Improved weapons raise risk of war

Press, 14 October 1976, Page 20

Improved weapons raise risk of war

By

ANDREW WILSON

in London

Since the end of World War II the world has spent about $7,000,000,000,000 on arms, according to an estimate (at current prices) published this month by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

According to the institute, a semi-independent organisation paid for by the Swedish Parliament, current spending is more than 6 per cent of the gross national product of the world and equal to the total income of countries whose populations comprise more than half of mankind. ,

The most striking feature of the analysis in military expenditure is the share absorbed by research and development, up to 15 per cent of the total and occupying about 400,000 scientists and engineers. As a result of additions to world nuclear stockpiles, says the institute, there is the equivalent of about 15 tons of T.N.T. per capita world-wide, or about 60 tons

per capita in the N.A.T.O. and Warsaw Pact countries together. The combined explosive capability of American and Soviet tactical nuclear weapons alone, excluding strategic weapons, is equivalent to 50,000 Hiroshima bombs. In Europe alone there are about 10,000 such weapons, which could easily eliminate the entire urban population , just through the effects of blast.

The figures are given in a book, “Armaments and Disarmament in the Nuclear Age," marking the tenth anniversary of the institute’s foundation. Its message is that the world is devoting an excessive quantity of resources to armaments, and that this could be reduced to the advantage of mankind, particularly in the underdeveloped world. In addition, says the institute, the technological advances of the nuclear age and the recent qualitative breakthroughs in strategic armaments (such as the

development of multiple warheads, cruise missiles and extremely accurate new guidance systems) provide real ground for fearing that a further increase in armaments threatens the survival of mankind.

One of the most provocative passages in the book is drawn from a recent institute yearbook and deals with the renewed possibility of a nuclear “first strike” by one of the two superpowers, America or Russia. The only method that could make this operationally feasible, says the institute, is the uninterrupted trailing of an opponent’s missile-carry-ing submarines. “The trailing of nuclear submarines can be practised either by hunter-killer submarines such as those already deployed by the United States of America, the Soviet Union and Britain, or by special surface or sub-surface platforms, de- . signed specifically for the purpose of trailing. Most probably more than one trailer is necessary for each missile-carrying submarine if

the trail is to be securely maintained.” According to unofficial estimates, says the institute, the United States could, under favourable conditions, detect and localise most of the Soviet missile-carrying submarines on station or in transit most of the time. On the other hand, the Soviet Union possesses enough hunter-killer submarines to be able to trail a substantial number of Western Polaris craft during peace time.

As the Soviet naval planners reassess the relative danger resident in United States missile submarines as compared with aircraft carriers, says the institute, it is probable that they will assign a larger and larger proportion of their hunter killer submarines to the task of trailing the Polaris boats. “Thus the capability for either the Soviet Union or the United States to launch a successful damage-limiting attack against each other’s

or any other nation’s seabased deterrent is certain.”

Although many naval experts would question the institute’s use of the word “certain” in this context, it is certainly acknowledged by numerous defence planners that the once supposed inviolability of the Polaristype submarine can no longer be taken for granted and that the danger of a ’’first strike” may once again have to be considered. — 0.F.N.5., Copyright.