"The Office of Naval Intelligence and the Soviet Navy in the Pacific, 1945-1947"

The history of the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is primarily one that has been focused on the years before World War Two. While there are a few works that explore the Office's postwar history, there is significant work to be done on the Office's history after the end of the war. This article is a beginning attempt to look at how the Office of Naval Intelligence viewed the Soviet military—especially the Soviet Navy—in the Pacific between 1945 and 1947. While Soviet naval forces would obviously be the Office's primary concern, Soviet naval power was so weak—especially in the Pacific—that the Office of Naval Intelligence also analyzed Soviet air and ground power in the region. This article will investigate some of these analyses and put the Pacific in perspective when it came to determining Soviet military power in Europe and the Mediterranean. It will also look at the Office's analysis of Soviet maritime power as it was broadly conceived as well as what the Office thought the future would entail in terms of a future Soviet naval build-up. Finally, the article will discuss some of the problems in researching the postwar history of the Office of Naval Intelligence given the real and apparent limitations of archival holdings and access.