6 Bases during the Cold War

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The Soviet AGIs had near global patrolling areas. There was a concentratedeffort to monitor off the southeastern coast of the U.S. (where U.S. surface andsubmarine units were concentrated), in the English Channel, the Norwegian Seaand off Holy Loch. In the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, Western navalmovements were monitored, particularly near the straits of Gibraltar, Hormuzand Bab El Mandeb, and the Suez Canal. In the Pacific Ocean, there was correspondingemphasis off the coasts of China, Japan, Guam and in the watersaround Vietnam.The dependence of these “spy ships” on provisioning from foreign ports wasdifficult to gauge, but must certainly have been considerable. As noted by one140 Bases during the Cold Warİ 2007 Robert E. Harkavysource, the Soviet Union had chosen “not to build an auxiliary fleet of the sizenecessary to reduce out-of-area base support to a manageable minimum . . . Shipdesigns, both for ease of maintenance and for reasons of habitability, still arenotoriously poor . . . Unlike U.S. ships, most Soviet ships cannot distill enoughfresh water and are dependent upon water tankers.”This situation necessitated frequent operational port visits by auxiliaries totake on food and fresh water, which were then transferred to combatants, presumablyalso AGIs, at roadsteads or at sea. This presumably further directedattention to the main Soviet basing hosts and clients – Cuba, Angola, Syria,Vietnam, South Yemen etc. – as critical to fueling and otherwise provisioningthe Soviet Union’s global AGI effort.Soviet forward-based missiles79By the mid-1980s, of course, both the U.S./NATO and the USSR deployed largenumbers of externally based, nuclear-armed missiles in Europe, constituting amassive and critical forward presence. Centrally, this involved Soviet deploymentof short-range theater weapons and tactical weapons in Eastern Europe(SS-12/22s, SS-23s and SS-7 “Frogs”) and a countervailing U.S. deployment ofPershings, cruise missiles and Lance battlefield weapons.The Soviet SS-20 theater missiles which were at the center of the INF negotiationswere first deployed in 1977. These missiles, carrying three nuclear warheadswith ranges of 3400 miles (5000km), were phased in to replace the olderSS-4s. The latter were first deployed in 1959, with a single warhead platformand a range of 1120 miles.By 1987, it was typically reported that over 300 SS-20s were deployedagainst NATO west of the Ural Mountains, with another 100 or so in SovietAsia, for a total of 441. None of these were based outside the USSR (nor wereany of the 112 reported SS-4s which were still deployed in the western USSR).They were based in several fields in the western Soviet Union and near theCaspian Sea. The SS-20s threatened the entirety of NATO-Europe with their5000-km ranges, as well as many other important targets – the Azores, Greenland,Philippines, Guam, Okinawa, etc.Other nations’ external basing: Britain and France80Somewhat in the face of historical nostrums associated with Mahan and others,it is apparent that the Cold War competition – if that is what it was – for overseasnaval access was largely a two-nation game. In that sense at least, bipolarityunquestionably reigned. There were, nonetheless, a few not altogether insignificantinstances of naval basing retained by – or recently acquired by – some othernations: France, Britain, Australia, the Netherlands and maybe others. Of course,almost all navies conduct periodic port visits abroad, variously involving “presence,”solidification of political friendships, broadening of horizons for navalpersonnel, and so on.Bases during the Cold War 141İ 2007 Robert E. HarkavyFrance had the most significant external naval presence besides the superpowers,most notably represented by its Indian Ocean Flotilla (Alindien) of fivefrigates, three minor combatants, two amphibious and four support ships (also asmall naval marine detachment). That force was deployed out of Djibouti (hencewas within combat range of the Persian Gulf), also making extensive use ofbases at Reunion and Mayotte (Mozambique Channel), both French overseaspossessions (earlier, up to 1973, France had extensive access to Diego Suarez inPage 48Page 49
