Reagan Star Wars
The "First Strike"
is in the workers pockets
In a resounding speech on March 23, 1983, the US has in fact just made a European tour to propose president announced his intention to open a new and "participation" by the other capitalist states in this decisive stage in the arms race with a general militariz- unprecedented militarization project.
The American Strategic Defense Times in October 1983 already estimated the costs of
Reagan claimed, could setting up a complete system of defense against ball-
"counter nuclear weapons and make them obsolete." istic missiles at 500 billion dollars.
In reality, this was a skillful ideological camouflage job designed to conceal from American and international The American SDI is thus creating a new situation, the objectives and the manifold con- upsetting all the strategic certainties of the last 25 sequences of this new program of militarization, the And this will have a lasting effect on intermost ambitious and expensive of all the military national relations, both between the imperialists and programs ever conceived by the Pentagon. the Soviet bureaucracy and between the United States
In the initial research alone, this program will absorb The first task for the workers movement
The immediate effect of this and the antiwar movement is to assess clearly the will be a concerted, massive, and brutal attack on the extent of this threat in order to prepare the way for standard of living of the masses, not only in the powerful mass mobilizations to
USA ation of space.
tens of billions of dollars.
and its allies.
The New York stop this diabolic
United States but in all of the scheme of the imperialist leaders from being carried Caspar Weinberger, the US under secretary of defense, Jean Louis MICHEL studied in the framework of the SDI and total protection for Fortress America.
Research on the military uses of space is not exactly new. In fact, it goes back thirty years. From the early 1960s, the United States, followed by the Soviet Union, has been trying to set up defense systems against ballistic missiles.o These efforts were logical countermeasures against the development of arsenals of intercontinental missiles at the time. They involved using interceptor missiles, themselves armed with nuclear warheads, in the hope that they could neutralize attacking missiles before they hit their target.
The antiballistic missile system set up around Moscow, based on Galosh interceptors, and the similar American system - the Sentinel network first and then the Safeguard network for protecting Minuteman missile launching sites in the state of Dakota followed exactly the same logic. It was closer to classical anti-aircraft defense than the projects involved in the SDI.
These first antiballistic missile systems (ABMs) were in fact quickly put on the back burner because of serious doubts about their effectiveness, and especially because of the high cost of setting them up. At the time the US gave priority to financing its war effort in Southeast Asia. The signing of the Salt accord in May 1982 by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev only gave formal recognition to this state of affairs. (1) The two parties to the protocol agreed not to set up ABM systems except at two sites for each country, which was later reduced to one.
So, there can be no comparison between the systems that are now being 10 imperialist centers.
out. * their predecessors in the 1960s. This fact has to be stressed as much as possible, because the imperialist centers will not fail to argue, in accordance with a longstanding tradition, that the US has fallen behind the USSR in this field. In fact, the Soviet Union still has the old Galosh system, which everyone considers obsocorresponding systems were dismantled in 1975 because
In the 1960s and 1970s, these defense systems were aimed simply at providing anti-aircraft cover for certain targets, such as Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) sites and the main com-
The SDI is designed for quite a different purpose. It is intended to set up a shield, a dense as possible, to stop the bulk of enemy missiles, if feasible in the first stage of their flight - three to five minutes after firing for the ICBMs of the present generation. This is what is new about the American project and makes it possible to speak about a general militarization of space.
With the SDI in fact Reagan has put on the agenda the perspective of an overall antiballistic-missiles system that involves detecting as quickly as possible the launch of enemy missiles in order to neutralize them as far as possible from Fortress America. This implies a capacity to intercept ballistic missiles at every stage of their trajectory, from the initial firing to the final phase of reentry into the atmosphere above their targets.
The trajectory of missiles can be divided into four separate phases, corresponding to four layers of defense, which combined are supposed to offer nearly
The first phase is the firing. For most of the ICBMs currently in service, this lasts a little less than 300 seconds. this initial phase will probably be considerably reduced in the future. of the American MX missile lasts only 150 to 180 seconds. Obviously, intercepting missiles at this stage, which is the most desirable because it means that the blast will occur as close as possible to the territory of the attacking forces, excludes any chance for political judgement. It can only be done by means of an automatic response.
