Labour THE constitution of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) calls for abandonment by Britain of nuclear weapons, nuclear bases and nuclear alliances,' in other words withdrawal from NATO.
Unlike the CND policy on unilateral abandonment of nuclear however, its policy for withdrawal from NATO has not been widely adopted. It was adopted by the Liberal or Labour Party conferences, nor by the TUC.
This is not so surpriswhen consider that CND itself does not consistently campaign for withdrawal from NATO For example CND pamphlet Questions and Answers Labour MP Frank Allaun argues that Canada has renounced nuclear weapons and still remains in NATO, as do Holland and Belgium, despite their rejection of Cruise nuclear missiles in Europe.
In a recent article in Socialist Mary Kaldor, prominent figure in CND and the movement, questions wietner 'The unilateral and bases should not be campaigning -TOS NATO' I believe that the disarmament movement and CND in particular should not only stick to its position of Britain out of NATO, but should actively campaign to win adoption wherever the unilateral abandonment of nuclear weapons has been adopted particularly in the Labour Party and trade unions.
But this 'mutual aid' is nOI same as *defence of democracy' NATO has been happy to welcome to its ranks. such countries as Portugal when fascist dictatorship, Greece when under military rule, and Turkey under its present repressive military regime NATO has also collaborated such as Spain under Franco, Iran under the Shah. and South Africa the white racist Nor NATO established to ward off a threatened invasion OT western Europe by the Soviet Union The capitalist powers were far more concerned in those days over Stalin's failure to hold back the Yugoslavian and Chinese Communist Parties from takThese revolutions had greatly stimulated tonal liberation movements throughout *third and threatened to overturn the 'spheres influence' agreed between Stalin and the major capitalist at the end of the Dowers Second World War.
Strategy NATO was part of the world-wide system alle United States aimed at alliances established maintaining capitalism and US dominance the US left the Soviet Union under no illusions that NATO's conventional forces lurked the Ameri can nuclear bomb.
The British 1958 White Paper on Defence speli this out when it said: The cemocraud Wester tions will never start a war against Russia. But it must be well understood that if Russia were to launch a major even conventiona to hit they would TOTCOS have back with strategic nuclear weapons' Flexible There has been change in NATO strategy in the 1970s. This is not a change lucical sulalcey nuclear strategy, it has alwavs combined a con ventional and nuclear strategy. But from responding to a conventional at tack with strategic nuclear forces, NATO has now moved to responding to a conventional attack with a "flexible response' That flexible response may mean tactical nuclear weapons (possibly before long the neutron bomb), or it might mean trying to get in a first strike to the systems (using Cruise, Trident and M> missiles).
week's decision by Reagan to put the new MX missiles in the old 'sitting target' Minuteman silos only confirms the US's first strike' attitude • senior official put it: The NATO doc trine is that we will fight conventional weapons until we are losing