September 16, 1982 slow the arms spiral. Jimmy Carter did his best to achieve this through the SALT II treaty. However, when Reagan came to power, SALT II went out the _ window. _ The real effect of this concerns the other possible ending. It should be extremely obvious what that is. But it does not secm to be obvious to _ the administration of president reagan. _ His vice president, George Bush, last year spoke of emerging as a winner ina nuclear exchange. Reagan himself re- cently confirmed Europeans’ worst fears by affirming a report that the US entertained the possibility of fighting “‘limited’’ nuclear war. Former secretary of state Alexander Haig, with his usual flair for bluntness, even publicly mentioned a plan to explode a bomb ‘‘as a demonstration.”’ e did not volunteer where to explode it and so far, people have been too afraid to ask. If Haig’s titla followed his function, he would have been known as the Secretary of Belligerance. _ The theoretical basis on which the arms rface was built goes back o shortly after World War II when it was recog- nized by world leaders that it has only been in times of military superiority by a single nation that the world slipped into conflict. Accordingly, there would be peace as __ long as there was a balance of power. Dr. George Wald, a lecturer on - disarmament, has stated that the Pen- tagon operates on a slightly different - principle, Wald feels Pentagon thinking is: ‘‘Never negotiate from a position - which is equal to, or inferior to that of your opponent. However, if you are ahead, there is no need to negotiate.” But there is a need to negotiate. the arms race hurts. In the Soviet Union, the land of central planning, Ivan stands in a long line to buy a toaster. Why? Because . there are only so many factories in the country and some of them have to build missle guidance systems. There is growing evidence that the increasing pressure on the Soviet Union to pour even more of its gross national product into defense will eventually drive the whole system into something akin to- bankruptcy. This in itself could desta- bilize the country, destroying the balance of power and invite catastrophe. “the problem with Ronny is not his style, it’s his substance” Americans, for all of their relative affluence, are often astounded when they come to Canada. They see clean, well lit streets, good public facilities, free medical services and ask, ‘‘Where does all this money come from?’’ The place where Canada’s money is not invested, for the most part, is in things like aircraft carriers that have crews which exceed the population of some Canadian cities. What’s more, this tremendous invest- ment in arms and technology does not even win friends. The US arms supply to * The Other Press Iran was virtually a bottomless pit, but when the collective consciousness of the country turned anti-American, it didn’t mean a thing. There is a picture of Vietnam combat which stands out vividly in the memo- ries of many people. It is of a US army helicopter which cost several million dollars to build and design pursuing an undernourished Vietcong _ soldier wearing sandals. Michael McLear’s artful TV docu- mentary on Vietnam, ‘‘The 10,000 Day War.,’’ made one thing absolutely apparent. The United States was not beaten in Vietnam, by Chinese or Russian arms or because it lacked any sort of technological superiority. The United States was beaten by the sheer tenacious determinatikon of a people who felt they had nothing left to lose and everything to gain. US military architects of the Vietnam era lost sight of two basic and import- tant factors. First, people do not fight well without a reason. Second, in their own words, ‘‘the world’s most efficient fightig machine is the indivi- dual soldier.’’ These items: continue to lie at the bottom of the trash can of military priorities, in some measure because “ isn’t much that can be done about them. * Nhe Western world is running out of reasons to hate communism. The Soviet type does not work. The Chinese are friends. There is not a single well functioning democracy any- where without socialist features built into it. So why is communism the American’s enemy? Is the Russian system more inefficient, more repres- sive, more secular? Maybe. Maybe not. It hardly constitutes a moral basis for risking a holocaust, or sacrificing a nation’s young. As for soldiers, they first have to be located. There is no more reason to think that young Americans would be much more willing to march off into the next war than they were into the last one. The place where they would be marching off to is here, unless Canada were dragged into it. Indeeed, with today’s low birth rate, it is much more likely the average family would object strenuously to donating its pound of flesh. The rationale for Reagan’s foreign policy, which one US senator calls “‘spewing arms all over the place,” seems to be nothing more than the old Cold War fear of communism. It was an irrational fear to start with and contin- ues to be so. In Reagan’s case it has become pathological. The irony is that the basic profound differences which separated the sys- tems have largely faded away. All that is left is a great void of fear and distrust. In less than a year, Reagan’s crony economists have gone from predictions of tax cuts and a balanced budget to suggestions about tax increases and an impending recession. Not even Rea- gan’s own budget director has confi- dence in the government’s economic policy anymore. Being an economist means never having to say you’re sorry. Reagan is ‘the first American presi- dent in 50 years to come to office without some kind of moral or economic mandate to help the poor. They have been quite simply written off. Crime, which has been proven by 20 _ years of study as being directly linked to. poverty, has been conveniently diassoc- iated from it. Instead, Reagan calls crime ‘‘a problem of the human heart.”’ True enough, but he fails to mention that the problem is most acute under conditions of gross inequality and poverty. This is no secret. role he coveted most was the one for which George C. Scott won an. Oscar on ‘‘Patton.’’ Patton, was the ‘Second World War general who had to be restrained from marching right across all of Germany and into Moscow. He was convinced that he had learned exactly how to take Russia from studying Napoleon’s errors and actually . entertained an ambition to do so. Patton was a tallented man who is often characterized as being born several centuries too late. There probably isn’t any connection between Reagan’s aspirations as an actor and his current frame of mind as a world leader, we should hope. + What cannot be said about Reagan is | that he is in any sense a failure as a politician. He projects strength and competence. He has the popular sup- port and respect of a majority of the US R eagan once told a reporter that the population of all agaes and _ social classes. Many Canadians admire him as well. Reagan, in fact, seems to grow younger and more vigorous in the job. here is no other world leader who can possess his skills of human persuasion without seeming overbearing or tyran- nical. Reagan just comes across as a nice guy, who is full of good will. In that sense, he is a true statesman. Reagan has the potential to be, possibly one of the most effective world leaders in history. The timing, however, is off. Reagan is exactly the right man, but, like Patton, at exactly the wrong time. What is worst, he has assumed office just at the point when there is a strong backlash from a period of popular liberalism. It has left the United States nationalistic and prone to irrational and | simplistic patriotism. . When Ronald Reagan leaves office, it will likely have become a world of sharper class divisions, receding human rights and undoubtedly, two opposing piles of arms spiralling madly out of control. Perhaps that is why a remark made by sometimes activist Shirley MacLaine becomes hard to forget, once you hear it. ‘‘Ronald Reagan,”’ the actor said unequivocally, ‘‘is the most dangerous man in the world.”’ reprinted from Stephen Walker the Link