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daily nebraskan
Wednesday, decern ber 3, 1980
tote
Nukes eliminate humans not evil ideas
Almost remarkably, the debate continues as to
whether or not the Soviets are militarily superior
to the United States. It seemed clear that most
Americans felt the Soviets were superior on Nov.
4, and probably still do.
Yet the dogma of both sides clatters about
occasionally, if nowhere else in our letters to the
editor.
The Daily Nebraskan's editorial pages this
semester has provided a great deal of discussion
concerning nuclear arms and general military
power. This editorial is a final summary of our
views on the Cold War-type question of Soviet
versus American military strength.
First, it is true that in some ways the Soviets
are far superior to the United States. But there is
good geographic reason for that.
Similar to the Cold War "missile gap," today's
weapons hawks cite a wide "tank gap." The
Soviets have somewhere in the neighborhood of
30,000 more tanks than we do. But they have
much greater possible need for tanks. Canada and
the Gulf of Mexico for example, do not threaten
the United States in the same way that China and
NATO threaten the Soviets.
For those Americans who cite the tank gap,
there must be an equal number of Soviets who
cite the submarine gap. The United States has a
far superior submarine detection system, as well
as quieter subs able to stay at sea longer than
Soviet subs.
The Soviet Union is bordered by land. They
have tanks. The United States is surrounded by
water. We have submarines and an elaborate sub
marine detection system. In an area where little
seems totally logical, this military development
makes perfect sense.
In the nuclear arena, numbers can be thrown
about to support any argument or position. We
can talk about actual numbers of delivery
systems. Oh no, the Soviets are ahead. But wait,
the United States has more actual warheads (can
hit more targets). Whew! We're ahead.
But wait. If we talk about throw weight, the
Soviets have more. This is where the numbers
game becomes ridiculous. Each side has engaged
in arms racing to the point that each person on
earth could be killed many times over if the
superpowers launched their nuclear arsenals.
It has long been accepted in U.S. government
that only 400 equivalent megatons-a small
fraction of our nuclear force-would be needed to
destroy 70 percent of Soviet industrial capacity
and 25 percent of the Soviet population.
Overkill and throw weight are irrelevant in the
face of such massive destruction, which only a
few of our weapons are capable of inflicting.
The unfortunate thing about discussion of
military readiness is that people who care about it
tend to take extreme positions. One side wants to
remove nuclear weapons from the earth, and the
other wants to build every new toy dreamed up
by the world's Dr. Strangeloves.
When the United States exploded the first nu
clear device, the world was changed. When the
superpowers developed highly refined missiles to
deliver the weapons, the change was permanent.
Nuclear weapons are here to stay, and doubt
lessly will proliferate like cancer cells to countries
far from superpower status. Our primary hope
must be that humans are here to stay too, despite
the quickness with which thermonuclear weapons
can end all of our lives.
Rational weapons deployments and arms talks
designed to preserve parity are the only way to
achieve that. Nuclear war fighting, and the ability
to do it, is only a simple way to rid the earth of
humans, not a way to prove superiority or to rid
the world of any perceived ideological evil.
Polish support could be a threat to world peace
The Polish labor movement "solidarity"
is growing in numbers and is achieving ever
greater influence in the formation of
Poland's internal policy. This represents a
clear threat to the absolute power of the
Communist party dictatorship in Poland.
While this development appeals to our
Western values of political and human
rights, we must restrain our enthusiasm; for
the situation in Poland may have profound
implications for world peace.
if ' I1 ;
ruperft
Solidarity began as a union of Gdansk
shipyard workers. It has grown to include
much of the Polish labor force and touches
on every sector of the Polish economy.
This represents power for Polish workers;
power which the Polish Communist Party
has been unable to curtail. Most important
ly, it represents a clear example to those in
other East Equopean dictatorships of the
ultimate vulnerability of their repressive
regimes.
For this reason, solidarity is viewed
from the Kremlin with the utmost concern.
The Soviets fear the erosion of Communist
power in Eastern Europe, almost to the
point of paranoia. They have in the past
used their military might to prevent its
decay, most notably in Hungary in 1956,
and Czechoslovakia in 1968. After crushing
the Czechs, the USSR formalized a long
standing policy by announcing that
Brezhnev Doctrine: The Soviet Union will
not hesitate to intervene in the internal
affairs of another Communist state when
ever the Kremlin perceives a danger to
"socialism" in Eastern Europe.
This week the armies of the Warsaw
Pact were engaged in the same kind of
maneuvers which preceded the incursion
into Czechoslovakia. Poland's borders with
East Germany and the Soviet Union have
been sealed off, and the Red Army has
been placed on top alert. The message
could not be more clear. If Poland's
current leadership is unable to re-exert its
political control to the satisfaction of the
Kremlin, the Red Army will do so by
force. The Poles are expected to actively
resist any such intervention, and the
Soviets may even have to face the Polish
Army before Soviet hegemony is re
established.
