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to be more in the interests of effective administration and control 
(all fishermen are pirates), than of having a quasi-military organiza- 
tion. The commodore is himself a member of the industry. 
Merchant and fishing fleet officers carry reserve rank in the navy. 
Since the middle fifties naval officers have gone to sea in merchant 
ships to gain distant water experience and to reconnoiter distant 
coasts. The merchant fleet is a uniformed, well-disciplined service 
with its own training schools and fleetwide career structure and is 
headed and run by civilians. 
The structure of Russia’s internal organization, its essential services, 
its military reserve system, all reflect the lessons of June 1941 and 
hangovers from the cold war. National mobilization is still a live 
concept and the merchant and fishing fleets reflect that requirement. 
However, although they are structured on military lines, in their 
day-to-day operations their officers mainly pursue standard commercial 
objectives. 
OPERATIONAL CONTROL 
In the main, the pattern of deployment and the operational employ- 
ment of individual ocean-users is the responsibility of the parent or- 
ganization, delegated as appropriate to the man at sea. It is generally 
accepted that merchant and fishing vessels are predominantly engaged 
upon their “‘lawful’’ pursuits although all ships are required to report 
information of operational interest to Moscow. Fishing fleets working 
in the more strategic areas are likely to include one or two ships 
which are specially fitted for intelligence work, and minor collection 
requirements will be levied on the officers of merchant vessels visiting 
foreign ports. 
All merchant, fishing, and other ships are required to report their 
daily position at sea, hence Moscow knows the location of all Soviet 
vessels around the world, and can redeploy them if required. Among 
other things, this facilitates the navy’s use of freighting tankers for 
refueling, although their organic replenishment capacity is progres- 
sively improving. Merchant ships are used to deliver military supplies 
to client states, and to combatants. But this does not differ from 
Western practice, except for the organizational/contractual arrange- 
ments. 
On a day-to-day basis, Moscow has much greater direct operational 
control of all Soviet flag vessels than does the West over its ships, 
and this has various operational advantages, particularly in a sudden 
crisis or at the brink of war. The Soviets gave a limited demonstration 
of this capability during OKEAN-75, when they diverted merchant 
ships and ordered others to leave port in midloading, in order to 
stage a convoy exercise in the northwest Pacific. The West has com- 
parable arrangements for wartime control, which can be implemented 
if circumstances demand. Meanwhile, the close but informal links 
between Western governments and shipping companies were demon- 
strated in the redeployment of tanker traffic during the 1973 oil 
crisis. 
