Stormy Times for the U.S.

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Moscow, which has been more of a taunting spectator than a participant in the Falklands dispute, stands to gain the most from the North-South fighting, even if the government in Argentina does not become more accommodating to the Soviets. Both Haig and British Foreign Secretary Francis Pym have complained that the U.S.S.R. has been "fishing in troubled waters" with its propaganda attempts to capitalize on the crisis. Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, speaking at a Moscow dinner honoring Nicaraguan Leader Daniel Ortega Saavedra, said that the South Atlantic confrontation occurred "precisely because there are forces that are trying to preserve or restore their positions of dominance and to impose foreign oppression." In deference to his Marxist guest, Brezhnev did not embrace the junta's cause more explicitly.

For Cuba, too, the Falklands present an opportunity to insinuate itself with Argentina and other Latin American neighbors after years of isolation. Havana's ambassador to Buenos Aires, Emilio Aragones Navarro, went so far as to say that "we ought to be fighting. The cause of the Malvinas is the cause of Cuba, of Latin America and of the Third World." Yet despite the self-serving rhetoric of the Soviets and their clients, the majority view is that the Falklands will not inflate into an East-West showdown. "Frankly, I do not see the danger of this escalating to that extent," Reagan said last week.

The outcome of the Falklands war is almost sure to involve U.S. military strategy as well as diplomatic policy. The first full-scale naval battle in 40 years erupted just as Reagan's fiveyear, $1.6 trillion defense buildup was being debated by the Senate. The war provides ammunition to both sides of a dispute about the effectiveness of large surface ships for projecting power into areas of conflict.

Navy Secretary John Lehman defended the Administration's plan to build 110 new surface ships, including spending $7 billion for two 90,000-ton Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers. The sinking of the Sheffield, said Lehman, showed that relying on smaller aircraft carriers, as proposed by Colorado Democrat Gary Hart and other military reformers, would be dangerous. Only large carriers can transport airborne defenses, including F-14 "Tomcat" fighters and surveillance planes, that will adequately protect fleets against modern missiles. The Argentine plane carrying Exocet missiles "would not have gotten anywhere near one of our battle groups," he claimed. Lehman also insisted that the war shattered the reformers' argument that there are "low-threat" areas of potential conflict that could be adequately handled by less sophisticated naval weapons.