European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 10, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes monday March 10, 1986 columns Jim Fain each service fighting for its own weapons systems our most effective nuclear deterrent is the one you hear least about submarines. It would be Nice to think this is due to Security but in the Pentagon s Snake pit of interservice politics few secrets arc leak proof. The Navy downplays its subs not to hide them from the russians but because its admirals Are in love with surface ships. For years our subs have been Able to wipe out soviet cities. Soon they will get a More accurate missile the d-5, capable of destroying soviet missiles in their silos. Though president Reagan still talks of shielding . Cities with his strategic defense initiative the people in charge of it arc either less naive or More honest. They acknowledge that s impossible and say Star wars is designed to protect our land based missiles from soviet attack. But submarine launched missiles already Are attack proof until some new technology is invented. The Tri Dent Fleet with its new d-5 missile will be Invulnerable for years to come. That s Why building my missiles to put into vulnerable silos was an outrageous waste and Why there was William f. Buckley no need to produce a is As an interim measure until the new stealth bomber comes on line. No one suggests Trident ii subs with d-5 missiles will last forever. Defences May overtake them. But the theological insistence of the Pentagon on simultaneously upgrading All three legs of what it Calls the triad land based missiles submarines and bombers is a luxury we Don t need. We continue producing redundant new systems Pri Marily because each service fights for its own. The air Force wants land based and cruise missiles plus bomb ers. The army goes for exotic new anti aircraft systems. Submarines end to sell themselves and anyway most admirals Are surface and air people. The Navy pushes the 600-ship Fleet. And then there s Star  meanwhile our ability to fight the dirty Little wars that Are our most Likely threat continues to deteriorate. Last year we spent a smaller percentage of the defense budget on operations and maintenance than we have in 20 years. Now looms austerity after Caspar Weinberger s four year $1.2 trillion Binge of throwing Money at defense. Even with the $6.3 billion in unspent appropriations the Pentagon has Squirrel led away there will be some pain in 1986 before Gramm Rudman is Jetti soned. Virtually All the cuts will be made in operational readiness. The services will stretch out procurement of some of their exotic pets but will refuse to kill them. Even before Gramm rude Nan the Georgetown Center for strategic and International studies forecast a reduction in conventional capability of at least 25 percent because of new weapons Cost. Now it May be worse. This is a crazy Way to run defense but it s what happens when you have autonomous services competing in the free spending environment Weinberger and Rea Gan have encouraged. If Congress were not such an inefficient political animal it might be Able to help. Even so it could Only deny funding to programs. It could not manage or plan. That s an executive not a legislative role. The ultimate answer should be a joint defense staff with a single chief reporting to a no nonsense Secretary and a president with a strategic overview. Meantime let s at least understand that attacking the waste we be been experiencing can be patriotism not Wim piness. C new York times Reagan support for Sav Imbi comes As no Surprise the headline in the International her Ald Tribune is african leaders Are baffled by Reagan s embrace of Sevim  there is a great Deal going on in Africa that ought to baffle african Lead ers including genocide starvation and no colonialism. But no they elect to be baffled by Reagan s Public decision to help Sav Imbi a Freedom fighter in an Gola who already dominates one third of angolan territory and is determined to dominate the whole country. Sav Imbi is publicly committed to two objectives. The first is the ouster of 40,000 cuban soldiers who have maintained the marxist dictatorship in an Gola since 1975, and who transmit to the reigning Junta instructions from Moscow. The second is to hold democratic elections. Nine african leaders were summoned to a meeting in Harare Zimbabwe. It was there that they expressed their Dis May Over Sav Imbi s meeting Reagan. One would think they could profitably have used their time by expressing their dismay Over Zimbabwe. It is there that in the name of Freedom and Equality the government of Robert Mugabe was established. As recently As last november prime minister Mugabe announced his Devotion to a one party state in Zimbabwe the entire collectivity oriented to marxist ideals. African leaders have had some experience with african states oriented toward marxist ideals most recently in Ethiopia which required a worldwide conscription of Rock singers to prevent uni Versal starvation. The african leaders did have a Point in contrasting the policies of the Reagan administration in Angola and in Mozambique. Both Are marxist dictatorships but there is a salient difference unremarked by the leaders dispatch which is that Angola s dictatorship is not indigenously imposed. It is the creature of Cas Tro s Cuba. The Pride one so often sees reflected in the declarations of african leaders on the subject of their emancipation from the colonial Yoke for reasons a fathomed and perhaps unfathomable simply pays no notice to soviet imperialism at work in Angola in Ethiopia and of course worldwide. Zimbabwe s foreign minister is quoted As protesting Sav Imbi s meeting with president Reagan in a statement that an distributed by King features Syndicate relax congressmen they milled overt bounced resignedly that that action must once again Call into doubt the sincerity and indeed the morality of those within the present american administration who claim that their Only goal in Southern Africa is the achieve ment of peace Justice and Equality for  really those Are what they used to Call fighting words. The states of Angola Botswana Lesotho Malawi Mozambique Swaziland Tanzania Zambia and Zimbabwe All but one of them one party states though Zimbabwe has not quite yet achieved despotism through no fault of its Leader Don t have a great Deal to teach the United states about the search for peace Justice and Equality. They do however have a great Deal to teach the United states about the utter Fatu Ity of declarations by most third world leaders when talking about . Policy or for that matter when talk ing about a great Many matters. It is difficult to think of a single presi Dent of the United states who did not at least once in his term enunciate . Goals of aiding those who sought to resist colonization by the soviet Union. We began with the theory of containment the soviet Union s frontiers cannot be extended. Well directly and indirectly they have been extended in Southeast Asia in the Caribbean in Africa and in Afghanistan. We did More merely than to help to provision those who resisted that imperialism. We ourselves fought in Korea and achieved a stalemate. And we fought in Vietnam and lost. But the african leaders Are not be moaning american inconstancy in indo China. They appear to be saying that our willingness to help angolans achieve the Freedom from colonialism that they achieved from Portugal Only to lose it to Castro is evidence of american hypocrisy. We do Well to ask Why it was that portuguese Dominion Over Angola was resented not so soviet cuban Dominion Over Angola. But Here we run into yet again the greatest Paradox of the Post War years the relative immunity of the soviet Union from criticism for its barbarities combined with the relentless criticism of the United states for its endless efforts however Clumsy to help the peo ple of the world protect themselves against the Black plague made in mos cow whose fruit is intrigue tyranny Tor Ture and starvation