The 'Whiskey on the Rocks' Incident

During the 1980s, there were reports of regular incursions of unauthorised underwater contacts in Scandinavian waters. The most famous of these incidents involved a Soviet Whiskey-class submarine which ran aground in Swedish waters not far from a sensitive Swedish military installation. A tense 10-day standoff between Swedish and Soviet authorities ensued, which highlighted the legal issues associated with the use of dived submarines for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) purposes inside foreign territorial seas and internal waters. This chapter examines those issues, as well as addressing the sovereign immune status of the grounded submarine and the use of force against foreign vessels that operate in territorial waters or internal waters without authorisation.