Penguin 7/=
This is one of the increasing number of books, whose intent is to frighten the reader about the potential consequences of science and tech= nology, without providing any political perspective as to how to forestall them. It contains aixteen essays by scientific and military experts, who are about equally divided between left liberals and establishment technocrats, including two who were very senior NATO executives. They speculate on the nature of warfare in the last twenty years of this cantury, being almost
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The theme of the book is well expressed by the penultimate sentence ;~ "But the worst forebodings will surely be fulfiljed and even the most modest visions of e better world will be smashed, if the present military tendencies continue". Many horrific forms of warfare are discussed - orbiting bombs, nerve and other gasses, diseases so powerful that three grams of infected tissue would be sufficient to infect everyone alive, robot bombs, agents which change climates, the destruction of the ozone layer which protects the earth from lethal ultra-violet rays from the sun, etc. Yet they provide no argument to show that the deterrence principle will fail, for the possibilities for defence seem to be far weaker than those for offence and so an intentional first-strike would remain counter-productive. The much vaunted anti~ballistic missile shield seems likely to be very easily pierced, and even if successful its use would probably result in a slower mass death due to fall-out of all living in the hemisphere in which it was used. Moreover the probably continuing difficulty of detecting the nuclear submarine should give a super=power more time to decide whether an attaok was accidental or intentional and so reduce the chance of a reprisal being made to an accidental attack. The likelihood of an increase in time being available for decisions is strengthened by the possibility of science-fiction like entities such as the slow-moving, enormously armour-plated, nuclear-bombcarrying robot which creeps on a circuitous path past an enemy's cities to its target, undestroyable except by a nuclear weapon which wild destroy a city, but stoppable by a signal from its own government. Thus it would seem that, just considering weaponry, the mutual destruction of super-powers will become less rather than more likely.
Of course, small scale wars and localised accidents will become increasingly devastating. The latter situation, though, is no different from that arising fran the ordinary commercial use of science. For example, if any-~ thing were to go seriously wrong with the storage of the presently existing atomic waste at the Windscale Processing Plant at any time during the next 1,000 years, the whole of Cumberland might have to be evacuated!
The political consequences of the new weapons sre rarely discussed, the economic consequences hardly at ali. Harvey Wheeler, of Fail Safe fame, considers that the increasing use af computers in warfare will increase the militarisation of politics. At a superficial level he may be correct, but since the interrelation between the military and the capitalists in the USA is not discussed his argument is completely unsatisfactory. He fursher considers that the ability to predict one's opponents’ moves will greatly increase with the development of computers and so lead to successful pre- “emptive strikes. Yet his own example, Vietnam, seems to support the view that it will not be possible to simulate the development of consciousness by the use of computers for a very long time, if ever. In fact, Dedijer in a short but cogent chapter concludes that the new weapons will not alter the military balance away from the guerilla, orguing that “unless the reguiar forces are prepared to lay waste the entire country...there will always be somewhere for the guerilla to conceal himself from attack by modern weapon systems." Armaments will clearly be able to wntinue to soak up surplus, although with probably increasing dependence on the electronics industry.
In addition, the growing importance of under-sea warfare might produce a spin-off of a new under-sea imperialism.
Just as the nuclear-bomb affected world history, so the nature of these weapons may well have a very important effect in twenty years time. However this book fails to provide any real guidance on what these effects might be, apart from suggesting» possibly fallaciously, that they are likely to include our deaths.
Tim Shaliice.