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improved techniques for deploying ships at sea, may very well indicate 
a shift to an inherently aggressive Soviet military posture. The growing 
capabilities of the Soviet Union in some areas, like the Mediterranean, 
has limited United States options in that part of the world in case 
of conflict. Will the Soviet blue-water navy increasingly be deployed 
in Angola-type situations, thus limiting United States options in areas 
where the United States has a legitimate interest? In view of the 
limited overseas trade of the Soviet Union and the nonexistence of 
overseas allies vital for the defense of its own homeland, what other 
reason could there be for the development of a major blue-water 
navy? 
Part of the answer may also be found in Admiral Gorshkov’s belief 
that in an era of growing populations and increasing competition 
for food, minerals, and fuels, the distribution of the ocean’s resources 
may become a major source of potential conflict. While the Soviet 
Union does not now depend heavily on minerals from the oceans, 
it may become so in the future. As far as limited marine fisheries 
resources are concerned, the Soviet Union is heavily dependent on 
its vast marine harvest for animal proteins. The Soviet Union today 
harvests approximately 15 percent of the commercially important 
marine fisheries species harvested by the entire world. It may be 
concerned about how to maintain such harvest in a world of nation- 
states that appear destined to assert control of all fish resources within 
200-nautical miles of their coasts. 
The Pros and Cons 
Defense analysts have quite different views on the ability of the 
U.S. Navy to perform its current and projected future missions. Those 
who say that it can now, and in the foreseeable future carry out 
its missions, argue in general that in spite of the impressive Soviet 
attack submarine and anti-ship cruise missile capability, the United 
States would still win any head-to-head open sea encounter. (Few 
experts would deny that the Soviet surface fleet, which has only one 
small aircraft carrier and fewer major combatants than the U-S. sur- 
face fleet, is vulnerable to U.S. open sea air attacks where they 
have no air cover.) They also say that the large numbers of Soviet 
surface ships that some Western studies call ‘‘major combatants”’ are 
mostly less than 3,000 tons in size and no match for larger U.S. 
combatants. They also maintain that NATO allies would help in any 
major confrontation with the Soviet Union, adding close to 400 major 
combatants to U.S. forces. 
