Word: fleets
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Murdoch on Fleet Street...
Researching the Fleet Street career of G.K. Chesterton for a biography, I found it amusing to note that the staid London Times [March 2] was taken over in 1908 by a vulgar, pushy publisher, Alfred Harmsworth, who was known for his yellow journalism. Chesterton wrote that while "almost everybody attacks the Times on the ground it is very sensational, very violent and vulgar and startling, I say this journalism offends by being not sensational or violent enough. The vague idea that our yellow press is sensational arises from such external accidents as large type or lurid headlines [which] are soothing...
These Soviet moves make ominous sense when seen on a map: the Korea Strait, at the southern end of the Sea of Japan, is a key link between the Siberian home ports of the Soviet Pacific fleet at Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk in the north and the naval base at Cam Ranh Bay in Viet Nam to the south. That American-built facility has fulfilled the Soviets' long-held, often frustrated desire for a warm-water naval base halfway between Vladivostok and the politically volatile, economically vital Persian Gulf-Indian Ocean region, where the superpowers are now circling each other...
Last year, to show its disapproval of the invasion of Afghanistan, the vociferously anti-Soviet government of Singapore closed its superbly equipped and strategically located port and drydock facilities to the Soviet navy. Yet Singapore still does booming business servicing the Soviet fishing, merchant and oceanographic research fleets, all of which have naval auxiliary functions. In fact, Soviet fishing vessels, particularly mother ships, often carry out electronic eavesdropping on other navies. Soviet merchant tankers are frequently diverted to refuel warships. The Soviet Oceanographic Research Fleet-the largest in the world-charts the ocean floor for the navigators aboard Soviet submarines...
While the Soviets have been accelerating their naval buildup, the U.S. in recent years has fallen behind slightly in both new warships and naval aircraft. The Soviet Pacific fleet is now the largest anywhere in the world, totaling 319 armed warships, compared with 171 in the U.S. Seventh Fleet. The Soviet Union has increased its naval tonnage in the Pacific by 18% in just the past three years. Despite the Soviet numerical advantage, American vessels by and large are technically more sophisticated, carry more firepower and have more experienced crews. Because the Seventh Fleet must do double duty, however, patrolling...