The second phase, the so-called postfiring one, which lasts from two to six minutes, represents the stage of a missile's trajectory in which it can still be neutralized before the multiple warheads that carry the explosive devices are launched
The third phase is the phase of ballistic flight, the duration of which is up to missiles fly at an altitude of 45 to 1,200 kilometers and launch the warheads assigned to their specific targets. At this point, the country under attack would have to be able to follow the course of each of these warheads in order to neutralize them.
The fourth phase is the reentry of the warheads into the atmosphere above their targets. This is the last chance for the country under attack to knock them out. At this point, antimissile defense has all the disadvantages of the old systems. That is that an explosion of a missile in
All quotations originally in English have been retranslated from the French.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), initiated in 1968 between the USSR and the USA.
International Viewpoint 6 May 1985
the final stage of its approach complicates the tasks of the defense forces by jamming communications and radar.
The technological challenge the imperialists have posed for their researchers is to. perfect space weapons that strike at enemy ballistic missiles at all stages of their flight, designed particularly to hit them in the first two phases. What this requires is launching research programs that combine many kinds of technology, both as regards the detection of missiles as well as for firing and guiding the new so-called third generation space weapons.
The US undersecretary of defense for atomic energy has given the following definition of these third-generation weapons: "They are weapons in which the energy produced by the explosion is in part transformed into a form more suited to achieving the desired objectives than blast and heat, the best known effects of this is by no means a full list, reinforced radiation weapons using laser rays that travel at a speed of 300,000 kilometers a second, or fasicles of particles that travel at almost the same electromagnetic impulses in a radius of several of kilometers, which are harmless to human beings but can cause major damage to electronic installations; "directed plasma" weapons that concentrate the effects of a nuclear explosion and prevent the spherical dispersion of the classic nuclear weapons.
The deployment of this new generation of weapons, moreover, involves large numbers of space rockets, spy satellites, and killing-ray transmitters and reflectors. This is no doubt the major handicap of the Star Wars program. In any case, it is sufficient to show the main outlines of the sinister scenarios the imperialists are preparing for us in order to highlight the extent of what has been undertaken and the threat that flows from it. Where will the money come from?
The threat represented by the Wars program has many aspects. But its most immediate implications for the civilian population arise from the exhorbitant cost of mobilizing the economic, industrial and financial resources needed even for the first phase of research. An indication of this is given by the US Congress' approval of the appropriation demanded by Ronald Reagan, which amounted to 25 billion 780 million dollars over five years just for the central research projects involved in this program.
From this standpoint, no previous program can be compared with the SDI. As an indication of the scale, the total cost of the space orientations of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration since 1958, including research and development, amounts to 150 billion dollars, of which about a third was devoted to purely military operations. International Viewpoint 6 May 1985
Still more fabulous sums have been evoked, such as those mentioned in the New York Times (3). And most of the experts consider these figures "reasonable" or even "optimistic," that is, an underestimation." a laser-ray antisatellite system (ASAT) is presently estimated at 50 billion dollars.
So, it would be a mistake not to see that, behind the Reagan Administration's ideological talk about "Star Wars," a very large-scale offensive against the living standards of the masses is shaping up. The capitalist trusts are preparing to wage it through the medium of the US federal government. This is the main thing at the present stage.
Trusts such as TWR, Ford Aerospace
Boeing and Rockwell International which are already the beneficiarmilitary aerospace business, have also invested a lot in order to get into a position to participate in this prog ram. And in so doing, they have created a very powerful military-industrial lobby
This is leading to a situation where what is ultimately at stake is nothing less than how brutal an austerity the capitalist states are going to have to impose in order to finance this ruinous project. It is ruinous for the American masses, for the masses of the imperialist countries associated with the US. dependent countries, in particular because the way the operate. And finally it is ruinous for the masses of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, who will have to bear the burden of whatever countermeasures the Soviet takes, even if they are
In this respect, the policy of superarmament, given concrete expression by
Reagan's SDI, constitutes a drastic capitalist solution to the economic crisis. It is a barbaric solution, not only because it increases the possibility of a final holocaust for humanity but because it involves poverty for the overwhelming majority of the world's people.
