HIGHLIGHTS OF AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS 
(By John P. Hardt) 
INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS 
Ocean policy has become increasingly important to Soviet leader- 
ship. The relative significance of the separate aspects of ocean affairs 
have all been increasing: naval in military affairs; merchant marine 
in transportation; offshore as related to onshore exploitation of 
resources; fishing as related to agricultural affairs; and the law of 
the sea in international law. Collectively, ocean affairs is at least 
as important as the sum of these separate aspects of maritime affairs, 
as it represents in most cases the critical margin within which decisions 
can be made and outcomes influenced in Soviet domestic and foreign 
policy. 
Ocean policy in the Soviet Union is formally unified, centralized 
and coordinated by the Communist Party and the governmental bu- 
reaucracy. 
In spite of this highly centralized and formalized process for translat- 
ing ocean policy into a dominant, even transcending position, there 
are limits and constraints for the Soviets in both policy and organiza- 
tion. Bureaucratic conflicts delimit clear-cut authority and dynamic 
growth in ocean affairs. 
The papers in this volume throw light on the impressive develop- 
ment of the Soviet Union in ocean affairs. They also highlight the 
problems and choices that influence and delineate change. The com- 
pendium is organized into five sections: Policy, law and diplomacy, 
maritime and fisheries, resources and technology, and legislative 
relevance. Some of the major questions addressed in the studies, with 
indications of some of the answers, are illustrated below: 
1. Why has Soviet ocean affairs become a global policy and what 
problems does its extension pose to Soviet leaders? Are there elements 
of continuity in Soviet and Tsarist maritime policy? 
“The Soviet Union’s current oceanic policy has developed in 
response to the imperatives of its expansive post-World War II foreign 
policy, the resultant strategic problems and opportunities, and domestic 
_ political-economic developments. In turn, the oceanic policy has been 
responsible for the full range of Soviet capabilities visible on the 
world’s oceans today from naval vessels making courtesy cails at any 
foreign ports to Soviet ships carrying foreign goods, fishing off distant 
coasts, and carrying out scientific research on all oceans. . . 
The beginning of this transformation of the U.S.S.R. from an insular 
landlocked nation—the interests of which the West at one time totally 
ignored even in areas as close to the U.S.S.R. as the Middle East—to 
a worldwide, oceanic competitor of the United States, can be dated 
to the mid-fifties. It was then that the Soviet leadership asserted global 
aspirations. 
(11) 
