ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union has in fact acquired a vested interest in the maintenance of the existing international order, including order at sea, and there is no a priori reason to suppose that this will not continue into the 1980s. If it does so continue, it will constitute a considerable factor in Soviet political planning and a powerful disincentive to adventurism and irresponsibility on the part of their leaders. The seas are not so discrete and isolated an element that conflict can rage on them while the nations of the world are in every other respect at peace. The Soviet Union can, and perhaps has, built up a fleet of sufficient strength to deny to the United States any claim to command the seas, but unless she achieves a truly crushing superiority at all levels she will not be able credibly to claim that she commands it herself.
