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OPINION
Page 4
Wednesday, November 23, 1983
The Michigan Daily
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Subliminal Effects of Soviet Su
By Eugene V. R ostow
The. Soviet Union achieved an advantage
during the 1970s in ground-based ballistic
missiles - the most accurate and destructive
of nuclear weapons, and the ones most nearly
immune to defenses. In 1972, the United States
and the Soviet Union were approximately equal
in the number of warheads on ground-based
ballistic missiles of intercontinental range.
During the last decade, the United States IC-
BM force remained stable, and we made no in-
termediate-range missiles like those of the
Soviet Union. By 1982, the Soviet Union had
achieved a lead of three-to-one in ICBM
warheads. If one adds the intermediate-range
Eur ~~missile
4Debate
Soviet missiles targeted on Europe, China, the
Middle East, and Japan to this figure, the ad-
vantage becomes even more formidable.
MANY PEOPLE REMEMBER Henry
Kissinger's famous ques'tion, "What in.
Heaven's name can one do with nuclear
superiority?"
The answer is now obvious. The Soviet ad-
vantage in ground-based missiles implies a
theoretical first-strike capability, that is, a
capacity to improve one's military position by
undertaking a preemptive nuclear strike
against the nuclear arsenal of one's adversary,
and other imilitary targets.i
When this dismal scenario is coupled with the
Soviet monopoly in intermediate-range ground-
based missiles, like the SS-20s which threaten
Western Europe, Japan, China, and the Middle
East, the rationale behind the Soviet arms
buildup becomes all too clear.
IT IS THE belief that Soviet numerical
superiority in ground-based missiles creates a
credible capacity for nuclear blackmail. The
Soviet Union considers nuclear superiority as
an ultimate paralyzing reserve, permitting it to
pursue its policy of indefinite expansion based
on the use of conventional forces, terrorism,
and subversion without fear of American
retaliation.
The state of nuclear balance, as Helmut
Schmidt has said, has a subliminal effect on the
human mind. The Soviet advantage in ground-
based missiles is the source of the nuclear
anxiety which is having such a profound
political influence throughout the Western
world.
The Soviet monopoly of modern inter-
mediate-range ballistic missiles constitutes a
threat to Europe, China, and Japan at a time of
growing doubt about the credibility of the
nuclear umbrella provided by our intercon-
tinental forces. The Soviet leaders believe that
the whip-saw effect of this twin pressure will
sap the foundations of the American alliance
system. Throughout the non-Communist world,
this twin pressure is strengthening movements
for neutrality and unilateral disarmament, on
the one hand, and for policies of isolationism,
militarism, and ultra-nationalism, on the
other.
IF THESE POLITICAL impulses are allowed
to become fullblown panic, the structure of
world politics would be transformed. Our
troops would be withdrawn from forward bases
and our alliances would be dissolved. Nuclear
weapons would proliferate, and we should be
unable to protect our most fundamental
national security interests against Soviet or
Soviet-inspired aggression.
What is at stake in the nuclear arms talks,
then, is whether the United States can have a
foreign policy at all, or whether the political
tides generated by the Soviet nuclear advan-
tage will force us to policy of neutrality in For-
tress America, as President Nixon and Mr.
Kissinger suggest.
Our goal for the arms control talks in
Geneva, therefore, is to confine nuclear
weapons to the defensive purpose of deterring
aggression. To facilitate this goal, we are con-
centrating in the first instance on the ground-
based ballistic missiles. The essence of our
position in Geneva is to negotiate agreements
which would make each side equal in nuclear
deterrent power at radically reduced levels.
Obviously, the United States must eliminate
the Soviet advantage in the most destabilizing
class of nuclear weapons by agreement, by for-
ce modernization, or by a combination of the
two. Equally clearly, we should infinitely
prefer that advantage to be eliminated by
agreement rather than by increasing our
present nuclear arsenal.
SINCE THE EARLY 1950s, at least, the
primary strategic goal of Soviet expansion has
been to change the world balance of power by
separating Western Europe from the United
States and Canada. To achieve this goal, the
Soviet Union has been following an old and
familiar strategic doctrine.
It has been seeking to outflank Europe from
the north and south, thus bringing the entire
Eurasian land mass under Soviet control, and,
on that basis, taking control of the Middle East
and Africa. That done, the Soviet leaders
believe, Japan and the other nations of the
Pacific basin would accept Soviet suzerainty as
inevitable; the people of Europe would lose
hope; and an isolated United States would have
no choice but to acquiesce in Soviet dominion.
Soviet conduct in the INF negotiations in
Geneva, and in the active propaganda cam-
paign accompanying those negotiations, is
altogether compatible with this view. The main
objectives of the Soviet Union in Geneva are to
divide the United States from its allies, and to
prevent the modernization of the American
armed forces, and particularly the American
nuclear forces.
IN THE INF talks, the United States has
proposed the abolition of the entire class of in-
termediate-range ground-based ballistic
missiles on both sides. In response, the Soviet
Union has repeatedly denounced and reflected
the American zero-zero proposal, and offered
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periority
stitute an aggressive threat to the Soviet Union
in any possible sense, as Soviet officials freely
admit.
