Trio debates
draftfs worth
A retired major general, a military
sociology professor and a Military
Law Reporter matched statistics
Friday —
The trio, participating in the National Security
Conference, debated military manpower, regis
tration and the draft
The total shortage in army manpower is
between 125,000 and 175,000, not including
individual ready reserve units, said retired Army
Maj Gen Robert Cocktin, now executive director
of the Association of the U S Army
"We've had a de facto draft by economic
disadvantage, rather than sociological disadvan
tage as in Vietnam," Cocklin said, explaining that
lower class Americans, who also have lower
standardized test scores, are now in the military
Giving soldiers necessary education during
on-duty time cost $20 million among U.S. units in
Europe alone last year, he said
The quality of soldiers in the military was also
hurt when the Congress allowed pay levels to slip,
and allowed the Gl Bill to expire in 1976, Cocktin
said
1972 was the last year military pay matched
pay levels in free enterprise, he said
Barry Lynn, editor of the Military Law
Reporter and president of Draft Action, said a
draft is unnecessary The U S armed forces
already are at full strength, he said.
"Other countries do not view the U S Army
as a paper tiger."
A larger Soviet army should not be of major
concern because a large percentage of its
members are tied up along the Chinese border, in
Eastern Europe, or are used for such "imper
ialist" actions as the invasion of Afghanistan,
Lynn said
"The draft has never been the source of the
best and the brightest,” he said "I think the fair
draft is a figment of the popular imagination "
Charles Moskos, a military sociology
professor at Northwestern University and author
of several books, agreed with Cocklin that the
American military is in poor shape but rejected a
draft
“The left and the right agree that the (good)
army has to be bought," he said, citing Nobel
Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman as a
supporter of good wages as a means of stopping
significant turnover of military personnel
"We re moving towards an army in the market
model — where soldiers quit or get fired,” he said
To entice people into the army in a market
situation he said those who have served in the
military should get "first crack" at federal college
grants and loans, government jobs, and private
sector jobs
Serving the country should be part of grow
ing up in America," Moskos said
Security margin...or overkill?
Panel debates need
for nuclear build-up
A heated debate on nuclear war deterrence and
world response to U S /USSR strategic policies
Saturday concluded the Northwest National Security
Conference as a five-man panel discussed MX missiles,
first and second-strike capabilities and morality
World powers, possessing vast quantities of nu
clear armaments, have caused a situation in which ‘the
very existence of life on the planet is threatened
more by the weapon itself than by any enemy," said
Edwin Firmage, a law professor at the University of Utah
and noted opponent of the MX missile system
An MX missile has 56,000 times the destructive
capabilities of the atomic bomb used at Hiroshima, he
said Between 300 and 350 nuclear warheads could
devastate either superpower, yet there are at least
50,000 nuclear warheads in Jie world today, he said
Soviet Pres Leonid Brezhnev has repeatedly called
for a freeze on the testing and deployment of nuclear
weapons, a proportionate reduction in arms and a
rejection of first strikes by the Soviets and the United
States but the United States refuses to take such
actions, he said
Proceeding with a massive arms build-up will be the
only way to bring the Soviet Union to disarmament talks,
said retired Col William Taylor, currently director of
Political-Military Studies at the Georgetown Center for
Strategic and International Studies
"My view of nuclear weapons is the same as any
other sane human being s They are horrible, he said
But the Soviet Union will not respond to arms reduction
talks unless America is in a far superior nuclear posi
tion The Soviet Union "only understands power,"
Taylor said
He disagreed with Firmage. saying the United
States has offered to move along a dual track'
towards disarmament and that the Soviet Union has
said it "will use nuclear arms in a first strike
The USSR has been much more willing to discuss
disarmament than the United States, said Terry
Provance director of the Disarmament and Conversion
Campaign of the American Friends Service Commitee
and noted peace activist
"Throughout the nuclear history, the U S. has not
accepted a balance of power The U S has led the
Soviet Union and they've played catch up," Provance
said
The people of Utah and Nevada were justified in
opposing the basing of MX missiles in those states —
they should be based at sea said John Draim an
aerospace engineer and defense analyst
“I don't trust the Russians Draim said, adding that
the Soviet Union has at least 450 missiles already based
at sea
The United States essentially is looking in the
mirror when it criticizes the Soviet Union for arms
build-up and threatening world peace, said Peter
Jones, a British journalist active with the Nuclear Free
Pacific and European Nuclear Disarmament
movements
Europeans see similarities between the world
situation now and that in 1914 before the start of World
War I, Jones said The arms build-up. coupled with 40
years of European '‘peace," mirrors history, he said
Do arms, technology
decrease stability?
Two speakers at Saturday s Northwest National
Security Conference presented opposing views of the
role of strategic technology in the arms race
Charles Schwartz, professor of physics at Berkeley,
said military technology needlessly advances the arms
race, but John Draim, a retired naval officer, said
strategic technology is vital to national security
"There is growing instability, not stability, and
growing insecurity, not security, with the development
of each new weapon," said Schwartz, who favors the
complete abolition of nuclear weapons
The United States has a tremendous advantage
over the Soviet Union in technological development,
Schwartz says, and the government aims to maintain
this position to dominate in conventional affairs
While Schwartz did not accuse the United States of
planning a first strike, he said technolgy will be ad
vanced until the United States is capable of such an
attack to meet its political objectives
"The notion that any side could be expected to plan
and carry off a first strike is beyond anyone's expecta
tions." Schwartz said, but he fears that as military
escalation continues both sides might be tempted to
strike first to minimize their own destruction
Draim, on the other hand, believes the Russians
could be planning a first strike saying We have a very
dangerous, very determined opponent in the USSR
We must either resist or capitulate It's important that
we protect our own value system I do not wish to
knuckle under the Soviet Union and take their com
mands "
Draim favors negotiation with the Soviets, but said
increased technology will allow the United States to
negotiate from a position of superiority
"Technology is the expression of the aggregate
community will," he said
Is it unwise to arm
developing nations?
