Experts predict five years to doomsday

Press, 2 December 1978, Page 12

Experts predict five years to doomsday

By

TONY GERAGHTY

in the “Sunday Times,” London

Soviet forces invade West Germany. Over the “hot line ’ to Moscow, the British Government promises that the British army and air force based in Germany will not intervene. The orders are issued and reluctantly obeyed by British field commanders, whose retreating troops are then overtaken by an advancing Soviet armoured column. “The first clash between Soviet and British forces took place a few minutes later; and within a few minutes the whole front was ablaze.”

This extraordinary scenario is not the work of fiction writers, but a group of extremely well-informed defence analysts in Britain: a brigadier turned historian; a rear-admiral running a defence studies institute; another brigadier whose 30 years’ service backs up the specialist advice he gives to a Commc-s Committee on defence and others. In “World War III: A military projection founded on today’s facts.” to be published last month 10 distinguished contributors combine to predict a European war in 1983 a. d the mechanism by which it could come about.

The first part of the book is a careful study of EastWest confrontation as it stands. But the second half reads more like a novel. Their scenario of the events o,' 1983, the authors concede, is one of thousands but

every detail is “only too possible, faithfully drawn from the realities of today.” Incidentally, the year they have chosen is close to the time when some economists predict a politico/economic crisis within Russia, when an unstable mixture of Soviet internal weakness and external military strength is likely to reach boiling point. "World War III.” provides a plausible reason for a Soviet “police action” against West Germany. It also argues that war will start not by accident, but “only as the result of some intolerable provocation.”

A decline in defence spending by the N.A.T.O. powers, plus hostile Western reaction to signs of neo-Naz-ism in Germany, leave Bonn so isolated that West Germany secretly builds its own nuclear weapons to counter the threat of Soviet SS-20 missiles. News of this is leaked and Russia, with memories of World War 11, denounces the move.

The West Germans offer to give up their nuclear weapon only if their N.A.T.O. allies improve their now decrepit conventional forces available to defend Germany. A diplomatic crisis rages for months into the late spring of 1983 until “the Soviet leaders decide that there is not time left for further warnings.” Russia's “police action” then “takes the form of an invasion of West Germany

by conventional forces . . . and a parallel advance across the North German plain to seize and destroy the nuclear establishment (a few miles south-west of Hamburg) at which the weapon is being developed." Less than two hours before the attack is launched a*: 11 p.m., Soviet ambassadors call on Western Governments to tell them what will happen and to “emphasise that the sole purpose of the operation is to prevent German militarists from getting access to nuclear weapons; that as soon as the V est German Government has agreed to renounce them . . . the Soviet forces will be withdrawn.”

France agrees to the Kremlin’s terms but threatens nuclear retaliation if French troops — confined to barracks — or French soil are attacked. The United States President vacillates for several vital hours and a British Labour Government — “the usual uneasy alliance of powerful left-wing-ers and timid moderates” — agrees that the Russians shall be allowed to pass.

By now Warsaw Pact forces are well inside West Germany and are being ferociously resisted by the Grenzschutz frontier force as well as the regular army, the Bundeswehr. As the British troops reluctantly withdraw to their barracks, the leading Soviet tank commander, overtakes

them. He has been ordered to reach the Rhine within five davs.

“He races up with his forward tanks to the vehicle containing the officer commanding the rear British detachment and orders him to get off the road. When the officer demurs, he shoots him dead. An attempt by the officer's companions to seize the Russian results in them being shot dead too. The sound of firing, attracts the attention of the other British vehicles, which turn round . . . they are immediately surrounded by Russian tanks; and the two sides face each other, their guns at the ready.”

As the British troops get drawn into the conflict, the Kremlin warns the British Government of nuclear retaliation, but the British Cabinet has no communication with the Army Board in Germany; and it has “no idea itself of what to do. The Prime Minister in despair in turn calls up the President of the United States.”

This episode finally hardens the United States President’s resolve and a confused conventional war spreads across Europe in Which the Soviet armoured divisions are terribly mauled by lethally accurate antitank missiles fired from helicopters and aircraft. But the Russians overwhelm N.A.T.O. by sheer force of numbers. On the third day of hostilities, a staff officer strides into the United States Presi-

dent’s office. “Sir,” he says, "I have important information: a 2 ATAF (2nd Tactical Allied Air Force, Europe) pilot has seen four nuclear bursts in the British sector.” “By God, they’ve used them first. But why now, when they’ve almost won the war?” “Sir, they’re not Soviet weapons: We have part of an intercept from the British

2nd Division command net on the warning frequency. They’re ours.” So following a desperate British decision to hit the advancing Soviet tanks with tactical nuclear missiles, the United States President, "forced to choose between the complete destruction of the N.A.T.O. defences and nuclear war, gave the fatal order ■ > /*