5 
The management of ocean resources, design of advanced ships and 
naval hardware for the merchant marine and the navy, and the 
management of waste disposal in the ocean is based on a fundamental 
knowledge derived from sound ocean science and engineering. The 
United States has been the acknowledged leader in oceanographic 
research and training since World War II. The need for ocean science 
was recognized early by the U.S. Navy during the war and it received 
significant support through the military budget. The Soviet Union 
embarked on an ambitious program to expand its oceanographic 
research capabilities in the 1950’s as a component of its broad ocean 
program to build its merchant fleet and distant water fishing fleet. 
During the period 1964 to 1974, the Soviet Union increased the 
number of ocean scientists and technicians from between 1,500—2,000 
to as high as 7,000-8,000. Notwithstanding the early lead of the 
United States in scientific and engineering manpower, it is 
acknowledged that the Soviet Union now has as many trained ocean 
scientists and probably more engineers and support staff than the 
United States. 
In comparing the capabilities of the United States and Soviet 
oceanographic fleet, it can readily be seen that the overwhelming 
U.S. superiority of the 1950’s and early 1960’s has vanished and 
the Soviet Union now has 200 research vessels compared to 120 
of the United States. Generally, the Soviet vessels are larger than 
ours which reflects the trend of the Soviets for building large laborato- 
ry facilities aboard their vessels while we prefer to maintain onshore 
laboratories. 
Although the overall performance of the U.S. oceanographic 
establishment and that of the Soviet Union is still considered on 
par, the Soviets continue to increase spending for ocean research 
and engineering while the United States continues to shrink its oceano- 
graphic research budget from its peak in 1967. Should the ocean 
research and development budget continue to diminish it is possible 
that the Soviet Union could surpass us in ocean science and technolo- 
gy in the near future. The effects of this trend may ultimately be 
reflected in the combat capabilities of the Soviet Navy, in its ship 
design and construction, systems of resource management and utiliza- 
tion, and weather modification. 
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER 
The Soviet Union has taken advantage of the opportunities to obtain 
U.S. and Western technology through the technology transfer and 
scientific exchange programs. 
The United States is the undisputed leader in important areas of 
ocean technology related to offshore oil and gas development, deep 
seabed mining, submersible vehicles and certain types of advanced 
cargo vessel design. We have liberally pursued a policy of sharing 
our scientific and technological knowledge with the Soviet Union 
under various exchange programs. There are serious questions now 
raised whether this exchange has been quid pro quo. The Soviet 
Union has applied U.S. technology, either supplied directly or through 
purchase from other Western nations with which we have shared 
our technology, to develop an ocean capability that is competing 
both commercially and militarily with the United States. 