To be sure, the bulk of this mad program still remains in the initial drafting stage. But the fact cannot be underestimthat not inconsiderable concrete steps have also been undertaken to carry
Half of the US space shuttle from now until 1994 will be reserved for secret military operations connected to the Star Wars program. The first real test of a laser weapon in space is scheduled to take place on a space shuttle
These steps will have practical consequences all the more rapidly because however enormous the sums alloted for this program now seem, they are still modest by comparison with the ambitions exhibited by Washington. That is why it is probable that the antiwar movement and along with it the international workers movement, will have to fight a decisive battle in the years immediately ahead against the imperialist militarization offensive. And the outcome of this battle
The US imperialists are redoubling their ideological offensive in order to be able to speed up their programs for militarizing space and present them in a favorable light. A series of factors have come together to give them the idea that the time is ripe for rapid and determined Crisis of deterrent
The background to this is the general crisis of the strategies of deterrent in force in NATO for 25 years, which have been challenged more and more in the US, as well as in Europe, Japan and
On the basis of constant technological innovation, the imperialist general staffs themselves have started to think abou strategic problems in new terms. the miniaturization of warheads carriers, the NATO experts have be able to see a prospect for limited nucl wars. In fact, they have projected battle scenario in Europe - the Air Battle 2000 Doctrine - which has come an essential reference point for the
Public opinion, on the other hand, has
"the certainty of unac which was supposed to guarantee a state of nonwar, is no longer a really convincing
This is shown clearly by the mobilization against the deployment of new missiles in Europe, whose destabilizing effects cannot be underestimated.
Three key factors today are accelerating the general crisis of deterrent.
of nuclear warheads, famous "mini-nukes,' "is undermining it on the ground, by opening up the way for the use of nuclear weapons in limited this threatens to touch off an uncontrollable proliferation of nuclear arms.
The development of the "new technologies," especially their applications in the conventional arms sector, is helping to separated the use of conventional weapons from the use of nuclear ones. Finally the miniaturization in the technology used in undermining deterrent from above, or at least threatens
The Reagan administration has taken the offensive on the ideological level in the attempt to deal with the problem of the breakup of consensus around deterrent. The SDI offers a basis for this, inasmuch as the complexity of the pro2. Department of Energy Fiscal Year 1983 National Defense Programs Authorisation, hearing before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. cited by Le Monde Diplomatique, April 1985. 3. Sandra Blakeslee, "New Horizon in Space Seen for Businessmen," New York Times, October 6, 1983.
11
permits important differences in of your interest in participating in the interpretation. The public version offers the perspective of a radiant future "for the free peoples who would be able to live knowing that their security no longer depends on the threat of reprisals by the United States." (4)
Reagan, adopting the unwonted guise of peacemaker, asks, "Wouldn't it be better to save human lives than to avenge deaths." (5) Then he goes on to conclude that the SDI can "make nuclear weapons
The truth, as we have seen, is totally contrary to these oily statements, because most of the space weapons of the so-called Third Generation rely on nuclear technology, and are still more terrible than the H-bombs that have made up the bulk of nuclear arsenals until today.
danger of the imperialist technology lies in the idea that the SDI is a defensive system. It has to be observed, as the Union of Concerned say, that even if in its birth the antimissile defense system based in does not provoke a cataclysm, success in deploying such a system can the instability strategic balance. It is in fact difficult to imagine a system more apt to provoke a instantaneous decisions, where there can be no prior testing; a system that is fragile but which, nonetheless, threatens the camp's capacity for retal-
Some Pentagon spokespersons offer a more realistic view of the objectives of the SDI. For example, M. Furniss, who is in charge of drawing up the blueprints for the research program, recently explained to the Washington Post that he "thought that since the Soviets do not have unlimited financial resources they will prefer to modify their strategic arsenal and rely on their bombers rather than ballistic missiles to penetrate the American defense system.
