SOVIETS REPORTEDLY STEP UP RESEARCH TO DETECT U.S. SUBS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88T00988R000100010005-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: September 24, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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~N 1 C ~.-
MEMORANDUM FOR: NIO/S&T 24 Sept 86
NIO/SP
Gentlemen -- Should we be concerned? Do we
need an NIE, or SNIE; or IIM or IIA on this?
Or simply incorporate in NIE 11-3-8?
FBH
(C/NIC)
$ 0 7$' O~ E O I T I O N S I O V S
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office of Current Production and Analytic Support
[A Operations Center _v
~ws Bulletin
The Washington Post, Page Al 24 September 1986
Item No. 1
Soviets Reportedly Step Up
Research to Detect U.S. Subs
By Charles R. Bahcock
Washingaon Post Staff Writrr
Over the past five years, the So-
viet Union has significantly stepped
up research efforts to detect U.S.
submarings, shifting top scientists
from other work to do experiments
using space-based radars and other
advanced equipment, according to
informed sources.
U.S. analysts have identified 13
Soviet scientific institutes working
on important antisubmarine warfare
(ASW) research, including the five-
year-old Institute of General Phys-
ics and the Institute of Space Re-
? search, officials said. Using public
as well as secret sources, these of-
ficials also have determined that a
number of researchers were
switched to ASW research after
doing high-energy laser weapons
experiments in the 1970s.
One senior intelligence official
described the Soviet ASW research
as "massive." That effort is known
to include experiments using sev-
eral new techniques other than
sound, or acoustic, detection, which
is the heart of U.S. ASW efforts.
Among them are infrared, electro-
magnetic and laser sensors, as well
as radar on the Soviet space station.
The Soviet research ha
prompted concern in some U.S. sci-
entific and congressional circles
that the Nary is not taking seriously
enough the possibility that the So-
viets' intense research effort might
lead to a technological break-
through that would make American
missile and attack submarines vul-
nerable.
The U.S. force has been consid-
ered undetectable and the safety of
the 39 missile subs has been of par-
ai-iount concern to policy-makers
because those subs carry about half
of the nation's nuclear missile war-
heads.
Congress ordered the Central
Intelligence Agency to begin a $10
million independent assessment of
the ASW issue tast year, and in July
the House Armed Services Commit-
tee recommended that another $10
million be added to the Pentagon
budget for further research.
Concerns about a potential Soviet
ASW breakthrough have arisen pe-
riodically, but Navy officials have
quickly dismissed the fears as snip-
ing from other services intent on
increasing their share of the nucle-
ar arms budget. The Navy spends
about $40 million a year on re-
search .to protect missile subs and
officials have testified that scien-
tists are convinced that nonacoustic
techniques being tried by the So-
viets cannot work.
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'acing the proper operational tactics
will not generate surface observ-
ables which can be imaged by syn-
thetic aperture radar (the space-
based radars being studied by the
Soviets)," a Navy spokesman said.
'There is no realistic possibility
that the Soviets will deploy a sys-
tem in the 1990s that could pose
any significant threat to U.S.
SSBNs (nuclear ballistic missile
wbmarines) on patrol. U.S. intel-
Ggence estimates agree with this
assessment."
Navy critics do not claim that the
Soviets have developed a new ASW
capability, but say the science of the
ocean is not understood well
enough for the Navy to make the
blanket assurances. Some sources
said Navy leaders and their contrac-
tors are arrogant. "It's the notion
that we can't do it and we're smart-
er than they (the Soviets) are, so
they can't do it either," one con-
gressional source said.
Last year's CIA study was put
under the direction of Robert
Gates, then head of the agency's
analysis division and now deputy
director of the agency.
Sources said the CIA's office of
scientific and weapons research put
together a 60-member working
group with four subcommittees to
study whether space-based radars
might be able to read small changes
in the ocean's surface caused by
movement of submerged subma-
rines. The CIA study group con-
cluded the possibility could not be
dis~tlissed because of scientific un-
certainties 2nd recommended fur-
ther study in some areas, the
sources said.
Some participants in the CIA stu-
dy complained that the research
might not be independent because
Navy personnel and contractors
were assigned to the project. And at
least three researchers complained
earlier this yeaz ago that a draft of
the CIA study report was being
written to play down the scientific
uncertainties, the sources said.
