SINCE the new rise of CND a lively debate has taken place on the question: what is the origin of the new cold war? Against those who have argued that the arms race is about 'the conflict between the two super-powers', supporters of Socialist Action have argued thạt the breakdown of detente was fundamentally connected to a worldwide offensive by international imperialism, and in the first place by US imperialism.
In putting forward this argument, we have never believed the myths of the Stalinists and semiStalinists who think everything in the Soviet Union is wonderful, or that the military defence policy of the can be supported socialists.
But at the end of 1983, with the United States huge numbers of its abroad against the revolutions in Central America, in and in massive exercises in the Middle East, we believe that our argument has been borne out in practice.
It is the United States which is engaged escalation missiles race - with cruise, Pershing, MX and the rest. It is the United States which is extending its field of military operations on a huge international scale in the attempt to break popular movements of rebellion the word over.
nuclear policy is 'insane', capitalism.
between the perialism, superiority?
in Central America or the East?
United the that inside the United States itself.
Soviet by by the radical right wing, volved sent US government committing troops the 'moral majority'.
the Vietnam war internationally.
fensive Was OI the challenge authority world wide.
Socialist Action 21 October 1983 we have always argued that it has a deadly logic from the point of view of world In order to trace the connection Him -we have to look at two First, why did detente break down? Second, why in order to carry out its world wide military operations does the United States need nuclear alteri weapons connected with the struggle Middle Without doubt, the breakdown of connected huge political shift to the right inside the orates, wnica cumminated m of Ronald Reagan president in 1980, and was itself the product of deep social processes, particularly the onset of economic crisis, Throughout the 1970s there was in the United States a political offensive which inpeople influential in the prelike Richard Perle, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Paul Nitze, as well as the various forces of Their path to power was eased by the aftermath of A large section of US political opinion became convinced that a new oftaking place against American interests in the thira world. The use of Cuban troops in Angola in 1976, the overthrow of the Ethiopian dictatorship, the fall of the Shah in Iran and the victorious revolution in US superiority The most direct response to the 3. It use also has been the creation of the Rapid Deployment Force, aimed at intervening with hundreds of thousands of troops within weeks anywhere in the It has also involved a huge increase in US spending on conventional armaments.
But this escalation has of necessity involved a stepping up of the US's attempts to establish The reasons for this necessity was summed up neatly by Eugene Rostow, head of the US Arms Control Agency when he said: 'American nuclear superiority should permit us to use military force in defence of our interests with comparative should it become necessary' In faet, in many instances where the United States has come close to using nuclear weapons have been in the colonial world — in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam rather than directly against the Soviet Union itself.
Schematically we can say that US nuclear superiority serves four interrelated purposes:
1. It maintains a form of economic seige warfare against the Soviet Union and its allies. While the arms race can be good for business in the United States, in a planned economy like the Soviet Union it represents a permanent drain on resources.
'The Soviet Union's economy is far weaker less technologically developed than that of the United States. President Reagan has already openly boasted to the Soviet Union 'we will bust you'.
2. It forestalls the possibility of the use of Soviet conventional forces in Europe. The first use of nuclear weapons has been a key pillar of NATO strategy since the formation of the alliance in 1949. Since Soviet conventional forces have generally been much stronger in Europe than those of NATO, the US has always threatened the use of nuclear weapons against any use of Soviet conventional forces.
threatens annihilation against Soviet attempt improve strategic position. Whereas the Soviet Union is surrounded by thousands of miles of US military from Norway to Japan via Turkey — the US has always refused to accept Soviet forward basing'• The classic case is the Cuban missile crisis, where the United States brought the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe over the Soviet decision to place intermediate nuclear missiles in Cuba. The prevention of Soviet 'forwarding basing' is depenoverwhelming superiority.
4. US nuclear superiority enables it to conventional forces much more freely. Since the second world war the US has used its conventional forces against the colonial revolution on many occassions.
At each stage it is necesary to defend such operations against any potential including Soviet Union which itselt possesses nuclear weapons. US imperialism is of necessity nuclear imperialism.
The fight against nuclear war must also be a fight against its causes — imperialist world exploitation.It must be or imperialism, against such which rely on weapons.
US negotiator Nitze
there will be an immediate well be a walk out of the INF (Intermediate Range Nuclear that happens then Reagan and beneficial arms control posedly intended to secure. talks, presents a different picbeen negotiated since the late nuclear tions.
Important measures of Three bilateral treaties signed in 1974 (The Threshold Test Ban the took seven years to negotiate.
and political fortunes of US imThe further collapse of colonial the as nuclear