we will go back to the relatively stable period of the 1950s." (7)
In other words, the US imperialists and their allies, assured of virtual impunity because of the military superiority they would gain through the SDI, would have their hands free, as at the start of the nuelear era, to impose their policy around the globe. Such a situation would make the conditions more difficult for the national and social liberation struggles of the peoples in the independent countries.
Moreover, you need only look at the list of the 17 countries that Washington has proposed to involve in the SDI to gauge the danger that would be represented by such a Holy Alliance of reaction. They are the NATO countries, including France, although it is not represented in the integrated military command; Israel, because of its role in the Middle East; Japan; South Korea; and Australia.
The letter that the US Secretary of State, Caspar Weinberger sent to these 17 governments makes it clear: country is interested in seeking an agreeon cooperating or contributing, please send within sixty days an indication
SDI research program and of the areas where you think the quality of research in your country seems most promising for this program. We want to take your response into consideration quickly in order to initiate the appropriate bilateral discussions on specific subjects and cooperation agreements." (8)
The first thing that stands out is Washington's insistence on a deadline, sixty days, which is exceptionally short, and the procedure for bilateral discussions to settle the details of participation. All these elements illustrate the American determination to restore order in the imperialist camp, which applies both to its allies whose interests are centered on the Atlantic zone, as well as to those whose interests focus more on the Pacific and the Mediterranean.
Thus, the SDI could well serve as a cover for general military collaboration in a bilateral framework that would be less constrictive for the American leaders than that of multilateral pacts such as NATO or ANZUS. (9) While in the final analysis American decisions always prevail in parties to them have sometimes ganged up to restrain Washington's overagerness, financial contribution to the American Western military spending
With respect to Europe, Weinberger's letter advances the perspective of research specifically devoted to the defense of
"The SDI program will not be limited to the application of technologies for combatting intercontinental ballistic missiles... but will also carefully examine technologies for combatting shorter range ballistic missiles." This refers in particular to countering Soviet missiles with a range of less than 1,000 kilometers by perfecting highvelocity ground-to-air cannon on the basis of the advanced technologies applied within the framework of the SDI for
Such an orientation for the moment remains imprecise but the fact that the NATO defense ministers gave "broad and approval" to the SDI on March 26 indicates the danger clearly enough. On the heels of their decisions on the deployment of the new missiles, the European capitalist governments are ready to engage in new militarist adventures at Ronald Reagan's invitation.
On the other hand, in the immediate future, unless there is some unforseeable upset, the launching of the SDI program should not have so immediate an effect on East-West relations, especially those between the US imperialists and the Soviet bureaucracy. There are several reasons for this. The imperialists' program is, of course, aimed directly against the Soviet Union, but the deployment of the systems involved in the SDI is a rather long-term perspective. In the opinion of USSR is not in a position to follow the US in this particular area of the arms race, especially for economic reasons, as the head of the SDI program, M. clearly indicated in the quotation cited
Competition by the USSR in this field would be possible, according to the same people, only if there were an economic reform, a drastic modernization of the Soviet economy as a whole, which, as they see it, would be the only way to liberate the colossal resources demanded by a general militarization of They themselves hardly believe in such a possibility, and rightly so.
