Russia is seeking to further bolster its sub-surface capabilities, with new generations of conventional and nuclear propulsion submarines, which promise to be significantly more difficult to detect and track for western naval forces. This includes the Yasen, Lada, Borei and Kalina classes of submarines. Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation (UAC) has announced the start of the development of a fifth-generation Husky-class stealth nuclear submarine to replace the existing Yasen-class boats.
Russian nuclear-powered submarines conducted an exercise near American military bases with the objective of avoiding detection as they came close to the US coast, a submarine squadron commander told a Russian military TV channel. “This mission has been accomplished, the submarines showed up in the set location in the ocean and returned to base,” the commander of the submarine squadron, Sergey Starshinov, told Zvezda. The date and location of the covert mission have not been disclosed, but the channel said the Russian nuclear-powered submarines “reached the very coastline of the US.”
Submarines are one of deadliest weapons which are hardest to detect, literally a pile of submerged nuclear weapons ready to unleash widespread destruction with single command. In case of a nuclear war the stealthy submarines have a greater chance of surviving the first strike. Once on high alert the boats can leave their bases stay undetected for months and can carry and fire missiles that could sink even the sturdiest ship and flatten entire cities.
NATO’s response to the underwater risk was initially hindered by reduced post-Cold War ASW focus, as emphasis shifted to expeditionary interventions and maritime security operations at distance. Rebalancing this emphasis and regaining ASW advantage is strategically vital for NATO, senior officials and analysts noted in a recent Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) report titled ‘Security in Northern Europe: Deterrence, Defence, and Dialogue’. In the report, Admiral James Foggo, commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples, and Alarik Fritz, a senior research scientist at Center for Naval Analyses, argued that, with the North Atlantic critical to collective Western security, “the unavoidable operational reality is that, should conflict arise, whoever can exert control over this region can either protect or threaten all of NATO’s northern flank.”
Thus, deterring the most capable potential adversary – namely, Russia – is “the one constant that must guide NATO policies, operations, and forces”. Pointing to Russia’s increased underwater capability, they contested that “Russia’s submarines are more active than ever across the entire North Atlantic, not only testing our reactions but also familiarising themselves with the environment in which we operate.” Sustaining European stability will require, amongst other factors, NATO to “maintain [its] technological edge and positive balance of forces today and into the future”.
The latest ‘Trident Juncture’ exercise, off Iceland and Norway in October/November 2018, brought together NATO’s two main Standing Naval Forces (SNFs) – Standing NATO Maritime Groups (SNMGs) 1 and 2. Sixteen NATO and partner countries contributed more than 60 vessels (surface ships and submarines) and eight MPAs to serials covering ASW, amphibious, and other high-end tasks and constructed around carrier and expeditionary strike group operations. In a subsequent IISS speech in 2018, Adm Jones said task group operations are central to ASW, “doing what we call ‘all arms’ ASW – the ability to integrate mine counter-measures vessels, submarines, MPAs, … helicopters”.
To improve the output of ‘Trident Juncture’, Adm Foggo and Fritz argued that NATO should train for distributed maritime operations, enabled by advanced communications, multisensor networks, and coherent operating pictures, and should also look to actively exercise sea control to demonstrate and train abilities to deny freedom of manoeuvre to any adversary.
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