SEAPOWER IN THE NUCLEAR AGE: NATO AS A MARITIME ALLIANCE (EUROPE, NAVIES).

摘要

This study examines the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, (NATO), from the perspective of its collective maritime forces; how those forces were organized, what tasks they were given and how they related to the broader strategic and political doctrines of the Alliance. Drawing upon much heretofore classified material, the study begins with a history and analysis of the 'cold war at sea'. It then examines the impact of the growth in Soviet maritime capabilities and the adoption by NATO of a strategy of flexible response upon the allied posture at sea. A single chapter is devoted to the reinforcement sealift problem. The concluding chapter discusses NATO and the war at sea in the early 1980s.;The study comes to the following basic conclusions. First, the collective maritime forces of the Alliance, both nuclear and conventional, have had as their tasks the traditional task which all maritime forces have had in the past; to exploit the strategic value of the seas for the purposes of conveyance and projection and to deny these usages to the enemy. Second, the NATO's maritime posture has been consistent with the overall strategies of the Alliance. Third, that the strategy of flexible response only increased NATO's need to exploit that strategic value of the seas, but did so at a time when the Soviets were becoming increasingly able to deny NATO effective use of the sea to support its position on the European continent. As history and as strategic analysis, the study shows NATO to be one of the great maritime alliances and the most significant example of the role of seapower in the nuclear age.