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December 25, 2005

Cry from the Deep

Cry from the Deep tells the story of the Russian submarine Kursk, which sank with all hands on 12 August 2000 after the explosion of a torpedo in its forward tubes ignited additional torpedoes, tearing open the front of the submarine and allowing the sea into the Oscar-class vessel in minutes. 23 sailors survived the initial blast and the sinking and clustered together in the sternmost compartment of the submarine, but all died when a subsequent fire consumed the compartment's remaining oxygen.

As I suspect many people can, I recall learning of the downed Russian submarine, the Kursk, in August 2000, and following the efforts of the Russians to recover any survivors from the wreck, as well as the tragic discovery after a week that none of the crew remained alive. Ramsey Flynn's account of the disaster, coupled with an analysis of the responses to the disaster by both the Russian and American governments, makes for a gripping tale that at once informs and saddens the reader.

The sadness is natural regardless of what the book might say, for the story of the Kursk is the story of the deaths of 118 sailors in the icy waters of the Barents Sea. The story is made far sadder, however, by the revelations provided by Flynn. At the same time, the depth and breadth of information the book provides the reader is a great value in understanding not only the particulars of this specific disaster, but just how risky military service remains even in peace time in the 21st century.

Flynn's prose may not be soaring, but it is quite sufficient to the story, and I found myself almost unable to put the book down as I followed the twists and turns of the story. The failures of the Russian navy and the Russian government to react promptly and effectively to the disaster are chilling reminders of how Russian history taints its ability to make a true transition to a free society. And the actions taken by the American government as they learned of the disaster, while understandable, provide a harsh lesson in the calculus of international relations. It's quite likely that, no matter what the U.S. government had done in response to the disaster, the results would have been the same. But if there was a chance for the doomed sailors of the Kursk, the actions of both the Russian and American governments helped to ensure that chance faded quickly.

My one complaint with the book is that, for all its information, the book never appears to answer one vital question: for how long were the sailors of the Kursk still alive in the crippled submarine? Flynn clearly wants to place some of the blame for the lost sailors on the slow reactions of foreign governments to the disaster (although that reaction was in large part predicated on the failure of the Russian government to tell the world what had happened), but without knowing how long the sailors remained alive, it is impossible to know if an immediate response on the part of the west might have made a difference. It's likely that nobody actually knows precisely how long the sailors survived after the explosions that crippled the sub, but spelling that out a bit more clearly would have helped immensely in interpreting the meaning of various delays.

Flynn's decision to tie the Kursk disaster to the larger question of precisely where Russia appears to be heading in the 21st century is a good one, and it adds some good relevancy to the work. (Although I am of the opinion that simply telling the story of the disaster would provide an adequately gripping tale.) The future of Russia remains very much up in the air, as their transition to democracy appears to have stalled in large part thanks to cultural conditions in Russia very different than those western audiences may take for granted. Flynn rightly leaves those questions to be answered in the future, but the signs he has identified through his work are discouraging at best.