As To justify his call for a sharp increase spending while SOCa expenditures $41.4bn, to an old theme Americans have to catch up with the Russians.
According to the new president, Soviet Union has invested $300bn more in its military forces than has the US.
*As a result of its massive military build-up, the Soviets have significant numerical adnuclear delivery LaCu Ca marines, artillery and anti-aircraft defence. To allow this imbalance to continue is a threat to our national security.' This propaganda campaign, tray the United military as a pygmy about to be swamped Soviet juggernaut, been echoed uncritically in the entire US mass media.
It is always easier to sell big arms programmes and mılitar abroad if they trayed as defensive moves.
DUL UNG TaCl Washington has introduced every weapons system Second World War (se panel).
Each time system was introduced, it was claimed that the Pentagon was simply catching up with the Soviets. Gaps 1956, warned that people gap'.
Kennedy. te presidency on une oasis of a supposed gap'. In 1967 the spectre was raised of an tiballistic missiles gap' As Michael Parenti of the US Institute for Policy Studies explained in the July 1980 issue of The ProSocialist Challenge 19 March 1981 By Will Reissner From Intercontinent: ' Press WHEN President Ronald Reagan addressed both houses of the US Congress on 18 February to lay out his economic programme, his nationally televised speech called for sharp cuts in all areas of federal spending except for the military.
Reagan told members of Congress, the Department of Defence is 'the only department in our entire programme that will actually be increased over the present budget figure.' arms slashing by Reagan resorted the ment *since 1970 the that made strategic systems, SUDsallic which tries to por States by the has interventions are Por since the American were there was campaigned for 'anthe assembled gressive magazine, in each instance it was subsequently discovered that nó such gap existed and that US capabilities were superior to the Soviet Union's.
In 1975, the Departof Defence warning or a new gap This time it was claiming the US the Soviets developing MIRVs multiple independently targeted nuclear warhead: that are mounted on a single missile. Truth But the MIRV 'gap' was simply more of the Even as the Pentagon was issuing its dire warnings about the defence analyst James McCartney calmly noted that 'the United States has had MIRVs for years. It has hundreds of them ready to use, while the Soviets are Just gelling unem.
How much there in Reagan's assertion that the Soviet Union ha been outspending the Us arms for a decade? None at all!
Accoraing to its own , between 1970 and spent $1,048,700,000,000 on the military. For those who have trouble counting zeros, that comes to over one trillion dollars.
Is it credible that the Soviet Union, economy that is only two-thirds the size of the US economy, not only matched that rate, but exceeded it by $300bn? Just on the face of it, the Soviet Union would face a big strain simply matching spending, much less spending 29 per cent more.
There is an old maxim with statistics.
CIA's figures military spending, Keagan used to push hi claim that, the Soviets are was falling in MIRVs, truth recently did.
the calculating spending In the tually spent dollars what the SOCHIL the Soviet But an spending.
CIA US SOCHIL the Soviets on soviet they which That. outspending the US, are a case in point.
If the figures do not support the charge that the Soviets outspend the US the best thing to do is to change the way arms spending is calculated, and that is precisely what the CIA A detailed analysis of CIA's Soviet was made Franklyn D Holzman of , University. It ap peared in the issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
past the CIA compared what the US ac on arms, in the iet union Soviet rubles in USSR. By that method of figuring, which is the most accurate as we shall see Union spend only 60 to 70 percent of what the Pentagon spends.
since that across the 'catch up with the Russians' theme, the CIA retroactively changed the way it computes Soviet The CIA went back and recomputed Soviet ex penditures on a totally difcompared how much the US actually in dollars in the with what would spend if everything in dollars in the also our chase simple change which flawed, parent Soviet the US.
arms by 1Y8U defence. The the comparison Each cuts own Each of in short cessively expensive.
different US and Multiple warheads on a single nuclear weaponry to increase limitation agreement suddenly made it appea that the Soviets had beer spending up to 44 per cent annually than the US. This method, is fundamentally maximises ap spending while minimising that of does not include this in his arms governmen structures its armed forces to take maximum advantage of the strengths of its economy and minimise reliance on its economy's weaknesses side maximises the use of resources and technology that are readily available in its own coun try, while minimising the resources technical methods that are supply or exThe CIA further skews the comparison by using methods determine the effects Soviet improvements in weapons.
----- pull-quotes -----
the US spent trillion dollars
Between 1970 and 1979 $1,048,700,000,000 on the military. That's over one
In 1978, the US's allies in NATO spent $75bn on Soviet Union's allies in the War- saw Pact spent $12bn. Reagan