval Strategy towards the Year 2000

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Charting the Course of the Voyenno-Morskoy Flot: Soviet Naval Strategy towards the Year 2000

S. F. Murphy

The Soviet Navy exists as an element of a complex system of Soviet national security policy. Economic stagnation, political polarization, and centrifugal national unrest forms the background surrounding the Soviet Navy. Gorbachev's perestroika reform program has brought fundamental changes to Soviet military doctrine, namely the requirements for reasonable sufficiency and a defensive doctrine. The methodology used in this study involved a combination of predictive systematization and the basic methods of intelligence analysis. Research was conducted in four stages: all-source collection, evaluation, analysis, and prediction. This analysis determined that there is an enduring Soviet national interest in maritime power. So far, the Navy's warfighting capabilities have not been affected by economic constraints. The Soviet Navy of the year 2000 will be much smaller, but more technologically capable. This study predicts that it is structurally inconceivable that the Soviet Navy will transition to an exclusively defensive strategy under new doctrinal requirements.