Introduction
On August 10, 2000, a Russian Naval contingent of over 30 boats departed the shores of the Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia.1 These vessels included several attack submarines tasked with conducting the test fire of cruise missiles and torpedoes into mock U.S. targets. These war game exercises took place over a five-day period in the Barents Sea. What was to be a display of Russian Naval power and superiority degraded into utter catastrophe as several explosions sent Russia’s fourth largest nuclear cruise missile submarine, the K-141 Kursk, to the seafloor. According to some observers, all 118 submariners were lost due to delayed rescue response by Russia’s Northern Fleet command and indecisive actions by Russia’s newly elected president, Vladimir Putin.2
History
The year 2000 was a pivotal time for Russian leadership and its nation. After emerging peacefully from a decades-long period of “cold war,” Russia experienced political upheaval with the sudden retirement of President Boris Yeltsin, and the subsequent election of Vladimir Putin.3 The United States president, William Jefferson Clinton, was the first president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to not require a Soviet defense strategy.4 The two nations had entered into a new decade of peace not enjoyed since the close of World War II. Both nations moved from a policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD), to the systematic dismantling of a massive arsenal of nuclear munitions. Post Cold War peace and the relaxation of previous tension between the superpowers required careful application of diplomatic compromise by both nations. The late 1990’s saw continued movement toward nuclear disarmament. But in direct contradiction to the apparent peace agreements, Russia...
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...e ends. The barge was sailed into the Barents Sea and positioned over the Kursk. After the removal of the torpedo section divers carefully drilled 26 holes into the hull of the Kursk. The 26 spreader hooks were then lowered into the hull, and the whole ship was hoisted securely up underneath the massive Norwegian barge.27
The contract for the raising of the Kursk was officially signed on May 18, with actual salvage operations commencing on July 16. On October 7, 2001, final dive inspections were conducted on the Kursk in preparation for lift. On October 8, at 03:55, the Kursk was finally lifted from the Barents Sea floor. It took over 9,600 tons of force to lift the Kursk from the ocean. The Kursk was then transported to dry dock in Murmansk where a detailed investigation could begin. Investigators eventually recovered 69 more bodies from her twisted interior.28
The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
Tensions in Russia in the Early 1900 In the early 1900, Russia faced various kinds of problems in terms of society and politics. Although the largest country in the world, Russia could only offer 5% of its land for farming. The rest was useless due to the extremely low temperatures throughout the year. The problem with land meant that peasants did not produce a sufficient amount of food, consequently resulting famine all over the country.
The major factor that led to the true end of the Cold War was the ongoing personal and diplomatic relationship between Presidents George H. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. This resulted in the reduction of the Russian military and favorable arms agreements. Key indicators of the substance behind this relationship were the Soviet troop withdrawals from Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, and Hungary (lifting the Hungarian/Austrian “Iron Curtain” along the border). Subsequently the opening of the Berl...
We believe we were hit by two torpedoes, one around frame 8 or 10, because the bow was blown off forward around ten. Another one [torpedo] around frame fifty. We believe that they were large torpedoes, that they were running close to the surface, because none of us believe the magazines blew up, that is the only way we can account for the flashes of flame through the ship.
After the first couple hundred troops went off the tanks and vehicles came off. This created space for the onboard medical personnel to make the boat a hospital. The ship was shooting at the enemies from the top and shot the mine bombs which helped a lot. The crew were supplying medical treatment and food to the soldiers. Everybody on the ship were fighting for their lives and were going a 110 percent like this was the last thing they were going to do which was a big reason Sword beach the Allied powers
...h development of Russia, and the West’s involvement in that task. Russia must feel as though it is being treated as if it is a major player on the world scale, which it is. If it feels that it is being regarded lightly, it will shut itself off from the rest of the world and positive change will not occur. This means that using Russia to augment the United States’ security needs at no benefit to Russia needs to end. The West must recognize the differences in Russia and work around those differences in order to find a system that works for them. A realist approach is clearly not the answer as it only fuels negativity, and does nothing to encourage Russia to fix their internal problems which are hindering the country. If the West can engage productively with Russia, an era of cooperation will ensue which will be essential in solving the globes security problems.
The Olympic boycott was the attempt to keep many nations out of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, in a movement to draw the Soviets out of the Afghanistan war. The U.S knew that if they could start a boycott that it would ripple through all the nations and they would all follow the boycott. The U.S. didn’t want the Olympics to come to an end, they were hoping to put Russia in a position where they would have to make the soviets pull out. If the Soviets didn’t withdraw from the war, then Moscow could be looking at major debts for the 1980 Olympics.
The end of the Cold War was one of the most unexpected and important events in geopolitics in the 20th century. The end of the Cold War can be defined as the end of the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had existed since the end of the World War II. The conclusion of the Cold War can be attributed to Gorbachev’s series of liberalizations in the 1980s, which exposed the underlying economic problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc states that had developed in the 1960s and 70s and prevented the USSR from being able to compete with the US as a superpower. Nevertheless, Reagan’s policies of a renewed offensive against communism, Gorbachev’s rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine and the many nationalities
in the war in between 1939 and the end of 1941, was largely based on a
In the thirty-eight years of the United States Naval Submarine Service no United States submarine had ever sunk an enemy vessel. With the ignition of the Second World War the poorly equipped and poorly trained Silent Service, nicknamed for the limited access of the media to the actions and achievements of the submarines, would be thrust into the position American submariners had longed for. The attack on Pearl Harbor left the United States Navy with few options for retribution. The three remaining aircraft carriers were to be “the last line of defense.” Commander Stuart S. Murray made the precarious situation clear to his skippers, captains, upon sending them on their first war patrol. He stressed the importance of smart sailing by warning them not “to go out there and win the Congressional Medal of Honor in one day. The submarines are all we have left.” We entered the war with 55 submarines, 27 at Pearl Harbor and 28 at Cavite in the Philippines. At first our submarine strategies lacked ingenuity and failed to use our subs to their full potential. United States subs were assigned to reconnaissance, transporting supplies, and lifeguard duty, picking up downed airmen and sailors. They were even, on occasion, sent to rescue high profile Americans on the run from the enemy or from islands under enemy siege. Although their ability was, unfortunately, wasted in our entrance to the Pacific Theater the Silent Service would soon gain the recognition its men yearned for.
Lafeber, W. (2002), America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2000. 9th edn. New-York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Wilk, Andrzej. "The Military Consequences of the Annexation of Crimea | OSW." Www.OSW.waw.pl. N.p., 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. .
Smith, William Y and Anatoli I. Gribkov. Operation ANADYR: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chicago: Edition Q, 1994.
The Russo-Chechen war that ended in 1996 should have given the Russian government a feel of things to come when they decided to attack in late September of last year. Triggered by security challenges to the State, Russia decided that the democracy would be in danger if they didn’t act. Russia was in a politically unstable situation right now with the resignation of Yeltsin, and the current Presidential elections looming. Also looming on the political horizon was the concern over rampant corruption in the government. If they had done nothing Yeltsin’s party would have stood to lose, yet Putin, (Yeltsin’s successor) succeeded in focusing the medias attention on the war rather that the domestic corruption.