591 
could seriously alter the strategic balance. He assets that the Soviet 
Union is challenging American technological leadership across almost 
the entire spectrum of conventional warfare. In the oceans area, 
Dr. Currie refers to two new classes of satellites which can be used 
for global ocean surveillance and to obtain target information for 
use by Soviet missile ships and attack submarines. One of these satel- 
lite systems uses active radar. The United States, according to Dr. 
Currie, does not have a similar system.™ . 
Military technology is one area in which the United States should 
dominate. It is difficult for the United States to match Soviet man- 
power. Constraints on the use of resources in peacetime are frequently 
more of a problem in democracies than in totalitarian states. But, 
in the area of advanced defense technology, the United States has 
been the leader for a quarter of a century. American national security 
depends on this lead being maintained. 
A NEW NAVY TO MEET NEW CHALLENGES 
Critics maintain that the U.S. Navy was slow to appreciate the 
threat of and to develop means to handle, the Soviet submarine build- 
up in the 1960’s, the development of ship-to-ship and air-to-surface 
missiles, the recent construction of a large Soviet surface fleet, and 
technological breakthroughs such as like high accuracy, satellite recon- 
naissance.®© 
Admiral Zumwalt states that the Navy invested a disproportionate 
share of its budget during the past 20 years into forces for the projec- 
tion of power—carriers, attack planes, amphibious vessels—while sea- 
control forces, antisubmarine planes and their carriers and ships suita- 
ble for patrol and escort duty, were allowed to obsolesce and finally 
to be retired, without replacement.® Little effort was made during 
the Vietnam war, in his view, to estimate and plan for the meeting 
of future sea requirements, such as new types of ships from which 
planes and helicopters could operate; new techniques for combating 
submarines; new vessels to escort convoys; and new kinds of surface- 
warfare weapons.® The only exception to this lack of creativity and 
innovation was, according to Admiral Zumwalt, the nuclear attack 
submarine which was built as a result of Adm. Hyman Rickover’s 
special relationship with the Congress. 
Capt. Robert B. Bathurst, professor of tactics at the Naval War 
College, argues that the U.S. Navy, in spite of the known Soviet 
capability in the Northeast Atlantic, continues in its annual naval 
exercises in the Norwegian Sea to project a position which has long 
since been negated by the existence of a powerful Soviet counterforce 
that looks to the future rather than to the past.6® He maintains that 
the U.S. Navy has concentrated so much on improving weapons, tac- 
3 Ibid. 
4 Ibid. 
65 Representative Les Aspin takes exception to this view, as far as ship construction is concerned. 
He maintains that the United States began its major construction program in the early 1970’s and 
that as a result of this the United States will be building more ships than the Soviets by the early 
1980's, while the Soviets will soon be faced with bloc obsolescence. Representative Aspin’s paper 
does not analyze qualitative variables, such as who is building the best navy to meet its projected mis- 
ees Aspin, op. cit. 
56 Zumwalt, “High-Low”, op. cit., p. 2. 
87 Tbid., p. 2. 
68 Bathurst, op. cit., p. 35. 
