by Texe Marrs
Historians say that the combination of economic weakness and military strength invariably leads a nation to war. Such was the case of Germany when Hitler plunged the world into war, and such is now the case for the Soviet Union.
The USSR undeniably has the world’s premier military force. Its conventional forces are unparalleled, and its strategic might is at least equal—many say superior—to that of the United States. Yet, this military might has been assembled only at the expense of the economy, which borders on disaster. The perilous state of the economy and other severe internal problems will undoubtedly be the catalysts that induce Russia to decide on war. The Soviets will likely plot to solve their nation’s problems by seizing the incomparably rich assets of the lands that lie south of Russia: the Persian Gulf nations and the wealthy and technologically advanced state of Israel.
Most economists agree that the Soviet Union is potentially the richest nation on earth. This is a vast country of over 250 million people which occupies one-sixth of the earth’s land surface, stretching across the continents of both Europe and Asia. The USSR has the world’s largest cache of natural resources. Known reserves include over half the world’s coal deposits, 45 percent of its manganese, 60 percent of its potassium, 25 percent of its phosphates, and as much as one-third of all the world’s timberland.
Nevertheless, the Soviet economy is faltering and on the brink of disaster. Amidst a huge store of natural resources Soviet citizens are suffering great personal deprivation.
Soviet observers are well aware of the horrible problems that have surfaced in the Russian economy. Numerous articles in such prominent publications as the New York Times, Harper’s, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post have discussed these problems, and several excellent books have been published recently, most notably The USSR in Crisis by Marshall Goldman, The Crisis in the Soviet System by David Rousset, and Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams by David Shipler. These experts say that the economy is so bad and future prospects so bleak that the Soviet people have lost all faith in communism.
The bankruptcy of the Soviet system is evident when one considers that Moscow and its puppet states were forced during the 1970s to borrow $80 billion dollars from Western banks in a bid to stay solvent. Today, per capita consumption in the USSR is only one-third of that in the United States. The gross national product is actually declining, and in the 1980s the Soviet people are undergoing the worst times since Stalin’s death in 1953. This is a nation that once promised its people that, by this decade, their standard of living would be higher than that of Americans. Today, the Kremlin refrains from such boasts for the future. It—and its enslaved people—know the sad truth.
THE HUNGER PROBLEM
The failure of the Soviet leadership to solve the agricultural problem has been a particularly crushing blow to the Russian people. People can do without many consumer goods, especially “luxury” items like appliances and automobiles. But food is another matter. And in the Soviet Union today adequate food supplies are simply not available.
The inflexibility of a system in which the farmers work collectively for the state has played havoc with production levels. For most farmers, their only motivation is to get through with work as soon as possible each day. There is no incentive to produce because, on a collective farm, the state and not the individual farmer reaps benefits that accrue from diligent labor.
It is amazing but true that in the world depression years of 1934-38, the Soviet Union produced such a large agricultural surplus that it was able to export 5 percent of its grain harvest. (This is even more remarkable considering that in 1932-33 there was famine in the Ukraine.) Yet, in the 1980s, it is forced to import one-third of its grain from the West. This is an indication of how badly mismanaged is Soviet agriculture.
RUSSIA JOINS THE OIL BEGGARS
In addition to the utter failure of their agricultural program, the Soviets are faced with another problem: the end of an oil surplus. Until now the Soviet Union has imported only a small fraction of its oil from other nations. This has given the Soviet economy a great advantage over the Western economies. However, Russia’s advantage is now ending. Its supplies of oil are fast being depleted. Even now, the Soviet Union seeks to purchase natural gas from Iran and receives oil from Iraq in exchange for military arms and equipment. 1
The problem is not lack of oil but, rather, that the huge Soviet oil reserves are in difficult-to-get-at locations. The “easy to get” oil in Russia has already been extracted. In the future, oil can be produced only at great cost, using modern extraction techniques. Engineering problems caused by the horrible climatic and geographical conditions in northern Siberia, where the new oil exists, are worse than those experienced in development of America’s oil reserves in Alaska. Even if conditions were better, the poor attitude of the Soviet workers and the lack of drilling technology limit production.
