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Europe
Packs
a
Nuclear
Punch!
by
Gene H. Hogberg
New submarines and
long-range missiles show
France and Britain
developing as strategic
forces to be reckoned with.
B
EHIND
Soviet offers to
cut back on medium–
range missiles in Eu–
rope is Moscow's con–
cern over growing British and
French nuclear forces.
Soviet apprehensions were in–
tensified with an announcement
by the French Defense Min–
~
istry, on March 5 of this year,
~
that a French submarine had
~
successfully fired a multiple-
2
warhead missile over a distance of
6,000 kilometers (3,720 mi les).
The development surprised even
Western defense experts who be–
lieved tbat the range of the missi le,
the M-4, was closer to 4,000 kilo-
meters (2,480 miles).
The missile's greater
range will make France's
improving fleet of nuclear
submarines more secure
against detection and coun–
terattack by giving them a larger
area of ocean to hide in.
World's No. 3 Nuclear Power
The French have been spending
vast sums to develop and deploy
their own nuclear weapons systems.
T he British, on the other hand,
have elected to depend mostly on
American technology. Between
them, the two nations have 352
nuclear warheads- and could have
as many as 1,200 by the early to
mid-1990s.
France's program worries
Moscow the most. Quietly and
steadily, France has solidified its
position as the world's thi r d–
strongest nuclear power. In May
1985, the French
Force Oceanique
Strategique
unveiled its most ad–
vanced nuclear submarine, the
In–
flexible,
the first French sub
equipped with MIRYed (multiple
independently-targeted reentry ve–
hiele) missiles. The
Inflexible
can
fi re 96 warheads- 16 missiles with
six warheads each.
T he warheads from just this one
long- range submarine alone, ac–
cording to a report in the Summer
1984 issue of
Foreign Policy,
are
capable of destroying a good por–
tion of the Soviet industrial com–
plex while having severa! warheads
left over to attack key civilian and
military targets such as Moscow,
Murmansk, Leningrad, Stalingrad
and the missile-testing center at
Tyuratam.
Eventually France will field
seven missile-firing submarines
with a total of 592 warheads.
The British underwater nuclear
fleet continues to grow in power as
well. Britain is planning to con–
struct four new subma ri nes
equipped with the American-sup–
plied Trident II missiles. This wi ll
increase the British arsenal from
64 single-warhead Polaris missiles
to more than 500 and possibly close
to 1,000 warheads. (Each Trident
missile is capable of carrying from
eight to 17 warheads, depending on
the explosive force desired.)
No wonder the Soviets are con–
cerned- Americans should be as
well!
Encouragement from America
lt
would appear now that the
French and, secondarily perhaps,
the British strategic nuclear forces
will form the strategic nucleus of a
European "third force" in the fu–
ture. What if such awesome power
should someday fall under the con–
trol of unsavory quarters in a
united Europe, a Europe, more–
over, divorced from and at odds
with America?
Yet curiously, nota few voices in
America are encouraging the fur–
ther development of an independent,
united defense structure in Europe,
coupled with the phased withdrawal
of U.S. forces from the Continent.
In the Winter 1985-86 issue of
Foreign Policy,
American expert on
NATO, Christopher Layne, called
for what he called "MarshaJI Plan
JI." The original Marshall Plan, he
said, put Western Europe on its feet
economically after World War
ll.
Now it is time, Mr. Layne said, for
the United States to "complete its
historie postwar mission and devolve
to Western Europe and Japan full
responsibi lity for their own de–
fense." He maintains that the
United States should phase out its
forces in Europe, possibly over a 10-
year period.
About a year ago in the August
27
Wa/1 Street Journal,
an article
by J ay Winik advocated "the grad–
ual dissolution of the NATO al–
liance and the creation of an all–
European Defense Community."
Greater European self-defense,
added Mr. Winik, would further–
more act "as a symbol of a rejuve–
nated European cultural commu–
nity, the heir to the continent's
more than 1,000 years of common
cultural and religious ideals."
Continue to watch developments
in Europe as the nations of the
Continent move inexorably closer
economically, cuJturally and now
militarily, as well. o
The
PLAIN TRUTH