More generally, Moscow sought to limit unilateral assertions of coastal state jurisdiction over ocean space. As Admiral Gorshkov began to put to sea a powerful fleet, the Soviet Union finally begin to think about the international law of the sea like a maritime power.
A land power may try to match a maritime power by constructing a large fleet and becoming a maritime power, or it can choose to respond much more cheaply, albeit perhaps less effectively, by attempting to deny its opponents maritime access near its shores. The search for security leads nations to either build a fleet or construct shore defenses.
As the concept of the economic zone migrated to the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, which began work in 1973, the maritime powers were preoccupied with resolving the width of the territorial sea and the navigational regime for straits.
Nations are motivated by the struggle for greater security and control in an anarchic world. A land power may try to match a maritime power by constructing a large fleet and becoming a maritime power, or it can choose to respond much more cheaply, albeit perhaps less effectively, by attempting to deny its opponents maritime access near its shores.