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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 7. April 10 1978

The Soviet Attitude

The Soviet Attitude

While provoking justified disgust in many people, US plans to deploy the neutron bomb have given the Soviet leadership a pretext for launching a fierce, hypocritical and nauseating propaganda campaign. In January Brezhnev circulated a letter to NATO heads of government warning them not to support deployment of the neutron bomb. Soviet diplomats bullied Western politicians at receptions. TASS denounced the neutron bomb as "a barbarous weapon", claiming that "those seized with neutron madness look like the inmates of a mad house". Other Soviet statements claimed that the neutron bomb was "capitalist", "cannibalistic" and "inhumane".

What lies behind this frantic hatred of the neutron bomb displayed by a country which itself deploys thousands of missiles carrying warheads up to megatons in yeild capable of blasting all the cities in the world off the face of the earth.

The answer lies in the growing rivalry between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, for world domination. The strategic forces for this rivalry is Europe. Outside the two superpowers themselves, Europe is the most important centre of modern technology. It has a highly skilled and well educated labour labour force for exploitation, innumerable economic, financial and political connections with the rest of the world, particularly the sources of raw materials in the third world. Whoever controls Europe is in the box seat.

The two superpowers confront each other most directly in Europe. The Warsaw Pact forces are in an offensive posture, while the NATO forces are on the defensive. In Europe the Warsaw Pact forces outnumber NATO by 1.4 to 1 in troops, 2.9 to 1 in tanks, 1.4 to 1 in planes and 3.7 to 1 in artillery pieces. The Warsaw Pact forces are geared to a high speed, surprise attack in depth by massed armour. Soviet military experts expect their tank divisions to advance at a rate of 70 miles per day — more than twice the rate of Panzers in June 1941.

NATO defence is based on laser-guided anti-tank weapons and ordinary tactical nuclear weapons. The problem with such tactical nuclear weapons is that if they are used by NATO forces their own population, territory and industry will be devastated. This is politically unacceptable to NATO member nations — especially Germany, where tactical nuclear weapons are most likely to be used — so targets are severely restricted. NATO strategists look to the neutron bomb to reduce the damage caused by nuclear war fighting while presenting a substantial deterent to the Soviet Union. It is hoped that the neutron bomb will be useful in blunting a massed armoured thrust of the type that the Soviet Union is undoubtedly planning for West Europe.

That is the real reason why the Soviet Union is making such a clamour about the neutron bomb. But in the manner of all aggressors, the Soviet leaders are trying to cover up their real intentions in a cloud of pacifist and humanitarian claptrap.