(TRUNEWS) Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy expressed his concern Monday regarding reports of Russian nuclear-armed submarine deployments off of NATO’s coastlines.
“No one is suggesting that Putin is contemplating a nuclear launch against a NATO country, but it’s not clear how tethered to reality Putin is,” Murphy told reporters after returning from a visit to the Arctic Circle. “And it should make us nervous that many of his submarines are starting to get dangerously close to the U.S. and our allies.”
Murphy added that in his opinion Russia’s navy has undergone an aggressive shift in recent years which far surpasses their Cold War stances. “Russian submarines have been pushing out to the very precipice of NATO-ally waters,” he said. “We have seen Russian boats coming closer to the U.S. and to our European partner ports than ever before, in immensely provocative ways — in ways that were rare even during the days of the Cold War.”
An example of such an incursion was reported in Obs magazine last Thursday, as a senior French official was quoted saying a Russian nuclear submarine had been detected in the Bay of Biscay in January. Obs reported that the sub came from Murmansk base near Finland, and though it was seen off France’s Atlantic coast the sub did not enter France’s territorial waters.
NATO patrol aircraft responded more than 20 times last year alone to potential Russian incursions on territorial waters around Britain.
Russia’s diesel-electric submarine Rostov-on-Don is escorted by a Turkish Navy Coast Guard boat as it sets sail in the Bosphorus, on its way to the Black Sea, in Istanbul, Turkey, December 13, 2015. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
STEALTHY SUBS
Russia’s developments in their nuclear submarine fleets are becoming a significant and credible threat to NATO. This technological creep was eluded to last fall by Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Adm. Viktor Chirkov who explained that their ’Fifth-generation’ nuclear submarines will utilize anti-sonar composite materials able provide advanced stealth and noise-reduction capabilities, effectively hiding them from enemy detection systems.
Valery Polovinkin, an adviser to the general director of the Krylov State Research Center, told Izvestia Thursday that “the structure and composition of these new multilayer composite materials will significantly reduce the sonar signals reflected from submarine, isolate working mechanisms from vibrations, and so on.”
The deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy Vice-Admiral Alexander Fedotenkov said Russia’s shipbuilding industry is successfully building a series of six Project 636.3 diesel-electric submarines for their Black Sea fleet.
Defense analyst Harry J. Kazianis wrote about diesel-electric submarines for the National Interest in January, referencing a 2005 naval exercise held off the coast of San Diego involving a Swedish Gotland-class diesel-electric submarine. Defense expert Tyler Rogoway told Kazianis “the small stealthy sub even made it into the ‘red zone’ beyond the last ring of anti-submarine defenses within a carrier strike group.” Another source familiar with the drills told Kazianis that “the Gotland was so silent it literally did not exist to our sensors.”
Three-term Democratic Representative and U.S. Senatorial candidate Chris Murphy addresses the members of the media at a polling place on election day in Cheshire, Connecticut, November 6, 2012. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin
BUDGET CRUNCH
During his comments to reporters, Sen. Murphy also advocated for a more aggressive production plan from the U.S. Navy to replace aging Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, while also avoiding cuts of Virginia-class attack submarines. “We’ve got to find a way to do both,” he said. “If you look at the pace of Russian and Chinese building programs, we can’t afford to drop Virginia-class production back to one for more than a year.”
Britain has had their own submarine funding crisis regarding their Trident nuclear program, which has seen virulent protests from leftists such as Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn over the last year. Corbyn has lead the charge with calls for Britain to mirror Japan and deploy subs without nukes, and use the Trident’s as a “taxi service” to transport members of the armed forces.
Regarding the funding crunch, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told a House panel last week that ”You’re going have to look at this program with a national lens because if you drop this into the middle of a Navy shipbuilding budget it will just gut Navy shipbuilding for decades to come.”
Pentagon officials have announced plans to scale back production of modern attack submarines if the Navy can’t get funding to replace the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.
The post Red October rising: Russian nuke subs haunt NATO’s coastline appeared first on TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles.
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