MILITARY CAPABILITY

The security of the free world depends on the maintenance of a strong defense by the United States, and its allies. Events in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Iran mark a decline in this security that must be stopped.

While the portion of our GNP devoted to defense has dropped from 9 percent to 5 percent since the 1960s, the Soviet Union has engaged in a massive military buildup. Its defense spending is already estimated to consume between 11 percent and 15 percent of its GNP and is continuing to increase at between 4 and 5 percent each year.

The Rand Corporation asserted recently that during the 1970s the Soviet Union may have outspent the United States on defense by about $100 billion.

The continuing shift in the overall military balance to the disadvantage of the West must be reversed by strengthening NATO and by modernizing and improving the readiness of U.S. military forces.

We have the economic resources to do this job, if only we show the will. The industrial democracies retain an unquestioned lead in economic capability and productive capacity.

 We reject the views of those who would argue that the only source of revenue for social programs is the defense budget. Funds would better come from the tax wealth of a productive economy in which inflation is low and employment high. To presume a simple trade off between defense spending and social spending is to accept the status quo of a fixed economic and budgetary pie. Rather, we should criticize faulty economic policies as the cause for shortages in both defense and social spending and charge our leaders with correcting them so as to produce the necessary funds.

Our strength to maintain peace and freedom likewise depends on strong military manpower. Our past policies have not insured this. Low pay combined with voluntary enlistment have brought a deterioration in the quality of the armed services. The result is an armed forces shortage of 70,000 non-commissioned officers.

Given this disturbing state of affairs the AFT supports:

• development, by the U.S. with its allies, of the military capability necessary to meet the Soviet threat;

• an economic police of full employment, low interest rates and increased production that will enable us to pay for both guns and butter.