Arms spending spree expected in the U.S.

Press, 3 February 1981, Page 18

Arms spending spree expected in the U.S.

By WILLIAM SCOBIE

in Los Angeles

As President Ronald Reagan began his time in the Oval Office, America’s defence contractors 'were rubbing their hands at : the prospect' (of > a huge arms spending spree by the new Administration. After four lean years with Mr Carter, virtually every segment of the United States military-industrial complex is gearing up. Nowhere is the euphoria higher than in California, where aerospace firms traditionally capture some 30 per cent of tile defence budget. Under President- Reagan, that could top S2OO billion, this year, a sls billion, increase over Mr Carter’s projected spending of $184.4 billion. “The President knows the nation is low on everything from bullets to battle, cruisers,” beamed a top executive at the Los Angeles-based Litton Industries last month. “Our expectation is that he’ll increase every item in the inventory.” Litton’s own great expectation is a contract to build all 24 new cruisers called for under the navy’s Aegis programme, the largest surface ship project in eight years. Foi Mr Reagan, nothing outranks in importance this beefing-up of American military might. It wa a main topic at meetings with his Californian “kitchen cabinet” and business cronies here •

before his departure for Washington and the inauguration. . No-one knows what the -■ ultimate price tag on the build-up will be, but, given the Republican-dominated Senate and a pro-defence Congress, expirts are talking of an additional S2OO billion over current projections of $1 trillion over the next five years to “revitalise” the United States military. The Reagan blue-print calls for a worldwide expansion of competition with the Soviet Union, with special emphasis on the Indian Ocean and protection of Western access to Middle East oil. At the top of the new Commander-in-Chief’s shopping list is a long-range bomber of the type scrapped by Mr Carter in 1977. The B-l is* heavily tipped for a revival. “We make a. great multi-role bomber,” boasts Rockwell International in full-page ads in the current av.'ator journals, “. . always have.” . But the bomber project has split Mr Reagan’s military advisers. Hard-line “Reaganhrts” are pushing for an initial order of 100 updatec.B-ls, employing the new anu-radar “sealth” technology, '* hile the new Defence Secretary, Mr Caspar Weinberger is-looking at “quick-fix” alternatives to the controversial plane. For

Rockwell, a B-l comeback means a sl2 billion contract; for California at least 14,000 aerospace jobs. Next in priority comes the navy. The Reagan team plans to increase today’s 460-ship fleet to a strength of 600, and double production of the giant $1.3 billion Trident submarine. A “decade of decline” will end, says the Pacific Fleet Headquarters, as the new President gives the admirals all they say is needed — including several more aircraft carriers, at $4 billion each (aircraft included). Among other projects Mr Reagan plans to boost: The SSO billion MX missile system, approved by Mr Carter as the front line of United States nuclear defence after 1985, is to be accelerated and streamlined with a new basing system in the Utah-Nevada deserts. Other missile programmes, from Boeing’s cruise missile to new anti-bal-listic weaponry for use against incoming Soviet 1.C.8.M.s will be speeded up. Exotic space defence systems such as laser weapons and “killer satellites” designed to knock out Soviet space vehicles and weapons in space will win extra funding, perhaps as much as SSOO million this year.

At least 25 new TR-1 spy planes, successor to the U-2, are on order from Lockheed’s at a cost of $6OO million. An industrial analyst, Mr Paul Nisbet, predicts that Carterite trends will also be reversed with a staggering 275 per cent increase over the next decade in spending on fighter, attack and trainer planes. He forecasts delivery in the 1980 s of €7OO of these aircraft, worth $l3O billion. McDonnell Douglas, the nation’s No. 2 defence contractor, expects to be the big winner, selling $l2 billion-a-year worth of its F-5 and F-18A fighters >in the later 1980 s. With President Reagan pledged to a major federal tax cut, how will thase vast sums, be raised for the Pentagon? By massive reduction of social programmes, foreign aid,, federal hiring and public works, say the Democrats; “When you combine tax cuts with increased military spending,” comments Harvard’s Professor J. K. Galbraith, “you are left with one instrument to deal with the resulting inflation — high interest rates and unemployment. One has a certain illustration of these matters in the case of Margaret Thatcher.” — Copyright, London Observe. - Service.