THE ARGUMENT is put forward as a
bargaining device and a way of weakening
European confidence in the American guaran-
tee. The Soviet claim of a right to a nuclear for-
ce equal to the sum of all other weapons in the
world is a claim not to equality, but to
hegemony.
In July, 1982 the Soviet and American Am-
bassadors to INF, with my full support,
suggested consideration of a compromise,
which would involve low equal limits for both
sides in and near Europe and in the Far East.
That approach could make a major con-
tribution toward the security of both countries,
and of the world, by moving the nuclear ar-
senals toward a position of deterrence, and im-
proving the credibility of United States nuclear
guarantees for its allies and other vital in-
terests. In March, 1983 President Reagan
publicly announced our acceptance of the prin-
ciple of the Ambassadors' compromise, which
the Soviet Union had vehemently rejected last
fall.
The Soviet approach to the problem of these
talks is hardly surprising. The Soviet advan-
tage in ground-based ballistic missiles was not
achieved by accident. It cost the Soviet Union a
great deal of money, and years of effort on the
part of the most advanced sectors of its
economy. That advantage will not be given up
unless the alternatives present unacceptable
risks. But even so, the implications of the fact'
that a brilliant Soviet Ambassador, Yuri Kvit-
sinskiy, joined Ambassador Paul Nitze in spon-
soring the Geneva trial balloon last July should
be carefully and fully explored.
Rostow is Sterling Professor of Law and
Public Affairs at Yale Law school. He was
Director of the US. Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency for the first two
years of the Reagan Administration.
in its place an ingenious plan which would
permit the Soviet-Union to keep at least a por-
tion of its present SS-20 forces in and near
Europe.
Under the Soviet plan, the United States
would not be permitted to deploy any com-
parable weapons in Europe. I do not know of
any Western expert on the subject who regards
the Soviet INF proposal as serious. The Soviet
position is based not only on some athletic
arithmetic about the weapons on each side
which should be counted as intermediate-range
nuclear weapons, but on the proposition that
the British and French nuclear weapons should
be included in the agreement as American.
This claim is entirely specious. The British
and French weapons are not under American
or NATO control. They exist for the ultimate
Y __ i
E a a tudnsatThUnvt y
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
LaBan
Vol. XCIV-No. 67
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420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor,MI 48T09
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board I
The University gender gap
HE NEW JERSEY court system
recently made a startling discovery
about itself. A special task force in that
state reported that many cases in-
volving women judges or lawyers are
being biased by "stereotyped myths,
beliefs, and biases" against women.
Roughly 1,000 miles away and cen-
tered around very different issues, the
University finds itself making the very
same discovery about its hiring and
promotion practices. The University
needs to head off this prejudice if
women are ever going to comprise a
significant portion of the faculty and
administration.
For the second straight year, the
number of women professors on cam-
pus has dropped. Last year alone, the
University suffered a net loss of 23
women professors, or a percentage
drop from 19.2 percent to 17.9 percent.
The reasons for the decline are
numerous and complicated. Women,
more often than men, marry fellow
academics whom the University often can-
not find jobs for. Women are also often
under pressure to follow spouses to
other colleges. Some women
professors leave to accept a better of-
fer at other-universities.
These are significant factors which
in a broad sense are not the result of
prejudice or stereotyping. But under-
neath all these factors and rational ex-
planations for the decline, prejudice
and stereotyping seems to hide, if ever
so subtly.
The one place it seems to surface
most glaringly- is the University's
tenure review process. Last year, of all
the faculty eligible for promotion 17.3
percent were actually reviewed. Only
12.5 of the eligible women were
reviewed, however, according to
University figures.
Although charges of prejudice are
difficult, and sometimes impossible to
substantiate, this is what seems to lie
behind the statistics. There appears
be pockets within the University where
prejudice and stereotyping do play a
significant role in deciding if and when
women are to receive tenure.
The University needs to seriously
look at how significant a factor
prejudice is in the tenure process, as
the New Jersey judicial system has
done in its courts. We're betting it's a
very significant factor, and the sooner
the University community is aware of
that, the easier the problem will be to
solve._______
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LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
A2
should back nuclear free zone
To the Daily:
.I support the Ann- Arbor
Nuclear Free Zone Act, It would
prohibit "the design, research,
development, testing, or produc-
tion of nuclear weapons; delivery
systems for such weapons;
command, control, and com-
munications systems for such
weapons" in the City of Ann
Arobr.
Nuclear Weapons development
is in direct opposition with my
values and threatens my security
work whose primary purpose is
the destruction of human life.
This acknowleges that human life
takes precedence over academic
freedom. Second, academic
freedom is more restricted,
economically, by the way funds
are allocated to military research.
Will the act eliminate jobs? All
nuclear arms work in Ann Arbor
is done by fewer than 300 people,
BLOOM COUNTY
many work as consultants and
have other work. The high-
technology nature of weapons
work means it creates the fewest
jobs per dollar spent than almost
all other economic activities. In
addition, the act will collect
materials to help people doing
nuclear weapons work find funds
for civilian industries and
socially productive research.
Friends back from traveling in
Europe say people there think
most Americans support
President Reagan's military
policies. Please,'for yourself and
your children, sign a petition soon
and vote yes April 2nd for the Ann
Arbor Nuclear Free Zone Act.
- Brian Wanty
November 12
by Berke Breathed
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