The next morning, CIA analyst Jack Ryan briefs U.S. government officials on the departure of Red October and the threat it poses. Officials in the briefing, having learned that the Soviet Navy has been deployed to sink Red October, fear Ramius may attack the US. However, Ryan thinks Ramius plans to defect and leaves for the North Atlantic to prove his theory before the U.S. Navy is ordered to sink Red October.
The Red October's caterpillar drive fails at sea and sabotage is suspected. No longer silent, the sub comes under attack by Soviet forces and begins risky maneuvers through undersea canyons. Petty Officer Jones, a sonar technician aboard Dallas, plots a course to intercept the Red October. Ryan arranges a hazardous mid-ocean rendezvous to get aboard Dallas, where he convinces its captain, Commander Bart Mancuso, to contact Ramius to determine his intentions. Ramius, stunned that the Americans guessed his plan to defect, accepts their cooperation. He then stages a nuclear reactor emergency and orders the bulk of his crew to abandon ship, telling Red October's doctor that he will scuttle the sub rather than let it be captured. Ramius submerges and Ryan, Mancuso and Jones come aboard via a Mystic-class DSRV, at which point Ramius requests asylum in the United States for himself and his officers.
Thinking their mission is complete, Red October's skeleton crew is surprised by a torpedo attack from the Konovalov, which has followed them across the Atlantic. As the two Soviet subs maneuver, Red October's cook, the saboteur, opens fire, fatally wounding Ramius's first officer, Vasily Borodin before retreating into the missile launch area. Ryan follows and guns down the saboteur just before he can detonate a missile and destroy the sub.
Meanwhile, with help from Dallas, Red October makes evasive maneuvers, causing one of the Konovalov's own torpedoes to circle around and destroy it. The evacuated crew of Red October on board a U.S. Navy rescue ship witness this explosion and, not knowing that there is a second Soviet sub, assume it was Red October. Their subterfuge complete, Ryan and Ramius sail Red October to the Penobscot River in Maine.
In reflecting much of the Cold War culture at the time, the film seems to be fairly accurate in presenting Captain Ramius as a Soviet defector. This is supported by the fact that by the time Brezhnev died in 1982, the political and economic policies of the Soviet Union were in crisis. Gorbachev failed to improve the economical situation which, along with numerous revolutions and deposing of Communist governments in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary, possibly could’ve inspired citizens of the USSR to seek out places with greater economic stability and prosperity such as the US.
I think that the film does have some historical significance in regards to the defection of Soviet operatives and their requests for asylum in the United States portrayed in the film. It shows how that despite outward appearances of technological superiority such as Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin in the past, the Soviet Union is currently under large amounts of stress from its political instability and obsolete economical structure which would most likely result in poor quality of life for its people leading to defection and immigration to the USA, which, due to immense economic growth through capitalism, has become an ideal place to live in.
