Superpower showdown in the Mediterranean, 1973

Sea Power, Oct 2003 by Goldstein, Lyle J, Zhukov, Yuri M

U.S., Soviets Nearly Clash at Sea as Israeli, Arab Forces Slug it Out Ashore

Thirty years ago this month the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict spawned the most severe naval crisis of the Cold War. On Oct. 24 Soviet leader Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev threatened to enforce a cease-fire through unilateral intervention. By that time Soviet naval forces in the Mediterranean had swelled to 80 ships and counting, including 47 combatants capable of launching at least 40 cruise missiles in a first salvo. Seven airborne divisions in the southern area of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.)-a total of 150,000 troops-had also been placed on alert. Adm. Sergei Gorshkov, commander in chief of the Soviet Navy, gave orders for an amphibious troop landing on the east bank of the Suez Canal, where Israeli forces had encircled the Egyptian 3rd Army.

Even after Israeli forces halted their advance the next day, Moscow launched intense anti-carrier exercises in the eastern Mediterranean. Soviet battle groups were using the actual U.S. aircraft carriers in the area as virtual targets, an act comparable to holding a cocked pistol to an adversary's temple. Adhering to a kamikaze-like, "battle of the first salvo" doctrine, the Soviet force of 96 ships was poised to launch approximately 13 surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) at each task group in the U.S. 6th Fleet deployed in the Mediterranean. U.S. Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, then chief of naval operations, recalled a Washington Special Action Group meeting at the peak of the crisis, during which Adm. Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated: "[W]e would lose our [expletive] in the Eastern Med [if war breaks out]."

Until the late 1950s, the U.S.S.R. had no Mediterranean squadron. It maintained only a token presence in the sea until 1967. In the following six years, however, the so-called 5th Eskadra, or squadron, became sufficiently powerful to pose a grave threat to each 6th Fleet task force deployed to the eastern Mediterranean during the October 1973 war.

Newly available evidence from Russia, obtained through cooperation with the Central Naval Museum in St. Petersburg, allows us to reappraise this gravest of Cold War maritime crises. This often forgotten episode of superpower brinksmanship demonstrates that maritime threats from continental powers can emerge quickly, even in theaters of traditional U.S. naval dominance.

A "NATO Lake"

At a time when much of the Russian Navy is rusting at pier side, it is easy to forget that this force once posed a formidable challenge to the U.S. Navy. Given the considerable geographic constraints on Russia's maritime power projection, the Soviet Admiralty's achievement in mounting this challenge is all the more remarkable. These constraints were deeply felt by each of Russia's four major fleets, but the "tyranny of geography" was especially daunting with respect to the Mediterranean.

Before Peter the Great, Russia was essentially a vast, landlocked country with no navy worthy of the name. It lacked a warm-water port until Catherine the Great annexed Crimea from the Ottoman Empire in 1783, but even then the Turkish Straits stood as a major obstacle to the projection of Russian naval power into the Mediterranean. The sizeable distances between Russia's fleets have also made it virtually impossible to achieve unity of mass in crisis situations. Before and after World War II, the Soviet Navy focused primarily on coastal defense, possessing limited blue-water capabilities. When compared to countries more geographically predisposed to maritime power, the Soviet Union seemed an awkward and rather unlikely contender.

By contrast, NATO and the U.S. 6th Fleet enjoyed geographical benefits so advantageous that the Mediterranean Sea was justly described as "NATO Lake" during the early phases of the Cold War. NATO controlled the two primary choke points into the sea-the Strait of Gibraltar and the Turkish Straits, comprised of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus Strait. The western alliance could also draw on its carrier air wings, not to mention the plethora of major NATO air and naval bases in Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey.

The U.S.S.R. had never enjoyed permanent basing in the region, and oftenerratic host governments always kept Soviet access to local port facilities tightly regulated. The NATO air defense systems in Greece and Turkey effectively blocked Soviet air force flights to the Mediterranean. Save for short-lived access to the Egyptian airfields of Cairo-West and Aswan-used mainly for reconnaissance missions-the Soviets' prospects for gaining air superiority were virtually nil. To offset these drawbacks, the Soviet 5th Eskadra had to maintain a standing force of auxiliary ships to reduce dependence on local bases, limit on-station times, and reinforce Black Sea Fleet (BSF) elements of the 5th Eskadra with Northern and Baltic Fleet forces.

The 5th Eskadra

Captain 1st rank G. G. Kostev, the 5th Eskadra's first Deputy Chief of Southern TVD (Theater of Operations), notes that the Mediterranean squadron was "perhaps the most unusual formation of the Soviet Navy in the post-war period." The 5th Operational Eskadra was created in 1967 to counter the U.S. in a zone of vital American interests. The strategy focused on surveillance of the 6th Fleet in the active areas, constant trailing of U.S. carriers, detection of U.S. ballisticmissile submarine deployment zones, and disruption of U.S. sea control.