sah

ea the government’s arms control icles — noted in January, the program is tabilizing even at its research phase.

_7Experience shows that military hardware

?gtams build bureaucratic momentum

‘hg the research and development phase ng later control efforts almost

Possible,” Lamb told reporters at a press

iference Jan. 22. “Clark refers to Star Wars

‘highly hypothetical concept. In fact, it is ng of the sort. Some testing of Star Wars

*ponents has already occurred and more is

eas to take place before the end of the : lee” K

-Amb’s comments have since been echoed scientists and arms control experts in this intry and the U.S., most notably by the member Union of Concerned Scientists. ? roup warned ina recent book that the 1 Wars system would require major ‘nological breakthroughs, each on the scale € U.S. atomic bomb project, and would chieved only at staggering cost to the Iget resulting in massive cuts to social grams,

Moreover, the book warned, every step uld escalate the arms race because the

et Union would justifiably interpret it as attempt by the U.S. to obtain first-strike Jability,

As former prime minister Pierre Trudeau ‘ned in a lecture at McGill University in juary, even the research phase violates the fit of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

rertainly that isn’t accidental. American eration of Scientists member Christopher Ne, writing in the Bulletin of Atomic *ntists in August, 1983 noted that the U.S. litiating the research for the Star Wars ram, was “consciously exploiting the Diguities” of the ABM Treaty.

Once research moves into the deployment and development phases, there is no doubt that the Star Wars program would directly violate the agreement, triggering a drastic new escalation in the arms race.

In fact, that new and more dangerous phase may already be imminent.

According to the Financial Post, Apr. 13, the director of the Star Wars program at the Pentagon, Lieutenant General James Abrahamson told a Senate subcommittee that the U.S. could be ready “‘to move into the initial portion” of the missile defence system within five years.

That same Post article quoted retired U.S. Air Force officer Lieutenant General Daniel Graham — whose book High Frontier, was the ideological architect of the Star Wars program — as stating: “I think the ground is shifting toward let’s go ahead and deploy.”

That the Reagan administration and the Pentagon have been working to that schedule all along was also suggested by Paine in his 1983 article in which he noted that U.S. military program for developing an anti- ballistic missile system “already has a defined schedule for colliding with the ABM Treaty.”

There can be little doubt that the Star Wars program, despite its claims to “find the means to enhanced deterrence’, was never intended as either a research project or a defence system. It was — and is — intended asa qualitatively new link in the already developed U.S. first- strike capability based on cruise, Pershing II and Trident submarine-launched D-S5 missiles.

“Tn fact, it’s a crash program consciously designed to achieve a decisive edge over the Soviet Union in this field,” John Lamb, director of the Canadian Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament warned in his press conference Jan. 22.

a first-strike strategy

It is also becoming increasingly clear that Reagan’s initial Star War’s announcement was timed to coincide with rapid research and development by the U.S. of anti-ballistic missile system that once the program was underway, it would violate one of the most important arms control treaties ever achieved — the ABM Treaty.

That fact has a lot to do with the U.S. pressure on NATO allies to make their decisions on participation in Star Wars within 60 days. The Reagan administration clearly wants Canada and other NATO countries to be part of the program before its full intentions have been publicly divulged — and before the full weight of public opinion can be mobilized in opposition.

Significantly, the Mulroney government has sought to allay public concern about the implications of Star Wars with Joe Clark’s insistence that any Canadian response to Star Wars would be “absolutely consistent with the principles of the ABM Treaty.”

But Mulroney’s message was clearly different when he was quoted in the Globe and Mail Apr. 18: “I accept the desirability of the concept (ofan anti-ballistic missile defence) if it functions. . .I don’t know if it will function. I don’t think anybody knows,” he said.

He added that failure to support Star Wars “would be to undermine our allies in Geneva.”

Clearly, Mulroney knows exactly where Star Wars is headed and what its intentions are — development of an anti-ballistic missile system which could only be in violation of the ABM Treaty.

The preamble to that treaty states: “*. , effective measures to limit anti-ballistic missile systems would be a substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms and would lead to a decrease in the risk of outbreak

of war involving nuclear weapons.”

No one in the federal government has ever challenged the validity of that statement and, in fact, it is because the treaty and its purpose are so important to arms control that Clark made his declaration about the government’s adherence to the Treaty.

But Mulroney’s comments indicate that the federal cabinet privately holds different views and is preprared to follow the Reagan administraiton in its calculated collision course.

Significantly, Mulroney’s comments on the Geneva talks — that NATO must show solidarity by backing the U.S. on Star Wars — areanecho of U.S. Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger’s remarks.

Yet the purpose of the Geneva talks on arms limitation is precisely to “prevent an arms race in space and limit it on earth”, the formula agreed to by U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.

