Proposed N.A.T.O. tactic seen as defective

Press, 22 October 1984, Page 6

Proposed N.A.T.O. tactic seen as defective

NZPA-Reuter Brussels N.A.T.O. Defence Ministers would almost certainly adopt a controversial new war-fighting doctrine in December that called for conventional strikes deep inside Eastern Europe if the Warsaw Pact attacked the West, senior allied sources said. The plan, known in N.A.T.O. jargon as “Followon force attack” had been devised by the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Bernard Rogers, and had won the backing of chiefs of staff of the 14 nations in N.A.T.O.’s military wing, the sources said. Harnessing new technologies to hit targets up to hundreds of kilometres beyond the East-West German border, it is aimed at delaying, disrupting, and destroying Soviet-led reinforcements before they reach the battlefield, keeping the attacking forces aown to manageable proportions, military experts say. Supporters say that the

new plan would perform with conventional weapons tasks previously assigned in N.A.T.O. planning to tactical nuclear weapons. Critics argue that it relies on highly expensive and largely unproven technologies to perform a mission that may no longer be relevant because of changes in Soviet tactics. One leading critic, Professor David Greenwood, of Aberdeen University, said in a recent article in the “N.A.T.O. Review” that Soviet doctrine now emphasised rapid breakthroughs by manoeuvre groups operating just behind the front line rather than the tightly timetabled reinforcing waves that “Followon force attack” aimed at stopping. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s new secretary general, Lord Carrington, appeared to question one of the favourite arguments of the. plan’s supporters in a speech last week. “I am not at all convinced

by those who see in it (new technology) an alternative to the nuclear element in our present strategy,” he said. The tactic would exploit the latest real-time surveillance, communications and data processing techniques to locate and fix moving targets far over the horizon. Weapons fired at a distance from aircraft or drones would then deliver so-called “smart” sub-munitions, designed to seek and home in on individual vehicles or other sources of heat or radiation. N.A.T.O. officials emphasised that F.O.F.A. would not be given priority over the key task of stopping the first echelon of an attack and that the Ministers were not being asked to adopt the more far-reaching official United States doctrine of “Air-land Battle”, which would entail politically controversial counterattacks. Many parts of F.0.F.A., such as attacks on fixed targets like rail and road

lines, air bases, and :conimand posts, are largely undisputed. But some aspects, such as deep strikes into East European territory in the early phase of a conflict, arouse political sensitivities in West Germany, Experts are also sceptical about the efficacy of the technologies used. Steven Canby, an independent American consultant who has worked for the United States defence department, wrote a report earlier this year saying that the. systems were highly vulnerable to deception and jamming and had been grossly undercosted. But the senior allied sources said that N.A.T.O. Defence Ministers were likely to approve “Followon force attack” as an operational doctrine when they met at Brussels on December 4 and 5, since the move would not mean any change in their spending or arms procurement plans. “It costs them nothing to approve this,” one source