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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 1976)
THE BATTALION Page 11 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1976 Soviets excell in defense budget. . • Is NATO ready to defend or deter? EDITOR’S NOTE — There are conflicts nong NATO nations that reduce that organi- ion’s combat effectiveness, but NATO’s vest readiness problem is the readiness of nembers to pay the high price of deterr- By HUGH A. MULLIGAN AP Special Correspondent CASTEAU, Belgium — How eady is NATO? Here at the command post of stern Europe’s defenses, where ilitary men come and go talking of jenario, the question invariably is nswered with another question: eady for what? Choose your scenario: nuclear, " ventional or guerrilla war. Then the question proliferate. Ready with what? How soon? tWith a nervous flick of the ©inter, the briefing officer sweeps he man from the Baltic to the Bos- horus, indicating the tiny red flags and cut-out figures that show over whelming Warsaw Pact superiority in everything from troops, tanks and artillery to strategic missiles and tac tical aircraft, with the huge Soviet Navy deployed on the flanks. The Mediterranean no longer is a NATO lake. The 40,000-ton Kiev, Russia’s first aircraft carrier, 'dramatized that point in July when it steamed through the Dardanelles to join a fleet of 70 other Soviet ships in the Mediterranean, one more than the U.S. Sixth Fleet. WThe Atlantic these days is ^prowled by twice as many Soviet submarines as German U-boats in the darkest days of World War II, each capable of raining havoc on a distant continent. At a time when the world is wit- M. ed Commander in Europe, calls “a lit- )llltleral explosion in Warsaw Pact capabilities,’’ the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been cut ting back and falling back because of t01 ^ 3 ifBonomic and political problems. While the Soviets have been out- mds of double is Svatek * ^ y A* a time when the world is w Ajlmessing what Gen. Alexander ''v ifaig, Jr., the Supreme Alli< lit to do it, it her dotki spending the United States in the last decade in research, systems de velopment and troop build-up, an ofiense posture far beyond any pre- inf ormatar* tence of self-defense, NATO de- i | vJI OV/11 Vi X V 1 I , IN i A A VI V. a< ;, 11 fense budgets are under pressure 1 . from the recession, inflation and the oil price increase. nr or 8 as G NATO’s fundamental precept of uomii« re a diness, spelled out so explicitly -y 6 " s in Article 5 of the Charter — “The srnt Parties agree that an armed attack * H ! ,e against one or more in Europe or North America shall be considered is, sup] an attack against them all” — no ’■j rest longer seems relevant to the Vlasteisd rea ]jtj es 0 f Soviet nuclear parity Dr. Alfr wi th the West. merr te and catfl “Spreading through Europe is a sense of cultural pessimism, a de featism, a kind of European Buddh ism as foretold by Nietzche,” warns Julian Critchley, Conservative British MP and chairman of the De fense and Armaments Committee of the Western European Assembly. C. C. van den Heuvel, director of the East-West Institute in The Hague, speaks of “a crisis of values in all Western countries, particu larly in the Netherlands” brought about by decreasing influence of the churches, changing attitudes to wards communism, increased trade and tourism with the Eastern bloc. He says changing attitudes prompt many people, especially the younger generation, to wonder whether the values represented by NATO and its more authoritarian members “are really worth defend ing.” Socialist governments within NATO find it increasingly hard to defend defense budgets against lef tist demands to maintain and in crease their welfare states. NATO’s obsolete air defense sys tem badly needs an airborne radar that can detect the generation of high-speed, automatically con trolled Soviet aircraft capable of coming in fast and low. One answer is the radar-stuffed Boeing E-3A, which can look down on these low flyers and direct fighters and mis siles to intercept them. But they cost $57 million apiece, the price of a large secondary school or medium-size hospital. Lulled by 30 years of peace in Europe and the comforting shadow of the American nuclear umbrella, NATO budget planners realize one shell for an M-60 tank would pay a pensioner’s fuel bill for the winter and a nuclear submarine is as costly as several housing projects. NATO’s basic value as a deterrent to surprise attack depends on the troops it can mobilize, deploy and reinforce by sea, land and air, but the flexible response and “con trolled escalation” that is today’s NATO strategy is severely tem pered by budget slashers, by squabbles almost to the point of war between alliance members like Britain and Iceland, Greece and Turkey, and by Communists in