Finnish Mir Submarines Spook Pentagon

In 1987, Finnish company Rauma-Repola’s Oceanics subsidiary delivered the Mir-1 and Mir-2 deep submarines to the Soviet Academy of Sciences, with test depths of 6,000 meters that far exceeded what U.S. officials had expected. American CoCom officials had originally granted export permission because they believed the engineering project would fail, but once the subs worked, there was what one Finnish executive described as a freakout in the Pentagon. They privately threatened Rauma-Repola with economic sanctions. Faced with the risk of losing its lucrative offshore oil platform business, the company backed down, and submarine development in Finland effectively ceased.

Previous Fact Next Fact