Moscow's Muscle Flexing

By William E. Smith

Soviet ships prowl the North Atlantic in the biggest maneuvers ever

Day after day, the warships streamed out of Soviet naval bases on the Baltic and Arctic coasts. Among them were brand-new guided-missile destroyers, missile submarines and, most impressive of all, the 28,000-ton nuclear-powered battle cruiser Kirov. By midweek the hastily assembled battle fleet spanned a vast expanse of ocean, from the waters off Greenland, across to the Shetland Islands, northeast to the fringes of Scandinavia and as far as the glacial Barents Sea. In the air, Soviet antisubmarine and strike aircraft flew almost continuous missions over,the Norwegian Sea. Backfire bombers, reputed to be the Soviets' most capable air-to-surface missile carriers, were detected in larger numbers, and farther from their land bases, than ever before.

The size and significance of the latest Soviet maneuvers were at first widely disputed, even within the Reagan Administration. Early in the week, some Pentagon sources were saying that only about 20 Soviet warships were involved in the North Atlantic. At his news conference Wednesday night, the President put the figure at 40. But in a subsequent interview with TIME, Navy Secretary John Lehman Jr. said that "the fleet exercise topped off at over 140 ships." Subtracting trawlers and landing craft, the

Navy later maintained, there were at least 140 surface ships and 70 submarines involved in the exercises. Although Lehman could have been exaggerating the numbers to buttress his often stated case for expansion of the Navy, he left no doubt that the latest maneuvers were the largest the Soviets have ever conducted.

At the same time, Soviet ships seemed to be more visible in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea and even the Caribbean (see map). The cruiser Leningrad was reported to have left Cuba in company with other Soviet vessels, their destination unknown. Although early reports that Soviet ships were conducting auxiliary exercises in oceans other than the North Atlantic seemed to be incorrect, just tracking the global movements of Moscow's fleet created headaches for the U.S. Navy. For the second time in twelve days, the game of "chicken at sea" that skippers from both superpowers frequently play led to a potentially serious incident.

In the meantime, the Western powers expressed their concern about an> other recurring problem, the inconvenience and occasional danger to (TM) Western aircraft as a result of Soviet air activity in the three 20-miles wide air corridors that link West "Berlin to West Germany. As a result of recent Soviet military activity over East Germany, Western civilian airliners have had to make frequent changes in altitude on flights to and from West Berlin.

There were disturbing reports that the U.S. and its NATO allies had been caught off-guard by the Soviet maneuvers. The Supreme Commander of NATO Atlantic forces, Admiral Wesley McDonald, said he had been "very impressed" by the size of the Soviet fleet, and called for an upgrading of Western defenses in the region. During a trip to Turkey for a NATO meeting, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger denied that the alliance had been unprepared for the Soviet maneuvers, although Defense Department Spokesman Michael Burch later conceded that "perhaps the size of the exercise was somewhat unexpected."

By week's end, however, most Western governments were attempting to down-play the event. "I think it's spring in Russia as well as in the U.S.," Reagan said, "and that's when you have war games and maneuvers." According to the President, the Soviet exercises were "regular and routine" and did not constitute any sort of political signal to the West. But he added a bit ruefully that NATO always advises Moscow in advance of its own war games, and he wished the Soviets would return the courtesy. "We always tell them when we're going to have them," said Reagan. "We wish they'd tell us. But I think this is nothing more than that."*

--Most European governments agreed with Reagan that the Soviet maneuvers were within the scope of traditional war games. "It's not really as if these exercises came out of the blue," said a Norwegian defense expert. "The Soviets have them every year." But British intelligence detected political undertones. "These maneuvers were an act of defiance toward the Reagan Administration and its allies in Europe," said a senior offcial. The Soviet Union, in his view, is worried about the extensive U.S. military buildup and feels humiliated by the deployment of new nuclear weapons in Western Europe and, in response, has decided to make a show of its military might. Says Michael MccGwire, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution: "The Soviets have concluded that the Americans understand only countervailing force. This exercise in the Norwegian Sea is saying, 'We're here and we have rights.' "

The Soviet maneuvers, like similar ones conducted by the NATO navies a month ago, presupposed that in a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict, a crucial fighting area would be the Norwegian Sea, between Norway and Iceland. The northern reaches of the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea constitute the Soviet Union's "ocean bastion," where its submarines move freely with their cargo of nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. To prevent NATO'S killer subs and surface submarine hunters from entering the area during a war, the Soviets figure that they must totally control those waters north of the line stretching from Greenland to Iceland to the Shetlands and Norway. Last week's exercises seemed to be directed toward that end.