The ramifications of such an occurrence
could reach far beyond the borders of Po
land. A Polish-Soviet confrontation could
polarize the Warsaw Pact countries, result
ing in increased Soviet military presence in
all of Eastern Europe, and a widening of
intra-bloc conflict. Most serious, however,
is the potential for superpower confronta
tion which an invasion of Poland would
present.
Sen. Charles Percy, soon to be chairman
of the powerful Foreign Relations Com
mittee, has flatly warned Brezhnev that
Red Army intervention in Poland would
have catastrophic consequences for U.S.
Soviet relations. In the context of diplo
macy, these are exceptionally strong
words. Similar statements by aides of President-elect
Ronald Reagan suggest the possi
bility of future U.S. support for Polish
efforts to escape Soviet hagemony. Any
such support would be interpreted in the
Kremlin as a direct threat to Soviet nat
ional security and easily could become
"the greatest threat to world peace since
World War H".
This is so because of the Soviet pre
occupation with matters of defense,
especially those pertaining to Eastern
Europe. Historically, the Russians have
been justifiably concerned over the
security of their Western frontier. They
have many times been invaded by enemies
using Eastern Europe as a gateway to the
Russian heartland; twice in the last century
alone. To this traditional Russian in
security, add the Marxist dogma of capital
ist encirclement of, and hostility toward,
the U.S.S.R. and one beings to understand
Soviet perceptions regarding their security
interests in Eastern Europe. Brutal as it
may be, the Soviets view their buffer zone
of Communist satellites as absolutely
necessary for the survival of the U.S.S.R.
in a hostile world.
Thus the Soviets are favored by an
asymmetry of motivation in any super
power confrontation over Eastern Europe.
Moreover, the military capabilities which
they can bring to bear on that neighboring
region far outweigh those which the U.S.
might be able to project halfway across the
world into Poland. In short, we cannot
hope to free the Poles from their Soviet
masters, and we should make no provoca
tive statements of intent to do so.
Confused world is breeding ground for rightists
The people who call themselves the Moral Majority
surely include some whose views are more political than
moral: views favoring an increased budget for the
Pentagon, for instance, or the repudiation of the Depart
ment of Education, or the establishment of economic and
social conservatism.
But just as surely their ranks include people who are
convinced that America is in danger of losing-pcrhaps al-
UPSP 144-080
Editor in chief: Randy Essex; Managing editor: Bob Lannin;
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readv has lost its moral comnass: th:it we atp in vnur
grandfather's phrase, going to hell in a handbasket.
You don't have to be a pro-Vietnam, anti-SALT religio
political fanatic to agree that maybe they've got a point,
or to concede that many of the more disturbing trends are
interlinked with modern-day liberalism.
The reference here is not to liberalism as it relates to
governmental programs and societal ideals, but to the
liberalism that is nervous about making moral judgments.
Nothing is just plain right or wrong; everything is relative.
n&lfaTHSlf SE1 things that decent people used to shun or at least
wyiUSlilill fcei guilty about -are now described in morally neutral
terms as "alternative lifestyles " Liberals feel guilty about
intlicting guilt.
tooOOEmm) rasp&ssry
We delight in the sophistication that tells us there are
no absolutes, no mora! authorities. And one result is that
we confuse and frustrate our children, who keep telling us
(though usually not in words) that they want rules: Con
sistent, reliable guidelines for running their lives.
It is this abdication, I suspect, that principally accounts
for the continuing attraction for our young people to
what wc call "sects." These young people (and some not
so young) seem to be looking for a value system that
comes from outside their own heads. They yearn for an
authority who will speak of absolutes, even at the cost of
suspending their own intellect.
And the more morally uncertain their families and the
established churches become, the more attractive become
the authoritarian sects.
Not everyone, of course, is dismayed at the notion that
all questions are open, that there are no final answers. In
deed, some of us find it exhilarating to be freed from the
religious, social and political myths we learned as children.
We want to give our children a shortcut to thh same free
dom, by teaching them right from the beginning that
truth is relative.
But for many children, the shortcuts produce not
exhilaration but frustration. It may be well enough to
question everything, but young people seem to need some
place to stand, something to hold on to, while they are
doing the questioning.
And yet we are giving them less and less to hold on to.
Family pride, school spirit, patriotism, universal principles
-all these things strike us as so much silliness, which intel
ligent people quickly outgrow, and we wish to save our
children the bother of making these pointless detours in
their intellectual development.
And we are dismayed when our children, liberated
from intellectual error, run off and join up with Rev.
Thus-and-Such who promises them certainty.
Nor is the phenomenon limited to religion. When
things start to come apart at the seams, people start look
ing for something they can believe in and rely on. For
some, it is the marvelous immutability of the free market.
For others, it is the gold standard, or world government,
or pacifism, or political militancy.
And for some-the Moral Majority-it is the old-time
religion.
Some of the answers these true believers come up with
make me very nervous. But I think it's about time we re
cognized the legitimacy of their questions.
(el 1980, The Washington Pott Co.