A state whose merchant ships faced Soviet raiders could question the value of supporting the Western war effort if NATO failed to protect them. Changing flags and sending those ships on other routes offered a way to avoid that exposure. The Soviet benefit would be the loss of shipping available to NATO convoys, regardless of whether the hulls were sunk or employed elsewhere. Important supply chains could therefore be disrupted by political and commercial decisions as well as by direct attack. This pressure mattered particularly in a long war, when the cumulative availability of merchant shipping affected the ability to sustain operations.
Notable Point · 1:21:10-1:22:14
How raiders could remove shipping without sinking it
Failure to protect merchant shipping could persuade states to change flags and routes, removing hulls from NATO's supply system without a sinking.