As longas the U.S. continues to pursue the Star Wars program, it will doom the Geneva talks to failure. And if the Mulroney government gives its support to the program, it will not only contribute to that failure, but will doom Canada to participation in an ever- escalating arms race. ;

The alternative has already been made clear. The Danish Parliament has instructed its defence minister to declare non-participation in Star Wars. And Norway announced Apr. 17 that it would not join Star Wars, declaring that the program would initiate a “new arms race in space.”

Canada should do the same — anda massive campaign by the peace movement across the country could help ensure that the Mulroney government does just that.

Stories by Sean Griffin

hg the phoney. promise of jobs

Strasse, published in the May, 1984 issue Ae Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Ahat study found that “strong evidence sests that military spending has stunted ‘technological growth in commercial kets,” } addition, it said, “The end products tloped for military use, such as missile “ce systems and electronic warfare fes have few commercial applications.” €re would, of course, never be any Posal that would create 10,000 jobs in

» Mpeg-Fort Garry or anywhere else for

‘Matter. All of the Star Wars contracts

_¥tocome to this country would be capital,

‘Abor, intensive — and what few jobs

® le Would go to engineers, lab

Nicians and other skilled workers, not Who constitute the bulk of the

ployed,

he Globe and Mail also estimated Mar. 28

Atleast 70 per cent of the work would be

to Canadian companies in any event

Mse of restrictions on technology transfers. at Work would be left poses new dangers €W problems for Canadians — with few _

h for jobs.

+<Problem with the federal government

_ !“lpation in Star Wars, apart from helping

|, 3. Dew escalation of the arms race, is that § Companies seeking to bid on Star Work would have access to government

, Dee and funding under the Defence

{Netion Sharing Agreement,with the U.S.

“© Canadian Commerical Corporation, a rat ation, acts as the main

ral De agency, and in turn works with the itati “partment of Supply and Services in kin ng bids and arranging much of the bub in contracting to the Pentagon. fad c foots the bill for that work.

Jen, ton, the Federal Department of

“Istry gg Commerce handles the Defence ay Productivity Program which provides aie ts to Canadian companies to assist Winning U.S. defence contracts.

Canadian participation — and an increase in Canadian companies contracting to the Pentagon — would siphon off millions in federal funds for grants to the least valuable sector of the economy, namely capital intensive, military-related industry. It would also tie the Canadian eocnomy more closely to military production and increase economic dependence on the Pentagon. Most of the companies involved in defence contracting are also U.S.-owned.

The Defence Production Sharing Agree- ment also stipulates that the dollar value of Canadian contracts secured with the U.S. must be matched by Canadian purchases in the U.S. — a provision which would increase the already heavy burden on Canada and funnel even more federal money into military spending.

Proponents of military contracting argue that Canada already runs a deficit with the U.S. in the sharing agreement and would not, therefore, have to shell out any more money in the U.S. in order to secure new defence contracts. But it is also true that Canada has been under intense pressure from the U.S. to push up its capital spending and carry more of

the burden of NATO. Itis partly asa result of —

that pressure that the federal government has increased real spending on defence every year, with this year’s budget set at $9.4 billion.

Much more damning is the federal government’s program of “industrial offsets.”

When making a purchase of military equipment — the low-level conventional weapons defence system for Europe, for example — the federal government seeks guarantees from suppliers that they will offset the sale by placing an equivalent amount of industrial orders in Canada.

Good as that may sound, the record shows that the government has rarely been able to achieve offsets valued at more than 60 or 70 per cent of the military order. And in the case of

Canadian companies getting military contracts

outside the country, the federal government

has been prepared to give away the store.

The most recent example involves a sale to Belgium of 2,500 Iltis transport vehiciles built by Bombardier Inc. of Montreal. The value of the sale was only some $50 million but the federal government, together with private companies agreed to spend three times the value of the sale — $150 million — in Belgium. Some of that will involve giving orders to Belgium for rail transit cars — which could have gone to Canadian companies to provide civilian jobs for Canadians.

Canadian taxpayers also paid out earlier for the Bombardier sale, giving the company $1.3 million in a Canada Works grant to set up the assembly plant in Valcourt, Quebec.

Because of the competitiveness of bidding for international defence contracts, Bombardier said that it had to make a number

of concessions, the nature of which it would not disclose. Whatever they were, they were not at corporate expense — Bombardier’s latest figures show a 60 per cent increase in profit in 1984, the year the vehicles were manufactured.

But concessions from workers are very much a part of military contracts as workers at St. John Shipbuiding which has the contract to build six anti-submarine frigates have discovered. Shipyard management demanded > several concessions from the five unions at the yard, insisting that they were necessary to keep costs down.

The Trade Union Peace Committee noted in its recent brochure that defence spending “doesn’t create jobs, it kills them.” Canadian participation in Star Wars would not only kill jobs — it might end up killing us all.

PLowsHaREPREsS

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 24, 1985 e 9