VOL. IV (XXI) 2009 - Departamentul de Filosofie si Stiinte ale ...

ADRIAN PĂCURAR 111
One of 18 Ohio class nuclear submarines from the United States Navy
submarine deterrence fleet
On the other hand, following this strictly military perspective, it is also
clear why those military exercises were closely watched by NATO. Of
course, we will never see a high ranking NATO official saying on television
that the alliance is closely monitoring any Russian military exercise. It would
be completely absurd to expect this kind of position from any NATO high
official. But also it would be totally unrealistic for a military analyst to believe
the other way. Any Russian significant military exercise is strictly watched, by
any mean possible, not only by NATO but by any serious military and
political power on the planet which has the interest in doing this. It is just the
pure logic of military warfare and it is nothing special in doing this. The
reason because western nations could not ignore Russians maneuvers in the
Barents Sea during the summer of 2000 was very simple: NATO had in that
summer for the first time after the collapse of USSR the chance to see at first
hand a Russian naval application at large scale. And the opportunity to see
the condition of Russian naval tactics and equipment after all those years of
inactivity could not be missed by NATO and especially by the United States.
For the first time in years Russia has commissioned at sea, in a major
integrated naval application, its highly capable Oscar II class nuclear
submarine. This is why it is so hard to believe that the Occident was suffered
in those days by some “lack of information” about it. Even more, it is
completely realistic to assume that western governments knew much more
than the general opinion was tempted to believe and it is very possible that
even now many details are still highly classified and secured in SCIF areas.