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New Zealand's Antinuclear Trojan Horse
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12213 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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2 / 1987 |
2,956 Words |
| Author
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Theo Roy
Theo Roy is a professor of politics at Waikato University in
Hamilton, New Zealand. |
When Gary Francis Powers ejected form his U-2 plane and then inconsiderately failed to commit suicide, although he had been thoughtfully equipped with assorted means of doing so, Nikita Khrushchev in his earthy peasant way explained Power's embarrassing failure to do his duty by pointing out that everybody knows that anything living wants to remain that way. This, in a nutshell, explains the motivation of most participants in New Zealand's "peace movement" as well as similar groups in other parts of the world.
Now that man's technological ingenuity has provided him with the capability of annihilating every living thing, there appear to be only three avenues open to evade that fate. The first is the indefinite prolongation of the delicate balance of terror by ever upgrading the capacity for mutually assured destruction, while making largely symbolic moves to limit that capacity. The second is to seek genuine and verifiable disarmament simultaneously among all powers possessing nuclear arms. The third is to accept the doctrine of unilateral disarmament and justify it either by the simplistic axiom that client or even captive status is preferable to nuclear incineration, or alternatively embrace the naïve belief that such a noble gesture will exert moral suasion on the still-armed opponent and induce him to follow the example. Since this sort of unilateralism exists only in the so-called Western capitalist world, Soviet leaders must regard it as a veritable godsend because they can readily exploit these sentiments through their pragmatic expansionist policies and need never lose sight of their eventual goal of ideological hegemony over a world of Marxist states.
Undoubtedly, a Soviet best-case scenario envisions the political and economic gains of such a hegemony, accompanied by increasing ideological dominance, without ever actually having to engage in war. Given well-publicized Soviet doctrine concerning the role of military capability in pursuit of foreign policy goals, it becomes patently clear that the convenient existence of a socially divisive peace movement in the opposing camp gives the Soviets a complementary weapon to achieve those goals. Although the largely bourgeois membership of Western peace groups must prove to be a doctrinal anathema to Soviet ideologues, it provides them with an unparalleled opportunity to pursue their political ambitions in Western democracies; the peace movement opens many doors for local communists that would otherwise remain closed.
The coordinating center for these destabilizing activities is the World Peace Council, whose raison d'etre is to ensure that all peace movements serve
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