Will Strategic Submarines Be Vulnerable?

Vulnerable? I I n view of the increasing emphasis placed upon strategic submarines under the Reagan strategic program announced October 2, 1981, it is of interest to review the prospects for survivabilityof such submarines in the foreseeablefuture. This is particularly timely because the Scowcroft Commission has confirmed the U.S. inability to identify a survivable land-basing posture for the MX missile and because the Soviet Union will presumably soon be faced with the vulnerability of its own silo-basedICBM force, whether by reentry vehicles on U.S. ICBMs or from U.S. SLBMs. Antisubmarine warfare (ASW) techniques and capabilities important for strategic purposes are quite different from those which can be employed in tactical antisubmarine operations. Strategic offensive submarines are able to carry out their mission-delivering nuclear weapons against the homeland of an opponent-while, at the same time, limiting their own vulnerabilityby utilizing evasive modes of deployment and operation. Tactical, or attack, submarines, on the other hand, must approach their target-warships, merchant ships, a chokepoint to be mined, or the like-to be successful; this limits their flexibility in operational decisions. Furthermore, the contest between tactical submarines and ASW forces may take place over months or years, involvesno trailing of submarinesbut the kill of submarines essentially on sight, and could be modulated by either side to its own advantage. In a long war of attrition, for example, the naval forces of one side may be kept at home or in sanctuaries, so that the enemy's attack submarines would have no targets. The attack submarines themselves may be kept at home or out of danger if using them were deemed too hazardous because of their vulnerability . In contrast, to be effectiveand worth contemplating, ASW against strategic submarines would have to threaten to destroy almost all offensive submarines within a few days at most. Otherwise, ASW would be superfluous , since both U.S. and Soviet forces would be vulnerable over a period of months to repeated attacks on their accustomed ports.' Richard L. Gamin is IBM Fellow at the Thomas 1. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, Adjunct Professor of Physics at Columbia University, Adjunct Research Fellow at Harvard University , and Andrew D. White Professor at Cornell University. 1. This vulnerability over protracted periods is not unique to submarines. Obviously, nuclear attacks on the accustomed bases of strategic bombers (accompanied by fallout and attack on International Security, Fall 1983 (Vol. 8, No.2) 0162-2889/83/020052-16$02.50/1 0 1983by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 52 Strategic Submarines I 53 Here, I will not consider strategic ASW capabilitieswhich could detect and destroy an opposing force only over a period of weeks, but will look instead at those capabilities which conceivably could pose a threat to strategic submarines over a period of one week or less. One can imagine wars of attrition against strategic submarines, but should such a nightmare actually occur, the logical counter would be to attack enemy military bases with nuclear weapons. In any event, such protracted war scenarios are not particularly relevant for evaluations of possible technological developments that would (newly) threaten the survivability of strategic submarines. It should be noted at the outset that even the sudden destruction of a substantial fraction of the deployed strategic submarine fleet, taken alone, would not constitute a disabling blow against either U.S. or Sovietretaliatory capability, any more than the planned survival of only 50 percent of the land-based missiles would vitiate that system, or the inability of 50 percent of the strategic bomber fleet to take off or to penetrate Soviet air defense would negate the value of the air-breathing strategic component. Additionally , even potential future ASW capabilitieswhich appear to threaten strategic submarine operations and deployments as such are currently practiced are not a peril if the postulated ASW technique or system could be substantially countered by modifymg submarine operations, by countermeasures that could fool the detection system, or by reliable means of counterattacking the ASW system before it had destroyed a substantial fraction of the strategic submarine force. Some advocate ”moving the strategic force to sea” in order to...