European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 02, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes William f. Buckley or. Soviets not Only foreign threat to . Security As is inevitable the complacent Community is inhaling Ever fresh dandelion within the soviet Empire As a reason to diminish our defense forces. The annual defense publication brought put by the Penta gon features on he cover. The military budget of the soviet Union for 1988? the net increase in soviet nuclear striking Power since signing the inf treaty 1 he defiant survivability of their afghan Stooge a i Bullah no we arc Given a picture of smiling soviet soldiers leaving Afghanistan. Granted inside the Book there Are the required data that remind us Why we Are spending $300 billion on defense. And when our commander in chief was questioned about the new look in our defense literature he said the right thing i want to have a prudent defense policy. I Don t want to do something naive or silly Indefenso just because we arc working More closely with the  but the mood is out there and we Are tasting the Lotus in the Green pastures of peace. A College student in California Rose last week to ask a question that began. Now that we have outgrown the Betler dead than Rcd policies of the past the Young Man led with his Chin. But tar dead than Rcd is As much a soviet slogan these Days As an american slogan though i might be reworded if red you will in due course be dead of hunger which pretty faithfully transcribes from what we have been hearing from Gorbachev and his advisers. Another Way of putting it is no one can afford to be red unless subsidized by the West. But although it can be said that by All the evidence communism has failed it can t yet be said that the aggressive potential of the soviet Union has evaporated nor can it be said with absolute Confidence that because marxism leninism is a chimera so Are the 12,000 nuclear missiles the soviet Union has at its disposal. And the Assumption that aggressive Power in t used in the nuclear age unless fuelled by ideological passion confounds history. The romans used everything they had against Carthage and there is no reason to doubt they d have used a cruise missile if Scipio africans had had one Handy. But the Poison spreads and docs so indiscriminately. Our sd1 program in the estimate of departing presi Dent Reagan needed $5.9 billion for orderly development. President Bush Cut that to $4.9 billion after taking office. The Senate Cut it to $4 billion. The House to $3.1 billion. The feeling out there when you come Down to it is what arc we worried about Well there arc those who worry about the soviet Union but there arc other things to worry about. Did William Safire Cam help you you know that the saudi arabians have chinese inter mediate Range missiles did you know that their Range extends to London thai s their nuclear Range if used with chemical or nerve weapons the missiles would reach to the remotest pan of Ireland. There is no Law within our capacity to enforce to prevent a mad Sheik from handing one or More of those things Over to Qadhafi or the next madman who appears on the scene. And of course by the year 2000, it s estimated that is nations will have missile propulsive devices. And we know that a half dozen countries have Chemi Cal and nerve weapons. What the proposed cuts do to Star wars is to pre vent us from discovering whether a ground based sys tem or an air based system Brilliant pebbles would be the Best defense against such nth Power assaults. If we went the route of ground based defense it would have to be regional in character. It is hard to suppose that Western Europe would balk at a defense shield that would protect it against a terrorist missile coming in from North Africa or from the Middle East. But even to describe that operation requires the expenditure of a relatively modest sum of Money which Money tends to evaporate with every Valentine delivered by Shevardnadze at the United nations. Even assuming that the danger of the soviet Union had elapsed we need to remind ourselves that we Are walking into a hideously dangerous Century and that there is no reason whatever to suppose that the collapse of marxism leninism has sent out a genetic virus that will spare us in the 21st Century an Adolf Hitler or a pol pol or a Qadhafi or a Bokassa or a Fidel Castro or an Ayatollah Khomeini. Or. Bush will not one Hopes wish to go Down in history As the president who forfeited historical opportunities. In Vertal press Syndicate Rural areas present some worthwhile options the tectonic plates that underlie the american Way of living arc making loud grinding noises. Something big is going on in the real America that most of us who live inside Urban bal ways arc missing proximity is losing its Power. Last time the plates shifted was about four decades ago when a Scarcity of space in big cities and a yearning for Home ownership led the postwar Genera Tion out to the suburbs. Levittown n.y., led the Way to the new Jiff followed by a Boom in Road building autos shopping centers. This Middle class migration culminated in a the abandonment of much of the big City to the fearful Rich and the crime Ridden poor and b today s All hours regional mall which turns the spending of Money into a family entertainment and transforms each suburb into a retailing Las vegas. We arc what we buy when the going gets Tough the Tough go  but the relentless expansion of greater metropolitan areas and the dreary widening of the franchise fringe need note the wave of the future. Economic reality is now working against that sprawl we Are making More people and god is not making More land near cities. The Cost of land determines the Cost of housing suburban land has become too expensive to permit the building of the kind of housing most people can afford. Mike Kaufman wrote a perceptive and sympathetic piece in the new York times Magazine about William j. Levitt the Man who introduced mass production to housing and started inc suburban revolution. Now 82 and fighting financial set backs Bill Levitt for whose company i lacked in my youth knows that the Era of turning cheap potato Fields into affordable suburban Homes is Long gone. As our population grows by 3 million year where will the new families go Back to the cities or into suburban High risks Bill Levitt says no he envisions new cities of 50,000 to 250,000 Popula Tion not bedroom communities or satellites or one company towns but Pri Mary employment towns balanced enters of several industries and varied housing with schools and cultural amenities located in what arc now Rural areas. New towns the very phrase draws a Horselaughs from embittered bureaucrats and plan ners. That was the Flop Roo notion of the 60s, a utopian pipe dream that became a developers Drain Down which millions of taxpayer dollars were poured. We tried that future and it did t work. But one reason the idea flopped was in its execution the feds worked directly with developers rather than through localities placing Little emphasis on Job creation. A City is first and Foremost a place of Commerce. The bigger reason was that new cities in inc relative Boondocks were an idea whose time had not yet come. It did not make Good business sense for a corporation to put its people and Plant far from the Center of executive action. Proximity closeness concentration were All. Along comes the computer with the accounting brain centralized no Matte where employees and inventories arc along comes teleconferencing with the ability to communicate and manage face to face while thousands of Miles apart along comes the fax machine and non cd for messengers to fight City traffic. Proximity is now superfluous you can now be close without being near. Suddenly it makes sense to put plants and executive offices where the living is easier and the Cost of land much lower. If out of town is the aim Why not All in Way retailers who Don t need stores Don t need Urban Headquarters that Why . Bean and land s end do their mail order business from places you never heard of. Manufacturers who Are end running middlemen Don t want to be near big department stores that s Why in mar Ginsburg w. Va., scores of factory out let stores sell Ralph Lauren. Jonathan Logan and Adolfo goods at half Price to crowds of exurban shoppers. Eighty Miles from Washington and the place is packed those customers arc not All Hicks republicans in Washington arc still uneasy about new cities and democrats worry about seeming to give up on old cities which is Why planning is a dirty word. One Day Congress will Wake up and provide incentives to help Rural count governments attract groups of Core Busi Nesses. No billions needed just a sense of inc dispersed mid sized Urban future and the enthusiasm to facilitate it. Look out your air plane window some time there s plenty of room Down there. With the new management technology and the old human need to breathe free there s no longer a need to crowd together. New Vock Rimes the opinions expressed in the column Sand cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to reconsidered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the United states government