Oil industry sources say that in oil exploration it takes the Soviet Union fourteen months to drill to 10,000 feet. American technology can accomplish this in thirty-four days. Thus, the cost to produce one barrel of oil in the USSR nearly exceeds the value of the oil produced!
The Soviets’ building of the Yamal Pipeline reflects their acute need for Western oil technology. This massive construction project will enable billions of cubic meters of natural gas to be piped 3,600 miles from remote Siberia to the populated centers of Russia and Western Europe. Predictably, the Russians did not have the $10 to $15 billion required to build this pipeline, which was to be the longest in the world, so they obtained financing from the countries of Western Europe. In exchange, the USSR promised to supply West Germany, France, and other European nations with gas upon completion of the project. The pipeline will not be completed until at least 1990. Even then, the new gas will barely make up for Russia’s depleted oil reserves.
A steady chorus of voices warns that the oil shortage may tempt the Soviets to invade the Middle East’s Persian Gulf region and thus acquire its vast energy supplies.
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger has frequently spoken out on the volatile situation that confronts the Soviet Union. In a speech given March 4, 1981, and reported through the media, Weinberger asserted that “the Soviet Union will almost certainly become a net energy importer.” The secretary warned that economic necessity is forcing the Soviets to seek access to the Persian Gulf region. 2
A DISILLUSIONED PEOPLE
The broken promises and dreams of their leaders have left many Soviet citizens demoralized and disillusioned. A large number have turned to alcohol to drown their troubles. Vladimir Trenl, a Duke University economist, has stated that alcohol consumption in the Soviet Union has more than doubled since 1955. The Soviet authorities themselves are alarmed over the magnitude of the alcohol problem. One Soviet journal, Young Communist, estimated that half the entire work force goes to work each day either drunk or suffering from a hangover. Other reports indicate that alcohol poisoning kills about 39,800 Russians annually, as compared to 400 Americans. No wonder worker productivity is declining!
For many people, alcohol is the only way a person can blot out the harsh realities—and failed promises of the Soviet regime.
The silent revolt of the masses is also manifested in other ways. Crime is on the upswing throughout the USSR. Soviet newspapers complain about the lack of public order and say that the police appear helpless to prevent lawlessness. In Pravda in 1984 a commentator stated that the government is pursuing a vigorous campaign in workplaces against “absenteeism, loafing, and late arrivals at work.”
A growing number of Soviet citizens are simply deciding that life in Russia isn’t worth living. Western experts say that the suicide rate in the Soviet Union is nearly five times as high as that in the United States. The Soviet government refuses to report the actual figures. However, the United Nations does have statistics for other Soviet bloc countries. These figures show that Communist nations Romania, Hungary, and East Germany have the highest suicide rates in the e
ntire world. Communist atheism has not proved an answer for these depressed peoples of Russia and the countries it holds captive; they see only death as an answer.
THE STRENGTH OF THE SOVIET BEAR
History instructs us that a nation beset internally by political and economic problems is often tempted to divert its people’s attention by embarking on a war against others. War is a uniting force that would engage the energies of all the Soviet peoples. Considering the military balance now existing, the Soviet bear will have a decided advantage in the one place experts believe war is most likely: the Middle East.
In his 1982 report to Congress on “The U.S. Military Posture,” Gen. David Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned that while the United States can take action in the Middle East, “We cannot guarantee the outcome.” Jones also reported that even if the U.S. sprinted to improve its defense posture, “the Soviet advantage cannot be offset in a year or even a decade.” 3 Other experts are more blunt: They say the U.S. cannot win a war in this region. I agree. For the foreseeable future, this is absolutely the wrong place for the U.S. to fight a war. Let’s discuss the reasons why.
