Cold War Anti-Submarine Warfare

Norman Friedman, PhD.

$270

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Naval Institute Press
19 November 2025

Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000; The Cold War; Naval forces & warfare; Marine engineering

As enmity between China and Russia and the West deepens, and as the Chinese navy grows, the United States finds itself more and more in the situation it faced during the Cold War. Again, the United States depends on access to the world, and again a possible enemy is building a massive navy intended to cut off the U.S., which may well have to fight for the seas. In doing so, it is helpful to look back to the closest analogy-the struggle against the Soviet navy.

For the first time, this book brings together enough of the declassified record-and enough of what the Russians published during their brief period of openness-to tell the story of the great Cold War anti-submarine warfare (ASW) struggle.

This book explains what happened and how the West won that fight. Although technology has changed, history is the best guide for future operations and to understand how different strategies and tactics can affect outcomes. The experience of postCold War ASW is much less relevant because it was conducted on a much smaller scale and generally in waters very different from the oceans of the Cold War. Unfortunately, much of what happened during the Cold War has been forgotten. The senior officers who understood the ASW fight have long since retired.

Author Norman Friedman is extraordinarily well placed to examine what happened and why. He has published books not only on Cold War ships and aircraft, but also on Cold War strategy, including the award-winning Fifty-Year War, and on the naval weapons and sensors of the Cold War.

He has written design histories of U.S. and British submarines and surface ASW ships of the Cold War based on declassified documents.

In this book he emphasizes that there was no single Cold War ASW strategy because the character of the war changed greatly over time. This variety of themes makes it possible to consider alternative parallels to the present and the future.

By: Norman Friedman PhD.
Imprint: Naval Institute Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 279mm, Width: 215mm,
Weight: 1.655kg
ISBN: 9781682478578
ISBN 10: 1682478572
Pages: 504
Publication Date: 19 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Norman Friedman is a prominent defense analyst and historian specializing in the intersection between policy, strategy, and technology, mainly in a naval context. He has published more than forty books. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Commodore Dudley W. Knox medal by the Naval Historical Foundation, the Samuel Eliot Morrison award by the Naval Order of the United States, the Westminster Prize awarded by the Royal United Service Institute, and the Anderson Medal of the British Society for Nautical Research. He has twice received the John Lyman Award from the North American Society for Oceanic History. He lives in New York City.

Reviews for Cold War Anti-Submarine Warfare

This path-breaking and detailed analysis of the evolution of Cold War anti-submarine warfare (ASW) could not be more timely. The past 35 years have seen this incredibly complex warfare area often take a back seat to other military and naval concerns, even in the U.S. Navy. Those days are gone, with the rise of new naval powers and the belated rebirth of US Navy capabilities and competencies. Few analysts have a greater understanding of the complexities of integrating naval policy, strategy, operations, tactics and technology than Norman Friedman. Here he has applied his prodigious skills and knowledge to bring together classic treatments of the field with newly available de-classified materials. From Josef Stalin’s interwar submarine building program through the searing experiences of World War II and the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy of the 1980s, Norman brilliantly tells the story of the evolution of submarine warfare and its anti-submarine counters, while also weaving together the efforts of numerous other players, especially the Royal Navy. —Captain Peter M. Swartz, U.S. Navy (Retired), maritime strategist As someone who was an ASW officer during this time, this book is amazing in both its scope and depth. There's not a lot available in print on ASW, and Dr. Friedman has filled that gap with a book that covers both the history of the Cold War and the science of ASW in remarkable detail and clarity. —Larry Bond, New York Times bestselling author of Red Pheonix, Vortex, and Cauldron