174 
“Thus, the inspirers of the arms race and of the preparation for a new world 
war, in counting on the forced draught development of their own naval forces 
and the creation of new problems which are difficult to resolve for the defense 
of the Soviet Union have themselves been faced with even more complex problems 
with the strengthening of our fleet on the oceans. The former inaccessibility of 
the continents, which permitted them in the past to count on impunity for aggres- 
sion, has now become ancient history.”’ 
‘But there is still another side to the question.” 
“With the emergence of the Soviet Navy onto the oceanic expanses, our warships 
are calling with continually greater frequency at foreign ports, fulfilling the role 
of ‘“‘plenipotentiaries”’ of the Socialist countries.”’ (72/12/20/5—21/5: 119/1/2-6) 
The first point is to clear up a common misunderstanding concerning the sense 
of the third paragraph of “‘D.” The fact that Gorshkov refers to continents in the 
plural, indicates that he is not talking about North America, but about the other 
continents such as Africa, India, Asia, which were previously only accessible to Western 
forces. The ‘“‘more complex problems”’’ do not therefore refer to an SSBN threat to 
the United States but to the complications caused by the worldwide presence of Soviet 
naval forces. 
The second point is that in the second paragraph of “‘D,’’ Gorshkov talks quite 
specifically of two different types of oborona: defense on the ocean axes and defense 
against attack from the ocean axes. He also uses a different form of words in connection 
with each: 
a. The navy is an “‘instrument of defense on the ocean axes,” which can: (1) 
deter aggression; (2) deliver retributory blows; and (3) disrupt the plans of the 
aggressors. 
b. The navy’s main mission (which it shares with other branches of the armed 
forces) is “the defense of the country against attacks by aggressors from the 
ocean axes.’’ The navy is ready to rebuff any aggressor who infringes on “‘the 
security of the homeland.” 
Gorshkov is not just using a different form of words to say the same thing twice, 
in consecutive sentences. He is spelling out two different roles, both of which come 
within the scope of oborona. The first is to ‘‘deter imperialist aggression in distant 
parts of the world.”’ The second (and more important), is “‘to provide defense against 
attacks by Western seabased strategic delivery systems.” 
This confirms two of the conclusions we have already drawn from the other evidence, 
concerning the scope of oborona. Is there any reason to change the third conclusion 
concerning the forces involved, which linked the SRF and Soviet Navy, but specifically 
excluded the SSBN forces from this particular role? The answer is no, because the 
evidence in this quotation confirms that conclusion. 
The fifth paragraph of “‘D” links the “emergence of the Soviet Navy onto the 
ocean expanses” directly with the fact that Soviet warships are calling with “continually 
greater frequency at foreign ports.”’ This ‘“‘emergence’’ can therefore only refer to 
general purpose forces, and not to SSBN. The same expression is also used at the 
beginning of the second paragraph, as a preamble to Gorshkov’s description of the 
two oborona roles. It would seem reasonable to assume that the same sense applies 
in both cases; there is certainly no evidence to the contrary. 
Meanwhile, we do have concrete evidence concerning the ‘‘creation of a new Soviet 
Navy” and “‘its emergence on the ocean expanses,”’ in the form of ship characteristics 
and deployment patterns. Both terms can be seen to describe accurately what has 
happened to the general purpose forces since 1963, but not to the SSBN force. As 
is continually noted by Western commentators, between 1963 and 1972, the Soviet 
Navy changed from being a force which remained mainly in home waters, to a 
distant-water fleet, operating in all parts of the world. During that period, ship/days 
spent “out of area’ by non-ballistic-missile units rose by a factor of 12.4 During 
that same period, the composition of the distant-water fleet and the characteristics 
of its ships changed radically. Without going into details, one can point to the introduc- 
tion of new types such as helicopter-carrying ‘“‘antisubmarine cruisers,”’ to several dif- 
ferent classes of ‘‘large antisubmarine ship,’’ to new classes of submarines armed with 
new weapon systems, and to a range of new types of aircraft. All of these have 
been specifically designed to operate ‘“‘on the ocean expanses,” in a way their predeces- 
sors were not. In 1967, when Gorshkov wrote that the navy “had now gone out 
on to the wide ocean expanses,”’® this was indeed the case. In 1968, he wrote that 
the need “‘to meet the qualitatively new requirements’ had involved the ‘‘organic 
restructuring of the navy and the reorientation of traditional naval policy.’’® This indeed 
was a ‘“‘new”’ Soviet Navy. 
, 
*R.G. Weinland ‘‘Soviet Naval Operations: 10 years of change,’’ Soviet Naval Policy, pp. 75-386. 
> Msb., 67/2/20/3. 
®Krasnaya zvezda, Feb. 5, 1968. See also Admiral Kasatanov in KZ Feb. 11, 1968, where he spells 
out the characteristics of the new navy which had been decided on at some past date. 
