Russian subs were tracked for days, U.S. military says

NORFOLK

It's been years since Russian subs came calling so close to U.S. shores, but the lack of practice apparently didn't hurt those tasked with spotting undersea intruders. According to a military spokesman, sophisticated surveillance detected a pair of nuclear submarines heading across the Atlantic a full week before news of their patrols broke Tuesday.

Strangely enough, it could be a win-win for the longtime rivals: Pentagon officials seem pleased that the boats' presence didn't come as a surprise, and they insist it's no big deal. The Russian navy, meanwhile, gains some credibility after years of embarrassing setbacks.

"They've been out there, and we've been monitoring them in our area of responsibility for a little over a week," said Lt. Cmdr. Gary Ross, a spokesman for U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.

"This certainly isn't cause for alarm, and we respect the right of every sovereign nation to operate freely in international waters, just as we do around the world," Ross said.

The Pentagon seemed so unfazed by the news that a spokesman almost sounded like an Olympic athlete welcoming a rival back into the competition, relieved to see someone push the game to a higher level.

"While it is interesting and noteworthy that they are in this part of the world, it doesn't pose any threat and it doesn't cause any concern," Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters at a briefing Wednesday.

Morrell said it has been roughly a decade since Russian subs got this close to the continental United States.

His response, when asked by reporters what the subs were doing, was tongue-in-cheek: "It's a wonderful time of year to visit the United States."

A military official with knowledge of the matter said the two subs are at least 200 miles off the coast, somewhere between the mid-Atlantic and Florida. They're pretty far apart from one another, said the official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss details.

According to international law, national boundaries extend 12 miles offshore; outside of that, vessels are free to transit.

Ross wouldn't provide details about how the subs were spotted but said the Navy's Norfolk-based Fleet Forces Command works closely with NORAD and the Northern Command, both based in Colorado Springs, Colo., on issues of "maritime domain awareness."

Eric Wertheim, author and editor of the U.S. Naval Institute's Combat Fleets of the World, thinks the Russian government wasn't too upset the subs were detected: It's free advertising.

"The purpose is not only to exercise their military, but to show their world they're able to do this," Wertheim said. "These kind of things happen from a very high level. I'm sure a lot more people at higher levels were involved in the decision to do this."

He said Russia is also looking to boost its military sales to nations such as India, which plans to lease an Akula-class sub from Russia.

"If the rest of the world doesn't see that Russian subs are capable of operating, they would look to the West" to buy, Wertheim said.

Russia has long sold military hardware to China, which used to be its top client. But in the past five years, the Chinese have concentrated on building their own ships and submarines.

Russia also might want to burnish its naval image after a series of blunders and disasters. Last fall, an Akula-class submarine caught fire during sea trials, killing three crew members and 17 shipbuilders.

A failed missile test last month- the sixth since 2005 - also embarrassed the once-proud Russian navy. The long-range weapon was fired from a submarine in the Arctic.

Wertheim called the discovery of the subs "a wake-up call" but noted it was ultimately a good-news story: Word of their presence came from the U.S. Navy, not the Russians.

It also reminds defense leaders and politicians of the need for a robust Navy at a time when ground forces in two wars draw bigger headlines.

"Hunting subs was an important business, a big business, in the Cold War. It's becoming more and more of a priority again," Wertheim said.

"While all that stuff is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, you have the Navy holding threats at bay, and they're doing a very good job of it, but it's not always reported in the media."

Local Navy officials wouldn't talk about whether Hampton Roads-based sailors were involved in the detection and tracking of the subs.

But it's likely.

Personnel at Virginia Beach's Dam Neck annex, sub-unit of Oceana Naval Air Station, are trained to detect submarines using something called the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System.

Watchstanders at Dam Neck's Naval Ocean Processing Facility listen to undersea noise and analyze its origins according to signature frequencies.

They used to be a lot busier.

During the Cold War, Soviet subs routinely patrolled off the U.S. coast (and vice

versa) and boats from both nations engaged in cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek games, sometimes for weeks at a time.

But since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the downsizing of the Russian military, it's rare for acoustic experts to detect the telltale sounds of nearby Russian boats, or for Navy surveillance planes like the P-3 Orion to pick up signals that they're in the neighborhood.

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com