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What wi/1 the 1980s be like? What does the next decade ho/d in store? Few understand the
seriousness of the crises which Ioom immediately ahead.
T
HE DECADE
of the 1980s,
states lrving Kristol, writ–
ing in the
Wa/1 Street
Journal ,
"promises to be
an absolutely ghastly ·period."
Mr. Kristol is not alone in bis
gloomy prediction. London's
Econo–
mist
magazine declares in an edito–
rial:
"lt
is going to be a bumpy
1980s." And Lewis Lapham, editor
of
Harper 's,
laments, "As the decade
of the 1970s expires amidst a chorus
of recriminations, the prolonged anx–
iety of the past 1
O
years gives way to
a
fee/ing of pervasive dread"
(em–
phasis ours throughout) .
Herman Kahn, a professional "fu–
turologist" at the renowned Hudson
lnstitute in New York, says this
about the 1980s:
"1 foresee: Continued- perhaps
wild- inflation, prolonged uncer–
tainty in energy supply, a rash of
terrorism, nuclear saber rattling, a
rash of assassinations, an intense
confrontation between Russia and
China, a collapse of the Eurodollar
markets."
And Mr. Kahn is considered one of
the
optimists
in the futurology pro–
fession!
Will this avalanche of gloom
The sheer number of world crisis points is
astounding. In the Middle East {1). the
thorny issues ot a homeland for the Pales–
tinians and the status of Jerusalem remain
unsolved. Central Europe (2) is threatened
by overwhelming Soviet superiority in con–
ventional weapons. There is the grave
threat of Soviet interterence with oil travel–
ing through the Persian Gulf (3). one of the
reasons why the U.S.S.R. was tempted to
intervene in Atghanistan (4). The Soviets
have also moved in Ethiopia {5). Mozam–
bique {6) and Angola {7), al/ strategic
points on theMiddle East oil route. A cutoff
ot
011
would have a devastating impact on
Japan {8). The 1980s wi/1 also see the
vulnerability ot America 's ICBM missiles
{9), continued movement of vast amounts
ot oil through the Panama Canal {10),
potential lamine in India {11), war in the
Sahara { 12) and further war and starvation
in Cambodia {13). Al/ together, not a
reassuring picture ot /he 1980s.
March 1980
by
Jeff Calkins
descend on us? One way to know is to
understand this principie: the crises
of each decade are the product of key
events in the one immediately pre–
ceding.
This principie has held up since
World War
l.
Thus World War 1saw
the defeat and imposition of tough
reparations terms on Germany.
These in turn led to inflation and
unemployment in Germany in the
1920s, which led to Hitler in the
1930s.
In the English-speaking world,
World War 1 helped to lay the
economic foundation of th'e tremen–
dous cr.edit and monetary expansion
of the 1920s and "beggar-thy-neigh–
bor" attitudes toward international
trade.
Both led to the Great Depression
of the l930s, when credit was cut off
by the central banks, and nations
everywhere resorted to high tariffs to
keep out foreign goods.
World War 11, of course, was in
part a response to the Depression,
and in turn led to the economic
expansion and heavy emphasis on
international trade in the late 1940s
and 1950s. Soviet expansion at the
end of World War 11 created the
Cold War climate of the 1950s.
The 1960s were a worldwide reac–
tion to the Cold War as well as a
product of
boredom
which accom–
panied the prosperity of the '50s.
The 1960s thus became a kind of
shorthand for a time of rebellion,
riots, bombings, destruction of val–
ues, morals and traditions. Many
commentators now view the 1960s as
an "unmitigated social disaster."
The l970s saw the social revolutions
among the young of the 1960s
become the new status quo.
We must now ask: What was it
about the 1970s that will shape the
1980s? What was sown in the pre–
vious decade that will be reaped in
the next?
Wlnds and Whlrlwlnds
"For they have sown the wind,"
declares the prophet Hosea, "and
they shall reap the whirlwind ..."
(Hosca 8:7).
One of the most frightening as–
pects about what was sown in the
1970s is its parallel to what was sown
in the 1930s.
As a prosperous 1920s was fol–
lowed by the Depression of the
1930s, and world war in the 1940s, so
were the "go-go" economics of the
1960s followed by the "stagflation"
and "slumpflation" of the 1970s.
If
the pattern holds, in the 1980s there
will be WAR!
Just as the 1930s saw the incredi–
ble buildup of Adolph Hitler's mili–
tary machine, so did the 1970s see
the military strength of the Soviet
Union increase faster than anything
before it.
As the American Security Coun–
cil, a prestigious prívate organization
concerned with defense matters,
pointed out in 1977, "The Soviets are
spending three times as much of their
gross national product as the United
States-actually spending 50 per–
cent more than the United States for
arms.
Such a rapid and intense
armament program has not occurred
since Hitler's armament ofGermany
before World War
l/."
The same warning was made by the
former chief of U.S. Air Force lntelli–
gence, Maj .Gen. George Keegan, who
was interviewed by
The Plain Truth
at
the Washington headquarters of the
American Security Council : The
Soviet Union has made the "most
extensive military preparations" in
peacetime of any country in world
history. And Eugene Rostow, former
Under Secretary of State for Political
Affairs under Lyndon Johnson, called
theSoviet buildup "without parallel in
modern history."
Volees of
Warning
In the 1930s it seemed almost that
the lone voice on the world scene
warning of the Nazi buildup was that
of Winston Churchill. "1 say there is
a state of emergency. We are in
danger, as we have never been in
danger before," Mr. Churchill said
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