A massive propaganda campaign is underway to convince the United States to announce a freeze on all further testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons and nuclear delivery vehicles, and to follow that up by negotiations culminating in a treaty. This is the essence of the “nuclear freeze” petitions now being circulated by the Council for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze for submission to Congress.
The “freeze people” suggest that “either” the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. should initiate “movement” toward this goal by taking “unilateral” steps that would demonstrate “good faith.” After Afghanistan and Poland, it is hard to see how anyone in the Free World could be gullible enough to fall for such rhetoric.
The entire argument of the “freeze people” is based on false assumptions, starting with the false allegation that the United States is as responsible as the Soviets for the escalation of the arms race. This is manifestly untrue; even those who cannot read should be able to study the pictures of superior Soviet military might set forth graphita]]y in the 1981 U.S. Defense Department publication called “Soviet Military Power” (100 pages, available from the Government Printing Office or from your Congressman).
The U.S. closed its Minuteman production line and delayed the MX program, while the Soviets deployed four new ICBMs and built up the capability to destroy most U.S. fCBMs in a surprise attack using only one-fourth of Soviet ICBMs. The U.S. and its NATO allies deployed no intermediate-range nuclear missiles at all, while the Soviet Union deployed more than 750 nuclear warheads on its new SS-20 missiles threatening Western Europe.
The U.S. froze our ballistic-missile submarine force at the SALT limit of 41, while the Soviets increased their force to 84, The U.S. cancelled our B-1 bomber program while the Soviets are deploying their new bomber, the Backfire, at the rate of 30 per year.
The second false argument of the “freeze people” is to accuse U.S. officials of making “destabilizing” statements that nuclear war is “winnable.” The fact is that the “winnable” doctrine and statements come from Russian military journals and other official publications in the U.S.S.R. Unfortunaté]y, it takes two to make peace but only one to make war.
Soviet military strategists have never subscribed to the Hollywood doctrine that “there would be no winners in a fiuclear war.” Kremlin strategists believe that there definitely would be a winner — and they intend to be that winner. America would be making a fatal mistake if we allowed our national strategy to be made by fiction such as “On the Beach” and “Dr. Strangelove.”
The third false argument of the “freeze people” is their assertion that parity exists between U.S. and U.S.S.R. forces at present. Fortunately, for the first time in more than ten years, we have a President who tells us the truth about the military balance.
Both President Reagan and his Secretary of Defense have told the American people clearly that the Soviets have military superiority over us, and that even after the Reagan improvements are carried out, we face about five years of acute national danger (usually euphemistically described as the “window of vulnerability”).
The facts are that the Soviet ICBM force is far more numerous, far more modern, has four times the throw-weight, and has far more numerous and more accurate guided warheads. The Soviet Navy, both on and under the surface, is far more numerous, far more modern, and more powerfully armed with nuclear missiles.
In a future war in which only non-nuclear forces would be used, the Soviets would have us outgunned at least four-to-one. Soviet superiority in conventional (non-nuclear) forces, such as troops and tanks, is overwhelming.
The “freeze people” tell us that cheating would be unlikely under the new morétorium because the risk of detection would be considerable, and the price of detection would be great. Anyone who looks at past history can see that (1) the Soviets have consistently cheated on every treaty they ever made, including SALT, and (2) the Soviets are not ever the slightest bit deterred by “world opinion.”
The best answer to the proposals of the “freeze people” is “Go tell it to the Russians.” Only after the Soviets show a little good faith (such as by acceding to President Reagan’s request that they remove their missiles targeted on Western Europe) should we talk.