Lack of U.S. Manpower. The Soviet Union has seven airborne and twenty-nine ground divisions (7,000 to 13,000 men each) available for combat in the Middle East. That makes for a grand total of approximately 350,000 troops. The Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) of the United States has at most about 15,000 troops of its 82nd Airborne Division, the 18,000 men assigned to the 101st Airmobile Division, and two amphibious Marine divisions of nearly 20,000 each, a total of about 53,000. Advantage for Russia: about 7 to 1. In addition, the Russians have over 800 combat aircraft in this region (versus 170 the U.S. has on aircraft carriers), and massive reinforcements are less than a thousand miles distant.
The Russians know they will need this huge advantage. The valiant soldiers, airmen, seamen, and Marines of the U.S. will not give up without a fight. Declared Marine Lt. Gen. P. X. Kelley, commander of America’s front-line forces targeted for a Middle East conflict, “I’m not going to say whether we’ll win, lose, or draw, but it will be a hell of a fight, I’ll assure you.” 4 Air Force Gen. Robert Mathis said recently, “Each side will beat each other to a pulp.” 5
The Distance Factor. The Soviets are only a country away from the Middle East. The U.S. is separated by oceans and thousands of miles. Two-thirds of the outnumbered U.S. contingent would have to be airlifted from Kentucky and North Carolina in the U.S.—some seven thousand miles away. It would take two weeks and as much as a month to mobilize, load, and inject the bulk of these troops into the battle zone. Meanwhile, the Marine Corps troops would have to be brought in from Diego Garcia, an island base twenty-two hundred miles distant. Less than 2,000 are at sea at any given time. Once there, they would have available only light weapons. The Soviet Union has about 105,000 troops across the border in Afghanistan, four hundred miles from the vital Persian Gulf, and the remainder of its sizable armies lie just across the Iranian border in the Soviet homeland. The Soviet divisions could employ heavy tanks, artillery, armored vehicles, and other military hardware. Soviet air bases are also close by, giving the Soviets air superiority regardless of the better quality high-tech aircraft possessed by America.
The USSR has been preparing its forces in the region for war for a long time. Roads and highways to the borders have been built. British military observer Geoffrey Warhurst has stated, “The USSR did not spend twenty-five years and millions of dollars on roads and highways only so that one day it could take Afghanistan.”
Soviet Enrichment. The Soviet Union has the capability of locking the beleaguered, outmanned U.S. forces in a vise grip. As former Army Chief of Staff General William C. Westmoreland has remarked, “The Russian moves on the chess board give every indication that the Soviet Union plans to encircle the oil-producing area of the Persian Gulf.” Just north of the Middle East lies the Soviet colossus itself; to the east is Afghanistan, a Soviet-controlled nation; southward are Soviet allies Ethiopia and Southern Yemen, and, due west, pro-Soviet Libya. It is very likely that in this war Iran would be an ally of Russia, so this will permit the Russian armies to begin their attack from an even closer vantage point.
Soviet Blitzkrieg Tactics. The element of surprise is very important to military victory, and the history of warfare shows that most nations that start wars win them. The world would undoubtedly be startled at the blitzkrieg strike by the Soviet forces. Surprise and blitzkrieg are tactics practiced to perfection by Soviet armed forces. On January 2, 1980, Soviet commandos landed at the airport of Kabul, the Afghan capital. Airport authorities had been advised only that the Soviet transport aircraft arriving early that morning carried supplies and military equipment for the Afghan army—a part of the Soviet military aid program. The unsuspecting airport officials were shocked when the elite Soviet troops, armed to the teeth and riding in armored personnel carriers, burst forth from the huge aircraft and drove hurriedly away.
In only a few more minutes, the commandos had seized the nearby government residence of Premier Hafizullah Amin, as well as the Kabul radio station and key military sites in the capital. Amin, his family, and his entire cabinet were summarily executed. Within days, every major Afghan city had fallen to the heavy Russian armor and tanks that followed the initial commando raid. Afghanistan was at the mercy of the Russian invaders.