It is true that it is hard today to deny the evidence, which is acknowledged by all Western sources, including the CIA, of a constantly widening gap between US and Soviet military spending. For example, in the three years from 1980 to 1983, the American share of world military spending rose from 25.5% to 29.3%, while that of the Soviet Union fell from 23.3% to
The disproportion is still clearer if you compare the shift in the respective shares of world military spending in the same period for NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The former rose from 45% to 48.2%, while the latter fell from 25.5% to 23.7%. spending, in 1980 dollars, rose from 216 billion to 307 billion, while Warsaw Pact spending went from 144 billion dollars to
This is the fundamental reason why the conservative bureaucracy that rules in Moscow, which has never taken the initiative in the arms race, is hanging on for dear life to negotiations with the imperialists that are only a trap. bureaucracy has called for a "total ban" on the militarization of space, which the American general Hoover has termed a "unilateral technological lobotomy." (11) It called early on for a "moratorium on testing antisatellite weapons."
This formal position is unrealistic for two reasons. The first is the obvious American determination to move ahead in this area. The second is that the US decision is being reflected at the moment in a research program that cannot be the object of negotiation. How can you keep track of work in laboratories? The Soviet leaders will probably put more stress on intermediate agreements for reducing the deployed of the type of the SS 20, or SS 18 (12) and the Pershing
*La defense antimissiles balistiques a partir de l'espace,' Hans Bethe, Richard Garwin, Kurt Gottfried, Henry Kendall, Pour la Science, Dec-
"La guerre des etoiles obligera les sovietiques a modifier leur arsenal strategique," Henri Pierre, Le Monde, August 28, 1984.
Document made public by NATO on March 26, 1985, in Luxemburg.
The military pact signed in 1951 by the US, Stockholm Institute for Peace Reasearch.
The undersecretary of the Department of Energy (DOE) for military applications.
International Viewpoint 6 May 1985
and cruise. They can hope that Washington will be more flexible with regard to these weapons while waiting for the time that it can deploy the first SDI systems.
Moscow's formal declarations against the militarization of space should not, create any illusions about its pursuance of this objective.
Therefore, it is not impossible that we will see a rather long period of negotiations and possibly even the conclusion of limitcrisis they will have an inner conviction much more than a simple matter of the of missiles, their sizes or their effectiveness."
The antiwar movement should be able take into account the new factors created by the launching of the SDI program easily, since they by no means involve a change in strategy but only confirm the validity of the axes of strug-
Cruise missiles at a base near New York (DR) Germany drew record participation this year in both countries. The April 20 antiwar demonstrations in the US organized by a very broad coalition also conwhat has become one of the dominant features of the international situation, that is, the persistant refusal of the masses in most of the imperialist centers to accept the capitalist government's militarization and war programs.
In this context, the European peace gle that the more farsighted section of the movement and its various national ed agreements, which, in all likelihood, will not affect the essentials of the new phase of the arms race represented by the militarization of space. In such a situation, it can be feared, unfortunately, that the peoples struggling against imperialism will find themselves more isolated because of Moscow's determination not to do anything that might endanger the negotiations. No matter what is on the table, they remain the most reassuring thing for the Kremlin bureaucrats.
deputy American secretary of defense for atomic energy, Richard Wagner, has, moreover, made no bones about this perspective when he underlying reason for accelerating the DOE's [Department of Energy ] advancedtechnologies programs is what I would call to keep the Soviets deterred. other words, what we are trying to do in the last analysis is to keep them feeling that they are in a position of inferiority relative to us, so that in the event of a International Viewpoint 6 May 1985 movement have been putting forward for the antiwar movement is confronting this situation on the basis of a renewed combativity confirmed by the whole series of recent actions, which have dealt a stinging rebuff to predicted that the movement would run out of steam after the deployment of the new NATO missiles in Italy, Great Britain and in West Germany. Martens government's decision to accept the deployment of US cruise missiles in Belgium was met on March 17, less than 48 hours after the government's capitulation, by a demonstration of 150,000
On March 24, the fifth anti-NATO march on the American base at Torrejon, near Madrid, brought out more than 100,000 in protest against the Social Democratic government's pro-NATO poldemonstrations in Great Britain and West components must, from now on, focus strategies on opposing militarization, on the struggle against NATO, on demanding withdrawal of every country from the imperialist alliance, whose foreign ministers unanimously approved Reagan's SDI on March 26 in Luxemburg.
