"In November 1975, a group of sailors led by the ship's political officer took over the Soviet "Krivak" class destroyer "Storozhevoy" and attempted to sail to Sweden to seek asylum. They were attacked and turned back by Soviet naval and air units. Information of this dramatic event which has never been acknowledged by the Soviets, made it to the West only piece by piece. It was the intent of this study to assemble all available data for critical analysis to determine potential causes and implications.
This mutiny is not the only instance of dissent in the Soviet Navy r.cr will it be the last. Problems of alcoholism, officer-enlisted relations, food, hazing, habitability, desertion, ethnic friction and unhappiness over constant political indoctrination appear to be widespread.
The key question is: how important, are these instances of dissent and how do we incorporate them into a framework for assessing soviet military capability and performance?
In the past we have overemphasized quantitative aspects of assessing military and naval power. The factors which are less quantifiable such as "fighting spirit", unit cohesion, and morale have made a greater difference historically. In the allocation of scarce resources for defense and other national priorities, it is essential to make intuitive estimates of potential enemy capabilities, as accurately as possible. In the case of the Soviet Navy, even planning for the worst case, it seems defense planners still have overestimated some of their strengths. The Soviet Navy has grown from a coastal defense force to a blue-water fleet capable of greater influence on the seas. They are not, however, ''ten feet tall" as is emphasized currently in much of the literature…."
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