the cabinets of Italy or Portugal being privy to defense secrets. NATO consists of the United States, Canada, Iceland, Norway, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Holland, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Greece and Tur key. Because of cuts in the Royal Sox ►940 PLAY BACKGAMMON AT ACHARIA5 greenhouse and game parlor 1201 Hwy. 30 (The Brianvood Apts.) HAPPY HOUR 4-7 EVERY DAY -jjahV-f lestion y from lyand passed twice- Marist who cation OUL ST: illin eet 78040 WE HAVE A COMPLETE SELECTION OF SKI EQUIPMENT •CONNELLY SKIES lOO^-lflS 00 •MAHERAJAH SKIES 124 50 (ALL SIZES) •JOBE FIBERGLASS SKIES 140°° •TOURNAMENT SKI ROPES •SKI GLOVES AND JACKETS 1008 W. 25th St. 822-0875 ACROS Navy’s amphibious fleet and the RAF’s transport squadrons, Brit ain’s Royal Marine Commandos, a vital reinforcement element on NATO’s northern flank, will be taken to Norway for exercises this fall in commercail ferries, which do not have helicopter decks and can only put in at safe harbors. The Royal Navy, at its smallest in 80 years, has not only pulled back East of Suez but East of Gibraltar. The RAF, cut back by nearly 90 per cent in the past 20 years, now has about 100 home-based fighters to defend Britain and close to 60 North Sea oil platforms valued at more than $500 billion. The capability of the RAF’s verti cal take-off Harrier strike aircraft has been impaired by government cancellation of a multimillion-dollar order for the new NATO blind land ing system that can be dropped by parachute and assembled in min utes by two men. The RAF regards the system as vital because the Har riers, deployed deep in forests, could be the only aircraft to survive a Soviet attack. Even with full mobilization of its reserves, Britain today has a smaller army than Finland, Sweden or Switzerland. Key armored units and equipment have been removed from the Army of the Rhine, once a bulwark of NATO’s central front, for duty in Ulster. Norway and Denmark do not allow foreign troops or bases on their soil and decline to stockpile atomic ammunition. Haig warns that the conscript ar mies of Holland, Belgium, Italy and France are vulnerable to subversion by Russian KGB agents. West Germany s Bundeswehr, probably the best disciplined and best equipped army in the world, is a prime target for the estimated 15,000 undercover agents who have crossed from East Germany in the guise of refugees and Communist defectors. West Germany’s latest spy scandals included the arrests of three Defense Ministry employees. The U.S. Seventh Army, the mainstay with West Germany in the center of the NATO line, is better trained, better led and has higher morale and a lower crime rate than five years ago. It still suffers short ages in stocks of equipment, some of which was withdrawn for shipment to Israel during the Yom Kippur war. No front line units are without their quotas of tanks and tracked vehicles, but Gen. George Blan chard, commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, estimates it may be a year and a half before the prod uction lines and cargo ships can re fill war reserve warehouses and ammunitions bins. Because of recession and unem ployment, the volunteer army has become a buyer’s market, and re enlistment rates running as high as 80 per cent in some units, mostly Vietnam veterans. The U.S. Army in Europe is turning down 10 to 15 per cent of its re-enlistment appli cants for character and behavior flaws. NATO planners worry most about the deteriorating southern front. A strong Communist presence in the Italian government could threaten the home of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and 40 to 50 NATO bases. “A sniffle of oil in the Aegean,” as one NATO staff officer diagnosed it, has wors ened to the brink of war the Turkish-Greek feud over Cyprus. Greece has withdrawn from the mil itary wing of NATO, and the Turks have taken control of 26 U.S. bases and moved closer to Russia. What if there were a war and no one came? NATO might soon face such a dilemna with its On-Call Naval Force for the Mediterranean. That force is supposed to be acti vated with ships from Turkey, Greece, Italy and the United King dom operating together in an emergency. But the ships might not be sent if the nations don’t trust each other. NATO’s agreement for base facilities on Malta will end in 1979, and the Russians are pofsed to move in. There is anxiety among NATO planners about the neutral belt run ning from the Aegean to the upper Rhine through Yugoslavia, Austria and Switzerland when 83-year-old Tito passes on. A hard-line Com munist takeover then could lead to Soviet bases on the Adriatic Sea, cutting NATO’s defenses at the middle of the southern flank and giving the Warsaw Pact forces their Embrey’s Jewelry We Specialize In Aggie Rings. 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