Evening star., 1942-10-25

and Liberia, and whatever little can be
spread to the stepchild of our civilian
strategists, the Far East. Had we
started preparing in earnest for a global
war in 1888 or 1889 there is no uues-
ton that we could have afforded our
selves the luxury of hitting the enemy
wherever he is.
But our striking forces are only in
their infancy. Onr industry, which is
supposed to provide about 10 per cent
of the needs of the United Nations
forces-a minimum of 100000 men.
is doing wonders. But it is not yet
equipped for such a tremendous task.
The demands from abroad are great and
the question is whether to reject some
OF the requests Of our Allies, and offend
and discourage them, or leave our own
troops without everything that is neces-
sary for modern army.
AT one time it appeared as if we finally
had hit on definite strategy-an often
slve In the Pacific and a defensive in
Egypt and the Middle East. Whether
what held good three weeks ago holds
good today is difficult to say. The
"ominous' reports from the Solomons
indicate that. after all, our offensive
IN the Pacific has been short-uved
and we will consider ourselves lucky II We
can maintain ourselves on the defensive.
The strategic Importance Of the Solo,
mons cannot be overenphasized. II the
Japanese manage to recapture the is-
lands and our forces are badly ham,
pooroI ic
will make dash for the rest of the is
lands which are astride our lines Of
communications with Australia and New
Zealand. The Japs are not likely to
follow our own mistake of resting, as
was the case after the partial capture
of Guadalcanal. OF course, they are in
better position than we are because
seven seas compelling the high command
to rob Peter to Pay Paul.
The japanese forces are fighting for
Japan alone and are not called to give
hand to Hitler Or Mussolini Hence,
once an offensive is unleashed it is fol-
lowed up with everything at the dis
posal OF the high command, which is not
hampered by any international political
considerations. Should the Japs succeed
in establishing themselves astride our
! lines of communications, the fate of
| Australia and New Zealand will be in
| Jeopardy. Since Singapore fell, both
those dominions depend exclusively on
the United States for war material and
manpower to help fight off the Japs.
Situation in Russia.
The situation is not much better on
| the Russian front, where the Germans,
| whom we believed completely worn out,
are making a last effort to capture
Stalingrad and establish their winter
lines along the Volga and at the same
time take Poti and Batuni, important
bases on the Black Sea. 1t Is difficult
for even the Understanding officers in
Washington to learn the real truth
about Axis losses in the Russian cam
paign.
1t Is fact, though that had the Rus.
sian announcements regarding the enc
my's casualties proved only 80 per cent
correct, the German -Rumanian-Italian
Croatian forces would not have been
able to continue their offensive From a
strictly military point of view it appears
that the occupation of Stalingrad by the
Nazis would be negligible factor
A few weeks after we were attacked at
Pearl Harbor and the European branch
of the Axis declared war on us, high
ranking Army and Navy officers told
close friends that 1912 would be year
of Americas most severe headaches.
They all realized that United States
strategy, as sound as 1t was from the
very beginning, would suffer because OF
the many political commitments the
civilian officials had assumed.
| None of the military men urged the
policy trainers to overlook the commit
ments, although in recent months the
word to the military men has become
synonymous with poison. The headaches
are here now and are more powerful
than we anticipated. We can stand them
without soporihcs or bromides The
whole question revolves around whether
| or not we can collect ourselves before it
is toe late to make good our losses and
inevitable mistakes.