There Will Be War Volume IV

by Jerry Pournelle

  The left would have us believe that that Soviet “Peace Committees” are genuine; that the Soviets preach peace and brotherhood to their own peoples. The truth is far different. The Soviet Union is one of the most militaristic states in history. One of their largest youth organizations is the Voluntary Society for Cooperation with the Army, Air Force, and Navy. The Pioneers (ages 9-15) and the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) conduct annual summer war games. Military science is a compulsory subject in ninth and tenth grade; nor are these recent phenomena instituted in reaction to President Reagan. All this began in 1979, prior to the invasion of Afghanistan, when “tensions” were supposed to be relaxed.

  Arthur Koestler said it in 1946: the legitimacy of the Soviet state is based on the isolation of the Soviet people, who are ceaselessly bombarded with the notion that the USSR is constantly at war with the outside world. Koestler believed the only way to “ease tensions” would be to open the iron curtain: allow Soviet citizens free access to foreign journals, books, films, and newspapers; allow free access of western journalists to Russian territory; abolish restrictions on foreign travelers in Soviet territory; and allow significant numbers of Soviet citizens to travel in the West.

  The Helsinki accords were supposed to bring about these free exchanges, to increase the sum of “human rights” enjoyed in the Soviet Union. The agreements were instead a cruel hoax, whose major accomplishment has been to send to jail those few Soviet citizens courageous enough to try to monitor their government’s compliance with a treaty it had accepted.

  Brunner would, I suppose, reply by saying “you’re another,” and flippantly refer to the U.S. refusal to allow Khrushchev to visit Disneyland; then invoke the name of Senator McCarthy—as if McCarthy ever sent anyone to a labor camp to be worked to death.

  Indeed, it is this assumption of symmetry between the US and USSR that I find so dismaying. The story of the Vietnamese village that had to be destroyed in order to save it is probably apocryphal; at least I can find no primary reference to it. Apocryphal or not, the story caused a stir in the West, and the action was roundly condemned. Have stories of Soviet atrocities in Afghanistan been condemned in Russia? Have they even been published there? Yet we need not strain to find examples of Afghan villages where there was no pretense of “saving” them. They were merely destroyed by bombs and machine guns.

  Today’s paper brings new horror. The New York Review of Books quotes the Helsinki Watch report on Afghanistan: a tale of two brothers, aged 90 and 95, both blind, who remained in their village when everyone else fled the Soviet coming. The Russians tied dynamite to their backs and blew them up.

  The report speaks of “civilians burned alive, dynamited, beheaded; bound men forced to lie down on the road to be crushed by Soviet tanks; grenades thrown into rooms where women and children had been told to wait.” All the mechanisms of terror are brought to bear.

  The British intervened in Afghan affairs in 1929. How is that relevant to Soviet barbarism in the 1980’s? Brunner equates these events. To do that, one must strain hard; one must desperately want to make that equation. Why?

  James Burnham once described liberalism as a philosophy to console the West while it commits suicide. Is this the rationale for refusing to see the evils of the Soviet system? If they’re not so bad; if, really, they’re just like us; if there’s no fundamental difference between U.S. and USSR, why, then, what’s the need for conflict? We are manipulated in any event; at worst, Moscow will pull the strings rather than Washington. Surely that wouldn’t be so bad? Is it not better to be red than dead?

  Deep inside we know better. Solzhenitsyn has told us; and before him, as early as 1950 Gustav Herling’s published accounts of the gulag were accepted by a wide spectrum of critics including Bertrand Russell. There may once have been a time when the sheer horror of the Soviet system was too great to be believed; but there can be no doubt today. Medvedev has estimated the death rates in Soviet labor camps as high as a million a year. Being red does not insure that you will not also be dead.

  By refusing to deal with the studied cruelty of the Soviet regime, Brunner robs it of its horrors—and thereby lowers the stakes considerably, for if his strategy fails, not so very much has been lost.

