Reagan's World'

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23 years.

•For American industry as a whole profit margins (profits as a share of the value of sales) dropped by about 25 per cent over the last two years.

As the problems of sharp recession are added to long nopower to protect capitalists from falling profitability. Selling basic necessities doesn't seem to be the answer, since Woolworths' protits last year tell by b2 per cent. And, since the earnings of the Playboy corporation are also down by 20 per cent, perhaps the peddling of sexual fantasy doesn't help either.

Dress In Britain it is rumoured that the dress habits of Lady Diana Spencer have improved the fortunes of the taffeta gown and frilly hat industries: It is possible that the purveyors of materials for Nancy Reagan's notoriously extravagant lifestyle may also have reaped benefits.

But for the most part, faced with falling profits, businesses in America, as in Britain, have been getting deeper into debt. Increasing debt seems logical to capitalists if they: expect good times to be round the corner. But when the decline in profit is sustained, then a day of reckoning has to come.

Business indebtedness to 80 banks in the US has gone AS 1981 closes, President Reagan has told US citizens to quit Libya, US forces have been massed in Egypt, and strong threats are being made.

Since Reagan took office in January, his aim has been to reassert the USA's role as world policeman, and its power and ability to intervene militarily.

Soon after taking office in January, he published a plan for massive increases in military spendingfrom $171 billion in fiscal 1981 to $367.5 billion in 1986.

Assault

Some groundwork had already been laid in the 'Carter Doctrine' , announced after the revolution in Iran. "Any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States. It will be repelled by use of any means necessary, including military force"

Following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979, Carter proposed the 200,000-strong Rapid Deployment Force, and the US established new bases in Egypt and other Middle East countries. RDF commander Lt-Gen Kelley told the press he was "convinced of the utility of a pre-emptive strike ... once you get a force into an area that is not occupied by the other guy, then you have changed the whole calculus of the crisis' But Reagan has stepped up the arms drive.

On August 19, US planes shot down two Libyan planes just off the coast of Libya, in an obviouslystaged show of strength. Reagan's budget boosted military aid to El Salvador from $13 to $65 million, and the Reagan administration has refused to rule out military action against the radical Sandinista government in Nicaragua:

Military aid generally has been pushed up, and advanced AWACS plans are being sold to saudi Arabla, in an effort to create another well-armed state sympathetic to the USA in the crucial Middle East area.

Aid to and military cooperation with Turkey have been increased despite lor perhaps because of] the military coup and the sup pression: of political parties and trade unions there.

In October a detailed ars programme was announced, to include 100 MX missiles, 100 B-1 bombers, and 3,000 new Cruise missiles. Reagan had already announced in August that he would go ahead with the neutron bomb.

.The neutron bomb is part of a new US/NATO strategy of 'limited nuclear war' according to which the US or NATO will START a nuclear war if a conventional conflict seems to be going against them. The new strategy is not Reag an's - indeed, Dennis Healey had a leading role in devising it.

But Reagan has and ced it more aggress than éver. In Octobe said he could envisay nuclear war (in Eu without the US gettin| volved: In November deputy Alexander followed this up with iden of the US firin 'warning shot' with no weapons.

Threats

Against these thr the biggest anti-war n ment yet has develop+ Europe, with specially! demonstrations in G any, Belgium, Holland Britain. If the anti movement can link up the organised wol class, in a fight to di the warmongers by throwing them, we can the war drive yet.

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Organiser no 06 December 161981 Page