In particular, the peace movements make public the response that they are preparing to make in the alloted "sixty days" to Weinberger's missive and oppose any involvement of the European states in the militarist adventure in space, the inevitable result of which will be a sharpening of the austerity policies that are the common fate of all the peoples of capitalist Europe.
Stepped-up austerity, greater unemployment and poverty, will in fact be the
Cited by David C. Motisson in "Les armes nucleares troisieme generation," Le Monde Diplomatique, April 1985, Paris.
13
SIN
IT ALCATEL macy and of mass action for peace show up as, if not diametrically opposed, at least contradictory, as regards the objectives and methods of struggle.
For that reason, establishing permanent ties with the independent peace movements in Eastern Europe remains essential. It is necessary to aid them in their difficult struggle against bureaucratic repression and, in this way, to lay the base for an eventual general mobilization of all the peoples of Europe against the militarization of space.
The Eastern European masses are, in fact, going to suffer from the effects of the imperialist program and the bureaucracy's inability to respond to it on any other basis but making military counterthreats.
The other natural allies of the West European peace movements are the peoples struggling against imperialism in Latin America, in Africa, in the Pacific and elsewhere. They must be accorded a central place in the peace movement's strategy of alliances.
In this respect, the more concrete commitment of the Flemish peace movement VAKA (14) to support for the Nicaraguan fighters, as well as the move by the more advanced sections of the West German movement to hold a people's tribunal against Reagan's policy on the occasion of the next summit of the industrialized countries, which is to be held in Bonn in early May, point out the best way of consolidating the unity of all those directly threatened by the military,
MISSILE OTOMAT
Missile anti-navire, longue portee developpu on coupention aver DOMI LARA Jole)
Long range, anti-ship missile devilope in cooperation witti OTOMELARA (alie).
Principaux cooperants françain:
THOMSON-C.SF autodredeur
TURBOMECA
SRIM platelore de guidage intermedare
Main french subcontractors
THOMSON-O SAi homing head furbo engine nav pattom racist and imperialist policy of Washington and its allies. (15)
Never have so many issues been taken up in the peace movement, but now in order to fight the SDI it is necessary to lay out concrete perspectives for action against NATO and austerity, in solidarity with the peoples who are fighting for their independence, their dignity and for security. All these questions should be put high on the agenda for a thorough-
14 НАОМЕШИ Part of a recent exhibition of modern weaponry (DR) first results of the SDI, today for the American people and tomorrow for the masses of Western Europe, if the decision to take part in the SDI is not overturned and if it is translated into concrete budgetary commitments in the countries concerned.
On this ground, a struggle may be fought out that can be crucial in more than one respeet. In the first place, the peace movement can find the opportunity to mobilize still more massively workers and their trade-union organizations, because they will be the victims of the austerity policies involved in participation in the SDI program.
For the workers movement, this can be the opportunity to wage a head-on battle against austerity on a Europewide scale, bolstered by a very broad peace movement. Never in fact has the cause14 and-effect link between militarization and austerity been so clear as it is today with the SDI.
The fight against NATO and austerity demand mass action - the most united, the most massive, and the most powerful possible. Those in the peace movement who think that the time has come for a pause for reflection because the reunion in Geneva is, as they see it, opening up a new field of action, cannot long hide their surrender behind such a transparent pretext.
There is no way the SDI is going to be contained in these negotiations. The Soviet diplomats and the official East European peace movements that echo them, with some nuances at most, are not the ideal allies that some leaders of the movement thought they had found in these last two years. In the present situation, the imperatives of such diplogoing discussion at the next convention of the peace movements to be held in July in Amsterdam. 14. The VAKA has associated itself with the Anti-Intervention Front for Solidarity with Central America, in particular in publishing informational material. 15 Condemnation of the racist regime in Pretoria and of the barely veiled support for it by Washington is arousing in the US, as in Europe, a surge of solidarity in the antiwar movement with the struggle of the Black people of South Africa.
International Viewpoint 6 May 1985
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