This accumulated knowledge and experience amounted in due course to an immense technical and operational advantage vis-à-vis the Soviet navy, and today the Chinese navy. This vast knowledge embodied in multibillion-dollar platforms and in the ocean science that underlay them was a major target for Soviet intelligence. The Soviet Union knew the one vital weakness of its submarines in the 1960s: they were noisy and could be easily detected by US and UK submarines. What they did not know was how this detection was achieved. The key was the science behind narrow-band signal processing, which could pick a signal from a vast background noise and match it to a piece of equipment in a particular threat submarine, identified by hull number, home base, and other vital profile information. The United States and the United Kingdom enjoyed, very simply, a massive operational advantage. It was the goal of the Soviet Union to narrow that gap.
As part of the counter-countermeasures philosophy mentioned earlier, the United States and the United Kingdom constantly anticipated and stayed ahead of the game. One classic example of this was the Sound Surveillance System, or SOSUS, a network that was laid on ocean floors where Soviet submarines regularly transited. It enabled the United States and the United Kingdom to know the location of Soviet submarines without costly and time-consuming individual searches. Submarines, surface ships, and aircraft could be vectored to the projected location of a Soviet submarine detected by SOSUS. The network’s cost was prodigious, but it worked extremely well. Another example was the deployment of special surface ships that towed extremely long passive acoustic arrays that collected acoustic intelligence. Together with other collectors (submarines, surface ships, aircraft sonobuoys, and other fixed ocean-based sensors), they created a vast ACINT data base. There were the keys to the kingdom, the ability to track an individual submarine by its unique ACINT profile—a capability of the US and UK Navies only.
A quiet, well-handled submarine can go where no other platforms can and listen to everything, across the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. This includes collecting SIGINT across the radio frequency (RF) spectrum; collecting ELINT across the radar, infrared, multispectral, and laser spectra; measure and signature intelligence (MASINT) multispectral techniques for crucial measurement of other discrete parts of the spectrum associated, for example, with nuclear effluent and effects and materials from other highly sensitive events; telemetry collection from missile shoots; and underwater device laying and disruption, cable cutting and interception, and watching, listening to, filming, and recording all manner of threat activities.
The submarine in our fifty-five-year period was therefore the most effective of all US and UK platforms. It had in addition one other extremely valuable operational capability, a fourth weapon, supplementing torpedoes, missiles, and “soft kill” EM capabilities. These are special operations forces. SEAL (Sea, Air, and Land) teams, and, in the case of the United Kingdom, elements of the Special Boat Section of the Royal Marines and the Special Air Service (SAS) are launched and retrieved stealthily from US and UK submarines. A whole panoply of technological advances were made in our period to enhance the capabilities of special operations forces to inflict disproportionate damage on the enemy. SEAL delivery systems and other manned and unmanned underwater systems have enabled the United States and the United Kingdom to stay ahead in the covert and clandestine use of these and other unacknowledged operatives hosted by US and UK submarine crews on special missions.
In the constant cat-and-mouse contest of the Cold War, the United States and the United Kingdom stayed ahead, and we will examine why shortly. However, the Soviet Union sought, and today the Russians and Chinese still seek, to break into the most sensitive secrets associated with the design, building, operation, and maintenance of both nations’ nuclear submarines. Guarding those secrets remains a national counterintelligence priority, one not helped by the arrival of the Internet and cyber operations.
In the first part of the Cold War the Soviets were partially disabled, unknowingly so. They did not know what they did not know until the Walker spy ring complemented other espionage. They simply wanted to know how the United States and the United Kingdom did it all: the technology, the design, operational modes, and communications. Most of all, they wanted to know just how quiet the US and UK submarines were. What were they really up against? The Soviets became creative at the operational level.
New words entered the NATO lexicon; fresh abbreviations and acronyms were added regularly. One such acronym was AGI, Auxiliary General Intelligence (collector), a bland description of Soviet and other Warsaw Pact surface ships that were intelligence collectors disguised as civilian merchant ships. The Soviet Ocean Surveillance System (SOSS, for short) had many components; AGIs were crucial ones. These otherwise innocuous vessels gave themselves away by the antennas they sprouted over their superstructures—SIGINT and ELINT systems that were well known in NATO handbooks. Occasionally a unique system would appear, and it became the job of the technical intelligence-collection systems and the analysts at GCHQ, NSA, UK Technical Intelligence (Navy), and the US Naval Intelligence Center to figure out what it was. The Soviets positioned their AGIs in locations well known to and well surveilled by US and UK systems.
For example, the NATO-designated “Malin Head” AGI was stationed off Malin Head with the clear and explicit goal of collecting intelligence from the UK submarine base at Faslane and the nearby US strategic-missile-submarine tender and submarine support activity in Holy Loch. US and UK submarines followed similar routes from their bases down the Firth of Clyde to the outer channels between the Scottish islands and then the North and Norwegian Seas and the eastern Atlantic. US and UK submarines were on the surface for a considerable part of the transit for safety and navigational reasons before they could dive and leave their protective escorts, which included antisubmarine helicopters.
As the 1970s progressed the Soviets became more adventurous and clever. They coordinated data from the AGI with other SOSS sources and methods and espionage data to intercept a deploying SSBN heading for the deep ocean to begin a two-month strategic deterrent patrol. The patrol areas became increasingly distant from the Soviet Union as the range of the missiles increased from that of the original Polaris through Poseidon to the Trident D-5 and everything in between. From a Soviet perspective, intercepting, destabilizing, and potentially causing a mission abort of a UK or US strategic patrol would send a message to both countries’ leaderships that their primary strategic deterrent was not invincible. From a US Navy and Royal Navy perspective, ensuring that this did not happen was paramount, so a range of technical, operational, and intelligence ploys evolved to counter such assets as the Malin Head AGI. Along similar lines, the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies developed the simple tactic of following US and Royal Navy surface ships of all descriptions, from US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier battle groups to frigate squadrons and supply ships and oilers.
Where the latter went the shadowers hoped to find the fleet, and they were correct. From a Soviet Northern Fleet, Baltic, or Black Sea Fleet perspective, following a fleet tanker to its rendezvous point with a major formation could lead to significant SIGINT and ELINT collection