The world's becoming a much more dangerous
place than it was before says Michael Kiare director
of the Institute for Policy Studies international security
project
Kiare debated Leslie Brown, director of the state
department s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs on the
controversy surrounding U S arms assistance to Third
World countries
Although military aid is often treated as a “subor
dinate and peripheral" part of national security, it's as
important as nuclear capabilities, Klare said Saturday
Third World nations — because of U S military assis
tance and arms sales — are becoming quite well
equipped, creating “international insecurity," he said
Providing arms to Third World countries could
result in a local conflict which escalates into a regional
conflict — invoking American or Soviet intervention,
Klare said This is the “most likely way World War HI
would break out "
"I think there comes a point when morality plays a
part in international affairs, and this is one," Klare said
Increased weapons sales will not contribute to stability
and peace as Pres Ronald Reagan suggests, he added
Both administrations are very much aware of the
risks and benefits" of arms supply, said Brown, security
assistance officer for the Carter and Reagan adminis
trations
While military aid is a political, diplomatic affair
rather than a moral issue. Brown said human rights are
not ignored
Military megabucks:
too dear a cost?
The U S ruling class is intellectually bankrupt; it's
been morally bankrupt for a long time," said James
Cypher an economics professor at California State
University in Fresno, Ca
Cypher and Frank Trager, a director of studies for
the National Strategy Information Center, discussed the
economics of military spending at a Friday session of
the Northwest National Security Conference
Cypher criticized Pres Ronald Reagan's Adminis
tration s baroque militarism;" they spend more and
more to get less and less, he said While the military
spending of the 1940's and 1950's produced com
puters. missiles, and space technology, current military
spending produces exotic — but disfunctional — mili
tary equipment, he added
Cypher particularly lamented aspects of social
welfare spending foregone because of military spend
ing "Our security costs could cost only 40 to 60 billion
dollars, leaving $200 billion to build quite a satisfactory
society,” he said
"The health and well-being of our people is our
national security "
On the other hand Trager said $190 billion is not
too much to spend for an adequate defense
Five percent of the U S gross national product, or 29
cents on the dollar, will go to defense spending this
year he said after the Korean War, just before entering
the Vietnam conflict, the U S defense budget consti
tuted nine percent of the GNP
The U S is a basically pacifistic country with core
values that we all share, he said adding that if one
travels around the non-communist world, one will see
that there are nations both for and against the U S. We
need a defense system that will secure our core values,
Tragersaid.
analyzed in lecture
The global geo-political intentions of the Soviet
Union and the United States’ response to them was
scrutinized by former CIA deputy director Ray Cline and
Randall Forsberg, director of a defense and disar
mament think tank, at the National Security Conference
Friday
Cline, currently a senior associate at the George
town Center for Strategic and International Studies and
author on world power trends, said the current Soviet
strategy is to use a land-based military to acquire
resources the United States would have to protect by
going overseas
He called the Soviet Union an ‘ old-fashioned
empire,” that is much more likely to slowly gain control
over a large part of the great land mass of the world —
Euro-Asia and Africa — than by attacking North or
South America
The resources acquired by the Soviets are needed
primarily to support the standing military that acquires
them. Cline said
Soviet dictator Stalin admitted that he wanted to
control Eastern Europe and Turkey for potential access
to the Middle East's resources, Cline said Adolf Hitler
and Napolean Bonaparte both wanted to control Rus
sian territory to the Ural Mountains because they also
subscribed to the theory that controlling the Euro-Asian
areas could mean control of the world, he said
Cline said the Soviet Union has been constantly
increasing the size of its conventional military forces
and acts when there's little or no opposition.
Former Pres Jimmy Carter wrongly believed that
Soviet intentions could be tempered by improved
Soviet-American relations, he said
The three purposes of the Soviet conventional
military are protection of the homeland, occupation of
Eastern Europe and the expansion of communism said
Forsberg, founder and director of the Institute for
Defense and Disarmament Studies in Brookline, Mass.
The purposes of the occupation of Eastern Europe
are to "maintain a buffer zone,” prevent the reunifica
tion of Germany and formation of a great European
alliance and to support pro-Moscow communist
governments, she said
Agreeing with Cline. Forsberg said the Soviets' use
of forces outside an obvious sphere of influence has
been "'cautious,' and the invasion of Afghanistan was
an unprecedented use of conventional troops in a
previously non-communist country.
Stories by Dane Claussen, Katherine Merrill, Mike
Anderson and Henry Crumme.
Photos by David Corey and Mark Pynes.
mm*
Terry Provance
“The U.S. has not accepted a
balance of power. . . (it) has led
the Soviet Union. ”
The Soviet
Union “only
understands
power. ”
William Taylor
“I don’t trust
the Russians”
John Draim
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