]]]]]]]]]]      INF TREATY: SOVIET LEGERDEMAIN     [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ 
          Letter to the Wall Street Journal, 3/11/1988
                      by Jay Lubkin

[Dr. Lubkin is an internationally regarded expert on electronic war-
fare and pilotless aircraft. He is the EW Editor of Defense Science, 
and was the originator and head of the Israeli unmanned vehicle pro-
gram during the early 1970s.  (He is also an AtE subscriber.) I be-
lieve this letter is of fundamental importance for both for US stra-
tegy and for US diplomacy. P.B.]

     Regarding Sam Cohen's letter of 29 February on the INF, may I 
make a few additional points.
     The essence of magic, disinformation and diplomacy is misdirec-
tion. A good negotiator, like a good magician, relies on misdirection 
to obtain his desires. And when the opposition is eager to obtain an 
agreement to practically anything at all, and is a politician totally 
ignorant of modern technology, it is pathetically easy to get him to 
agree to crippling disadvantages that he does not even imagine exist.
     Like good magicians, the Soviets and their surrogates raise our 
false concerns about moving SS-20 warheads to SS-25 rockets, and thus 
achieving no reduction in megatonnage, merely a modernization of their 
delivery systems which is paid for by American capabilities. But like 
any good disinformation, this concern is just an illusion.
     Although the INF agreement is titled "Intermediate Range Nuclear 
Forces", the important provision is not about nuclear forces at all. 
"Nuclear" is the distractor.
     After all, the Soviets are neither stupid nor insane. They have 
given up nothing at all, and have gained some advantage in a nuclear 
war that neither they nor us will ever fight. The nuclear exchange is 
trivial, however, and is merely the decoy.
     The real objective is the agreement to ban all cruise missiles 
having ranges between 300 miles and 3300 miles, which are capable of 
carrying nuclear warheads.
     The INF Treaty bans not only missiles, but anything which flies, 
has no pilot, and can fly between 300 and 3300 miles. These are pre-
cisely the weapons which could stop a Soviet invasion of Western Eu-
rope in a few days, with very few losses on our side. And the Pentagon 
takes the INF prohibition seriously enough to have a very restrictive 
effect on US development of these devices. (Other countries are not so 
inhibited.)
     The basic scenario is outlined in my article "The Offensive De-
fense" in the July 1987 issue of "Defense Science and Electronics". It 
has been studied extensively at the Pentagon and the Kremlin, and 
lately the Offensive Defense and its implications have been the sub-
ject of many briefings by myself and Zot Barazzotto. Many of us have 
been promoting the idea of armed unmanned aircraft for the past fif-
teen years, and we are finally getting the message through.
     The message is that a few tens of thousands of armed UAVs (Un-
manned Aerial Vehicles), each costing perhaps a thousandth of the cost 
of an Advanced Tactical Fighter or a B-2, could force an invading 
Soviet Army into total gridlock. Each of the UAVs would typically 
carry a few dozen offensive weapons capable of destroying trucks, 
trains, helicopters, airplanes and radars -- all the infrastructure of 
a modern army. The ATF boosters claim that a $50 million fighter, with 
full support, is needed to penetrate Soviet defenses to destroy enemy 
airfields. But the airfields can be denied to the enemy for days by a 
$50,000 drone, dumping five hundred pounds of explosive gravel on the 
runway and then crashing into anything convenient.
     The designs are there, far more sophisticated, yet simpler, than 
the Cessna that Matthias Rust flew unchallenged to Moscow. The weapons 
exist, the sensors exist, the tactics exist, not only to cause grid-
lock in Poland, but sanity in Qum and moderation in Moscow. What is 
lacking is understanding in Washington of what can be done and the 
will to work for the survival of civilization, not for the deepening 
of troughs.
     Si vis pacem, para bellum.
                                       Yale Jay Lubkin
                                       The Real Peace Movement
                                       Dunkirk, MD 


                         *   *   *

Return to the ground floor of this tower
Return to the Main Courtyard
Return to Fort Freedom's home page