The Long War — Russia and the Russian Navy

 

We have commented previously in these spaces about the emerging threat of the PRC, concentrating primarily on the missile and naval forces thereof.  Additionally, we have also followed with interest Russian developments with their strategic forces. 

 

If that isn’t enough to grab your attention, let’s add this as well – the Commander in Chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Vladimir Masorin, has made very clear, in open fora, what the future holds for the Russian Navy (h/t Information Dissemination).  And for those that think it is a continuation of the post-Cold War downsized version, you are sadly mistaken.

 

 

Folded into the rearmament bill that seeks to expand the strategic forces (and importantly, modernize the land-based missile leg with MIRV’d Topol-Ms while deploying improved SLBMs – the Bulava) is a provision that puts the Russian Navy on an equal footing, funding wise.  This in itself should be revealing, given the priority the strategic forces had traditionally held under prior Russian and Soviet administrations.  But, if your goal is to “…become the world’s second largest in 20 years’ time” from the current state, then a very ambitious shipbuilding program is the means to that end.  Just how ambitious?  An end state status would have at its core the newest strategic nuclear-powered submarines and six squadrons of aircraft carriers.

 

This highly ambitious program will see roughly 25% of the 4.9 trillion ruble total armament program – about $48B US; allocated to shipbuilding.  Not operations and maintenance, not aircraft procurement, pilot training, or spares purchase; shipbuilding. 

 

To this end, Sergi Ivanov, the current Russian Defense Minister and newly appointed head of all Russian shipbuilding, indicated several course changes to the traditional way the Russian Navy has done business.  Chief of these is a move to multi-mission platforms and subsequent scaling back of multiple classes of ships and aircraft devoted to single warfare areas.  Additionally, although ship production levels are back to what they were during the latter days of the Soviet Union (his statement), their concern is how to get delivery within three vice five years. 

 

In line with that, a series of 40 frigates have been laid out for construction and deployment to the Northern and Baltic fleets (ed. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – take note).  Leading this effort is the first ship of a new class (the Project 22350 FFG) named for Adm Sergi Gorshkov, the first ship in 15 years designed for distant operations and claimed by some, to in fact be a large destroyer vice frigate.  A signatory feature of this 7,500 ton-displacement class of frigates are the Aegis-like phased-array antennas.

 

 

More ambitious is the carrier building project.  The six carriers are not mentioned in the 2015 plan, but plans are under way for the Zvyozdochka ship repair yard for construction of a dry dock large enough for liquified natural gas (LNG)-carriers which in turn, would permit construction of 6 aircraft carriers by 2030.  Since LNG ships typically displace upwards of 100,000 tons, the construction of a carrier roughly the size of the French Charles de Gaulle would easily be accomplished.  Such a nuclear-powered carrier could employ an airwing of 30 fixed wing strike-fighters and support aircraft.  However, as they learned during the experiment with the Kuznetsov, building, deploying and operationally supporting a carrier, much less a fleet, is a daunting and expensive challenge – there is a good reason why only the US maintains a relatively large fleet of super-carriers.

 

There is more – what could be written about plans for the submarine fleet could fill a column on its own.  Suffice to say, the US Navy in a very few years will face challenges from new and growing fleets that it hasn’t for quite sometime.  From the re-building Russian Navy to the emerging blue-water capabilities (and desires) of China to India’s assertion of greater roles and visibility in the Indian Ocean,  our Navy, absent serious overhaul of its shipbuilding and aircraft procurement programs, will face challenges on a number of warfare fronts and dimensions with an aging force that is deficient in numbers and capabilities.  Whereas in the past such deficiencies could be ameliorated with naval forces from allied and partner navies, primarily those of Europe, Japan and Australia, with the exception of the latter two, that resort may not avail itself in the future for a variety of political and  socio-economic rationale.  

 

However, it must also be said that a naval arms race is an exceptionally expensive one as history has proven and the former Soviet Union discovered.  Seeking to add aircraft carriers adds a whole new level of complexity and cost in terms of infrastructure for training and support.  Consider — the US didn’t go from the Langley to the Nimitz overnight.  The current shore-base structure supporting a fleet of 11 CV/CVNs and their associated airwings, nuclear shipyards, supply, intermediate and depot level maintenance, etc., have evolved over the course of some 70+ years.  As opportunity costs are realized (e.g., being forced to pass on  improvements in amphibious, surface warfare and other warfighting upgrades) by the both the respective navies and the other services, pressure will mount based on current and historical experience to scale back or forgoe some or most aspects of these capital ships program. 

 

China is discovering that quandary as the PLA begins to pushback on the PLAN’s intention to acquire and deploy carriers.  The Varyag was originally purchased with more than $500 million in work still required. Carrier aircraft must then be acquired (talks are under way for the purchase of 50 Russian Su-33 navalized "Flankers" for something in the ballpark of $2.5 billion) and appropriate escorts and auxiliary ships dedicated or built. Even without start-up costs, the United States spends more than a $1 billion annually simply to deploy, operate and maintain a single carrier strike group — and a meaningful carrier fleet requires not just one carrier, but three.  These painful and costly lessons will also accrue to India and Russia even as the US Navy struggles to redefine, configure and transform itself in a post-OEF/OIF world of constrained budgets and need to replace hulls and aircraft (Stratfor: China: The Deceptive Logic for a Carrier Fleet).

 

  

How this all will play out is of even more interest – for the likely points of future conflict will not be ideological, as characterized during the Cold War or the on-going GWOT, but rather as traditional competition for resources and regional dominance.  This conflict will primarily be naval in origin given the distances and AORs involved (and reluctance by some powers to an extensive commitment of ground troops) and will feature widespread employment of aircraft and missiles – both cruise and ballistic, against deployed forces and homeland areas. Question is — are we watching and appraising or chasing technological will -o’wisps?

 

 

 

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 References:

 

• Russian Navy Frigates
• "Russia’s Navy Gets Ambitious"
• Project 22350: The Gorshkov-class
• Sixth Fleet Focus