274 



and that mau can live without excessive difficulty and operate with considerable 

 freedoms for periods up to one month at depths up to nearly 100 metres. 



Sea Lab III, which will take place next year, should prove man's ability to 

 live efficiently for long periods at a depth of 150 metres with limited excursions 

 to well over 220 metres. It is difficult to forecast the potential of the saturated 

 diving technique ; despite the complex problems involved in the acclimatization — 

 but I would say, reacclimatization — of man to the ocean depths. Admiral Waters 

 confidentally predicts that by 1975 "we will have colonies of aquanauts living 

 and working ... at depths in the neighbourhood of 1,500 feet — that is nearly 

 500 metres". In any case some of the summits of the great submarine mountain 

 ranges are already within range of permanent occupation by man and the tech- 

 nology exists now, or is about to be developed, which will make vast areas 

 beyond the continental shelves both acce.ssible and exploitable. 



A series of considerations will strongly encourage early employment by nations 

 of the techniques which they have developed. From a commercial point of view, ex- 

 ploitation of on-bottom or sub-bottom resources of the ocean floor has many advan- 

 tages over exploitation of any but the richest and most favourably located land re- 

 sources : prolonged negotiations with sometimes unsympathetic foreign govern- 

 ments are avoided, labour costs are minimized, transport costs reduced, and so on. 

 From the point of view of governments of technologically advanced countries, as- 

 surance of adequate and independent sources of supply of petroleum, natural gas 

 and many minerals vital to industry eliminates a dangerous import dependency 

 in peace and war and a major factor in foreign exchange difficulties. Finally 

 there are grave considerations of a security and defence nature that impel the 

 major Powers to appropriate areas of the ocean floor for their own exclusive use. 



The latter is a somewhat sensitive subject which I would have preferred to 

 avoid, but my silence would not prevent security considerations from weighing 

 heavily, and perhaps decisively, on the attitude that will be taken by different 

 countries on the proposals which we shall make. My delegation must, therefore, 

 show some awareness of the difficult problems that some countries face. I shall 

 not attempt a strategic analysis but I will limit myself to describing briefly 

 some of the developments we anticipate if the United Nations does not take 

 urgent action. 



We are all aware of the importance of the sea for defence purposes : from the 

 sea the vastest land masses can be dominated, and the sea in turn is dominated, 

 and can be dominated from the sea floor. The importance of the sea increases 

 rather than decreases in the age of the nuclear submarine. The development of 

 a technology that permits the physical occupation and military use of large areas 

 of the sea-i3ed beyond the continental shelf drastically alters traditional con- 

 straints on the use of the sea with consequences which even experts nniy And 

 difficulty fully to assess at the present time ; in any case a new dimension is 

 added to strategy. 



We all know that extremely powerful and sophisticated laud-based nuclear 

 missile systems have been developed and are being constantly refined, but the 

 very technology that has made the development of these systems possible, has 

 also provided the means for their destruction. What could be more attractive in 

 the era of multiple war-head ballistic missiles, capable of overwhelming defences 

 and destroying land-based hardened missile sites, than to transfer offensive 

 and defensive capability to the seas, an environment highly resistant to the 

 over-pressures of nuclear attack. This indeed has already occurred to some 

 extent with the development of nuclear-powered submarines equipped with nu- 

 clear missiles : the present inestimable julvantage of these vessels is that they 

 can maintain the balance of terror by guaranteeing a measure of .second strike 

 capability since they are almost immune to detection. This immunity and hence 

 this second strike capability could, however, be seriously impaired were tracking 

 devices (which incidentally are already available) installed in suitable areas 

 of the deep seas and of the ocean floor. Such devices can be used, of cour.'«e, 

 for scientific and commercial purposes, for instance as aids to navigation and 

 for the charting of fish migrations, but they can also be used to detect and to 

 trail possible hostile submersibles. 



Deployment of an anti-ballistic missile system on suitable areas of the ocean 

 floor, such as on the oceanic mountain ranges, could prove an effective counter 

 to multiple war-head missiles aimed at land targets. The advantages of such a 

 system are obvious : more than one strike at incoming missiles would be possible; 

 secondly, incoming multiple war-head missiles could be attacked before the sev- 

 eral war-heads separate. 



