Editorial: Comparing Chinese Naval Power to the Soviet Navy

Sailors of the Soviet Navy (Wiki Info)

By James R. Holmes

If you’re struck by China’s rise to nautical prominence, get a load of Soviet naval history. Though disparaged today, Soviet seafarers were worthy adversaries. Indeed, contemporary Russia occasionally makes noises about reclaiming their legacy, and has moved to reestablish its influence in such expanses as the Sea of Okhotsk.

Moscow long coveted naval might. Josef Stalin flirted with a Mahanian battle fleet (PDF) in the interwar years, to little avail. Soviet industry proved unequal to the challenge of manufacturing battleships and other heavy combatants. In the 1960s Moscow rededicated itself to sea power under the tutelage of Fleet Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, the father of the Soviet Navy. By the late Cold War the Soviet Navy had fused naval power with land-based implements of sea power—American tacticians forever worried about Backfire bomber raids venturing out to smite us—to erect a dense “blue belt of defense” off Soviet shores. Moscow practiced anti-access long before the term was coined.

Read the full story at The Diplomat