Boar Wars

WITH EVERYONE talking about nuclear arms reduction in Europe once again, it's high time that the Western Alliance put some serious effort into upgrading its conventional forces on the Continent. And if NATO strategists are smart, they'll try my solution.

Boars, Or to put it in Pentagon lingo, GGPAVs (Ground to Ground Porcine Attack Vehicles).

The idea, I must confess, is not original. Recently, a wild boar attacked a Pakistan Air Force F-16 as it was taking off and, according to UPI, the animal knocked off the nosewheel. Although the pilots ejected safely, the $30 million plane was completely destroyed when it crashed on the runway as a result of the attack.

I happen to know that the frantic investigations ordered by the Pakistani high command have failed to turn up anything on the background of the enemy agent. Perhaps this was opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's way of proving that she's got all of Pakistan behind her. Or could it be that some Indian militarists hired a dissident on a freelance basis? We'll never really know who put the animal up to it; impervious to General Zia's customary interrogations by torture, the boar is keeping mum.

We in the West should not be too quick to denigrate the military value of boars, given their proven effectiveness. Let's look at the incident from a tactical point of view; talk about cost effectiveness, and talk about cost effectiveness, and talk about a great kill ratio. And for the best part--can you think of any red-blooded American boar who wouldn't have gladly done the same to a Soviet MiG, given the opportunity?

IMAGINE HERDS of wild boars (HGGPAVs), cleverly driven across Communist borders at the onset of a crisis, roaming free behind enemy lines. Heaven help the Warsaw Pact's air force! Then consider the boars' utility as anti-personnel weapons. An AK-47-toting infantryman who thinks nothing of charging fortified NATO positions will quake in his boots when he sees a ton of angry pork charging his way.

Of course, we ought not limit our strategic weapons simply to boars; they merely represent the beginning. A whole class of Nature's Weapons (NWs) sits out there in the American wilderness, each animal ready to do its part for the United States by serving in what we might call the USBC (United States Bestial Corps).

An example of their potential usefulness: the Warsaw Pact presently enjoys a marked superiority in tanks. Rather than trying to match the Ruskies tank for tank, we should be more innovative. Not even the most advanced Soviet tank, the T-80, could get through an area thoroughly undermined with gopher tunnels dug by RATS (Rodent Anti-Tank Squadrons).

For another obvious class of recruits, take a look at the various vicious species of ants. Careful negotiations with the appropriate power-brokers in royal ant courts will yield HIACAs (Hordes of Insect Anti-Commissary Agents. The little red merchants of spoliation, dropped over Soviet supply depots from tiny drone planes, could chomp their way toward a Warsaw Pact surrender.

The advantages of employing nature's weapons (and this list is not by any means complete) are almost utopian: low fuel costs, low maintenance expenses and best of all--self-propagation. And let us not forget that design changes and improvements will likely result within just a few short generations. Goodbye to cost overruns, gold-plating and spare parts scandals. Hello to smaller military budgets and employment for every biology and zoology major in the country.

The ultimate decision remains with our leaders. If they take my advice, NATO emissaries will start fanning out across the national parks and forests of the world's industrialized democracies, armed with pamphlets and placards that declare, "THE FREE WORLD NEEDS YOU!"

But we'd better act fast. I hear that the Soviets are building a special zoo somewhere out in the steppe.