So the Soviets forewarned the world of their ability to carry on a carefully planned and executed lightning-quick attack on a coveted target. We can be sure that the petroleum-laden lands of the Middle East will in a few years fall victim to the Soviets just as easily as did Afghanistan in 1980.
The Navy Equation. No longer can the United States count on mastery of the seas. This is especially true in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf areas near the Middle East. In 1981, Adm. Thomas Hayward, the top commander in the U.S. Navy, told a congressional committee that our navy is “overexposed and underinsured. Our margin of comfort is totally gone. We are operating at the ragged edge of adequacy.” 6 That same year former Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., wrote an article for International Security Review entitled, “Naval Battles We Could Lose.” 7 In it, he stated that the Soviets could successfully conduct a “short-grab” war in the Middle East in which the Russian naval forces provide the margin of victory. Stressing that “the U.S. Navy’s position deteriorated dramatically during the last decade,” Zumwalt said that it would take ten to fifteen years to fully upgrade the U.S. Navy, and he encouraged the U.S. to move quicker than that to fix the problem.
In the past few years, our national leaders have heeded the warnings of men like Zumwalt and Hayward. Improvements have been made. But the Soviets also continue to improve their naval forces in the sea-lanes off the Middle East landmass. In the coming war, the once mighty U.S. Navy would face a formidable foe.
The Soviet Nuclear Edge. Russia now has nuclear superiority over the U.S. in most categories. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Department of Defense, here are comparisons for just a few key measures:
In Cuba, President John F. Kennedy forced Moscow to back down because of unchallenged U.S. nuclear superiority. Today, the Soviets lead in launchers (2,527 to the U.S.’s 1,937) and in explosive power (5,300 to our 3,220 megatons).
In the coming war, once the U.S. is forced to use nuclear weapons to prevent total defeat of its brave but outmatched contingent of ground forces, the resulting escalation will lead to major, all-out nuclear exchanges.
But, could the Soviets be the first to employ nuclear weapons? Listen to the actual words of two Soviet military leaders, Gen.-Maj. N. Sushko and Col. S. A. Tyushkevicha. In 1965—over twenty years ago, when the U.S. still had nuclear superiority—these two Soviet strategists wrote these words in the Russian journal Marxism-Leninism on War:
Bourgeois [United States] ideologists distort the question of the possible results of a thermonuclear war. They assert that in a modern
war, there will be neither victories nor victors. Marxism-Leninism refutes these inventions and proves that in spite of the colossal sacrifices and losses which all the peoples of the world will suffer, the war will end with the destruction of imperialism. 8
Over the years civilian Communist leaders in the USSR have repeatedly assured us that Russia loves peace and would never be the first to use nuclear bombs. But in Soviet military circles and within the policy-making councils of the Kremlin, the official philosophy expressed in 1965 by Sushko and Tyushkevicha still prevails. Nuclear war is winnable—so the party chiefs and military brass believe.
A series of studies by the U.S. Department of Defense and reported by Richard Foster, head of the Strategic Studies Center, in 1982, came to these important conclusions:
The Soviets are serious about winning a global nuclear war.
The Soviet doctrine for victory calls for a surprise, pre-emptive, nuclear strike followed by a short but violent and decisive war. 9
Thus, the Soviets may well choose to launch a preemptive nuclear missile and bomber attack on the U.S. homeland, the theory being that a surprise first strike may leave the U.S. so crippled that it cannot mount an effective counterattack. The Middle East ground and air invasion will be launched simultaneously.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE NEW MILITARY POWERS—EUROPE, CHINA, AND JAPAN
We have left behind us the bipolar world in which two superpowers—the U.S. and the USSR—dominated and every country on earth fell in either of the two superpowers’ camps. Instead, we have today a number of power centers—nations or combinations of nations—each of which has the potential to act independently to exert its will. These power centers include the giants of the East, Japan and China, and the nations of a revived Europe: West Germany, Britain, France, Italy, and others.
