Superpower Showdown in the Mediterranean, 1973

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

By LYLE J. GOLDSTEIN and YURI M. ZHUKOV

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 ceasefire 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 often-erratic 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. ballistic-missile submarine deployment zones, and disruption of U.S. sea control.

Between 1967 and 1973, the Soviet naval authority in the Mediterranean grew dramatically due to enhanced access to Egyptian port facilities. Average daily ship presence rose from 12 in 1966 to 30 in 1968. By 1973 this figure was at 56. The October 1973 superpower maritime showdown was foreshadowed by mass joint Soviet-Egyptian-Syrian exercises launched at the time of the September 1969 Libyan coup d'etat. During the exercises, a protective shield of over 100 ships from the three countries formed to deter intervention by the United Kingdom.

Face-Off

On Oct. 6, 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched their attacks on Israel, the balance of forces in the Mediterranean was 48 American warships against 57 Soviet vessels. The American fleet consisted of its flagship USS Little Rock (CLG 4), positioned south of Crete, four attack submarines on patrol at sea, Task Force 60 (comprised of the USS Independence and the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt aircraft carrier battle groups), and Task Force 61, an amphibious group. The 5th Eskadra included 11 submarines, several cruise-missile-equipped cruisers and destroyers, and an array of medium landing ships, minesweepers, frigates, corvettes, and auxiliary ships. Moscow could also expand the 5th Eskadra rapidly, thanks to the easing of Montreux Treaty restrictions that previously restricted deployment of warships through the Dardanelles and Bosporus Straits by Turkey. In order to protest American support for Israel, Turkey also granted the Soviets flight rights for a re-supply airlift to Syria and Egypt.

There were at least three scenarios that could have precipitated the escalation of the October War into a full-fledged superpower war-at-sea: (1) Soviet intervention in response to Israeli attacks on Soviet ships; (2) Soviet intervention to enforce a ceasefire; or (3) a preemptive U.S. or Soviet strike against the other's vessels.

The first of these scenarios became highly plausible after Israeli missile boats sank the Soviet merchant vessel Ilya Mechnikov while bombarding the Syrian port of Tartus on Oct. 11. Soviet commanders deployed two destroyers off the Syrian coast, placed airborne divisions on alert, and authorized captains to open fire as needed on Israeli combatants approaching Soviet convoys and transports. Such exchanges of fire did occur. Captain 1st rank (ret) V. Zaborskii recalls that the BSF minesweeper Rulevoi and a medium landing ship fired upon Israeli jets in self-defense at Latakia, Syria.

Although such instances subsided as the fighting waned on the Syrian front, the Kremlin was sending clear signals to the White House that any 6th Fleet interference with 5th Eskadra operations would be met with force. Soviet anti-carrier groups had been tracking the Independence, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Little Rock task groups, as well as monitoring amphibious Task Force 61 since the sealift to the Arab states began on Oct. 9. At that time, the American carrier groups were especially vulnerable to a Soviet cruise-missile attack, because they had been denied freedom to maneuver by Washington, which sought to keep the task groups close to the war zone as a political signal of U.S. concern. Moreover, after Oct.13, the carriers' escort ships were maneuvering independently in support of the American airlift to Israel.

The second scenario--a Soviet attempt to impose a ceasefire--proved to be of paramount concern for U.S. leaders. The White House ordered the Pentagon to Defense Condition (DefCon) 3 in response to the Oct. 24 threat by Brezhnev to unilaterally intervene if the U.S. declined to form a joint U.S.-Soviet force to police the ceasefire lines. [Def-Cons 5 through 1 are graduated alert postures to match situations of varying military severity. DefCon 1 calls for maximum force readiness.]

As the Soviets bolstered their forces in the Mediterranean, they halted their air- and sea-lifts to prepare for combat operations. Upon direct order from Naval Commander in Chief Gorshkov, amphibious landing craft were being geared up to carry a force of crew "volunteers" from 5th Eskadra warships to the east bank of the Suez Canal.

Although Washington soon pressured Israel to halt its advances into Egypt, the Soviets launched intensive anti-carrier exercises in the eastern Mediterranean on Oct. 26, using each American task group as a virtual target. Around each carrier were two cruise-missile-equipped Kashin-class destroyers and one "spy trawler" capable of providing mid-course guidance for cruise missiles fired from another location. Four Soviet cruise-missile submarines were on submerged patrol nearby, and the U.S. amphibious force south of Crete was also shadowed by a group of five Soviet warships, some equipped with cruise missiles.

