Jeff Edwards is a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer, and an Anti-Submarine Warfare Specialist. He is currently working as a civilian expert consultant to the Fleet Anti-Submarine Warfare Command, the Navy's think tank for high-tech undersea warfare. His naval career spanned more than two decades and half the globe -- from chasing Soviet nuclear attack submarines during the Cold War, to launching cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf.
He puts his extensive experience as a Surface
Warfare specialist to work in his new novel,
TORPEDO.
In a plot that could easily be ripped from
today's headlines, TORPEDO combines an accident
at a nuclear power plant, an illegal arms
deal, and a biological warfare attack, to
ignite a crisis that could draw Western Europe,
the Middle East, and the United States into
all-out war. TORPEDO mixes the elements of
a classic sea chase novel with state-of-the-art
technology to create a cutting-edge Surface
Warfare Thriller.
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July 11, 2005
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I did a book signing in Sacramento a few days ago. As with all of my signings, the highlight for me was the chance to chat with my readers. So I was happily gabbing away about the plot of my novel Torpedo, when a very serious-looking gentleman dropped a conversational bomb in my lap. "Fiction is all good fun," he said. "But it's time to stop treating submarines as though they're a valid threat in the twenty-first century. The sub is like the biplane, or the flintlock. It was great stuff in its day, but the world has evolved and left it behind."
The man in question was highly articulate, and he made a strong case for his position. But it wasn't the first time I've encountered that particular line of thought. I've heard variations on the same argument from several very intelligent people over the past couple of years. "The submarine is like the dreadnoughts of old," people tell me. "It's enjoyed a long and glorious career, but its era has come and gone. The World Wars are long behind us, and the Cold War is little more than a fading memory. The demise of the great Soviet military machine virtually ended any threat that submarines ever posed to the United States or to world stability."
They're right, of course. The age of these magnificent vessels is winding to a close.
Or is it? Just to be certain, maybe we should do a quick check of the facts before we close the book on submarines.
Let's start with a simple figure that you undoubtedly learned in elementary school: three-quarters (or seventy-five percent) of the surface of the earth is covered by water. By itself, that doesn't sound terribly significant, so I'll toss in another figure. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration (MARAD), nearly ninety-five percent of the world's trade goods are transported by ship.
That's a bit more interesting, isn't it? Please note that we're not just talking about import cars, DVD players, and luxury items. That figure also includes raw materials, textiles, steel, building materials, medical supplies, fuel, and food.
Since the middle of the twentieth century, most long-distance travel has been by air. As a consequence, we've learned to think of jet aircraft as the primary mode of transportation between continents. We've begun to factor the oceans out of our mental equations. We don't usually travel by ship, except for the occasional vacation cruise, so we tend to assume that nothing else of consequence travels by ocean.
In this age of high-speed air travel and global communications networks, the traditional military goal of protecting the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) begins to feel antiquated and unimportant. In point of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Ocean transport is vital to the economies of nearly every nation on earth, and is absolutely fundamental to the survival of millions of people.
Try a quick Internet search on the phrase 'Sea Lines of Communication,' and take a look at the number of countries that rank ocean transport at or near the very top of their list of national security concerns. Better yet, dig out your history book and count the number of times that one country has brought another to the edge of economic and social collapse by choking off its sea lanes.
Sixty percent of the world's oil is transported by sea, aboard supertankers and Very Large Crude Carriers. If that supply is interrupted, this technology-dependent civilization that we've built for ourselves comes grinding to a halt.
I think I can state with a high degree of confidence that uninterrupted ocean commerce is a critical factor in maintaining international peace and stability. But does it necessarily follow that submarines constitute a significant danger to ocean commerce? The nuclear-powered submarine fleets of the Warsaw Pact have virtually dissolved. Just how real is the submarine threat in a post Cold War world?
Before I try to answer those questions, I'd like to take a moment to engage in a bit of technological fancy. Consider it a sort of thought-experiment. If you'll indulge me for just a moment, I promise to bring everything back around and ground it in the real world.