  Still: would his strategy work? Brunner asks a legitimate question: what do nuclear weapons contribute to Britain’s defense? Wouldn’t it be better to scrap them and turn to a militia system modelled after the Swiss? Would not the Soviets then hold their hand? They would have no incentive to use nuclear weapons, yet an invasion would be costly.

  Implementing the new defense would not be simple. A “Swiss style” defense would bring great changes in the way the British live. Firearms are rare in Britain; you must have a police permit to own even a .410 shotgun. Under the Swiss militia system the entire populace would have not merely the right, but the obligation, to keep military weapons and ammunition in their homes. There are, however, plenty of precedents. British yeomen were required to learn military arts and keep bows and other weapons throughout Tudor times and after. Let the Britons have weapons, and learn the arts of guerrilla war. Will not England, and Scotland, and Wales become, in Brunner’s words, “an indigestible lump” in their Empire?

  Perhaps; but there is a large element of wishful thinking in the analysis. Guerrilla wars and passive resistance are seldom effective against a sufficiently determined power. When protestors lie in the path of a British train or tank, the vehicle halts until the protestor is removed. Russian drivers may not be so squeamish. In the days of George I the highlands were held by armed bands no less dedicated to freedom than today’s Englishman; but Scotland was pacified all the same. Ruthless measures ruthlessly applied generally succeed. Thich Tri Quang, the Buddhist monk who gathered so many headlines that U.S. analysts seriously believed no government could be formed without his cooperation, was last seen, without his robes, cleaning sewers for the Tonkinese conquerors of Saigon. Afghanistan is a rugged land defended by rugged people; but it has not proved to be the “Soviet Vietnam.” Genocide is a terribly effective technique of digestion.

  Still in all, nuclear weapons are expensive and provocative. There’s little that Britain can do with such weapons; why not discard them? In 1960 Liddell Hart suggested that Europe abandon nuclear defense in favor of greatly strengthened conventional forces. Western Europe has a decided advantage over the Soviet Union in both population and economic strength. Let the European powers build their armies.

  Although popular in Britain, this suggestion was not welcomed by the French and Germans, who had no desire to have their homes again become a battleground. Even if Europe could win a conventional war, could they stand against Soviet tactical nuclear weapons? Despite Brunner’s protests, nuclear weapons can be decisive if one side has them and the other does not. What would prevent the Soviets from using them? Something more was needed.

  The “something more” was an American commitment; but in an era of nuclear sufficiency, when both the U.S. and the USSR have enough thermonuclear firepower to destroy the world a dozen times over, the American commitment is irrational. Eisenhower’s doctrine was simple: we would meet any Soviet threat to Europe with “massive retaliation at a time and place of our own choosing.” That made sense only in an era of overwhelming U.S. superiority. It doesn’t now, which is why France insists on its own independent nuclear deterrent.

  For thirty years the doctrine of Mutual Assured Deterrence has required us to build weapons of vengeance rather than defense. Even as I write this, American officers sit ready to launch weapons designed to kill helpless Soviet civilians, men, women, and children alike. It is a situation no less repugnant to me than it is to Brunner; but so long as we are locked to the doctrine of MAD we have no choice.

  As accuracies increase and our strategic offensive forces become more vulnerable, MAD leads us, eventually, to launch on warning as the only way to protect the force. That is a frightening prospect. Unilateral disarmament is one path away from that dread end,
but that path leads to the gulag. There is a better alternative.

  The Strategic Defense Initiative, “Star Wars” if you will, offers a real alternative to MAD. Assured survival will not easily be achieved; but it is feasible, and moves us in the right direction, toward a time when the ICBM, and perhaps all nuclear weapons, become impotent and obsolete without the sacrifice of liberty.

