193 
principle of cooperation among all branches of the armed forces, 
set forth as early as 1921 by M. V. Frunze in his work, “‘Unitive 
(edinaya) Military Doctrine and the Red Army.” Since an understand- 
ing of this principle of cooperation ‘‘promotes the development of 
a unity of operational views in the command personnel of the armed 
forces,” he wanted to examine these problems insofar as they applied 
to the navy. However, in doing so, he had ‘no intention of treating 
the history of the naval art, much less of determining the prospects 
for naval development.’’ He then tells us that, in focusing on the 
navy, he does not mean to imply any “unique” significance of naval 
forces in the armed struggle.* 
This denial of the uniqueness of the naval sphere I interpret as 
possibly another tipoff that military science is not involved. In the 
context of military science, as Gorshkov himself informs us in a recent 
article, the existence of a naval art separate from the military art 
is justified precisely on the grounds that it is a ‘“‘qualitatively unique”’ 
branch.” In the context of doctrine, however, the naval sphere has 
no claim to uniqueness. There is no such thing as a naval doctrine, 
there is only a single military doctrine for the entire state and all 
branches of the armed forces, particular tenets of which might apply 
to the navy alone. 
CONTENT OF THE GORSHKOV SERIES 
A DOCTRINE OF ‘“‘CONSERVING FORCES” 
If I had to formulate a single theme for the Gorshkov series, I 
would put it like this: he is fleshing out with particulars the official 
views of the state political and military leadership on the use of 
the Soviet Navy as a direct instrument of policy in both peace and 
war. One has to be impressed by the attention Gorshkov devotes 
to peacetime naval diplomacy in the series (deterrence, offsetting 
military-political pressure, protection of “‘state interests” in the Third 
World, etc.) However, since he seems to offer nothing new in principle 
on this score, I will not deal further with the subject but examine 
instead what appears to be the novel point of the series and the 
major reason for its publication. 
To employ Soviet terminology, Gorshkov seems to be advancing 
a doctrine of ‘“‘conserving”’ strategic naval forces, the ‘““method” being 
that of the SSBN ‘“‘fleet-in-being,” with the aim of achieving the 
“political and military goals of war” directly rather than through the 
prior attainment of ‘‘military-strategic goals’—in short, a “‘military- 
political’ (or ‘“‘politico-strategic’’) approach to the armed struggle 
rather than the customary ‘‘military-strategic’’ approach. To employ 
my own terminology—or, rather, terminology borrowed, | believe, 
from Michael MccGwire—the Soviets seem to have resolved on a 
wartime ‘“‘withholding strategy” for their SSBNs. They will not fire 
off all their SLBMs in the “‘initial period,” as was apparently the 
intention earlier, but hold at least some of them back for their political 
impact—deterrence of the U.S. SSBN threat, applying and offsetting 
pressure in intrawar bargaining and in the context of peace negotia- 
tions. 
54 Gorshkov, “Historical Experience and the Present Day,” Voprosy filosofii, No. 5, 1975, p. 26. 
55 International Institute for Strategic Studies, ““The Military Balance, 1974-1975” (London, 1974), 
4, 73. 
