Question: This has always baffled me. When Ryan is talking to Jeffrey Pelt and Pelt asks him what he's supposed to do if Ramius is in fact trying to defect, Ryan responds that that they should grab the sub and Pelt responds that it is a billion dollar sub and the Russians are "gonna want it back." But Greer when first telling Ryan the news of the Red October's theft said that the Russians wanted the US's help to sink her. In other words the Russians wanted the Red October destroyed, not returned. And Pelt's counter argument made little sense (as grabbing the sub was indeed an option). Was this just poor writing or what?
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Answer: Actually it makes perfect sense. The Russians do not want the sub falling into the American's hands, period. They want to retrieve it themselves or sink it. While it would be a great financial loss to destroy it, it would be much more damaging to have the Americans capture it, because they would then be able to reverse engineer the new design.