The Daily Alaska empire., 1938-08-26
The Iron Ring
(New York Times)


 News from Berlin that zones all along the from tiers have closed by decree while steel network of Qualifications is being rushed to completion is bound give rise to disturbing speculations. For years the sorest grievance of the Germans that Germany was enclosed in iron ring" forged by the allied Powers to srangle the Reich and keep her enfeebed Yet the first thing the Germans do to show their strength when they recover their military freedom is to build iron ring of their The straight jacket they smashed through partly imaginary; it is replaced by real one constructed. At first glance it looks if Germany tracing vsi by along her borders that insulating zone which the present regime has created by it's political economic and racist policies.
 Literally of course the newly established closed military entrenchments. They extend along the western frontier from The Netherlands to Swift zerland skirt the coasts of the Baltic and the North Sea and mark off the entire length of the Polish and Czech boundaries. General Goerings recent order conscriptng power for essential tasks" is be- eved to have been designed to recruit labor for these frontier defenses. Concentration on the work of fertilization together with special calls for additional hands to hurry up the harvest is said to be crppng other building operations and slowing up military industries
 It is not surprising that this feverish activity causes tension in Germany and anxiety across the borders In the present atmosphere of Europe every warlike is bound to intensity the chronic state of alarm. On it's face the construction of
 
 assuring indication that Germany is digging in for defense rather than aggression It might be expected to suggest that the fear of Russia generally pressed in Germany is real fear and not slogan to prepare the popular mind for military adventure when the time is ripe. The iron ring has exactly the opposite effect, however. Actually it starts fresh crop of fears and rumors People the outer side wonder what it portends Do the hurried and hidden preparations on the border mean that Ger many is actually getting ready to strike in Czecho slovaka? Is Lord Runcimans mission nearer last minute intervention against war than it appears?
 These alarmist speculatons are symptomatic not only of state of mind but of the effect of employing threats of war as instruments of national policy The world lives in the atmosphere in which wars are made. The nervous efforts of Tokyo and Moscow to prevent the dangerous clashes on the Manchuran border from developing into large-scae conflict seem to signify that neither the Japanese nor the Russians creating diversion to help or stop Ger many in the west But the anxiety to control these local outbreaks shows also how easily they get of bounds and how dangerous these highly fortified border when they held by potential enemies who wish to prick and provoke but not to fight Whether not Germany is building underground aerodromes supply bases and forests pilboxes to frighten the Czechs into surrender without war they cannot expect the iron-ring strategy to have more them. The iron ring indeed is the ultimate vicious circle the shacke by which nation clamps down on its own productive energies and imprisons itself.