Paradoxically, the Pentagon appears to welcome Soviet naval maneuvers because they give the U.S. an opportunity to examine Soviet ships at close hand and to compare the performances of the two navies. That may have been particularly true last week, when the Soviets showed off a new generation of warships, the fruit of a huge naval construction program. NATO tracked the proceedings intensively, using surveillance aircraft, surface ships and submarines.

Excessive curiosity, however, can cause unexpected problems. Only last June, Secretary Lehman declared that the navies of the two superpowers had successfully reduced the number of dangerous encounters between their ships. But last month a Soviet submarine collided with the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk in the Sea of Japan. During a training exercise, U.S. ships had been stalking the Soviet submarine "and, by their calculations, had "killed" it several times.

According to U.S. naval officials, the Soviet skipper erred by surfacing too quickly and without first checking the blind spot created by his submarine's wash. Somehow, the craft got right in front of the Kitty Hawk and surfaced just as the 60,000-ton carrier was bearing down. The submarine suffered moderate damage, including the loss of a propeller. The U.S. Navy is convinced that until that point, the Soviet sub captain had been a willing participant in the exercise. Says a U.S. officer: "We practice on each other. That way at least we're saving the taxpayer's money."

Such cat-and-mouse games caused another mishap last week. The U.S. frigate Harold E. Holt had been shadowing one of the largest ships in the Soviet navy, the 43,000-ton aircraft carrier Minsk, during what the U.S. described as "routine surveillance operations" in the South China Sea. Yet even the Pentagon version of the story suggested that the Holt had been unnecessarily provocative. With the Minsk dead in the water, her engines stopped, the Holt hoisted flags signaling that it was passing the Minsk on the starboard side. The Minsk hoisted flags warning the Holt to stay away. The U.S. ship proceeded anyway. As the frigate drew near, the Soviets used a bullhorn to warn the Americans to keep their distance. The Holt then turned around and again hoisted flags saying it would pass. The Minsk merely acknowledged the message, waited until the Holt was passing by at 300 yds., then fired four warning signal flares over the American vessel and four directly at it. Three of the flares hit the frigate's port side. The fourth whizzed by the bridge, missing the captain by a bare 3 ft.

In discussing the incident last week, Lehman insisted that relations between the Soviet and American fleets at sea are still "very professional and workmanlike." He continued, "I don't see anything sinister in the incident with the Minsk. Let's say there are two plausible sides to that story. The Minsk skipper may not have been all on the wrong side." Lehman has championed the Soviet-U.S. agreement of May 1972, in which both sides pledged to avoid such incidents at sea, and would like to see the present situation improved.

Both navies have been experiencing growing pains for some time. After 15 years of rapid expansion, the Soviet navy is larger than the U.S. fleet in numbers of warships (1,703 vs. 507). The Reagan Administration, however, has been trying to close the gap, with 118 ships currently under construction. Although the U.S. fleet will still not be as large as that of the Soviets, Lehman points out that "we don't need to match them ship for ship as long as we have the contributions of all the NATO navies." Together, the NATO powers at present have some 1,400 warships at their disposal for the defense of Western Europe. While emphasizing the essentially defensive nature of last week's exercises, a top British naval expert observes: "These maneuvers underline the arrival of the Soviet fleet as a blue-water navy of the first rank. Of that, we in the West should take full notice." --By William E. Smith. Reported by Ross H. Munro and Bruce Van Voorst/Washington

* --The U.S. last week began its own worldwide exercises, code-named Global Shield 84, designed to train bomber and missile crews for nuclear war. The maneuvers will include test firing of two Minuteman missiles from Vandenberg A.F.B., Calif., and the test launching of cruise missiles from B-52 bombers. The Pentagon said that it had notified Moscow of its plans, although the exercises "bear no relationship to any aspect of current international situations."

With reporting by Ross H. Munro, Bruce van Voorst/Washington