Norwegian Navy commander: Russia should give up a blue-water navy dream

Russia should abstain from massive investments in major naval combatant projects in order to make sure political ambitions do not deplete its budgets and return the fleet to the decaying, post Cold War status, Norwegian Navy commander Daniel Thomassen wrote in an article for the November-edition of the Proceedings magazine.

Quoting Soviet Navy Admiral Sergey Gorshkov who said that great powers need great navies, Thomassen wrote that Russian security leaders are embarking on a dangerous undertaking with which they aim to rival the U.S. Navy.

A similar ambition brought the Soviet Union to collapse, the author contended adding that such aspirations are poised to threaten the creation of a strategically balanced and sustainable Russian Navy.

“The RFN is a capable regional sea power, with an effective A2/AD-capability against any adversary in the Arctic, the Baltic, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Black seas,” Thomassen wrote suggesting that this was something Russian military leaders should build on and abstain from making investments in advanced systems and platforms that will still fail to bring the Russian Navy on par with its U.S. counterpart.