579 
Only in the area of sea denieal does the Soviet Union Navy pose a serious challenge 
to the U.S. Navy. The Soviet Navy does maintain a quantitative superior attack sub- 
marine force to that of the United States, outnumbering the United States 253 to 
73. ... These Soviet submarines pose a threat to convoys and surface combatants 
of the U.S. and NATO countries and represent the biggest challenge facing the U.S. 
Navy, especially in the attempt to reinforce NATO or any overseas ally in a general 
war abroad where the two superpowers were engaged.”’ 
It is difficult to see how it matters that ‘“‘no Navy in the world 
can match the U.S. ability to project power onto friendly shores” 4 
if at the same time the U.S. Navy cannot exercise sea control, 
as the quoted statement implies. The United States must control sea 
lines of communication in order to conduct extended military opera- 
tions Overseas. 
It is this combination of the vast Soviet attack submarine force, 
the numbers and capabilities of minor combatants for coastal defense, 
and the growing numbers and capabiity of Soviet major combatants 
that worries the critics. 
Former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo Zumwalt declared 
that: 
In 1970 when I first became Chief of Naval Operations, it was my judgement that 
we had just slightly better than an even chance . . . of winning a sea control war 
at that time with the Soviets. ... In the years since 1970 our chances for success 
have diminished.” 
Once, referring to an area of vital interest to U.S. national security, 
the eastern Mediterranean, Zumwalt said: 
The Soviet Union has progressed so far that if the U.S. Navy deployed during 
the Yom Kippur war of 1973 had battled the Soviet Navy in the Mediterranean 
the odds are very high that they would have won and we should have lost.”® 
Former Secretary of Defense, James R. Schlesinger, has never said 
that the U.S. Navy can no longer carry out its current missions and 
tasks. Yet, he has expressed his worries about the size of the U.S. 
fleet, which sharply diminished in recent years, and at what he calls 
“‘a distressing decline of the material readiness of the fleet.”’?” About 
the decline of the Navy, Secretary Schlesinger wrote: 
. . . The strength of the Navy is perhaps the most dramatic 
case in point. In the face of a major expansion of Soviet naval 
forces, which has altered the character of the naval balance, 
the size of the U.S. fleet has diminished sharply. In the fiscal 
year 1968 the Navy had 976 ships. This fiscal year it will be 
down to 483 ships. The shrinkage reflects the disappearance from 
the fleet of vessels constructed during the World War II period, 
some 30 years ago. It also reflects the postponement of naval 
construction during the Vietnam war, and the present lack of 
shipyard capacity. Naval commitments in the Far East and the 
23 Ibid., p. S7511. 
24Ibid., p. S7510. In fact, the study admits that while the main mission of the U.S. Navy in a war 
with the Soviet Union will be to keep the NATO sea lanes open for reinforcements by ship and to 
prevent the projection of power by Soviet ships against U.S. coasts, “the large Soviet attack sub- 
marine and ballistic missile submarine forces as well as the formidable Soviet antiship cruise missile 
capability, make the success of this kind of U.S. mission highly doubtful.” 
25 Quoted from: Maj. Gen. Robert N. Ginsburgh (USAF ret.), ““A New Look at Control of the 
Seas’’, Strategic RFeview, winter 1976. 
26 Congressional Record, July 28, 1975, p. S14016. 
27 Schlesinger, James R., A testing time for America. Fortune, v. 93, no. 2, Feb. 1976: 148. 
