David F. Winkler

Incidents at Sea

David F. Winkler

Free to patrol the skies and surface of the high seas under international law, U.S. and Soviet naval and air forces made daily direct contact during the Cold War. Often confrontational and occasionally violent, air-to-air contacts alone killed more than one hundred Soviet and American aviators during the Truman and Eisenhower years. Diplomacy to curtail the hostility produced mixed results. In the 1960s, the Soviet navy challenged U.S. naval dominance worldwide and collisions and charges of harassment became common. In 1972, the two nations signed an Incidents at Sea Agreement (INCSEA) that established navy-to-navy channels to resolve issues. This agreement, still in effect between the U.S. and Russia, is the focus of David Winkler’s study.
Here Winkler argues that Soviet and American naval officers, sharing bonds inherent in seamen, were able to put ideology aside and speak frankly. Working together, they limited incidents that have had unfortunate consequences. The process they established served as a model for similar accords between other maritime nations. With the emergence of China has a maritime power, elements of the US-Russia accord were adopted to assure peaceful interactions between American and Chinese naval forces.
Drawing on previously unavailable State Department files, declassified Navy policy papers, discussions with former top officials, interviews with individuals who were involved in incidents, Winkler details the U.S.-Soviet naval relationship through the end of the Cold War and beyond. Since the publication of Cold War at Sea: High Seas Confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union by the Naval Institute Press in 2000, confrontations at sea still occur, but efforts continue to limit their frequency and impact on international relations. In this volume, Winkler expands the narrative to bring the story to the present, detailing occasional U.S.-Russia naval force interactions such as the April 2016 Russian aircraft “buzzings” of the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic. He also details China’s efforts to militarize the South China Sea, claim sovereignty over waters within their economic exclusion zone (EEZ), and the U.S. Navy’s continuing efforts to counter these challenges to the freedom of navigation.
Overall, because of the regimens put in place, incidents at sea have become a rarity. While those who negotiated these regimens deserve recognition, it is the seaman and aviators who operate on the world’s oceans who deserve the ultimate acclaim for their professionalism in assuring that the agreed upon protocols were implemented.

Amirs, Admirals & Desert Sailors

David F. Winkler

Host to the U.S. Navy for nearly six decades, Bahrain has been a steadfast American ally in the turbulent Middle East. Its unique relationship with the United States evolved through a series of friendships between Bahrain s ruling Al Khalifa royal family and top U.S. Navy flag officers assigned to the fleet in the Gulf. Over the years it has become a strategic partnership critical to global security.As naval historian David F. Winkler examines these developing relationships, he offers a fascinating overview of Bahraini history, the entry of American humanitarian and economic interests, the establishment of an American naval presence in the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflicts, and the downfall of the Iranian shah, among other subjects. The author tells the story from both Bahraini and American perspectives.Given U.S. commitment to the region and its concurrent objectives of combating the global war on terrorism and establishing democracy, this book provides an important historical context for those interested in a crucial facet of American foreign relations. While many works describe the history of U.S. diplomatic and military involvement in the Gulf, this is the first to cover in depth the history of the U.S. Navy in Bahrain.