—

a

 

threw it

_ pons etc.,
you anywhere? The-idea of |

i
a

November 25, 1982

The Other Press

 

 

DISARMAMENT PLAUSIBLE?

oy Warren Laine |

As I surblied up Gra ville
street last Saturday, my head
filled with thoughts of my
waiting luncheon date at
Pacific Centre, I was stopped
by a very casually dressed
girl bearing an armful of
bright orange pamphlets;
one of which, she handed
me. Upon opening it, I was
faced with a bold headline
announcing a Disarmanent
demonstration in Vancouver.

I laughed, screwed it up,
into an awaiting
garbage bin, and met my
luncheon date.

Disarmanent. It’s a fanci-
ful dream, void of any intel-
ligent thought, but that’s as
far as it goes, a dream. The
notion of Disarmanent comes
no where near a_ plausible
reality. It is fun (I have been
told), to parade, chant, and
protest against nuclear wea-
but is it getting

_disarmanent is a_ hopeless

_ dream, first due to the fact
that no government would,
and second because there is
no way to dispose of the
_ weapons that’ would- be lay-
‘ing about.

| Many arms limitation trea-
‘ties have been signed and
resigned, but, as we see,
they do no good, no: one is
really honouring them be-
cause, they are, in fact, only
pieces of paper. Govern-
ments are not willing, and
rightfully so, to jeopardise

their national security by
getting rid of their nuclear
weapons. Though: they can
not be used, they do play an
important part in modern
day coercion and deterence
in the international system.
The idea is to use the
weapons in the pretense that
you will use them, even
though you could never do
so; ‘you must make the
enemy think you would, be-

cause they never know #f and
when you might use them
and if you really would.
With this notion of arms
reduction or disarmanent,
we have to take into consid-
eration the idea of ‘trust’.
Sure, you can sign away all
your nuclear weapons in a
treaty, but what stops your
adversary from going back
home, and after you’ve dis-
armed, pushing the button

 

on you? Nothing whatsoever.
The second problem with
the notion of disarmanent is
one of how you plan to
dispose of the weapons.
Already, the storage of nu-
clear wastes is a world-wide
problem. Even with the
wastes properly sealed and
buried miles underground, it
has been proven that they
will leak out and get into our
ecosystem. What we have to

- elastic

form of intelligence.
maybe a bit in your dreaming,

understand i is that any radio-
active material, wherever we
put it, will be here a lot
longer than we will; so there
is no way of getting rid of it
at all. O.K., some may say
that we should shoot it into
outer space; with what,
bands? Do you
realize how much a rocket
costs! to build and then to
launch? They don’t come
back to be reused either you
know! With this in mind,
how are we supposed to get
rid of the weapons. on this
planet? (Weapons that con-
tain enough TNT for every
man, woman, and child, to
receive five tons in their |
stockings this Christmas.) It
cannot be done.. Weapons
don’t just vanish into thin
air.

There never will be any
disarmanent. It is not plau-
sible on any level. So go on,
carry your signs, protest,
and think your fanciful no-
tions. You may get a good
tan on a sunny day, but that
is all; you’re not using any
Well,

ides CH,

¥ Ave Cry Ss
‘Se Ss

 

 

 

 

 

NUCLEAR BU

by Annette Murray

The United States is con-
tributing to its nuclear proli-
feration to preserve its domi-

nant economic position
through political and mili-
tary means.

The irrationality of nuclear
proliferation can be under-
stood in terms of the decline
of the American economy
and the fact that the relative-
ly high level of military
spending both reflects and
reinforces this decline. The
three hypotheses that sup-
port this thesis are the
following: 1)an increase in
procurement of arms is a res-
ponse to economic decline;
2)the procurement of arms
has an independent momen-
tum; 3)an increase in

 

 

 

 

procurement of arms acceler-
ates economic decline.
After World War II, the
U.S. was faced with an econ-
omic decline based on the
decline of dominant indus-
tries, for instance, the chal-
lenge to railways and ships
made by automobiles and

the present challenge of tele-
communications. The decline
of dominant industries was

also related to the rise of
technological competitors,

Germany and Japan; the in-
crease in foreign investment,
aS money sought new mar-
kets and faster-moving sec-
tors;and the accompanying

deteriorating balance of
trade. When dominant
industries, such as the aero-
space industry began to
decline after the war, the
U.S. chose to save many of

DUP

SPELLS ECONOMIC DECLINE

them through arms prolifer-
ation, an activity fueled by
the Cold War ‘“‘image.”’
Therefore, the main contrac-
tors for weapons systems
tended to be found in declin-
ing industrial sectors.
As a consequence of the
fact that the government is
the chief consumer of nuc-
lear arms, which are manu-
factured by relatively few
firms, nuclear weapons are
successively more expensive
and elaborate, rather than
cheaper and more simple.
Arms companies can afford
to be cost-maximizers rather
than cost-minimizers be-
cause the system of contract-
ing is such that profits are
awarded as a fixed percent-
age of costs.

It is a recognized fact that
as*a product becomes more

expensive and elaborate, the
manufacturing process be-
comes more specialized and
complex. As the manufactur-
ing process becomes more

specialized, arms manufac-
turers become increasingly
dependent on military orders
from governments. As the

manufacturing capacity be-
comes more complex, it ex-
pands and more orders are

required to maintain employ-
ment and maximize profits;
therefore, military orders or
arms exports must rise.
Nuclear arms proliferation

accelerates economic decline
because resources diverted
to military purposes yield
less return in terms of tech-
nical progress in the civilian
sector than resources devot-
ed to civilian purposes
directly. The nature of tech-

nology is such that any tech-
nology over its lifespan gives
increasing performance for
costs in its early growth
phase and falling returns
during its maturation. This
theory can be applied to the
technology of a whole indust-
ry as well as to a particular
product. Evidence suggests
that the phase of diminishing
returns has been reached by
the military technologies.
It is argued that new tech-
nical discoveries made in the
military sector have spinoffs
in terms of technical pro-
gress in the civilian sector,
and that these spinoffs make
up for those losses due to
military spending because
the government can afford to
take greater risks and spend

 

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