Edward Wegener forfattede i 1972 sin bedømmelse af Moskvas strategiske hensigter. Denne strategiske analyse kommer ind på hvad flådestrategi er i den nukleare strategiske balances tidsalder. Derpå behandles transformationen fra kystforsvar til strategisk flådeoffensiv, herunder Sovjets flådes rolle i de tilgrænsende have og derpå på oceanerne. Endeligt ses på traditionelle flådeopgaver i fredstid og hvorledes den sovjetiske flåde senere bedømmes at ville udvikle sig.

A category of military art called naval operational art exists in the Soviet Union. For the Soviets the art is the scientific skill of planning and conducting the interlinked engagements, strikes, and maneuvers that comprise the modern naval operation. The Soviets exercise naval operational art according to principles of the art which the Soviets emphasize with a stiff formalism that can be exploited by the West. This study describes the art and its style and suggests Soviet naval war fighting scenarios based on the application of the principle of naval operational art.

This book, based on extensive work in Russian archives, investigates how strategy, organisational rivalry and cultural factors came to shape naval developments in the Soviet Union, up to the invasion of 1941. Focussing on the Baltic Fleet, the author shows how the perceived balance of power in northern Europe came to have a major influence on Soviet naval policy during the 1920s and 1930s. The operational environment of a narrow inland-sea like the Baltic would have required a joint approach to military planning, but the Soviet navy's weak position among the armed services made such an approach hard to attain. The Soviet regime also struggled against the cultural heritage of the tsarist navy and the book describes how this was overcome. In a special Appendix dedicated to the purges of 1937-38, surviving party records from the Baltic Fleet Intelligence Section are used to illustrate the mechanisms of the Great Terror at local level.

Forfatteren fremlægger de teorier og tanker der i perioden 1917-1967 danner grundlag for den sovjetiske flådes politik og strategi. Se også "Soviet naval doctrine and policy 1956-1986", SYS 99185.