The merchant marine and NATO's unanswered long-war problem

Maritime infrastructure and industry include the merchant marine as well as naval forces and shipyards. That wider system supplies the trade and movement a long conventional war would require. If neither nuclear-armed side used those weapons first while Soviet surface raiders operated in the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic, NATO would have to decide what force to send. Any answer must identify where to take it from and what strategic risk the reassignment creates elsewhere.