'Gulf war would spread’

Press, 16 February 1980, Page 8

' Gulf war would spread’

NZPA Washington The American Secretary of Defence (Mr Harold Brown) has said that the Soviet Union should be aware that a confrontation with American military forces around the Gulf, might spread to Europe as far north as Norway. , . Mr Brown, in an interview, said that in a conflict in the region of the Gulf, the Soviets could not count

on it being confined there. Therefore, he said “we won’t have to match them battalion for battalion on the ground.” Soviet seizure of political control of the Gulf region and its oil, Mr Brown said, would be comparable to a territorial grab in Western Europe or Japan because nations there were so dependent on that oil. It would be as debilitating

politically, he said, perhaps more so. The Defence Secretary, in a further response by the Carter Administration to the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, thus asserted that the United States 'retained, freedom of military action to counter Soviet expansion. Mr Brown appeared to elaborate on a theme set by President Carter at his news conference this week, when the President said: “We cannot afford to let the Soviets choose either the terrain of the tactics -to be used by any other country — a nation that might be invaded, their neighbours, our allies, or ourselves.” Mr Brown, who has spoken out more forcefully on military issues in recent weeks than at any time during his three years in office, directed his comments not only at the Soviet Union but also at Congress, the public, allies of the United States, nations in the region of the Gulf and at Mr Carter’s political adversaries. Mr Brown said he was concerned because many people had not understood the threat from the Soviet intervention into Afghanistan. He said the Soviets would be sorely tempted to push beyond, politically or militarily, to bring the oil resources of the region under their control. He noted that Western European nations and Japan imported 50 to 80 per cent of their -oil from the Gulf area and the United States about 15 per cent; making it an area of vital national interests. “If the industrial demo-

cracies are deprived of access to those resources,” Mr Brown said, “there would almost certainly be a world-wide economic collapse of the kind that hasn’t been seen for almost fifty years, probably worse.” On oil. Mr Brown said, "A sudden shut-off would create economic havoc here. There’s nothing our allies can do in the coming decades that would save them from irreversible catastrophe if it were cut off.” Mr Brown contended that the presence of two aircraft carriers and their escorting vessels in the Arabian Sea, the dispatch of two 852 bombers earlier,' and the dispatch of 1800 Marines to arrive in the seas south of Iran next month was a credible deterrend to the Soviet Union. “The Soviets obviously understood the dangers of engaging the United States directly,” he said, “as we understood the ' dangers of engaging them directly.” But he acknowledged that the force -there “is not as much as we would want.” “I’m not saying that a Korean type of war, one that lasts for months or years on the ground between the United States and the Soviet Union is a stable situation; It sure is not. The Soviets couldn’t count on it being confined there. So we don’t have to match them battalion for battalion on the ground,” Mr Brown said. “On the other hand,” the secretary said, <‘we remember the lessons of Vietnam. Indeed, we have to be concerned about being sucked in a piece at a time. At' the moment, you don’t have that kind of escalating conflict on the ground.”