You jest, but ironically the US did completely misunderstand Soviet naval doctrine. The US was completely convinced there would be a second Battle of the Atlantic, with Soviet attack subs coming through the GIUK gap (basically, the plot of Red Storm Rising).
Except one US intel group did the unthinkable, and read Soviet Navy publications, which said "our goal is to preserve our strategic missile submarines in 'bastion' zones, and everything else in the fleet is to achieve that goal". So no Battle of the Atlantic II, no Reforger convoy battles, etc.
And they were ignored. Partly because that threatened the logic of "we need more ships to fight the battle of the Atlantic again", partly because a USN attack on the Kola peninsula was part of USN doctrine. Except that could have been construed as an attack on the strategic missile subs, resulting in the USSR facing a use it or lose it scenario.
After the USSR collapsed, that small group was proven correct. Lots of $, energy, and manpower had gone into preparing for the wrong war. Kinda makes you wonder about how the CIA is doing now on their Intel...
You jest, but ironically the US did completely misunderstand Soviet naval doctrine. The US was completely convinced there would be a second Battle of the Atlantic, with Soviet attack subs coming through the GIUK gap (basically, the plot of Red Storm Rising).
Except one US intel group did the unthinkable, and read Soviet Navy publications, which said "our goal is to preserve our strategic missile submarines in 'bastion' zones, and everything else in the fleet is to achieve that goal". So no Battle of the Atlantic II, no Reforger convoy battles, etc.
And they were ignored. Partly because that threatened the logic of "we need more ships to fight the battle of the Atlantic again", partly because a USN attack on the Kola peninsula was part of USN doctrine. Except that could have been construed as an attack on the strategic missile subs, resulting in the USSR facing a use it or lose it scenario.
After the USSR collapsed, that small group was proven correct. Lots of $, energy, and manpower had gone into preparing for the wrong war. Kinda makes you wonder about how the CIA is doing now on their Intel...
Here's a link, WARNING PDF of a Powerpoint about it. Also used to be able to find a video of this presentation, but couldn't locate it this time.
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