Superpowers are not the real menace to peace?

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 13

Superpowers are not the real menace to peace?

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GEOFF MEIN

The inability of American military potential to stop the revolution in Iran, and the failure of United States naval presence in the region to force the release of the hostages, illustrates one of the paradoxes of the modern world:

“Never have the superpowers had so much power — and never have they been so ineffective in translating that power into political goals.”

That is the view of a visiting. American professor of strategy and foreign affairs, Professor Richard Lebow.

(On his return to the United States, Professor Lebow will begin work with a joint study group made up of Government officials and academics. It has been brought together by the Central Intelligence Agency to examine Soviet f-.

Professor Lebow empha-

sised that the views he expressed were his own, and not necessarily those of the United States Government or the C.I.A.

He agreed with the conclusion drawn by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in its 1979 Strategic Survey (released last month) that the military might of the super-Powers was no longer effective in coping with world crises.

“Once people are willing to die for an ideal, force becomes relatively ineffective. I think that is one reason why the United States does not use force in Iran. If they did, it would have backfired — which is just what the A'- , a‘-'"ah (Khomeiny) wants.”

He said that even if intelligence had been better about what was happening in Iran — although it was not so much the problem of intelligence as the un-

willingness of those in power to believe that the bntui was about to be swept away — United

States military force could not have kept him, or someone pro-Western, in power. “When you have an elite that stays in power on the basis of nationalist support from the masses, there is no way that elite can give in to pressure from the outside without suffering overthrow. Force, if used against them, only strengthens their power at home.” Professor Lebow also agreed with the Strategic Survey’s warning that instability in the developing world was a significant threat to international security. “Too much attention has been focused on the Sov i e t-A m e r i c a n confrontation. Unrest and turmoil in the Third World may pose a far greater problem to our security than the Soviets.-Although the Soviets have more power, they tend to be

more responsible in the exercise of that power than some despots in numerous Third World countries. An Idi Amin with one atom bomb frightens me more than a Brezhnev with 3000.” He believes that the threat of terrorists producing a nuclear bomb has been exaggerated. The problems of shielding and transporting the bomb are immense. “Those who flog such a threat do so from a very simplistic perspective. It is more likely that someone will steal an existing bomb, particularly now that we have such miniaturised weapons as ground-launched cruise missiles which travel around the countryside in trucks, making them more vulnerable to terrorist’s. Professor Lebow did not foresee a nuclear war between the super-Powers in the next 10 years. If nu-

clear weapons were used between now and the end of the century, he said it would not be Russia or the United States that used them. “It will more likely be one of those small countries that has developed an atom bomb, such as India, Pakistan, South

Korea, North Korea, or one of the Arab States.” The Soviet Union and the United States had grown increasingly wary of getting involved in regional conflicts because they had been burned so badly in the past. He predicted there would be more acute conflicts in the next 10 years, but with less super-Power involvement.

“The most serious problem, will not involve the Soviet Union and the United States; but the Soviet Union and China. If they get involved on. opposite sides of regional conflicts, that would be a very threatening situation.” However, Professor

Lebow had reservations about China’s ability to match Soviet or American military capabilities. He said the Chinese were more than 10 years behind the West, and he doubted that they would catch up. “It is beyond the capabilities of the Chinese to perfect an across-the-board modem force, and it would be far too costly and politically dangerous a prospect for the United

States to get involved in,” he said. Faced with this handicap, China would be wise to rely on a more potent nuclear deterrent, and to continue to develop its army to fight a retreating war of attrition using small arms and small units against a very sophisticated foe, according to Professor Lebow. Both policies provided a "fairly cheap" solution to the Chinese defence problem — but also made China incapable of carrying out any offensive action. “We monitored very carefully the Chinese intervention in Indo-China last year and found that China had very serious problems mounting even a limited offensive action. Had the Vietnamese used front-line forces and counter-attacked, the Chinese might have been in serious difficulty,” he added.