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The Battle
for
CENTRAL EUROPE
by
Jetf Calkins
What is the
signific~nce
of the defense crisis m Europe?
T
HE TOPIC
dominating
the news in
E
u rope
1
s
de–
fense.
Big
changes
Ioom ahead.
Western Europe is
engaged in its most
fervent discussion of
military matters
since the re-arming
of West Germany
almost 30 years ago.
Because the military
power of Western
Europe figures so
prominently in Bible
prophecy,·
Plain
Truth
readers de–
serve an update.
Frightened Leaders
ican defense official ,
quoted by The Asso–
ciated Press.
Currently, the So–
viets have 250 SS-20s
targeted on Western
Europe and else–
where. By 1985, they
should reach 300.
The Soviet Union,
remembering World
War 11, has spent the
past decade building
up its military might
SOVIET TANKS on maneuvers. The Warsaw Pact enjoys an overwhelming
four-to-one superiority in tanks over NATO. Lates t Soviet weapons are
also equal in quality to those of NATO.
Another way to
look at the constant
tbreat hanging over
Western Europe is
the number of war–
heads each side has.
Eacb warhead has
many times the
power of the bomb
that destroyed Hiro–
shima. By counting
the warheads on the
older Soviet missiles,
as well as tbose of the
newer SS-20s, Euro–
pean leaders cannot
help but realize that
there are more than a
thousand nuclear
weapons targeted on
so as to be able to roll over any
American or European resistance.
The immediate cause of alarm
among
leadership
circles in Western
Europe is the awesome Soviet SS-20
missile. The SS-20 is a revolutionary
weapon.
It
comes with a portable
launcher, a 50-ton tractor-trailer,
which can be reloaded. Jt has three
nuclear warheads. It is deadly accu–
rate: capable of striking any airfield,
weapons depot or command head–
quarters. From bases in the Soviet
Union, it can hit anywhere in West–
ern Europe.
December 1981
Military planners believe the
highly accurate SS-20s are in–
tended to destroy NATO bases far
behind the front lines· of any inva–
sion. Of course, should an SS-20
warhead stray off target, it could
easily kili 50,000 civilians.
In the last year the Soviets have
"roughly doubled" the number of
war-ready SS-20s. In fact, the
Soviets fooled NATO intelligence,
which expected SS-20 production
to taper off in 1981. "They are
now going beyond the number we
projected in 1979," says an Amer-
their nations!
NATO doesn't really have opera–
tional medium-range missiles to bal–
ance the Soviet forces. NATO does
have tbe Pershing I missile, with a
comparatively short 400-mile range.
(The SS-20 has a range almost six
times as far.) NATO forces in
Europe do not have weapons that can
strike significantly deep into the
Soviet Union, according to the
defense official quoted by AP.
NATO' s Response
In 1979, faced with the awesome
Soviet lead in med ium range mis-
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