Dangerous Weapons
THE only weakness in Commander Stephen King-Hall's pamphlet Common Sense in Defence (K-H Services, 2s. 6d.) is that it assumes common sense in others; and there is very little evidence that the Russians, let alone the Chinese, possess much of it. Mr. K occasionally shows signs of sonic, but he can also be swayed by emotions which deprive him of it—and in any case we cannot be sure he is going to be in power next year, or even next week.
K-H argues that the Russians would not want to occupy Britain, because they realise now that puppet governments cannot produce Communist States. It is questionable whether the Russians really have learned that lesson; but in any case the desire to spread Communism is not the only or even the chief reason why they hold down subject peoples. They do so because they are afraid and they have every reason to fear the effect of a free country--with its dangerous weapons of uncontrolled thought and speech— even if it is unarmed.
In any case, why should they believe that a government which renounced the nuclear deter- rent (assuming that it did) had not hidden an H-bomb or two down a mine somewhere, to be on the safe side? And—more serious—how could they be sure that at the next election a different government would not come back, with other ideas for Western strategy? There can be no question about it; if the Russians thought they could do so without risk they would occupy any and every European country tomorrow—and think that they were showing admirable common sense in doing so.
In the circumstances the new Labour Party policy on defence probably represents as near to a common-sense policy as there is, for all its equivocation over the exact position Britain should hold under the American nuclear um- brella. The Conservative argument that this is asking the United States to undertake obligations from which we are backing out ignores the fact that the United States has been trying to persuade us to back out of them for years. But the way things are going, the Government will soon be forced into a position very close to Labour's—in fact, but for the need to save face, they would probably be in it already Still,.K-H's pamphlet is a useful contribution to the defence discussion: and it lands some characteristically telling blows. Particularly at the Secret Service, over the missile sites. 'Don't they read the papers?' he asks. Is there any evidence that they can read?
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