News In Brief
| Brussels
NATO has wider gap to close with East, Dutch general says
The gap between NATO and Warsaw Pact capabilities is widening, and NATO must upgrade its conventional defenses in view of an expected 12 percent increase in Soviet military spending in 1985, a top NATO general said Tuesday.
Dutch Gen. Cornelius de Jager, head of the alliance's chiefs of staff, said that particularly worrisome was growing Soviet maritime firepower and the continuing deployment of medium-range nuclear-tipped SS-20 missiles, now totaling 378.
The defense ministers agreed yesterday to spend $7.85 billion over the next six years to upgrade communications, commandposts, equipment dumps, and aircraft shelters.
