93 
We may overlook Gorshkov’s involvement with the decision to gam- 
ble on long-range SSM as the primary armament of the fleet,-a mistake 
which the Soviet Navy is only now working out of its system. But 
is does remind us that his predecessor Kuznetsov was retired because 
of his resolute opposition to this narrow concept. By contrast, Gorsh- 
kov has remained Commander-in-Chief through a series of radical 
shifts in naval policy determined by the political leadership, and 
despite a continual underallocation of resources to surface warship 
construction, relative to the requirements being levied on the fleet. 
One of the strongest criticisms of Gorshkov within the Soviet Navy 
could be that in his professional capacity he has been unwilling to 
stand up to the political leadership, whether it was a question of 
operational concepts, or more recently, or trying to do too much 
with too few ships. 
THE NAVY’S WAR-RELATED ROLES IN 1971-72 
Soviet writing tends to use the two categories of ‘‘wartime”’ and 
“peacetime” when discussing the employment of forces. For our pur- 
poses it is more helpful to use three categories which distinguish 
between the different types of task to be discharged. The central 
role involves the continuous readiness in peacetime to discharge the 
wartime tasks of “participating in the attacks of the country’s strategic 
nuclear forces”’ and “blunting the enemy’s nuclear attacks from the 
ocean axes.”’*» The context is “world war” with the Western capitalist 
system,*® and this role extends from peacetime deterrence to active 
defense and strike at the outbreak of war. Distinct from the 
peacetime/wartime role is the purely wartime role (primarily involving 
war-fighting) and the purely peacetime role, which-is not concerned 
with “world war.” 
THE WARTIME ROLE 
Soviet doctrine avoids being categorical about the nature of a future 
“world war,’®’ but a comprehensive role for naval forces was outlined 
in all three editions of Sokolovskij’s “‘Military Strategy”’,*® which noted 
that although geographically extensive, naval operations were not ex- 
pected to be decisive. Naval tasks included attacks on sea lines of 
communications, although the continued relevance of the latter was 
a matter of dispute in naval circles. 
However, Sokolovskij’s work begs the larger questions concerning 
the likelihood of nuclear war, the length of such a war, whether 
it is even reasonable to think in terms of fighting and winning such 
a war, and the possibility of full-scale nonnuclear war or of limited 
*>Gorshkov gives these as 2 of the 3 tasks which comprise a great-power navy’s basic mission in a 
world-wide nuclear war. Msh. 73/2/21/8; 131/2/2. 
*6See P. Vigor, “The Soviet View of War,” “Soviet Naval Developments” (supra), pp. 16-30. Also 
P. Vigor, “The Soviet View of War, Peace and Neutrality”, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 
, O75): 
*7See M. P. Gallagher, “The Military Role in Decision-Making” in ‘‘Soviet Naval Policy,” pp. 
55-56, on this point. 
**V_ D. Sokolovskij, ““Voennaya Strategiya’”, Moscow 1962, 1963, and 1968. See pp. 362-367 of 
the 1968 edition. 
