Last month's mass demonstration against Cruise Missiles marked a major re-surgence of the anti-nuclear movement in Britain. It was in direct response to Tory Defence Secretary Francis Pym's announcement that 160 missiles were about to be sited over here. 2,000 US Air Force personnel will, it seems, accompany the missiles which will be guarded by 220 British soldiers. Pym justitied the new import on the grounds that it will 'balance' Russia's deadly SS20 long-range missile. He also went on to assure us that the weapons will only be used by joint agreement between Britain and the USA. What he was less keen to admit was that there will be no 'dual-key' system and that the button will operate on Carter's orders alone.
CUTS The Cruise missiles - which form part of 'our commitment to NATO - come from US tunds. Tory plans to replace the ageing Polaris submarines do not. Massive increases in defence spending are already underway at a time when Thatcher is only too keen to slash health, education and housing to the bone.
When it is realised that the cost of replacing one Polaris submarine could buy the equivalent of twenty-five new hospitals, the government's priorities couldn't be better illustrated.
The Tories, who have also given £16 million for the modernisation of NATO's nuclear complex, are not alone in this. Carter also plans a massive build-up in arms over the next five years - doubling military expenditure to 250,000 million dollars a year by 1985 CAUSE But why have Carter & Thatcher plunged so suddenly into the arms race at a time of growing recession? Why are the so-called limited resources to be spent on nuclear SOCIALIST ACTION:
Editor: A.D.Scott. death-traps rather than on social need? The answers - at least from them - are predictable.
Using the Soviet intervention in Afganistan as a 'bogeyman', they have stressed the need to preserve security in the face of the Warsaw Pact. Pym's decision to site the Cruise Missiles was, he affirmed, a 'clear expression of the determination of NATO as a whole to preserve its security'.
Similar answers have come from the Shadow Defence Secretary, David Owen, who also supports the Cruise Missiles. At the special Labour Party conference recently, he declared: 'Peace..is won by making a bargain and negotiating with the Soviet Union from a position of strength'.
RED ARMY In order to justify this position, figures about the Soviet Union's "better-stocked military arsenal' are deliberately exagerated. CND's journal, Sanity, for example suggests that figures on the actual size of the Red Army differ by as much as one million.
It also notes that the supposed superior tank force of the Warsaw Pact is made up entirely of T54/ 55s - tanks which first saw service as long ago as 1949. Others, it claims, are even older.
Moreover, in the nuclear field, it explains how the government and press have deliberately sought to mislead the public. While drawing attention to the USSR's so-called 'advantage' in 'theatre' weapons, they totally fail to take into account the undisputed advantage of the West in inter-continental 'strategic' weapons.
IRAN So what is the build-up really about? If the Imperialists already outdistance the Warsaw Pact, why the clamour to pour yet more money into arms?
The West's change in mood began Ass. Ed.: Alan Wilkes.
Bus. Manager: Dave Macleod.
Typeset by Bread 'n Roses (TU) 01-485 4432. Printed by Spider Web Offset (TU) 9 Rosemont Rd, NW3. H caly wil c valLIllOwu the Shah of Iran in 1978. Three years earlier, the then President Ford had openly stated that the ian Gult as having an 'over-riding national interests of the USA..?. Ford was, of course, reterring to on which US - and European -industry depended. He ended by interrupted supply of that oil.
BULLY-BOY vital in securing the US oil interon behalf of its Western masters.
by popular revolution - Washingthem still further.
Western powers have begun to any longer to control the Third World through local puppets, considered.
CAMPAIGN This has led, in the USA as in propaganda about the USSR's expansionist role): * developing a rapid growth in armaments;
back conscription; * discussing how to make ourselves 'sate' black mail will not, however, be exists among working people as and schools to fuel further war OPPOSITION The task, however, is to begin Clear attack. dows.
US government regarded the Persstrategic and economic importance'.
It was, he went on, 'vital to the the vast oil reserves in that region saying that the USA would consid. er military action to secure an unThe Shah's army - with its huge stock of modern equipment - was der-neath. ests. Its role was to police the Gulf When the Shah was overthrown -around. ton's interests were directly threatened. Moreover, growing anti-US struggles in countries from Grenada to Nicaragua have threatened It is within this situation that the JICDS indulge in an arms frenzy. Unable direct bully-boy tactics are being