204 
However, a front-rank military-strategic role for the navy apparently 
lasted only from the XXIII Party Congress in 1966 to the XXIV 
Congress in 1971.18 The first evidence of a change that I have ob- 
served occurred in that year’s Navy Day literature, when both Marshal 
Grechko, writing in the navy’s own journal, and Admiral Gorshkov, 
writing in Pravda, both employed the same formula: the Strategic 
Missile Troops and the navy’s SSBNs, as before, were “‘main instru- 
ments for deterring the aggressor,” but nothing was said of them 
also being main instruments for decisively defeating the enemy.’ 
It’s not that this expression is out of fashion; “‘main instrument” status 
is still attributed to the strategic missile troops for both deterrence 
and defeating the enemy, when these troops are discussed alone.’ 
When their capabilities are discussed together with the other branches 
of the armed forces, the stress is on the joint primacy of missile 
troops and SSBNs in deterrence, but the missile troops alone are 
considered to be a “foundation of the combat might of the armed 
forces: 7% 
It is something of a paradox. In the past, as the Soviet Navy in- 
creased its SLBM potential, both its military-political and its military- 
strategic roles expanded pari passu. Since 1971 this SLBM potential 
has continued to improve, in quality as well as in quantity; and yet 
the national oborona mission has been elevated to the main task, 
at the same time that the navy was downgraded from a “‘main” or 
‘‘most important” instrument of strategy to the status of a secondary 
instrument, i.e., as Admiral Novikov puts it, “‘an important (sic) instru- 
ment for accomplishing strategic tasks.’’'°’ Moreover, when these 
strategic tasks are treated by naval writers in Navy Day or other 
semi-official statements (as opposed to military-scientific works), they 
seem to involve combating the enemy fleet rather than strategic SLBM 
strikes against the enemy interior.'% This is all the more amazing 
in view of the lower priority now put, as we shall see, on the mission 
of combating the enemy fleet. One could come to the conclusion 
that the elevation of ‘national oborona”’ to the status of a main 
task has involved the swallowing up of significant resources formerly 
devoted to both strategic tasks—operations against the shore and 
operations against the enemy navy. 
CONTENT OF THE NAVY’S MAIN NATIONAL DEFENSE TASK 
What is this “national oborona”’ task, that it could have such ef- 
fects? Gorshkov treats it on four occasions, in addition to the final, 
one-page summary of his series. His first two treatments occur earlier 
in the series itself—in the penultimate and final articles, both devoted 
3 Grechko in MS, No. 7, 1971, p. 6; Gorshkov, ‘“‘Our Ocean-Going Nuclear-Missile Navy,” Prav- 
da, July 25, 1971, p. 2. For a different interpretation of Grechko’s article, asserting a divergence 
from the thrust of the Gorshkov series, see MccGwire in McConnell, Weinland and MccGwire, op. 
cit, 222361 
'4V_ Tolubko, ‘‘The Motherland’s Reliable Guard,” Sel’skaya zhizn"’, Feb. 23, 1973, p. 2. 
5 Grechko in KZ, Dec. 17, 1972; ‘‘The Soviet Fatherland’s Missile Shield,”” KVS, No. 21, 1974, p. 
32. 
6 Engr. Vice-Adm. V. Novikov, “Guardian of our Sea Frontiers,’ Vodnyy transport, July 27, 
1974, p. 3. 
'°7 Gorshkov, “On the Seas and Oceans,” Pravda, July 30, 1972; Kasatonov, ““On Guard Over the 
Fatherland,” KZ, July 28, 1974. 
8 Gorshkov in MS, No. 12, 1972, pp. 14-15. 