  Editor's Introduction to:

  A LETTER FROM THE SOVIET UNION

  by Alexander Shatravka

  Communism is brutal, but not all those who become Communists begin as brutes. Thousands have joined for the highest of motives. Whittaker Chambers was one of these. He served the Party well, but like many others he found there comes a time when you hear the screams; and then you must choose.

  In 1982 Alexander Shatravka was arrested for his activities in the unofficial Group To Establish Trust Between the USSR and USA. Although the petition he circulated was not significantly different from the “official” peace organization’s documents, Shatravka was charged with slandering the Soviet nation.

  This letter reached the United States in Fall, 1984; as of Spring, 1985, no further word on his condition has been recorded.

  A LETTER FROM THE SOVIET UNION

  by Alexander Shatravka

  Greetings, dear friends:

  I want to hope that my letter reaches you, so that you can understand something about my situation in the camp. I consider further silence on my part to be stupid, in that it can only further untie the hands of several officials of the camp. I will begin in order.

  I arrived in the camp on Feb. 3, 1984, completely healthy. On Feb. 4, 36 of us were put in a strict regime education division where, with the full permission of the camp administration, we were put under the authority of “prisoner-activists.” From the first day, we were beaten by individuals or groups of five. On Feb. 4, I was beaten only because I could not march in step, raising my legs to 30 centimeters (after 19 months of prison). On Feb. 8, I was summoned to camp headquarters to the chief of the punishment detail, Lt. Dulatbaev, where I was beaten. Dulatbaev grabbed me by the ears and beat the back of my head against the wall. My face was blue from bruises. During all of this, he said that he was ready to kill me, cut me up into pieces. He called me a traitor and after this I was put in the punishment isolator where I spent two days and became very ill. From Feb. 13 to 27, I was in the sanitary department with pneumonia and from March 7, I was put under special supervision and expected to report every two hours as one who was inclined to escape. On March 4, we all stood without hats and coats in the strong wind and falling snow for more than two hours by orders of one of the bosses of the division who wanted to know who was guilty of tearing two pages out of the sanitary journal. In February, Pavel Lapko, 21 years old, died of meningitis. He arrived in the division with us healthy.

  I have been in the ninth detachment since March 14. The detachment is overcrowded. We sleep three to a bunk. In the camp, there rages a cult of violence, the prisoners are beaten literally for any trifle and particularly for failure to fulfill the work plan, whether this is for sewing production or making nets. Also, in the camp they have begun exercise drills. They demand that after work, the prisoners stand and hold up their left leg extended for several minutes and then their right leg. Those who can’t do it are beaten by the prisoner activists. In the division, these prisoners forced me to lean at a steep angle with my head against the wall and with my hands against the wall so that my head pressed against the wall in the bitter cold.

  I landed in the 94th brigade for the knitting of big nets of synthetic fiber for vegetables. The norm was six nets in eight hours. We worked from six in the evening until two in the morning. The norm was very high and so the majority of prisoners were forced to knit in their non-working hours, devoting to this another six to eight hours. For failure to fulfill the norm, the foreman several times deprived us of a day’s sleep so that in the daytime, we knitted nets. When I and another prisoner mentioned this to the brigade leader of the prisoners, I was summoned to the brigade captain, Dosnatov, who regarded my indignation as anti-Soviet agitation and said that as long as I was in the Soviet Union and not the United States, I would knit nets without any conversation. I several times asked the camp administration to be transferred to any other type of work but each time, I was refused.

  On May 31, 1984, I was summoned to the boss of the detachment (I don’t know his last name). He locked the door of his office and began to beat me savagely. With blows, he knocked the wind out of me, he kicked me in the groin and then in the skull and continued to beat me for a long time. He gave me to understand that this is the way it would be every day that I did not fulfill the work norm. Leaving him, I was received by the boss of camp. Col. Bakhaev, but he refused my request to be transferred to other work. In despair, not seeing any way out of the situation, I tried to kill myself, stabbing myself in the side. After I was given medical aid, I fell into the hands of the chief of one of the divisions, Dulatbaev, who knowing all of the most vulnerable parts of a man began to beat me. He beat me several times around the neck from which I fell and lost consciousness. He clapped both of his hands on my ears from which began a powerful ringing. He choked me and beat me along the organs of my body, accompanying all this with insults. I was then put for 15 days in the punishment isolator where, despite the filth, parasites, meager food and limited amount of water, I nonetheless was able to recover psychologically. Everything which goes on in the camp resembles one of those films which shows the tortures given by the Gestapo.

