Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea

by John Lehman

Overview

“Engrossing and illuminating.” —Arthur Herman, Wall Street Journal

When Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981, the United States and NATO were losing the Cold War. The USSR had superiority in conventional weapons and manpower in Europe, and it had embarked on a massive program to gain naval preeminence. But Reagan already had a plan to end the Cold War without armed conflict. In this landmark narrative, former navy secretary John Lehman reveals the untold story of the naval operations that played a major role in winning the Cold War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393367881
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

John Lehman, a former U.S. Navy aviator, served as United States secretary of the navy from 1981 to 1987. From 2003 to 2004, he was a member of the 9/11 Commission. He lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Author's Note xi

Preface xv

Introduction xix

1 American Naval Strategy and Operations in the Cold War 3

2 Ocean Venture '81: A Bold New Strategic Operation 65

3 Taking a New National Strategy to Sea: Sending a Message 89

4 Soviet Panic; Misreading the Message: The Mobilization of 1983 117

5 Gaining Global Velocity, 1983-1985 152

6 The Beginning of the End: Northern Wedding, 1986 176

7 The Soviets (and Others) Get the Message, 1986-1988: The Cold War Hurtles Toward Its End 202

8 The Cold War Ends, 1989: The East European Bloc Disintegrates 244

Epilogue 275

Acknowledgments 285

Notes 289

Selected Bibliography 307

Index 315

Editorial Reviews

"John Lehman has given us another naval classic in Oceans Ventured. . . . A must read."

Senator John McCain

"Everything an important book should be."

Robert Kaplan

"At times reading like a military thriller,… Oceans Ventured offers an interesting and illuminating look back at Cold War naval history."

Washington Times - Paul Davis

"Lehman makes a valuable contribution to the yet-to-be-written definitive account of this era."

David F. Winkler

"Essential to understanding the Navy’s role and performance during the Cold War and its contribution to the downfall of the Soviet Union."

Seapower magazine - Richard R. Burgess

03/26/2018
In this incisive political and strategic analysis, Lehman, secretary of the Navy from 1981 to 1987, describes the “naval rearmament and maritime superiority” strategy that he argues decided the Cold War. By 1980, Lehman writes, the U.S.S.R. had mounted a comprehensive challenge to American naval supremacy—a challenge unmet by Jimmy Carter’s policy of substituting “soft power and diplomacy” for armed force. Incoming president Ronald Reagan, determined to counter the Soviet initiative, began a massive new exercise, Ocean Venture, involving forward operations in the Norwegian Sea and the Atlantic, to send a message of deterrence. The Soviet government perceived the exercise as a threat and responded with its own programs of modernization, maneuvers, and “surveillance and harassment.” But economic difficulties rendered the Soviet Union unable to close the “significant” and “widening” technological and operational gaps with a revitalized U.S. Navy. After 1983, Lehmann asserts, America’s maritime strategy spurred the Soviet Union into military overextension—contributing to the regime’s collapse—without a shot fired. Lehman makes a difficult-to-ignore case for sea power’s potential to “prevent having to go to war at all.” This well-argued work will have significant appeal for those interested in national security issues. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Everything an important book should be. It is lean yet detailed, dramatic yet without hyperbole, and the lesson it teaches is something the public and the entire Washington policy community should internalize: that the projection of military power, done responsibly, leads to the projection of a nation's values. And when it comes to military power, the greatest weapon the United States had during the Cold War and today is its Navy."

Robert D. Kaplan

"In 1981, in the end game of the Cold War, the Soviet Union woke up one day to find the United States Navy on its doorstep, ready to strike. The man behind this stunning show of sea power was the Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman. A modern-day Teddy Roosevelt, Lehman not only sent the fleet into enemy waters, he sailed with it—flying off carriers in the back seat of a warplane. A fascinating, eye-opening tale of l’audace! L’audace! Toujours, l’audace!"

Evan Thomas

"This book is solid history of a resurgent Navy...Lehman's words are essential to understanding the Navy's role and performance during the Cold War and its contribution to the downfall of the Soviet Union."

SEAPOWER Magazine

"Lehman’s book is…a validation of the axiom that if you want peace, prepare for war."

National Review - George Will

2018-04-11
Former Secretary of the Navy Lehman (On Seas of Glory: Heroic Men, Great Ships, and Epic Battles of the American Navy, 2001, etc.) unfolds the Ronald Reagan-era strategy to reclaim United States dominance on the high seas and contain the Soviet fleet.In the aftermath of World War II and the early years of the Cold War, writes the author, the U.S. Navy was devalued in favor of the Air Force even as the fleet was required to carry nuclear weapons, which "required much additional manpower and shipboard space." Even before Reagan took office in 1981, he had been promising a program of "naval rearmament and maritime superiority." After winning the election, he assembled a team, including Lehman, to bring this program into being. Among the author's innovations was a push to assert an American and NATO presence in the Arctic and "the icy bastions that the Soviet sailors considered their domain." Exercises involving U.S. Marines and other Allied forces in the far north brought the point home, to the consternation of the Kremlin. Toward the end of Reagan's first term, exercises with the South Korean military on an amphibious landing further agitated the Russians, who tried to catch up but could not. It helped that Reagan opened up the treasury for a military spending spree that the Soviets could not afford, but the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev to the scene was a critical factor; in time, the Soviets began to retreat from distant oceans, particularly lessening their presence in the Mediterranean. Lehman sounds downright Reagan-esque when he writes, "if the Americans were going to press up against Soviet coasts, they had better draw back and circle their wagons." For the most part, though, this is a matter-of-fact, evenhanded look at a largely overlooked component in the eventual decline and collapse of the Soviet Union.Valuable for students of naval strategy and geopolitics as well as of Cold War history.

Kirkus Reviews