It was during these exercises that the third scenario--a preemptive strike-- became all too conceivable. The exercises continued until Nov. 3, by which time the Soviet force numbered 95 ships and was capable of launching 88 cruise missiles in a first salvo, approximately 13 at each U.S. task group. The American side had 60 U.S. ships, including three aircraft carriers (the USS John F. Kennedy had entered the Mediterranean after Oct. 25), two amphibious assault helicopter carriers, and nine attack submarines. In the words of Adm. Daniel Murphy, then 6th Fleet commander, the two fleets were "sitting in a pond in close proximity and the stage for the hitherto unlikely 'war at sea' scenario was set."

Gravely threatened by Soviet cruise missiles, the U.S. carrier groups would have needed to preemptively destroy the weapons system radar in the masts as well as the missile and gun mounts, or to otherwise sink every Soviet warship within range before Soviet missiles reached their decks. Meanwhile, 5th Eskadra commanders would need to sink or incapacitate as many U.S. carriers as possible before the U.S. planes and ships had sufficient time to retaliate.

The Soviet mission was therefore not necessarily to survive, but to survive just long enough to launch their missiles at the carriers. At a Feb. 1973 Soviet officers' briefing on anti-carrier warfare, Rear Adm. Yevgenii Semenov, then 5th Eskadra Chief of Staff, encapsulated this "battle of the first salvo" doctrine by saying, "[Soviet] ship attack groups need to use all weaponry for assaults on [U.S.] aerial attack groups: missiles, artillery, torpedoes, jet-propelled rockets--the whole lot!--since it is unlikely that anything will remain afloat after an air strike. We are kamikazes."

With the arguable exception of the submarine forces, both the 6th Fleet and the 5th Eskadra were left with no alternative to a first strike if war was considered to be imminent. The tension receded after Washington authorized the carrier groups to leave the area of operations south of Crete and go westward, a movement delayed until October 30th by heavy weather. From a tactical perspective, this decision was made to provide the groups with more room for maneuver, and to complicate targeting for the Soviets. On a strategic level, the White House was certainly sending the Soviets a signal that the U.S. was returning to a more relaxed posture, after it became sufficiently clear that there would be no major commitment of Soviet ground troops to the war zone.

During the October war, as in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. Navy formed the razor-sharp point on the spear of America's robust deterrent. However, this crisis differed in character substantially from its more famous predecessor because the U.S. was not able to achieve unquestioned conventional superiority in the relevant theater.

Lessons Learned

Several lessons can be drawn from the October 1973 standoff. First, naval threats from continental powers can emerge quickly. Such "upstart" naval powers may achieve limited sea denial capabilities, even in littoral regions traditionally dominated by the U.S. Navy. In addition, these powers can exploit tensions between the United States and its allies to serve their strategic aims. These events also illustrate how crisis stability can be adversely affected by powerful tactical first-strike incentives. Finally, it is apparent that the mission of projecting force "from the sea" into Vietnam had a debilitating effect on the primary U.S. Navy mission of sea control. The many battles of the on-going Global War on Terrorism cannot be allowed to have the same impact.

The above lessons may be most applicable to the nascent maritime rivalry with China. Indeed, there are a number of key parallels. Russia and China both are continental powers that have traditionally focused on coastal defense, emphasizing land-based aviation and submarines. Furthermore, Chinese maritime strategy, mirroring the Soviet experience, has been largely guided by the challenge of confronting the vastly superior capabilities of the U.S. Navy.

There are important differences, not the least of which is that China has no apparent ambitions to contest American power on a global scale. But other differences suggest that China is actually a much more natural maritime power. The principal constraint on the projection of Soviet naval power--the tyranny of geography--is relatively insignificant for China. Unlike Russia, China has no vulnerable choke points, no frigid climatic conditions, and no crippling, insufferable distances between fleets. Furthermore, regions of vital U.S. interest like the Taiwan Strait are much more proximate and accessible than the Mediterranean was for the Soviet Union.

In reflecting on China's future maritime potential, it is valuable to keep in mind the extremely rapid growth of the Soviet 5th Eskadra amidst challenging circumstances. This development, in combination with local animosities, yielded the most acute naval crisis of the Cold War. *

Dr. Lyle J. Goldstein is Associate Professor of Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. Yuri M. Zhukov is a research assistant at the Naval War College.