  On leaving the punishment isolator, I began spitting up bloody phlegm. The doctors diagnosed a worsening of pneumonia. I was given intensive treatment for 14 days during which I received more than 60 injections. Thanks to the doctors, I am now in the sanitary department of the camp. However, my lungs worry me. (There is a very high percentage of prisoners in the camp suffering from tuberculosis.)

  And so that is my situation. I consider that to remain silent about this any longer is impossible. I don’t receive letters, except from home. How my situation in the camp will be from now on I don’t know. They constantly threaten to give me a new sentence when I finish my present sentence.

  Alexander Shatravka

  Camp 158/3

  Zhanatas, Kazakhstan

  USSR

  Editor's Introduction to:

  EMERGENCY RATIONS

  by Theodore Cogswell

  Most military activity is boring. “They also serve, who only stand and wait,” said John Milton; a truism that every soldier and sailor knows.

  “No man would go to sea who could possibly contrive to go to jail,” said Samuel Johnson. “Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.” The Navy sees things differently. Robert Heinlein said of his choice of Annapolis over West Point, “At sea you may risk being drowned, but until they get you there’s enough to eat and a bed to sleep in.”

  When asked the secret of his great successes in battle, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forest said “I gets there firstest with the mostest.” It’s a good formula; alas, all too often the advice is not followed. A small patrol or probe is sent; the enemy hasn’t been active in the area for years…

  In the early days of World War II the U.S. Navy made use of civilian construction workers (CB’s) to build bases and air strips. They weren’t supposed to fight, but they often found themselves under fire. Ted Cogswell postulates a time in the far future when civilians are once again called upon to hold against an unexpected attack, and face dangers far greater than boredom and bad cooking.

  EMERGENCY RATIONS

  by Theodore Cogswell

  “The obvious base for offensive operations is this deserted little system here.”

  Kat Zul, the Supreme Commander of the Royal Zardonian fleet stabbed one tentacle at a point on the star map.

  “Once we are established there, the whole Solar flank lies open to us. We can raid here—and here—and here,” he indicated sector afte
r sector, “and they will never be able to assemble enough ships in one spot to stop us. What do you think, Sire?”

  The Gollen patted his corpulent belly. “There will be good eating. Mind you save the fattest for the royal kitchen.” Orange saliva drooled from the corners of both his mouths. “Roasted haunch of human three times a day. How delightful! Remind me to invite you in for dinner some night after you get back.”

  “Thank you, Sire. I will order reconnaissance patrols out at once. If all is clear, we can begin construction of a base within the month. Once our heavy armament is installed, we will be impregnable. You will eat well then, O Mighty One!”

  The Gollen of Zardon burped happily, closed his eye, and dreamed of dinner.

  A week later a fast courier came screaming back with news of trouble. The Supreme Commander took one good look at the report, grabbed the photographs that came with it, and rushed in to see the Gollen.

  “The system is already occupied, Sire! By humans!”

  “Fine, send me a brace of plump ones at once.”

  “Your forgiveness, Highness, but that is impossible. We can’t get at them. They have erected a space station, a heavy Z type with protective screens that can stop anything we throw at them. I have blockading squadrons around it now, but we must act quickly. They got an appeal for help off before we were able to blanket their transmitter.”

  The Gollen paled to a light mauve. “In that case,” he said softly, “I shall have you for dinner. If the humans gain control of that system, our whole flank lies open to them!”