LONDON: Renewal of the East-West Cold War and hardening of the Soviet attitude towards the West, following America’s decision to erect an Anti-Ballistic Missile system ostensibly against China, is feared by Britain and other European partners of America in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

The British Foreign Office yesterday [Sept 19] made public its fears about the “dangerous repercussions” of the American move. It is suggested here that the powerful Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, Mr Brezhnev, and influential commanders of the Soviet Armed Forces may now press for an increased armament programme by the USSR in opposition to Premier Kosygin’s policy of less armaments and more consumer goods.

British strategic experts are of the view that the “thin” ABM system proposed by US Defence Secretary McNamara would be ineffective against Chinese intercontinental missiles let alone against the stockpile of Soviet missiles. A major reason for the move is apparently the coming American presidential election and this is deplored here.

Erection of an ABM system by the United States, which would offer no protection for Europe against missile attacks, has already led to demands inside NATO for an ABM system for Western Europe which is expected to be expensive.

Britain, whose economy has already been hard hit by stagnant production and the Arab-Israeli war, is simply not prepared to face more defence expenditure.

Reports in a section of the British Press today that the American announcement “threatens to precipitate a major crisis in the Kremlin of the kind that led to the fall of Khrushchev in 1964” are however, discounted among informed observers in London.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2017