ABSTRACT
Soviet strategists, victims of an adverse geographical position that has placed their country for from both the major sea routes and its present and potential allies, are well aware of the need to increase the effectiveness of naval deployments. The extensive Soviet building program has emphasized more than a flexible blue-water navy as making use of forward basing opportunities works in tandem with a diversified naval potential to expand the number of available peacetime and wartime missions. The region's geographic proximity and economic ties to the United States have long bound its fortunes to its northern neighbour. Communist and wholly dependent on Soviet assistance, Cuba offers the USSR a politically stable foothold only ninety miles from US shores. Soviet endeavors in the Indian Ocean were temporarily hampered by the loss of a most promising facility at Berbera, Somalia.