A Navy spokesman said "the
Navy has given full support to the
CIA study by making available any
and all information, including raw
exercise data and published final
reports .... "
mittee, in what is being called a fol-
bw-up to the CIA study, recom-
mended in July that $10 million be
added to the Defense Advanced Re-
search Projects Agency (DARPA)
budget to conduct "advanced spec-
ulative and independent research
and experiments" on such topics as
'wave propogation, ocean surface
physics, radaz and infrared imaging,
and detection theory."
Such technical jargon hardly con-
jures up the dramatic image of an-
tisubmarine warfare depicted in
Tom Clancy's best-selling novels
about undersea chases. But the ar-
cane scientific debate is getting
more attention now because of two
key factors.
First, the Navy's confidence in
the invulnerability of its submarine
force has been based on longstand-
ing U.S. expertise in making sub-
marines too quiet for the Soviets to
bear, while using sophisticated
acoustic equipment to detect noisi-
er Soviet boats. But the Nary ac-
knowledged recently that Soviet
subs are becoming quieter and sci-
ence may be reaching the limits of
acoustic detection techniques. Thus
.some Navy officers aze interested
in nonacoustic devices for ASW.
In addition, though many experts
feel that U.S. missile subs, including
the giant Trident, are safe for the
foreseeable future because they
move slowly and deep in vast ex-
panses of ocean, the Navy also is
designing a new attack submarine
that some think may be more vul-
nerable.
The new Seawolf, which will cost
E1.6 billion each at first, is much
larger than existing U.S. attack
nubs and is supposed to go after
Soviet subs in shallow water neaz
their home bases if war breaks out.
Thus some ASW experts, in and out
of government, think it might be
especially vulnerable to a Soviet
ASW breakthrough.
One Pentagon official argued that
the Seawolf is less vulnerable than
other submarines because the Navy
has incorporated its newest tech-
nology in the fast attack submarine,
including countermeasures for non-
acoustic detection.
In recommending the new E10
million study by DARPA, the House
committee said, "Clearty, the future
wccess of the SSBN program and
the future survivability of the sub-
-411C LU11111ULlCC CU111111UCJ lU UC
concerned that decades of success
may lead the U.S. technical com-
munity to drift into complacency,
overestimating the understanding
of the mechanisms by which sub-
marines are detected and failing to
follow up on evidence and technical
trends that must be understood to
maintain" confidence that subma-
rines are undetectable from aircraft
or space."
One Pentagon official said, "Even
f there were a development that
allowed a nonacoustic detection, I
am confident there is at least an
operational counter."
The uncertainties in ocean sci-
ence are evident in explanations
given over the last several years for
the narrow wakes spotted by the
? U.S. SEASAT satellite radar in
1978. It is swell-understood basic
fact of physics that moving ships in
deep water create wakes 39 de-
grees wide no matter how fast they
ue traveling, experts say. But the
SEASAT radar photos also showed
narrower wakes that have not been
satisfactorily explained, even by a
group of top scientists who do clas-
aified work for the Pentagon.
Navy officials, not surprisingly,
are sensitive to any suggestion that
they have not done their homework
in protecting existing missiles subs
or designing the new Seawolf.
Adm. Kinnaird McKee, head of
the Navy's nuclear propulsion of-
fice, told a House Armed Services
. subcommittee last September in
secret testimony later made public
that he was well aware of the issue.
"There aze those who would have
us believe there is a breakthrough
coming. Everything is going to be
different and the submarine (the
Seawolf] is too big ....The ocean
turns transpazent every year at
budget time."
McKee referred to news reports
about space-based radars and said
Navy reseazch "tells me that the
notion that you can find a sub-
merged submarine with side-look-
ing radar from space is wrong."
When challenged by Rep. Albert
G. Bustamante (D-Tex.), McKee
acknowledged that there was a
need to do more, "to run all of the
experiments we can possibly run to
make sure that there isn't some-
thing we have overlooked, but so
far there has been no light at the
end of the tunnel-at all."
Bustamante said in an interview,
">aVe're pushing them [Navy offi-
cials] to begin, to advance the re-
search in this area so the Russians
don't get ahead of us."
marine force will depend on the
most complete understanding of the
phenomenology and technology in-
volved, especially if detection could
result from manifestations on the
wrface of the ocean observable
fmm airrrak nr from vnarp_
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