Is nuclear war winnable? By FRED WEIR We have seen how the ‘‘Soviet threat’’ has been manipulated in the past to justify qualitative leaps in the arms race spiral, and to procure ever-larger defence outlays for the military-industrial complex. Today we are experiencing the biggest explosion of ‘‘Soviet menace’”’ rhetoric in the 35-year history of the cold war. It usually consists in exaggerating the-numbers or capabilities of Soviet military forces while insisting that the West is virtually helpless against them; or it appeals toamoronic view of Soviet society, depictingits people as mindless robots and its leaders as ideological zealots bent on world domination. Like all multi-million dollar theories, however, the “‘Soviet threat’ has deeper intellectual underpinnings. Various agencies of the United States Government, the Pentagon and the CIA employ hundreds of kremli- nologists to construct a persuasive and consistent rationale for American foreign and military policies. In recent years, many of these analysts have been claiming that a careful reading of Soviet military writings reveals great cause for alarm. The Soviet Union, they allege, is infatuated with the Clausewitzian formula that ““war is an extension of politics by other means.”’ These analysts insist that Soviet leaders do not differentiate between conventional and nuclear war — seeing both as a continuation of political processes — and they stress that the Soviet military is strictly subor- dinated to the ideological, i.e., political, leadership of the Communist Party. Hence, the logic runs, the USSR would be perfectly prepared to start a nuclear war, which they believe that they can win, in pursuit of Marxist- Leninist ideological goals. This argument was first put by Richard Pipes — Today a top Reagan adviser — back in July 1977, in Commentary magazine, in an article aptly entitled *‘Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win a Nuclear War.”’ Fortunately, an independent reading of Soviet military writings does not produce this result. The basic Soviet military-political textbook is Marxism Leninism on War and Amny, which is available in English from Progress Books, Toronto. Reading it, we find that Soviet experts do indeed have a healthy respect for the writings of Karl von Clausewitz, however their understanding of him is slightly different from the Pentagon version. Marxist- -Leninists see war not as spontaneous outbreaks of mass-hysteria, or cyclical breakdowns of social purpose, as some bourgeois theorists have suggested: rather, wars result from social, economic and political causes. Evena nuclear war, should one occur, would have definable causes. It becomes obvious that the Soviet specialists do Clearly understand the difference between conventional “Governments and communities at all levels are planning for the survival of our Nation in the event of a nuclear war. _ But the survival of individuals also will depend upon the _ preparation that each person makes. Persons ready to take _ the right action before and following an attack will increase _ their chances of survival.”’ __ — Eleven Steps to Survival, Government of Canada pam- phlet, Ottawa, 1969. _and nuclear war, and that they know of no political cause that might be served by the destruction of the world. (Except, it is hinted, imperialism in its desperation might Start one, and constant vigilance is required to prevent it.) Marxism-Leninism on War and Army is perfectly clear about the ‘“‘specific features’’ of nuclear war _ “distinguishing it from all other wars.”*: _ ** The difference in the essence of nuclear missile war is due ... to its possible consequences. The documents of the International Meeting of Communists and Work- ers Parties say: “Today, when nuclear bombs can reach any continent within minutes and lay waste vast terri- tories, a world conflict would spell the death of hundreds of millions of people, and the destruction and incinera- tion of the treasures of world civilization and culture.’ _ Such a war, if it is not averted, will be disastrous.” _ The record clearly shows that Soviet leaders have a keen grasp of the ultimate danger of nuclear war, and _ they have gone far beyond U.S. leaders in appealing for world disarmament to end the nuclear arms race. _ The history of the cold war warms us that what the Pentagon leadership intend to do themselves, they first accuse the Soviet Union of doing. __ Presidential Directive 59, issued in the closing months _of the Carter administration, rendered the doctrine of ““phased-in limited nuclear war”’ official U.S. strategic _ policy. Or, take this example from the U.S. Defence _ Department’s annual report to Congress, 1978: _ ‘*The present planning objective of the Defence _ Department is clear. We believe that a substantial PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEB. 12, 1982—Page 10 number of-military forces and critical industries in the Soviet Union should be directly targeted, and that an important objective of the assured retaliatory mission should be to retard significantly the ability of the USSR to recover from a nuclear exchange and regain the status of a 20th century military and industrial power more rapidly than the United States.” Or consider Ronald Reagan’s own meanderings on the possibility of a tactical nuclear duel in Europe: “I could see where you could have the exchange of tactical weapons against troops in the field without its bringing either one of the major powers to pushing the button.”’ “Soviet civil defence is a nationwide program under mili- tary control .. . The program costs more than the equivalent of $2-billion annually ... The Soviet leadership considers the protection of (industrial) resources through their civil _ defence program to be an indispensable element of their strategy.” ; — Soviet Military Power, U.S. Dept. of Defence pam- phlet, Washington, 1981. Pentagon analysts sometimes claim that there is phys- ical proof that the Soviet Union believes it can fight and win a nuclear war: the Soviet civil defence program which is said to absorb ‘‘the equivalent of $2-billion annually’’. Many independent observers have heaped scorn on this idea. They point out that the $2-billion equivalent figure is calculated by the CIA using a novel method. Most Soviet civil defence programs are carried out by Red Army conscripts, who are put to work repairing and maintaining shelters, subway stations, roads, etc. The CIA calculates how much all of this might cost to do in the U.S. at the pay-scale of, say, New York construction workers. At this rate, the Soviet civil defence effort looks relatively modest. Moreover, a more penetrating look at the Soviet Union shows that it is unlikely their authorities even consider the possibility of nuclear war when building-up their society, much less plan for it. Soviet industry is highly concentrated: 60% of steel output comes from 25 plants. There are only 34 major petroleum refineries, and 8 copper refineries. All of the Soviet auto industry is located in only 12 centres; 80% of tractors are built in 9 factories, and so on. Electric power is produced in a small number of huge complexes. All of this might make for efficiency and convenience, but it does not make for survivability in war. Further- more, Soviet roads do not show the level of development to be expected of a society that intends to evacuate millions of civilians from cities within a few hours; nor are there identifiable facilities in the countryside to feed and house millions of refugees. The USSR has never held a full-scale alert, nor have they ever attempted an evacuation drill of any urban centre. Of all the facts in the enormous debate about the arms race, these are perhaps the most easily verifiable. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration in the U.S. has recently adopted a massive civil defence program which will devour nearly $10-billion over the next five years. The agency that will oversee this program is called the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In its description of its evacuation plan for American cities, FEMA claims that it can reduce U.S. casualties in a nuclear exchange to only 20% of the population: ‘Performance in a large-scale, mid-1980s attack “I believe the United States is incapable of carrying out its assigned war-time retaliatory tasks of crippling the Soviet industrial economy, the essential civilian-military leader- ship, nuclear stockpiles and the basic fighting capacity of the USSR. What it all means is that the Soviets believe they can survive a nuclear war.’’ — Maj.-General George Keegan Jr., USAF (Ret.), spokesman for the Committee on the Present Danger, 1978. would be on the order of 80% survival of the U.S. population, if the bulk of the risk-area population had been evacuated to host areas prior to the attack, and if fallout protection had been developed and other crisis action taken.”’ The man whom Reagan has chosen to head this project, William Chipman, shows an astonishing ignorance of the nature of nuclear weapons. To a reporter for the To- ronto Star, he described a nuclear burst in the following terms: : NATURAL TERRAIN 1N CULVERT pid a me) lene oe lle lel ee 5 te Page from Canadian Government booklet ‘‘11 Steps Survival” indicates that all one has to do in the case 0! nuclear explosion is duck out of the way. ‘You know, it’s an enormous, gigantic explosion. B it’s still an explosion. and just as if a shell went off do the road, you'd rather be lying down than sitting up, you'd rather be in a foxhole than lying down. It’s “In the international field, we think that the struggle fo stable peace on earth is the most important thing ... ! cause if only one nuclear bomb were to fall anywhere in world, it would be bad for editors, for me, and for eve on earth,”’ — Leonid Brezhnev, interview with the editors of TI January 22, 1979. same thing.’’ Has everything scientists have said elud him? All of this is not intended to convey that the Reag administration is psyching itself into a belief that nucle® war is ‘‘winnable’’, but there is a far better case to made for this than for the Pentagon claim that the Sov Union thinks it can win one. The one thing that is clear is that the Pentagon is 0 again raising the nuclear stakes, and as a result the wo has moved a few minutes closer to midnight. MAIN REFERENCES: CALDER, Nigel: Nuclear Nightmares Penguin Books, Middlesex, England, 1980 GRIFFITHS, F. & POLANYI, J.: The Dangers of Nuclear War University of Toronto Press, 1979 KAPLAN, F.: Dubious Specter: A Second Look at the Soviet Th Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, D.C. 1977 LENS, Sidney: The Day Before Doomsday Doubleday & Co., New York, 1977 Marxism-Leninism on War and Army Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 SCHEER, Robert: “Reagan's Nuclear Survival Plan” The Toronto Star, Sunday, January 17, 1982. Fred Weir, author of the 1980 pamphlet, The A Menace, is a history graduate who has travelled widé in eastern and western Europe and the Middle East: