A SIE Oe MR rg By Victor Perlo Revelation that the Pentagon will-seek, and expects to get, authorization for $130 billion in fiscal 1978 is ex- tremely sinister news, although scarcely surprising. That would mean a three-year increase of 41% in the military budget — 15% in fiscal 1978 alone. Admistration officials ‘judged that President Ford was unlikely to make major cuts in the request” (NY Times, 9/15). Regardless who wins in November, Ford will present to Congress the annual budget message in January. Carter’s hard line foreign pe, position makes it unlikely that, if elected, he will reduce the budget later. The way for this increase has béen cleared by the furious escalation of anti-Soviet propaganda, supplemented by anti-Vietnamese and anti-Cuban prop- aganda, with which the U.S. public has been brainwashed this year. A special role has been played by the right-wing forces in both the Democratic and Republican parties —, Jackson, Wallace and Reagan — who have greatly influ- enced the foreign policy line of the two monopoly parties. And in particular, there is the position of Carter, who in crucial respects attacks Ford for not being sufficiently anti-Soviet. ; Under these conditions Congressional resistance to extreme Pentagon demands, weak at best, has com- pletely collapsed. _ And the Pentagon more and more openly shows its hand. Two years ago it blamed the increases on inflation. One year ago, it conceded the desire to achieve a “real” increase of 1% a year. And now it talks about a “real” increase in the military budget of 5% to 7% a year. But since the payroll hardly changes, the “real increase” in military hardware is well above 10% per year. Past major buildups in military spending have always been the prelude to war. Never before has the United States been subjected to such a massive buildup’ in a non-war situation. Thus we must conlcude that the war danger is exceptionally grave. _ Where? ; : The Kissinger maneuvers aiming to replace the pre- sent racist rulers of Zimbabwe and Namibia with _ U.S./NATO racist rulers, operating through a Thieu-type — puppet regime, is direct preparation for imperialist war against the fighting liberation forces of Southern Africa. U.S./Israeli intervention in Lebanon is the beginning of fresh aggression against the progressive forces in the Arab world. Other immediate tragets could be countries in the Caribbean area breaking away from U.S. domination, such as Panama, Jamaica and Guyana. And also en- dangered are the Democratic Republic of Korea and any country in Europe that may choose a socialist path. In every case, U.S. imperialism perceives the Soviet Union as a major obstacle in its expansionist path, and the danger of a nuclear conflict mounts with every extra billion of U.S. military spending, with every lying anti- Soviet tirade, with every “limited” intervention by the Pentagon and CIA. Along with preparations for military conflict, Washington has moved back towards the all-out economic warfare of the worst cold war days. All pre- tense of intention to remove the Jackson/Vanek restric- tions on trade with socialist countries has been dropped. The Pentagon has ruined the large potential trade in machine tools with socialist countries (Daily-World, 9/2). Almost weekly there are reports of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of orders going to European manu- facturers, including branches of U.S.-owned multina- tionals, because of the Pentagon’s economic warfare. J. Fred Bucy, president of Texas Instruments, Inc., the leading military contractor in semi-conductors and re- lated electronic products, is propagandizing for stopping virtually all meaningful trade in that growth industry, against the wishes of most firms in the industry. But Bucy has the inside track in Washington today, along with the BUDGET ORY rest of the military-industrial complex. IBM finally got permission, after an earlier turndown, to sell a curtailed $5 million computer reservations sys- tem to the USSR Intourist Agency in preparations for the 1980 Olympics, just as the USSR was about to supply its own computers. But not many firms have the abit of IBM. And the fantastic ‘‘reason” for turning down the requested license in the first place was finally revealed: the CIA/Pentagon said they feared Soviet intelligence ~ would use the IBM computer to track down U.S. spies in their country! : Kissinger’s insulting refusal even to talk about recon- struction aid to Vietnam, as revealed in the recently pub- peer exchange of correspondence, is part of the same Washington’ s stepped-up campaign to depress the "price of gold through use of International Monetary Fund machinery, is also largely an anti-Soviet maneuver. The USSR exports gold in partial payment for imports. By depressing the price, U.S. imperialism wants to cut Soviet purchasing power and make it difficult for the USSR and other socialist countries to pay off credits as- sociated with earlier purchases. This is accompanied by — a propaganda campaign to undermine the AAA credit rating of the USSR. ; : Parallel with this is the drive to impose a tighter dollar domination of U.S. banks over the entire capitalist world through replacing gold with dollars as a monetary re- serve. The evident harm this is doing to such countries as Italy, France. and even West Germany does not deter the U.S. monetary pirates. . . Finally, U.S. imperialism counts on the accelerating arms race to force diversion of Soviet and other socialist countries’ resources away from improving living stand- ards, thereby facilitating destabilization activities, as in Poland, and curtailing the growing moral/political influ- ence of socialism in the capitalist world. But this economic warfare is a desperate adventure that is doomed to failure. Socialist economies are much sounder than capitalist economies and can stand the strain of such struggle much better. The increasing cohe- sion of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) grouping contrasts with the widening contradic- tions among the capitalist countries. For the moment the U.S. arms manufacturers and bankers are making hay out of the war preparations and economic warfare. But the U.S. people are already pay- ing for it, and the bill will mount as the economic aggres- sion boomerangs. The present policy gives substance to the fears of some Establishment economists of a return to double digit inflation some time next year. It provides an excuse for the common aim of Carter and Ford to slash socially useful government expenditures no matter which of them is elected. ; The U.S. balance of trade, favorable earlier this year, has turned sharply into the red. Sabotage of trade with socialist countries is an important cause of this. Continu- ation of the accelerated arms race and anti-socialist economic warfare, far from strengthening dollar hegemony, will bring about a fresh devaluation of the dollar, with consequent reductions in living standards, such as followed the 1971-73 devaluations. We may anticipate a revived line of propaeent totry. to convince workers that the military buildup will solve the unemployment crisis. True, in the present cir- cumstances, the projected arms race will cause some additional hiring, but not enough, considering all the negative consequences of the policy, to bring about a decisive reduction in unemployment. Past experience shows that an arms buildup itself does not reduce un- employment in a major way. A war might, but few work- ers would want to pay that price for a possible reductiqn in unemployment. (The above article by Victor Perlo appeared in the October 2, 1976 issue of the U.S. Daily World. Although written before the elections, the subject it deals with is just as timely today.)