The speech links European defence to transatlantic sea lines of communication because American reinforcement and resupply had to cross the ocean. Speed describes Admiral Sergei Gorshkov's Soviet Navy as a blue-water force able both to threaten those routes and to project Soviet foreign policy worldwide. The invasion of Afghanistan makes the problem larger than the formal NATO area and prompts discussion of allied defence cooperation beyond alliance boundaries. This assessment came from the 1980 defence white paper, immediately before the following year's review reached very different conclusions. European defence therefore depended on an Atlantic lifeline as much as on forces ashore.
Chapter · 10:58-18:39
NATO's Atlantic lifeline and the Soviet blue-water challenge
Speed's 1980 speech treats NATO as a maritime alliance whose credibility depended on keeping reinforcement routes from North America open.