BRITAIN's membership of NATO means that this country is expected to play its part in the war moves of the United States. With Thatcher in charge, the government is a very willing recruit.
Currently, in terms of hardware, contrwuuon Is rolaris, a suomarne-launcned ballistic missile which has been in service since the late 1960s.
There are four submarines in operation, the HMS Renown, Repulse, Revenge, each of shich is armed with 16 missiles what are known as A3 warheads. These contain three separate packages of 200 Hiroshima bomb. 2,880 miles.
But this isn't sufficient for Thatcher, or for the NATO thiefs.
apparently there could be a problem over shortage of spare parts!
To replace the Polaris, Thatcher is expected to give the go-ahead for the purchase of Trident missiles. will marines each equipped with 16 C4 missiles. Each missile will carry eight warheads of 100 kilotons. Trident will cost the taxpayers of this country £6b, which could prove the most expensive mass suicide in history.
Beauties But the real innovation for Britain will be the Cruise missile. that Britain will play host to 160 of these Deauues, cach or waica nas a rance o1 louv 10 2,000 miles.
'Today's Britain's Resolution and some other The Polaris has a range of They reckon that in about Third, be carried in five sub- as to why Thatcher recently agreed Even by military standards number of odd features to Cruise. First, they are not judged to be particularly effective.
Soviet defence svstem. what it will be like in a few years, would be expected to knock out 50 per cent of any batch of Cruise missiles that were sent in its direction.
Second; Cruise can only be controlled by the US. Its functioning depends on tracking operations fed into computers from American satellite grids. This makes the Cruise missiles which are due to be stationed here reliant on a continuous supply of information under US control. It will be Ronald Reagan or cowboy who will decide when Cruise is fired. Aircraft even if Cruise was necessary there is no military reason for there to be bases in Britain, for Cruise can be fired from ships or aircraft.
All of which adds up to a big question mark Britain at all. The answer is political.
Through Cruise, , Britain will, be tied to the US war machine and will be a prime target for any Soviet retaliatory attack.
Cruise is a way of ensuring that those countries in which there are such bases become military di colonies of the US, and will have no choice but foreign policy takes.
Cruise missiles are due to arrive in Britain in two or three years. There is that much time to stop them. In the life-span of planet earth it is there are a never mind which is considered GROUND -160 CRUIS LAUNCHEI MISSILES "to be sited in For the US, US direction NEW MISSILES FOR NATO NETHERLANDS GROUND.LAUNCHE CRUSH MISSILES BELGIUM GRONIND d LAUNCHED CRUISE MISSILES MIŞSILES military its arms budget gramme W.GERMANY LAUNCHE MISSILES • pre-Vietnam the benefit Socialist Chállenge blackmail, with hostile radical forces growing in every continent, and with the number of countries willing to stake their future on our friendship Kissinger went on to call for a "new firmness', and it is this direction in which the US is now moving.
Carter is bidding to establish new bases ll Kenya, Oman, Somali, Egypt and Israel. Before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the US announced a dramatic increase in and a crash pro. for developing the MX countered a Soviet offer to withdraw 20,000 troops and 1,000 tanks from East Europe by telling its West European allies that it had to iet the US install the Cruise and Pershing missiles in the UK, , West Germany, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.
There is a logic to this madness. What is involved is a return to the old strategy of open in tervention. The weapons are pointed at the Soviet Union, yet — at least for the moment - they are not so much meant as a direct threat but as a warn. ing that in the event of a US military operation in say the Middle East or the Soviet Union should stay well clear This is not a bluff. The crisis of US imperialism is real, which means the danger to the rest of us is real. The US is moving to the position I where for of it is prepared to hold the rest of the world as its hostage. It is time the working Class staged its own rescue opcration.
22 May 1980
THE interests of United States imperialism are threatened today in two crucial parts of the world - the Middle East and western Asia, and America.
In the former, America's vital economic interests are threatened. In the the revolution in Salvador Guatemala threatens to cut the Americas in two.
In response to these threats, the United States has constructed a new and massive counter-revolutionary corps - the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) consisting of 100,000 soldiers and including three marine combat brigades, AWO alvisis. assorted air force and navy units.
The RDF is a dagger pointing at the heart of the colonial revolution. Before looking at the threats to America's interests it is worth glancing history of America's role as world cop since 1945.
The United States emerged from the Second World War as the strongest imperialist power. Two world wars all but finished off the British Empire. So the United States adopted the mantle of 'protector of the WeST perialism's top cop.
Korea While France and Britain fought their own colonial wars and Indochina, and in Malaya, Greece, Kenya, and Cyprus respectively America's first expedition United auspices was in Korea.
The invasion of South Korea by the communist North, American forces being thrown back to a small enclave around the Puchan peninsula. America sent hundreds thousands of troops who North Korea and fought their way to Chinese border. tervention of a million Chinese troops Central and and the in Algeria Nations resulted in The main period was in Vietnam, of earnest by invaded tiersman' betore the incounter-revolutionary the American intervention of the post-war initiated in the liberal fronJohn Kennedy. The American leadership was shocked by the development of the revolution in Cuba, where a guerilla army, apparentcivilian population sicriminately used It was a fragile strategy. Every time the Americans escalated the size their commitment, they potential size of the defeat - which came with disastrous consequences.
'4.
was indescalated the wave chauvinism. Every revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan have proved the occasion for the most enormous and calculated political and ideological ofThe Waited State a sne patriotism racist and anti- Force.
In the Middle East and West Asia, the American interests are m more important economically can be summed up in one word Any further threat to American oil s plies could easily bring about a di intervention by the Rapid Deploym