206 
Soviet state, and so forth—which pose the requirement for and 
facilitate the achievement of the navy’s national oborona task.'! The 
second part deals with the “fundamental mission” of navies in general 
nuclear war, with a stress on the inner development of the navy 
and its combat and political training, all focused on the need for 
a high state of ‘‘combat readiness,” ‘‘readiness for the selfless zashchita 
of socialism.’ !!4 In other words, it has occurred to me that we may 
be dealing first with the navy’s role in the system of national oborona, 
governed by party principles of leadership of the armed forces, and 
then with the navy’s role in the system of the armed forces, governed 
by party principles of military development. 
Gorshkov begins the section with the statement that, given the 
need to strengthen ‘‘national oborona from sea axes,” the Warsaw 
Pact was strengthening its ‘““seapower’’—oceanography, the merchant 
marine, the ‘‘industrial’’ fleet for fishing and mineral exploitation, 
and the navy. The terminology not only suggests that the Soviets 
have a seapower policy tying its components into a coherent whole 
but that it is considered an integral part of military policy, the key 
decisions for which would be made by the Higher Defense Council. 
Gorshkov deals with each of the seapower components but insists 
that the ‘‘most important’? one is the navy, which has been assigned 
the mission of “‘national oborona against possible strikes from ocean 
and sea axes,’’ as well as protecting state interests in the seas and 
oceans.!!® 
Gorshkov’s treatment of the national oborona mission early in the 
first part again seems to present it strictly as a peacetime military- 
political mission. He says the requirement for a powerful navy cor- 
responding to the U.S.S.R.’s geographical position and its “political 
significance as a great power” became especially acute in the postwar 
period when the Warsaw Pact found itself encircled by a hostile 
coalition of maritime states posing the ‘‘threat’’ of a nuclear-missile 
attack from sea axes. The U.S.S.R. could not endure a situation where 
the United States, having encircled the Soviet Union, had not itself 
experienced an ‘analogous danger.’ The party and the govern- 
ment—again the authenticating signal—fully appreciated the need to 
‘“‘deter’’ the enemy’s aggressive aspirations. Continuing their “policy 
of peaceful coexistence’’ and the ‘“‘prevention’”’ of a new world war, 
they have built up powerful armed forces, including the navy, capable 
of ‘“‘countering’’ any of the enemy’s ‘intrigues,’ including those on 
ocean axes, where the simple ‘“‘presence’’ of the Soviet Navy alone 
poses for a ‘‘potential aggressor’’ the requirement “‘to solve those 
very same problems he meant to create for our armed forces.” 1! 
Again, we seem to have a purely peacetime military-political logic 
with no hint of any wartime application, military-political or military- 
strategic. 
However, from the beginning it has struck me as unlikely that 
a peacetime task could be the main task for a branch of the armed 
forces. Moreover, how could a peacetime strategic-deterrence task 
"3Tbid., 21-24. 
"™4Tbid., 18-19, 
"5 bid. 
"6 McConnell, op. cit., 80. 