Madagascar). There was also a significant naval presence in the Pacific: fivefrigates, five minor combatants, seven amphibious and 12 support ships. Thatforce operated out of Noumea, New Caledonia and also patrolled via Tahiti(Papeete), Muroroa and other French dependencies in the southwest Pacific.Two small ships were also normally rotated about between the Antilles (PortLewis, Guadeloupe) and Guyana. The French Navy also made extensive use of anumber of other ports, mostly in closely aligned African nations: most notablyDakar (Senegal), Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and Libreville (Gabon). During theevents of 1987, France’s access to Djibouti allowed for a significant naval presencein the Gulf of Oman, outside the Straits of Hormuz. That presence wasreported as consisting of three minesweepers, three escorts, one anti-submarineship, the aircraft carrier Clemenceau and two frigates.Great Britain’s once near astonishing network of overseas naval bases andaccess had by 1985 dwindled to a very small remnant, aside from still extensiveroutine port calls by the Royal Navy. Small naval forces were still permanentlydeployed in Belize, Gibraltar and Hong Kong. A relatively large force, includingan ASW carrier, an SSN and several escorts and auxiliaries remained in theFalklands in the wake of that (not wholly resolved) dispute. A small navaldetachment (one or two destroyers or frigates and a couple of support ships)moved about the Indian Ocean, making use of Diego Garcia, Singapore, Perthand so on, and had quietly been used to escort ships in the Persian Gulf. Thatpresence, which apparently utilized access to Bahrain, was reported in 1987 toconsist of two warships, one fleet tanker, four minesweepers and a supply ship.Otherwise, within NATO, only the Netherlands permanently deployed a tinynaval presence outside Europe – the Dutch retained a small presence at Curacaoin the Caribbean. (Spain was reported to have established a small “fishing” presencein Equatorial Guinea after the expansion of the Soviet Navy from Luba.)As in so many other ways, the matter of external basing of aircraft remainedduring the Cold War primarily a two-nation game, reflective of the tenacioushold of bipolarity which had characterized global basing networks in the postcolonialera. Earlier, of course, the primary colonial powers – Britain, France,Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain – all had had extensive networks of airbases closely associated with colonial garrisons and with colonial rivalriesamong the European powers themselves. In the 15–20 years after 1945, theseassets gradually dwindled, and in the process the number of bases available tothe U.S. and, more generally, to the Atlantic alliance contracted. But there werestill some remnants, and in the case of France at least, even the hint of a slightexpansion of an overseas air power presence.142 Bases during the Cold Warİ 2007 Robert E. HarkavyOf course, there was some intra-NATO alliance forward basing of aircraft inWest Germany; again, associated for obvious reasons with land-force deploymentsand, indeed, located immediately to the rear, westward of those forces.The British Army of the Rhine was backed up by significant forward Royal AirForce (RAF) deployments, involving 12 aircraft and two helicopter squadrons,six deploying nuclear-capable Tornado strike aircraft (co-developed in a consortiumwith the FRG and Italy), one of Jaguar reconnaissance aircraft and two ofPhantom fighters; also among these were two squadrons of Harrier jump jets(nuclear-capable) and one of Pembroke communications aircraft. These aircraftwere stationed at several main air bases in northern Germany: Laarbruch,Bruggen, Wildenrath and Gutersloh. Canada’s contribution, further south inBaden Wurtemberg, consisted of forward deployment of three squadrons of 36CF-18s at a base at Baden Sollingen, supported by liaison aircraft and 2700 personnel.In addition, the West German Luftwaffe had training and some supportfacilities in Portugal, the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, and had permanently based18 Alpha jets at Beja in Portugal, mostly in connection with training activities.Elsewhere, overseas, some remnants of what obviously once was a muchlarger RAF presence remained. There were some aircraft or helicopters permanentlystationed at the Falkland Islands, Ascension, Belize, Brunei, Cyprus,Gibraltar and Hong Kong. Of these, the RAF maintained only helicopters and/orutility aircraft in Brunei, Cyprus (Akrotiri) and Hong Kong, though Phantomsand Lightning fighters were sometimes deployed to Cyprus. There were apparentlyVictor bomber and Hercules C-18 tanker detachments on Ascension, in thelate 1980s, no doubt to provide the wherewithal for another logistics operationto the Falklands, if that should have been necessary. There was a helicopterPage 50
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6 Bases during the Cold War

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