The old Soviet Northern Fleet

You can scan this coastline, near Murmansk and Polyarny....the rusting ships stretch out for miles and miles, even some monstrous class of submarine that I'd never even knew existed, and one enormous ship that I think is an oiler that has to be at least 1000 feet long. They are all rotting away, some already sinking.

Google Earth at Polyarny

The paranoia of all our grandfathers built fleets like these all over the world. Just imagine the people that could have been fed and given medical care with the money that was poured into this warfare relics.

I guess I'm just in one of my moods...sometimes I think the world we live in is a somewhat sad place.

And to think they were very highly advanced machines as well. The Soviets build great equipment, look at Mir.

Mike, I heard a guy on CNN over the weekend say that Russia is who we should all be worried about now, not North Korea or Iraq, based on some set of facts he was spouting about them providing nuclear technology to both countries. I think he was trying to drum up the fears of the Cold War.

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing this. And you're so right -- if even half of the money we all spend on ensuring that we can destroy each other many times over were directed instead toward creating a better life for everyone, everywhere... why, eventually, we might run out of things to have wars about!

Well... maybe not. There's always greed and religion.

you mean minus the ones they sold?

and many people do beleave neet that the old russia is slowly making a came back.

Originally Posted by Skippymjp

The paranoia of all our grandfathers built fleets like these all over the world. Just imagine the people that could have been fed and given medical care with the money that was poured into this warfare relics.

I guess I'm just in one of my moods...sometimes I think the world we live in is a somewhat sad place.

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I always think along those lines. I wonder how many college educations could have been paid for, libraries built, medical procedures done, people housed and fed, animals cared for.

The world is a sad place but it is also a wonderful, mysterious place. Just a walk through one of our local parks or forests reconfirms all that for me, until the next time anyway.

The end of the Cold War must have hit the Soviets harder than any other country. Most of their economy went to the building and development of military hardware, I want to say something like 60-70% of their economy went to the military.

The rusting ships at Polyarny are just another sad reminder of the high cost of the Cold War.

Part of the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized), which is what I was in, was stationed in Germany and we would have been one of the divisions deployed over to Germany during REFORGER. I'm glad that we never got into a direct shooting war with the Soviets. The units (US and NATO) that were already over there would have paid a very heavy price trying to slow the Soviet advance while the heavy maneuver divisions were brought in to reinforce.