628 
coordination and performance. What is needed is some oceans policy 
apparatus at the top, and further coordination of those scattered 
civilian ocean activities which logically belong in a single agency or 
department. 
SOVIET POLICY IN THE OCEANS: POSTWAR DEVELOPMENTS 
Russia has traditionally been an insular nation, primarily coastal 
and river-oriented in its marine policy. Russia under the czars was 
a nation without a major maritime and naval capability. The crushing 
defeat of the Russian fleet by Japan in the Tsushima Straits is probably 
the most publicized example of Russia’s limited naval capabilities. 
The country’s maritime transportation and fisheries were basically 
coastal or used foreign bottoms. 
This policy began to change under the leadership of Nikita 
Khrushchev and, under his successor, Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet ocean 
policy has taken on global dimensions. It is a new phenomenon in 
Russian and Soviet history which is likely to have far-reaching con- 
sequences. 
Soviet plans for a global maritime policy appear to be accelerating 
in scope and scale, comparable, according to some scholars, to British 
maritime policy following the Napoleonic wars.? 
. . . The English global role represented a conscious projection 
of merchant and naval power in order to extend its imperial 
power over far-flung geographic regions. The parallel with the 
global role of the United States after World War II seems less 
apt as that appeared to be an American preeminence based on 
the filling of a power vacuum through many areas required by 
a national desire to ensure stability and foster development. The 
parallel with England’s imperial period suggests a more persistent, 
conscious extension of Soviet maritime power directed toward 
attaining political and economic goals than would be the case 
if the American parallel were chosen. The parallel with the En- 
glish maritime power suggests a great power rather than a revolu- 
tionary thrust to the Soviet global role.* 
The shift from a basically insular to a global strategy which led to 
the rapid expansion of all ocean activities in the Soviet Union, was 
a deliberate shift, made at the highest level of government. The Soviet 
leadership of the late 1950’s and beyond understood the need for 
a strong ocean policy. The various facets of ocean policy have been 
integrated into general Soviet development planning. The leadership 
considered the legal, political, military, scientific, and economic 
aspects of the oceans as facets of a single, coherent program.* Growth 
in every single area of ocean activity in the Soviet Union began 
at about the same time, the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. John Hardt 
states that it is “‘as if the high level political decision to be a global 
power was orchestrated with the subordinate policies for extending 
simultaneously the Soviet maritime, naval, scientific, and political arms 
of the Soviet Union beyond its continental borders.’’® But, there is 
7U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, National Ocean Policy Study, Soviet Ocean Ac- 
tivities: A Preliminary Survey, op. cit., p. 4. 
3Ibid., p. 4. 
‘Ibid., p. 4. The theory and formal organization of the party and the Soviet Government provide 
for and even require unified policy on ocean affairs and on any other major issue. 
5Ibid., p. 4. 
