205 
to the modern era. He also deals with this theme in a 1974 Navy 
Day article, with the passage in question recently repeated almost 
word for word in a Soviet English-language journal. 
The penultimate article of the Gorshkov series is entirely devoted 
to peacetime naval diplomacy; in it Gorshkov presents the national 
oborona task strictly as a matter of peacetime deterrence, offsetting 
Western politico-military pressure, and so forth. There can be little 
doubt of this interpretation of Gorshkov’s treatment—and it fits with 
what we might expect, insofar as tasks of the armed forces in the 
system of national oborona seem to be politically oriented and deter- 
rence would constitute, in the Soviet view as well as ours, a military- 
political task. Early in the article Gorshkov stresses the effectiveness 
of the U.S.S.R.’s “‘economic might and oboronnaya strength” in 
preventing a new world war. 
Among the main means insuring the Motherland’s high oborona 
capabilities, one must name above all the strategic missile troops 
and the navy. ... Aviation, the ground troops and other 
branches of our valiant armed forces are, to a large extent, [also] 
means for deterring the aggressive acts of the imperialists. . .'% 
Later on in this same article Gorshkov dilates at some length on 
the use of imperialist navies as “instruments of policy in peacetime”; 
through naval “demonstrations,” they “‘put pressure”’ on the Warsaw 
Pact and carry out “nuclear blackmail.’’ However, the Soviet Navy 
has also emerged as “‘one of the instruments of policy” of the U.S.S.R.; 
for the “deterrence” of military adventurers and to counter “threats” 
to Russian security, the party and government have created ‘“‘strategic 
counterforces of oborona,’’!!° the foundation of which consists of 
the strategic missile troops and the navy. The Soviet Navy, he says, 
constitutes— 
a powerful instrument of oborona on ocean axes, a formidable 
force for deterring aggression.... And this, its main 
task—national oborona against attacks by the aggressor from 
ocean axes—the navy is successfully fulfilling together with the 
other branches of the Soviet armed forces. . . .1"! 
This whole discussion, only a part of which has been quoted here, 
strongly suggests that the ‘‘national oborona task” of these “strategic 
counterforces of oborona”’ is not a counterforce strike against the 
opponent’s means of nuclear attack, but a countering or neutralizing 
of the threat to the Soviet homeland by a matching threat to the 
American homeland.'!” 
Gorshkov takes up the national oborona theme again in the last 
section of his final article in the series. While the plan for this section 
is obscure, it seems to be divided into two parts. The first part seems 
oriented on the external determinants of naval development—the pol- 
icy, military doctrine and economic-technological potential of the 
19In his analysis of the Gorshkov series, MccGwire (in McConnell, Weinland, MccGwire, op. cit., 
22) contends that its only use of authenticating signals such as “‘the will of the Central Committee” 
concerns policy which is already “clearly established” and does not extend to new departures, but he 
does not give any sources (one would do) for earlier references either to ‘‘strategic counterforces of 
oborona” or to “national oborona”’ as the Navy’s ‘“‘main task.” 
NOMS, No. 12, 1972, pp. 20-21. 
™1See McConnell, op. cit., 95-96. 
12MS, No. 2, 1973, pp. 18-21. 
