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This article is part of CIMSEC’s “Forgotten Naval Strategists Week.” It’s time to discuss the Soviet Navy, so dust off your Norman Polmar guides and your early Tom Clancy novels. Or just ask an old salt and Cold War vet if the Red Fleet used to be a big deal. You might even check with Vladimir Putin, who is well aware of this recent yet quickly forgotten chapter in Russian history. Putin would no doubt fondly recall the man responsible for the rise of the Soviet Navy and for its operational and intellectual direction in its heyday: Admiral Sergei Gorshkov....

Past fears that carriers were vulnerable to new technologies weren’t proven right… nor were they proven wrong. Over at The National Interest this week, former Naval Diplomat shipmate — U.S. Marines say there are no former Marines, just Marines; are there former shipmates? — Bryan McGrath wades into the debate over Tom Ricks’s Washington Post column urging the U.S. military to get smaller to get better. Let me wade in as well; the water’s fine. Ricks takes aim at the U.S. Navy’s fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in particular. He cites the expense of CVNs, but Bryan zeroes in mainly...

HMS Conqueror is famous, some would say notorious, for sinking the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano. The nuclear-powered attack submarine, a type also known menacingly as a hunter-killer, that year became the first of her kind to fire in anger..... But the ship now in the crosswires was not the Belgrano. This was August, almost two months after the liberation of the Falklands, and on the other side of the world, in the Barents Sea, backyard of the mighty Soviet Northern Fleet..... This one was special: [the trawler] was pulling a device long coveted by the British and Americans, a two-mile...

QINGDAO, China – As China prepares to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy on Thursday, its normally secretive military has taken the unprecedented step of showcasing some of its best vessels and naval weaponry. On Wednesday, sailors from China and 14 other countries with naval ships participating in the international fleet review off the coast of Qingdao – including the United States – took turns visiting one another’s vessels. We chanced upon the Commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet, Vice Adm. John Bird, who had just emerged from a Chinese submarine. "It’s...

USS PORTER, At Sea (NNS) -- USS Porter (DDG 78) departed the Black Sea country of Georgia April 10, after being at anchor outside the city of Poti for four days. Within hours, Porter was at work strengthening enduring and emerging partnerships not only with the Georgian navy, but also the Turkish navy. "I think it's the first time we have done a trilateral exercise underway with the Georgian, Turkish and U.S. Navies," noted Commander, Task Force 67 Capt. Bob Lally, who assumed tactical control of the guided-missile destroyer before it entered the Black Sea, April 4. "Cooperative training helps...

A rendering of a DD(X) destroyer. The Navy's new destroyer, the DD(X), is becoming so expensive that it may end up destroying itself. The Navy once wanted 24 of them. Now it thinks it can afford 5 - if that. The price of the Navy's new ships, driven upward by old-school politics and the rusty machinery of American shipbuilding, may scuttle the Pentagon's plans for a 21st-century armada of high-technology aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines. Shipbuilding costs "have spiraled out of control," the Navy's top admiral, Vern Clark, told Congress last week, rising so high that "we can't build...

LONDON, Feb. 21 - Five years after Britain lifted its ban on gays in the military, the Royal Navy has begun actively encouraging them to enlist and has pledged to make life easier when they do. The navy announced Monday that it had asked Stonewall, a group that lobbies for gay rights, to help it develop better strategies for recruiting and retaining gay men and lesbians. It said, too, that one strategy may be to advertise for recruits in gay magazines and newspapers. Commodore Paul Docherty, director of naval life management, said the service wanted to change the atmosphere so...

During its years in the Navy, the surveillance ship Stalwart patrolled the Atlantic, searching the silent waters for signs of Russian submarines. Its end came not from enemy fire, but old age and budget cuts, according to Navy documents. In all, it was a decent but unremarkable military career. But in a berth beneath the Throgs Neck Bridge, the empty, rust-scabbed ship has found its second life as a floating classroom and cargo-security laboratory. It is now being converted into the new headquarters of the New York State Strategic Center for Port and Maritime Security. Besides serving as office space...

Russia is likely to send its navy to the Arabian Sea near the Gulf region where the United States is leading a war against Iraq, the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports. Russian navy officials had earlier announced that at least two fleets - the Pacific and the Black Sea, would stage exercises in the Indian Ocean next month. However, there had previously been no mention of the Arabian Sea, which is on the Indian Ocean's northern tip and washes the shores of India, Iran, Oman and Yemen. The newspaper, which has developed a reputation for its good military ties, reported that...