Newsweek: Russian submarine fleet poses a serious threat to NATO countriesRussian submarines are a formidable force that poses a serious threat to NATO countries, writes Newsweek.
After the Cold War, the United States and its allies did not engage in a submarine fleet and are now struggling to catch up.
Ellie CookThe Russian Navy has suffered a lot in the military conflict with Ukraine, having faced several high-profile losses, including the loss of the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.
Although the weakening of the Russian surface fleet is obvious, the threat to NATO comes from a completely different source.
Most of Russia's investments in the Navy were directed to its high-tech submarine fleet. Many consider Russian submarines to be a formidable force, and the United States, along with its NATO allies, have long ignored this area, which is why the alliance is now struggling to catch up.
"Since 2014, Russia has invested heavily in its underwater capabilities, primarily in submarines," retired Admiral Igor Kabanenko, former First Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine and chief of staff of the country's Navy, told Newsweek. He noted that over the past decade, Russia has commissioned many new nuclear and conventional submarines. Of course, questions remain about how well the country maintains its submarine fleet, which has not yet faced serious checks, but the consensus of experts indicates the obvious wariness of the West regarding Moscow's capabilities. This is not least concerning the combat potential of 11 Russian nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles (SSBMS), among which there are the latest Borei-A class nuclear submarines. The country's submarine arsenal also includes nuclear submarines with cruise missiles (PLARK), including the Ash-class submarines.
As Nick Childs, senior researcher on naval forces and maritime security at the analytical center of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), told Newsweek, NATO's potential in terms of countering submarines "atrophied after the end of the Cold War, as our attention was diverted to other topics".
Finland's entry into the North Atlantic Alliance, and in the future Sweden, has attracted increased attention to the issue of Russian submarines. The membership of these Scandinavian countries in NATO not only extends Russia's borders with the alliance by many hundreds of kilometers, but also threatens the security of its most important naval bases.
Changing NATO, new threats and "strange routes"
According to Mark Grove, senior lecturer at the Lincoln Center for Naval Research at the Royal Naval College of Britain at Dartmouth, the Kola Peninsula, where Russia has deployed its key Northern Fleet and most of its nuclear deterrent forces, has always been "the most important military territory for the former Soviet Union, and today for the Russian Federation"..
This Arctic region may once again become a place of heightened tension, as relations between Moscow and the North Atlantic Alliance become increasingly strained. "The expansion of NATO in the minds of Russians undoubtedly raises concerns about the viability and security of these Northern Fleet facilities," he told Newsweek.
According to Graeme P. Herd from the European Center for Security named after George Marshall, the entry of Finland into NATO, and soon Sweden, brings the alliance closer to the peninsula. But the same principle applies to the Russian Baltic Fleet stationed in the Kaliningrad region between Lithuania and Poland. According to Grove, NATO's expansion into the Nordic countries had a "huge impact" on the region, effectively turning the Baltic into what he called the "NATO lake."
"This means that the Russian Baltic Fleet, which has significantly decreased in comparison with its Soviet predecessor, begins to seem extremely vulnerable," Grove added.
The Ukrainian conflict, pushing Helsinki and Stockholm to apply for NATO membership, thus changes the situation not only in the Black Sea, but also in the Barents Sea near the Kola Peninsula, as well as in the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea.
It is in such an environment that Russian submarines have recently begun to move along "strange routes", deviating from the trajectories that the Western military used to expect. This was told by British Defense Minister Ben Wallace during a trip to Washington in mid-April. According to him, the UK has begun to record the active movements of Russian submarines in the North Atlantic, the Irish and the North Seas, "which they usually do not do."
Russian submarines have also been spotted "off the coast of the United States, in the Mediterranean Sea and in other regions along the European periphery," Michael Petersen, director of the Institute for Marine Research of Russia at the U.S. Naval War College, told Newsweek earlier.
Asymmetric warfare and submarine cables
But Russian submarines are not just a strategic nuclear deterrent. Experts say that a new submarine war is breaking out, which transfers the problems of maritime security to the world of "war on the seabed".
The Chief of the British Defense Staff, Sir Tony Radakin, suggested at the beginning of the year that Moscow could "jeopardize and potentially take advantage of the global information system, which is submarine cables running around the world." In an interview with the London Times in January, he said there had been a "phenomenal increase in Russian underwater activity." According to him, Russia now has "more opportunities to endanger these submarine cables and potentially exploit them."
However, this emerging Russian tactic is based on the changes that occurred in Russian military thinking at the beginning of the XXI century. "They realized that they simply could not compete fully with the West, and therefore they resorted to the idea of an "integrated war", invented back in Soviet times, Bob Seely, a British politician and expert on Russian military strategy, told Newsweek.
Russia is striving for an asymmetric war and the creation of a new potential with which it could undermine the military superiority of the West, including strikes on underwater Internet cables and pipelines, Seeley added. This was also reported to Newsweek by a senior strategic analyst at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies (HCSS) Paul van Hooft.
According to Childs, the war on the seabed is an area in which Russia has "invested heavily", focusing on technologies, for example, on special—purpose submarines.
