Mastering the Seas

A History of Russian and Soviet Sea Power By Donald W. Mitchell Macmillan, 657 pp., $15

In the decisive naval defeat at the hands of Admiral Togo in 1905, eight of the 12 Russian capital ships were sunk, and the other four were captured. But in the 1970s Soviet naval units were operating simultaneously in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, in the Black, Baltic, Mediterranean, Japanese, Norwegian, and Philippine Seas, and in the far reaches of open water. Czarist naval engagements in World War I and Soviet strategy in World War II were strikingly alike in that the navy’s role was largely to support the army’s campaigns. The years since 1950 mark a decisive change in Russian sea power, not only in combat ships, but in training of personnel and the application to weaponry, detection devices, and communications, of electronic and computer technology.

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Willard Barber

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A History of Russian and Soviet Sea Power By Donald W. Mitchell Macmillan, 657 pp., $15

In the decisive naval defeat at the hands of Admiral Togo in 1905, eight of the 12 Russian capital ships were sunk, and the other four were captured. But in the 1970s Soviet naval units were operating simultaneously in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, in the Black, Baltic, Mediterranean, Japanese, Norwegian, and Philippine Seas, and in the far reaches of open water. Czarist naval engagements in World War I and Soviet strategy in World War II were strikingly alike in that the navy’s role was largely to support the army’s campaigns. The years since 1950 mark a decisive change in Russian sea power, not only in combat ships, but in training of personnel and the application to weaponry, detection devices, and communications, of electronic and computer technology.