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

The Politics of the Neutron Bomb

page 7

The Politics of the Neutron Bomb

In recent months a great controversy has raged over US plans to produce and deploy the neutron bomb. A type of tactical nuclear weapon, the neutron bomb kills mainly by an intense flux of neutrons without producing a relatively wide-ranging blast. It is a warhead delivered to the battlefield by either a missile or howitzer. The neutrons readily penetrate armour, making it suitable for use against armoured attacks such as would be launched by the Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. The severely irradiated troops die within a few minutes up to a period of one month.

All nuclear weapons kill by a combination of heat, blast force and radiation. As the yield is reduced the relative balance of these effects changes. The previous tactical nuclear weapons of 10 kton yield produce severe destruction and fatal radiation doses out to 1 km from the detonation point. There is some blast damage and little radiation at 1.5 km

Gamma radiation and neutrons predominate in the output from a 1 kton bomb. Such a warhead detonated above a battlefield destroys the buildings, tanks and other vehicles and people within a relatively small radius. But the irradiation area reaches out further than for previous tactical nuclear weapons. If a neutron bomb were detonated 130—200 m above a battlefield, total destruction would occur within a 130 m radius about a point below where it was detonated. All victims within this radius would die in a period ranging from a few minutes to two days.

The central nervous system is affected. Victims within a radius of 1—2 km would survive a week or more, while those within 2—2.5 km would live at least a month. Before death they would suffer effects ranging from bleeding under the skin and gums to vomiting, diarrhoea, high fever and eventually coma. Victims more than 2.5 km away would not be killed or disabled — they suffer long term effects such as eventual development of leukaemia.

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.

Soviet Style "Detente"

If the neutron bomb is "barbaric", does this make other nuclear weapons civilised and humane? Of course not! All nuclear weapons are barbaric and inhumane — including the thousands of ordinary tactical nuclear weapons already deployed by the Soviet Union in Europe. The inhumanity of nuclear weapons did not prevent the Soviet Union moving in 6 missile carrying submarines into the Baltic Sea last year. Although diesel-driven and carrying old fashioned 1200 km intermediate range missiles (about 18 in all), these submarines threaten with total destruction. 36 West European cities, including Paris Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dusseldorf, Bonn, Oslo and possibly London. This may be humane to Brezhnev; others would call it something else!

And just like its present behaviour over the neutron bomb, the Soviet Union charged Sweden with "sharpening tensions in Nordic Europe" and threatening "detente" when the latter country protested against the presence of the missile-carrying submarines in the Baltic Sea.

The charge that the neutron bomb is "capitalist" is ludicrous. Weapons do not have a class character. A rifle is a rifle, a tank a tank, and a tactical nuclear weapon a tactical nuclear weapon. It is the war in which the weapons are used which has the class character. As Lenin said: "War is the continuation of policy by other means. All wars are inseparable from the political systems that engender them. The policy which a given state, a given class within that state pursued for a long time before the war is inevitably continued by that same class during the war, the form of action alone being changed." (War and Revolution. May 1917) Only philistines or hypocrites could talk about "capitalist"

weapons, particularly if they are the leaders of a state-monopoly capitalist and fascist state like the Soviet Union.

The charge that the neutron bomb will "sabotage detente" and be a "challenge" to the Soviet Union is nothing but a thinly veiled threat. How is it that the US neutron bomb threatens "detente", while the Soviet Union's recently deployed missile, the SS—20, its Backfire bomber and its recent deployment of missile carrying submarines in the Baltic are not? The SS—20 is a mobile missile carried on a tracked tank like vehicle, with a range of at least 3500 km it carries three independently targetable warheads each with a yield many times greater than a neutron bomb. The SS — 20 is a modified version of the SS —16, a three-stage strategic missile which the Soviet Union has produced and tested but not deployed. The SS—16 carries a single warhead and has a range of at least 8800km. The SS — 20 is a two-stage rocket easily convertible into an SS — 16. This would enable it to be rapidly converted into a strategic missile in the event of war. With large numbers of 22—20s, the Soviet Union has potential ICBM's not covered by the SALT ceiling of 2400 delivery vehicles. How is it that this missile which now threatens the major cities of West Europe and China does not "sabotage detente"?

Nuclear is Nuclear

What all this shows is that there is no such thing as "detente" between the two superpowers. Both superpowers are fighting hard to get an edge over the other, the talk about "detente" being an aspect of their rivalry. The "detente" policy is meant to lull the vigilance of the other superpower and the peoples of the world, while each prepares for war with the other.

As far as their capacity to murder is concerned, the hydrogen bomb, the atomic bomb and the neutron bomb are all nuclear weapons, and there is no difference between them as far as one being humane and another barbarous. Actually, there is evidence that the neutron bomb would reduce the number of human casualties compared with other tactical nuclear weapons. Some have claimed that the neutron bomb would reduce the destructive effects of previous tactical nuclear weapons on the civilian population and environment by 90 per cent. There would be fewer human casualties, as well as lessened damage to buildings, bunkers, tanks and other vehicles. The statement that the neutron bomb destroys only "life" is false. All nuclear weapons should be prohibited and destroyed for the sake of humanity. What kind of logic is it which says that the US neutron bomb, not yet deployed, is barbarous because it kills while allegedly leaving property intact, but says nothing about the Soviet missiles which destroy both people and propety on a much greater scale? It has been justly said that in the controversy over the neutron bomb, what people see are not "the inmates of a mad house" but the swindlers in the Kremlin!

Terry Auld

CARTER'S NEUTRON BOMB? WHY IT'S POSITIVELY INHUMANE! CCCP

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