Soviet Submarine Operations in Swedish Waters: 1980-1986

Milton Leitenberg has done us a great service. His balanced and comprehensive reconstruction of the history of Soviet submarine operations in Swedish waters will benefit all students of Soviet policy and practice in Northern Europe. The accompanying discussions of the domestic and international political contexts within which those submarine operations were perceived, responded to, and reported on, doubles the value of the work. The full Soviet military rationale for those operations may remain somewhat elusive, but Leitenberg has clearly provided us with a cogent description of their political consequences.

Robert G. Weinland, Consultant, Washington, D.C

The book first presents a comprehensive account of the overall incidence of violations, not only in Sweden but in other countries as well, between 1970 and 1987. The author then shows that the provisional, more exploratory stages of the operations in Sweden apparently began well before 1980 and have continued despite the Soviet Union’s public campaign for a Nordic Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone. An analysis of the incursions is given next, including a look at Sweden’s response to a problem it may not have anticipated when its own preconceptions and the norms of international behavior were clearly contradicted by reality. Also discussed are the motives behind the Soviet submarine operations and various provocation theories.