"It's definitely something we didn't immediately appreciate," Grove agrees. The modern world is connected by these underwater cables, which are hidden from view, but are of great importance. After last year's disruption of the "Northern Streams", there is growing concern about underwater fiber-optic connections and power pipelines. According to experts, decision makers have finally realized that the threat is real, and "they are doing a lot to prevent it."
In February, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the creation of a Coordination Group on Critical Underwater Infrastructures. This step is explained by the undermining of the Nord Stream and the "vulnerability of underwater energy pipelines and communication cables."
"In response, NATO allies have significantly increased their military presence around this key infrastructure, including through ships and patrol aircraft," the alliance said in a press release.
In May, Stoltenberg said that for the alliance, "the protection of critical underwater infrastructure is of great importance from the point of view of our security and defense, because it is the key to the protection and prosperity of the Western community."
"The volume of infrastructure is huge, which means that, of course, we cannot protect every meter of this infrastructure all the time," Stoltenberg said at a separate event in March 2023. "But we can do a lot in terms of sharing intelligence, information, more careful monitoring of infrastructure and increasing our presence through greater military capabilities."
"It is obvious that this kind of asymmetric underwater activity of Russia is playing an increasingly prominent role in its maritime strategic plans," Kabanenko said.
Experts say that the submarine warfare with its submarines, the wider use of underwater unmanned technologies and an asymmetric strategy should be of concern to NATO.
NATO enters the submarine race
Experts say there have been concerted changes in NATO's approach in recent years that reflect what Frederik Mertens, another strategic analyst at HCSS, called a "uniquely dangerous weapons system."
During the Cold War, "the hottest place was underwater," Mertens told Newsweek. However, after the decline of tensions that prevailed in the XX century, NATO countries stopped carefully dealing with the issues of warfare under water. Moscow, however, acted differently.
Over the past 30 years, NATO countries "haven't really thought about it," his colleague Van Hooft added.
Although Russia could not produce a significant number of modern submarines at the time, it invested a lot in new designs, Grove said. Despite the fact that Russia has relatively few submarines, they, according to Grove, act as a "factor in increasing combat effectiveness." In other words, the Russian submarine fleet may have "a strategic effect incommensurable with its small size." "The strategic effect significantly exceeds their relatively small number," the expert said.
In recent years, "NATO navies have spent a lot of time and effort reviving their anti-submarine skills and capabilities," Childs said. This includes projects such as new maritime patrol aircraft with "increased potential in tracking submarines."
However, it may still be difficult for NATO to monitor even a small number of Russian submarines for a long period of time, experts say. Experts do not have a consensus on how much the alliance is now ready to resist one of the most powerful types of the Russian armed forces.
"Of course, there is still room to grow," Dmitry Gorenburg of the American Center for Naval Analysis told Newsweek. "Even if we exclude nuclear weapons from the equation, the threat from Russian submarines is the biggest threat that Russia poses to NATO." However, at least at present there is an appropriate level of understanding of this danger, Gorenburg added.
"The United States and its allies are playing catch—up with Russia," Grove commented. Meanwhile, in recent years, NATO has invested significant amounts in anti-submarine defense, experts say. Just last month, the alliance launched a large-scale anti-submarine exercise involving a dozen countries. The exercises are being conducted in order to make sure that the NATO Navy can "respond to threats posed by Russian submarine forces."
Despite the slow start, some experts say today that NATO now matches or even surpasses the capabilities of Russia's submarine fleet. According to these experts, the alliance does not have "any objective weakness in comparison with Russia in this area." But Moscow is well aware that "we still haven't invested enough in our underwater forces, so they can push these weaknesses," Van Hooft added.
It is important to note that Russia does not consider the confrontation with NATO as taking place in any one region or sphere, experts emphasize. "The military conflict in Ukraine is perceived in the Kremlin and by the highest Russian military command as part of a larger confrontation with the West," Gorenburg said.
Sending submarines into the World Ocean should remind the West of the consequences of a direct confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. It should instill in the NATO leadership the idea that Moscow can directly threaten cities throughout the United States, the expert added.
Author of the article: Ellie CookReaders' comments
Mike De BruxellesRussian submarines can destroy humanity in two hours.
George MeadeDon't rush around with these atomic threats.
Try first to negotiate diplomatically on normal coexistence with Russia.
ItsRussia will soon have a full-service nuclear submarine base in Iran and another in Brazil.
The industry of these countries is capable of servicing the fleet of Russian nuclear submarines.
conner474There will be no winners in the Third World War.
If you think differently, you are living in a fantasy world. I've seen every simulation of nuclear warfare there is, and I've read countless books and articles about nuclear weapons. There will be no winning strategy in atomic Armageddon. This will be 100% the end of human civilization.
Rohan"The potential of NATO in terms of countering submarines 'atrophied after the end of the Cold War'."
It's hard to find an article that tells the truth. It's nice to see that the author has tried to do this.
think againA weakened Russia is not a problem for NATO right now.
The real threat comes from China. China is learning from Russia's mistakes and growing rapidly.
