Terrible future for Earth drawn

Press, 1 October 1983, Page 8

Terrible future for Earth drawn

Unless world military and political leaders change course, some kind of nuclear catastrophe is inevitable, according to the co-author of an atlas which uses graphs and maps to illustrate the state of war since 1945. Mr Dan Smith, who compiled “The War Atlas” with Mr Michael Kidron, was in Christchurch yesterday, to promote the book. Mr Smith said that the book painted a picture of “an armed and warring and dangerous planet, and the only conclusion to be drawn is that we cannot go on much longer without a terrible catastrophe.” Mr Smith is on the council of the leading British’ peace movement, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and has been general secretary of the organisation. He said the danger of nuclear war was “very real.” The likely cause of such a war was a direct confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in which neither side would back down for fear of losing face — “the kind of

macho behaviour of the barroom brawl, but transferred to a thermonuclear level,” he said. This was more likely than either side’s planning a nuclear war. One of the most dangerous ideas about today was the view that there could be a limited, winnable nuclear war. “I think those ideas are a

complete delusion. The best expert studies show that, and so I think those are probably the most dangerous ideas around at the moment,” Mr Smith said.

There was also a lot of danger with the number of States other than the superpowers which had or would soon have nuclear weapons. If nuclear weapons were used in regional conflicts the situation could escalate' to a world-wide war. “Even if it did not, it would be the worst catastrophe human kind had experienced,” Mr Smith said. Mr Smith is cynical about attempts to control the arms race. Neither political leadership nor the military establishment showed any sign of wanting to reduce nuclear weapons, he said.

The Soviet Union had made a series of disarmament offers which could be “very interesting.” Moves could be made to prevent confrontation by making defence in Western Europe non-nuclear.

Mr Smith said the only way to change the course of the arms race was by popular pressure. Because of its

political system, public pressure would be much more effective in changing political decisions in the West.

“I am often asked if that is a realistic hope; and I say that it is a hope, and that it is not realistic to pretend that we can go on for ever with an arms race,” he said.

Mr Smith said he believed that New Zealand would be a target in a nuclear war because no ally of either of the super-Powers could expect to get away “scot

In the event of a nuclear war, neither side would leave any safe territory where the other could take forces. In the final stages of a global nuclear war the targeting would be totally vindictive, he said.

“The War Atlas” lists New Zealand as having seven military installations which could be targets in a nuclear war. Mr Smith said these included the “satellite tracking station” at Mount John, the United States air base (at Christchurch Airport), two naval bases, and a New Zealand air base. This information was taken

direct from research by the Swedish Institute.

He said that any military installation that was strategically important, or looked as if it could be strategically important, could be the target of nuclear attack. The visits of nuclear vessels to New Zealand ports did not make New Zealand more prone to attack, since the country was already vulnerable because it was allied to the United States. He supported protests against the visits, however, because they expressed opposition to the arms race.

He could see no benefit to New Zealand in belonging to the A.N.Z.U.S. pact, but he believed it would be difficult for any one country to break away from existing military alliances. This would only be possible if other countries tried to get away from “the logic of confrontation” at the same time.

Although New Zealand was insignificant in world military terms, it would have a political impact if it declared a nuclear-weapons-

free zone, even if it was unenforceable. New Zealand had succeeded in stopping French atmospheric teste at Mururoa by symbolic action, he said. Mr Smith said the book was presented as an atlas because maps and graphs were a good way of communicating the world military situation. It had to be seen as a world problem, not just on a nationalistic level. More information was available from standard reference works, press reports, and specialist literature than most people realised. The authors were aware that some of the material included was incomplete because information was not available or it was difficult to make accurate comparisons between countries. Mr Smith said that three pointe raised in the book would probably surprise readers: there had been 300 wars since 1945, there were 3000 foreign bases in countries throughout the world, and the “astonishing” strength of the Western alliance.