Imagine, if you will, that a military ally of the United States has made a radical breakthrough in stealth technology. Imagine that the technology in question can make a fighter jet or a bomber nearly invisible to all existing sensors. A combat aircraft with that caliber of stealth could fly perilously close to an American aircraft carrier battle group, or even the coastal regions of the United States, with little fear of detection. It might even get close enough to critical military or civilian targets to conduct missile attacks without warning: reigning destruction on ships, airbases, government buildings, or factories from an apparently empty sky.
That's pretty frightening all by itself, but let's carry this thought-experiment a step further. What if the technology is for sale? What if our hypothetical ally decides to build these super-stealth combat aircraft for sale to foreign governments?
I don't know about you, but the very idea is enough to give this old retired Chief a case of the willies. It would make a great plot for a summer blockbuster, though, wouldn't it? I can already picture Tom Cruise, or Will Smith in the lead role.
Now, let me toss one more 'What If' in your direction, and we can stop playing make-believe. What if it's all true?
As you've probably guessed by now, my imaginary stealth aircraft is really a submarine. I pulled the old bait-and-switch routine on you to make a point. A lot of people find the idea of high-tech stealth aircraft in the hands of a hostile nation extremely frightening. But, for some reason that I can't fathom, many of those same people fail to see any real danger in an enemy submarine with identical capabilities.
Perhaps it's because we see jet aircraft nearly every day, and we can easily imagine a hostile plane in our skies. Perhaps it's because many people don't realize that a submarine can lie off our coast and launch cruise missiles at targets a thousand miles inland. Or, perhaps it's because many people have no idea how far submarine technology has advanced in the past thirty years.
When they hear the words diesel submarine, most people picture something out of an old black and white war movie. Early generations of diesel subs had no real speed or endurance, and they were often easy prey for surface ships. But those days are ancient history. Over the past three decades, there have been numerous quantum leaps in diesel submarine design and engineering. Modern state-of-the-art diesel subs are equipped with Air-Independent Propulsion systems, and Hydrogen fuel cell technology straight out of the Aerospace Industry. They can run submerged for weeks without having to snorkel or come up for air. Their hull metallurgy is incredibly advanced, giving them operating depths comparable to nuclear subs. And, the new Austenitic steels are non-magnetic, making the most advanced diesel submarines difficult or impossible to detect with magnetic sensors. To top it all off, nearly all of the new diesel subs are capable of firing cruise missiles, as well as highly-advanced acoustic homing torpedoes.
In my humble opinion, the German-built Type-212 submarine is one of the scariest technological developments in history. And they're for sale, at a fraction of the cost of a nuclear submarine. The Swedish Gotland class is nearly as capable, and the German Type-214s that are scheduled to roll off the blocks in 2007 are even scarier.
There's another dimension to the equation. When the primary sub threat was from the Soviet Navy, the danger of submarine attack was relatively low. During the Cold War, a shooting match between a Russian submarine and a U.S. or NATO vessel could have easily sparked direct military conflict. World War III was lurking in the shadows, and neither side was willing to provoke a showdown that might lead to nuclear war.
But the numerous smaller nations that now possess submarine fleets don't have to worry about that. They know that the United States is not going to allow a conventional military conflict with a non-superpower to escalate to the nuclear stage. We're simply not going to nuke them, and they know it. That frees most potential adversaries of the fear of ultimate reprisal, which -- in turn -- makes the prospect of attacking a U.S. or allied target seem a lot more attractive.
As the events of the past few years have proven, there are more than a few countries willing to shoot America in the head. And the proliferation of inexpensive high-tech submarines on the world arms market may just be handing them the tools to do it.
Taken together, all of these facts add up to a single conclusion. Submarines are inextricably linked with America's National Security, and with world stability as a whole. They're likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
I think we can answer those questions now. In the twenty-first century, the submarine threat is, quite possibly, greater than it has ever been before. And, no -- the age of the submarine has not come to an end.
