Word: baltics
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Russia's navy is divided into four geographically grouped fleets-the Baltic, the Northern, the Black Sea and the Pacific-of 270 to 350 vessels each. It is second in overall size only to that of the U.S., and in some categories of ships, it is far ahead (see chart). In general the Russian ships-which range in size from swift 83.7-ft. Komar missile boats to the 19,200-ton Sverdlov cruisers, no longer in production-are faster and younger than the U.S.'s (an average of about eight years, v. about 18 for American ships...
...generates most of the earth's oxygen, is surface matter. It absorbs dirt and acts as a sort of pollution filter. Thus all you need to knock out is the surface phytoplankton, and the entire marine life cycle is fatally disrupted." That disruption is accelerating logarithmically. At one Baltic measuring station, Environmentalist Barry Commoner points out, the oxygen content of water samples was 2.5 cc. per liter in 1900. The figure gently declined to 2.0 cc. by 1940, but in only 30 years since then it has plummeted...
That spectacle points up a growing Soviet threat to the northern flank of NATO, which extends from Norway's North Cape to West Germany's Baltic coast (see map). NATO's northern command is outnumbered by the Soviets four-to-one on the ground, seven-to-one in aircraft and six-to-one in ships in the north. "The Russians are very busy displaying raw military power on the northern flank," reports TIME Correspondent John Mulliken, who recently toured the region. "It is a significant example of how the Soviets intend to use the pressure of their...
Operating out of ice-free Murmansk, the northern fleet has an estimated 560 ships, including 160 submarines, more than 65 of them nuclear-powered (but not counting sizable forces in the Baltic, plus the East German and Polish navies). By contrast, the entire U.S. Atlantic Fleet has 358 ships, of which 40 to 50 are assigned to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Since 1968, the U.S. command has been cut back 25% in ships and 19% in men, and it is scheduled to lose another ten ships by next summer. Says Norway's Rear Admiral Magne Braadland...
...lesser degree, the Soviets have made a similar point with Denmark, whose NATO task in any conflict would be to mine the exit from the Baltic-a move that would require approval from the Danish Parliament. The Soviets now regard the Baltic as virtually a Cornmunist sea. On a "goodwill" call in Copenhagen last August, Soviet Vice Admiral L.V. Mizhin, deputy commander of the Soviet Baltic fleet, pointedly complained that an American cruiser had shown up in the Baltic Sea, and that West Germany had intensified its naval exercises there. The Soviets are on the verge of achieving their most...