Putin is operationalizing anti-submarine warfare doctrine against the US homeland, Pentagon must pay attention

Three weeks ago, a Russian flotilla of warships, including a nuclear-powered submarine, operated less than 30 miles off the coast of Key Largo, Florida, a development that the Pentagon dismissed as posing "no threat." 

Really? 

As a former senior intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), my expertise is on Russian war-fighting strategy and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mindset. It is my intelligence assessment, made with high confidence, that although Putin’s recent deployment presented no immediate danger, it is indeed a grave threat to the U.S. homeland, and here’s why.

The Russian naval action group — consisting of the missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov, the nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine Kazan, the oil tanker Pashin and the salvage tug Nikolai Chiker — was carrying out "combat service" tasks, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

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Russia's Kazan nuclear-powered submarine arrives at the port of Havana on June 12. (AP Photo/Ariel Ley)

The Kazan, a Yasen-M-class guided missile submarine, carried guided missiles with a range of 1,000 nautical miles. Admiral Gorshkov is capable of executing long-range strikes and conducting anti-submarine warfare. These naval assets, which field a variety of anti-ship and land attack weapons, were testing anti-ship missiles virtually in the Atlantic against targets at a range of more than 350 miles. They are both capable of carrying the 1,000-mile range 3M-54 Kalibir NK land attack cruise missile, the P-800 Oniks anti-ship missile and the 3M-22 Zircon hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles. 

The Zircon (3M22 Tsirkon in Russian or SS-N-3 as NATO designation) is a scramjet-powered hypersonic missile that has a range of 1,000 km (625 miles) and travels at nine times the speed of sound. Developed on Vladimir Putin’s orders, Zircon is a new generation weapon designed with the primary purpose of overcoming U.S. missile defenses. It comes in sea-launched and ground-launched versions, with the kinetic energy sufficient to attack deep and hardened targets. Its hypersonic speed and ability to fly at low altitude and maneuver in flight makes it extremely difficult to detect by missile warning systems — radars or satellites. 

The inability of current U.S. and Western systems to intercept hypersonic missiles like Zircon presents a grave threat. Moreover, the U.S. has no similar capability. Russia and China are far ahead of us in the field of hypersonics.

Onlookers watch the class frigate Admiral Gorshkov, part of the Russian naval detachment visiting Cuba, arriving at Havana's harbor on June 12. (Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)

Another aspect of the threat is that Russia has the world’s quietest submarines, which are not always spotted by U.S. systems. In 2012, another Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine, an Akula-class (shark in Russian), operated close to our shores in the Gulf of Mexico for several weeks. 

Armed with long-range cruise missiles, the Akula sailed undetected until after it left the region. This patrol by a Russian combat vessel, close to our shores, exposed deficiencies in U.S. anti-submarine warfare capabilities and doctrine. The incident sparked grave concerns from the U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command, whose mission is to protect the U.S. and Canada from foreign missile strikes. I briefed its senior leaders on the growing Russian threat at the time. 

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Anti-submarine warfare is an integral part of Russia’s war-fighting strategy, which seeks to deter the U.S. from intervening in a conflict such as Ukraine. Destroying submarine undersea cables — the physical infrastructure made of fiber-optic links that carry global internet traffic — by enabling the real-time global transmission of data and communications signals is the primary mission of Russia’s undersea warfare assets. 

If digital communications are knocked out, it’s not only the ATMs that would be down, but anything that relies on the internet, which is pretty much every aspect of our daily lives — from banking and finance to transportation, to health care and emergency services, all would be disrupted. 

Russia has already conducted proof of concept operations in Europe. In 2022, it crippled one of two undersea fiberoptic cables that provide vital communications links between mainland Norway and the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Russian submarines were active close to cables linking the U.S. and Europe at the time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin rides in a submersible in the Baltic Sea near Gotland Island, Russia, on July 15, 2013. (Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images)

Not all U.S. officials are as nonchalant as the Pentagon about Russia’s growing capability to hold our homeland at risk. Last year, U.S. Northern Command Gen. Glen VanHerck called the deployment of cruise-missile submarines off the coast of the U.S. a "growing concern for homeland defense." 

In 2022, speaking in a public forum about Russia’s capabilities to target the U.S., VanHerck said about Russia (and China), "They’ve developed capabilities below the nuclear threshold, to hold us at risk with the idea that they can delay, disrupt our force flow or destroy our will, so that we don’t project power into a regional crisis or a regional conflict." 

During the same briefing, Lt. Gen. David Deptula, U.S. Air Force (Ret.) said, "We used to think of our homeland as a sanctuary. Well, that’s no longer the case." 

Indeed, Russia possesses today the capability to strike any U.S. target from stand-off distances, i.e. without having to enter U.S. sovereign airspace or our territorial waters. 

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President Biden, left, meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva on June 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

It is important to differentiate between the capability and the intent to use it. Putin has no plans to target the U.S. homeland with strategic assets, such as Zircon. Such capabilities are reserved for wartime only. The problem is that Russia already believes that it is at war with us, a proxy one over Ukraine, which Moscow views as part of Russia’s strategic security perimeter. Putin would likely take extreme measures, including going to war with us and crossing the nuclear threshold, to enforce his version of the Monroe Doctrine. 

It's why, predisposed to worst-case scenario thinking, Russia is operationalizing the "hold U.S. homeland at risk" doctrine. It is not by chance that Moscow deploys naval and long-range aviation assets close to our borders, simulating strikes on U.S. targets. Putin is preparing for a full-blown U.S.-Russia war, which the Russian general staff, an entity that conducts long-term threat assessments, assesses as inevitable. 

Moscow interprets every U.S. action when it comes to the war in Ukraine through the prism of this assessment. Moscow and Washington are now on a highly escalatory trajectory, especially with the Biden administration recently having authorized Ukraine to use U.S. weapons for striking deep into Russia. 

The risk has grown significantly because of the deep misunderstanding of one another and an unwillingness to speak directly to each other. The Biden administration, blinded by hatred toward Putin — as though he is the only dictator on the planet and in history who committed unconscionable atrocities — isn’t willing to engage with the "former" KGB spy master. The Kremlin is in no hurry to deal with the White House, as it doesn’t view the visibly impaired Biden, cognitively and physically, as being in charge of the country and having authority to make deals.

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In the meantime, Putin has a plan on how to fight and win the war with the U.S. We don’t. Not only does the Pentagon have no plan, it didn’t bother to develop a capability, such as hypersonics, to match (or preferably overmatch) Russia’s or China’s, despite billions of U.S. taxpayers’ funds poured into its budget annually. Instead, it’s throwing billions into the unwinnable war in Ukraine and redirecting military hardware designated for Israel and NATO allies.

Our leaders have minimized the Russian threat for at least a decade, choosing to mock the Russian military and antagonize Putin, leaving the homeland vulnerable, instead of developing countermeasures to Russia’s weapons arsenal. As a result, Putin is now in possession of strategic capabilities that have reduced the decision space for a U.S. president in a time of crisis to dangerously low levels. And that is the result of what I would call professional malpractice by the Pentagon and the White House. Security for America starts with electing competent decision-makers.

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