The Wilmington morning star., 1942-08-20

military efficiency, that is to say
by imposing the maximum sacri.
fices on the civilians and by fore
ing the military to plan for the
most efficient fighting value out o1
the available materials.
Now Mr.. Nelson has made q
very fair beginning, but only a be-
ginning, at increasing his asset:
by cutting down civilian consump
ton. But he is still at the stage
OF arguing and pleading in his ex
cesslvely patient way, for valic
commitment from the military
chieftains of what among the
things that can be produced they
most urgently want for the fight
ing they intend to do next year
This is the nub of the problem
at the present time. The question
is whether Mr.. Nelson and hi:
British counterpart, Captain Lyt
! gelton, can commit General Mar
shall and Admiral King, the Brit
lsh military leaders and Mr.. Chur
chill and Mr.. Roosevelt to a def
mite program of armaments fol
next year.
Just what is meant by com.
mitment? Does it mean that they
must adopt now hard and fas
plans of next years campaigns il
all existing and all potential thea
ters of war? It does not. There
are too many unexpected develop
ments in all wars, and particularly
in this war, to permit final de-
cisions now about all the opera
tions of next year.
What it does mean is that the
military leaders must commi
themselves now to the technique
of the war they mean to fight
to the kinds of weapons and pro
portion among them. There is ne
other way to get those weapons
next year and to have men trained
to use them.
Our enemies have had to make
military commitments of this sort,
and no general staff in the world
can afford not to make them. The
Germans, for example, committed
themselves for land warfare to the
tank and dive bomber combina.
ton, and in the air to craft which
had a relatively short range for
pursuit, bombing and cargo car.
rying. They chose these weapons
as the best suited to overrun the
European continent. For their ma.
Wy they committed themselves to
the submarine, realizing that with
the resources at their command
they could not also build a dom.
,inant surface fleet
When their decisions were taken,
Germany was not committed to
every campaign that has actually
been conducted. But Germany was
committed to the kind of cam
paigning in which her specialized
equipment is effective. And be-
cause she was committed in ad-
vance, she had plenty of tanks,
dive bombers and submarines, and
the commanders and men trained
to use them.
That is real preparation for real
war, and it must be said of our
own military leaders that they
have been slow and reluctant to
make the fateful decisions. Partly
because we were unprepared and
everywhere on the defensive, part
ly because they were somewhat
the victims of the illusion that our
huge resources are as unlimited as
the money that Congress can ap-
propriate, partly because they felt
rightly that we were not beginning
to ask enough of our civilians, the
military chieftains have shrunk
from committing themselves.
Thus they have tended to aim
at universal, all-purpose military
preparation - a navy supreme in
all classes of vessels, an air force
supreme in all categor.es and a
ground army equal in size to the
German and surprising it in
equipment. The result of this uni
versal planning, is, together with
Mr.. Nelson's failure to control in
ventories and the flow of mater
ials, reflected in the priorities. The
demand exceeds the supply, and
so the procurement officers and
their contractors have to stand in
line and jostle each other to get
what they can.
The lack of balanced military
budget, which is possible only if
the military leaders commit them
selves, brings about a curious and
very undesirable result. Instead of
the cheftains determining the
weapons our forces will actually
have in their hands next year, it
is the steel companies and the pur-
chasing agents of the war indus
tries who, in a very considerable
degree, are determining it.