The Russian ballistic missile submarine fleet is being modernized but
conducting so few deterrent patrols that each submarine crew cannot be
certain to get out of port even once a year.
During 2012, according to data obtained from U.S. Naval Intelligence
under the Freedom of Information Act, the entire Russian fleet of nine
ballistic missile submarines only sailed on five deterrent patrols.
The patrol level is barely enough to maintain one missile submarine on patrol at any given time.
The ballistic missile submarine force is in the middle of an
important modernization. Over the next decade or so, all remaining
Soviet-era ballistic missile submarines and their two types of
sea-launched ballistic missiles will be replaced with a new submarine
armed with a new missile (see also our latest Nuclear Notebook on Russian nuclear forces).
The new fleet will carry more nuclear warheads than the one it
replaces, however, because the Russian military is trying to maintain
parity with the larger U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Sluggish Deterrent Patrols
The operational tempo of the Russian SSBN fleet – measured in the
number of deterrent patrol conducted each year – has declined
significantly – actually plummeted – since the end of the Cold War.
At their peak in 1984 – the year after the Russian military became
convinced that the NATO exercise Able Archer was in fact disguised
preparations for a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union,
Russian SSBNs carried out 102 patrols. Under Mikhail Gorbachev,
operations quickly declined in the second half of the 1980s. But even as
the Warsaw Pact collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the fleet
was able to muster a slight comeback in 1990.
As the Cold War officially ended in 1990, the Soviet Union dissolved
and Russia descended into financial recession, the SSBN force
increasingly stayed in port until in 2002, when no deterrent patrols
were conducted all.
Since then, the performance has been a mixed bag. After a slight
whiff of new life with 10 patrols in 2008 (up from 3 in 2007), the
number of SSBN patrols has declined again to around five in 2012.
The recent decline contrasts with the Russian Navy’s declaration last
year that it would resume continuous deterrent patrols from mid-2012.
Assuming the five patrols occurred throughout the year and not just in
the last six months, the fleet would have had a hard time maintaining a
continuous at-sea presence with only five patrols. Theoretically, it
could be done if each patrol lasted an average of 73 days. That is how
long a U.S. SSBN deploys on a good day. But Russian SSBNs are thought to
do shorter patrols, probably 40-60 days each, in which case most of the
five patrols would have had to occur between July and December to
maintain continuous patrol from mid-2012.
Even if the navy were able to squeeze a more or less continuous
at-sea presence out of the five patrols, it would at best have consisted
of a single SSBN – not much for a fleet of nine submarines or
demonstrating a convincing secure retaliatory capability.
Perhaps more significantly, the five deterrent patrols conducted in
2012 are not enough for each SSBN in the fleet to be able to conduct
even one patrol a year. The five patrols by nine SSBNs indicate that
only five or less submarines are active. That means that submarine crews
do not get much hands-on training in how to operate the SSBNs so they
actually have a chance to survive and provide a secure retaliatory
strike capability in a crisis. Crews probably compensate for this by
practicing alert operations at pier-side at their bases.
Unlike U.S. SSBNs, which can patrol essentially with impunity in the
open oceans, Russian deterrent patrols are thought to take place in
“strategic bastions” relatively close to Russia where the SSBNs can be
protected by the Russian navy against the U.S. and British attack
submarines that probably occasionally monitor their potential targets.
The Russian navy remembers all too well the 1980s when the aggressive
U.S. Maritime Strategy envisioned using attack submarines to hunt down
and destroy Soviet SSBNs early on in a conflict, a highly controversial
strategy [see here and here]
that could likely have triggered escalation to strategic nuclear war.
Hunting Russian SSBNs is no longer a primary mission for U.S. attack
submarines, but it is probably still part of the mission package and one
that Russian planners cannot afford to ignore. As a result, Russian
SSBNs probably continue to patrol in the areas used in the late-1980s
and early-1990s (see map) to provide maximum protection.
Russia currently operates 10 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), of which three Delta IIIs based in the Pacific are outdated and six Delta IVs based in the Barents Sea have recently been refurbished to serve for another decade or so. The 10th SSBN added in January 2013 is the first of a new type of Borei-class SSBNs that are scheduled to replace all Deltas by the mid/late-2020s.
The first Borei-class (Project 955) SSBN, Yuri Dolgoruki, entered service after more than 15 years of design and construction, marking the first time in 25 years that the Russian Navy had commissioned a new SSBN. A second Borei has been launched and a third is under construction. Russia has announced plans to build a total of eight Boreis. Each Borei is equipped with 16 SS-N-32 (Bulava) SLBMs, a missile that Russia has declared can carry up to six warheads.
The fourth and subsequent Borei-class SSBNs will be of an improved design, known as Borei-II or Project 955A). Russian news media is full of rumors that the improved Boreis will be equipped with 20 SLBMs instead of 16 on each of the first three boats. Some Russian officials dispute that, saying all Boreis will be equipped with 16 missiles.
This force structure plan has implications for Russia’s nuclear
posture and strategic priorities. The replacement of the Delta SSBNs
with eight Borei SSBNs will reduce the size of the Russian SSBN fleet
and the number of SLBMs, but result in a 23-percent increase in the
number of sea-based warheads because the SS-N-32 carries more warheads
than the SS-N-18 and SS-N-23 SLBMs it replaces.
In other words, Russia will be placing more eggs in fewer baskets at
sea, which increases the importance of each SSBN – something strategists
say is bad for crisis stability.
Conclusions and Implications
The Russian SSBN force is in the middle of a transition from
Soviet-era weapons to a smaller but more warhead-heavy fleet of new
submarines.
This means that the SSBN fleet will carry a growing portion of
Russia’s strategic missile warheads – up from about a third today to
nearly half by the mid-2020s.
The trend of increased warhead loading on sea-launched ballistic
missiles is similar to the development on land where reduction of the
Russian ICBM force will result in a greater portion of the remaining
force being equipped with multiple warheads.
This is perhaps the most dominant trend of Russia’s nuclear forces
today: fewer launchers but each carrying more warheads. Not that Russia
will have more total nuclear warheads than before (their arsenal is
declining), but that military planners have fallen for the temptation to
place more nuclear eggs in each basket.
They appear to do so to compensate againt the larger U.S. nuclear missile force
and its significant reserve of additional warheads. But it would be
helpful if the Russian government would declare how many Borei-class
SSBNs it plans to build in total and limit the number of missiles on each to 16.
The Russian modernization is motivating Cold Warriors in the U.S.
Congress to argue that the United States should not reduce but modernize
its nuclear forces. They are wrong for many reasons, not least because
the two postures are very different.
The U.S. SSBN fleet is more modern with another 15 service years left
in it, and it carries many more missiles that are much more reliable
with more warheads. The U.S. could in fact easily reduce its SSBN fleet to ten boats, perhaps fewer.
Moreover, in contrast with U.S. SSBN operations, where each
operational submarine conducts an average of 2-3 patrols each year,
Russian SSBN crews do not get a lot of operational training with an
average of less than one patrol per submarine per year.
Rather than opposing further reductions, U.S. lawmakers should
support limitations on the growing asymmetry between U.S. and Russian
strategic nuclear forces – an asymmetry that is significantly in the
U.S. advantage – to help limit further concentration of nuclear warheads
on Russia’s declining numbers of strategic missiles. That would
actually help the national security interests of all.
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