La tremendous upsurge of revolution in the colonial world.
American-backed dictators have toppled in Iran and Nicaragua. Revolutionary upsurges have triumphed in Angola and Ethiopia.
Washington considers that its vital interests are threatened in the Middle East and Central America.
In order to meet this threat, the US has constructed a massive counter-revolutionary mobile force - the Rapid Deployment Force -which can ostensibly arrive anywhere within days.
The US is determined not to lose its oil in the Middle East and to prevent Central America and the Caribbean from becoming a hotbed of revolution.
The US leaders see the hand of the Soviet Union behind these revolutionary advances. Increasingly the interests of the US and the USSR are clashing in the colonial world.
In a period of economic crisis a rush to re-armament helps the economies of the West as weapons production expands.
On the other hand, an arms race damages the economy of the Soviet Union, as living standards are sacrificed to arms production. The new arms race puts the Soviet Union under pressure. Nobody gains except Socialist Challenge 16 October 1980 Page 8 submarine-launched Polaris missiles. Bigger and 'better' than Polaris, it is a MIR Ved weapon — with several independently targeted warheads. This is intended to make it invulnerable to anti-missile missiles.
Britain will have five submarines equipped with Tridents. The cost is escalating all the time, but the latest estimate is a total cost of £6,500m.
Britain's Trident missiles will have the capacity to destroy all the major Soviet cities.
The MX system THE MX is a monster block-buster intercontinental missile. But that's not its only novelty. The MX ('missile experimental') system will be housed in a huge underground missiles complex covering hundreds of square miles in the Western US desert.
The missiles will be carried along on underground tracks, to emerge through the ground at any point along the route. This will mean that Soviet spy satellites will be unable to detect the position of the missiles at any one time.
MX will be the biggest construction project in human histo — bigger than the pyramids, bigg than the Panama canal.
The cost of MX continua escalates. It is currently estimat to be in the region of $100,000m Cruise CRUISE, the 'nuclear doodlebu is based on the war-time