Evening star., 1943-01-30
Allied Cooperation
Held imperative Need
Militory Commentator Argues
importance of Coordination
OF Four Power Efforts
By Mai. Georoe Fielding Eliot.

| essen tlal in the prosecution Of successful
| offensive operations in war. The nation
or the army which is constantly ham
pered and constrained by the necessity
Of warding off the attacks of the enemy
! has little in the way Of either time or
resources with which to launch an often
sive of its own. Security against enemy
attack must first be attained in order to
acquire the necessary freedom of action
to attack the enemy in his turn.
The exploitation of this principle was
| the basis of Germanys early successes
and of Japan's as well. Germany was
able to attack and defeat in Succession,
Poland, Norway, the acw Countries,
France and Yugoslavia without any fear
| that she herself would be seriously at
| tackled in the meanwhile. The German
! high command had complete freedom
| of action to dispose its forces for these
| offensives as it thought fit.
Even when Germany launched her
| attack against Russia, she had to fear
nothing more in any other quarter than
| the bombing attacks of the RAF. But
| having failed to make good her purpose
| in Russia, which was the elimination of
| Russia as military threat on her East
ern frontier, Germany now finds herself
reduced to the defensive by the exhaus-
| tion of her offensive resources and faced
with attack all round the perimeter of
| the fortress of Europe.
| The German high command, to very
| large extent, though not altogether, has
| lost its strategic freedom OF action and
| finds itself more and more compelled to
the will of its opponents.
In the case of Japan, her strategic
! purpose was to employ a temporary and
| local superiority of force to eliminate
| every base from which either the Jap
| anese homeland or its lines of communi-
| cations with its conquered territories
could be seriously threatened, and then
to exploit its captured resources to make
itself impregnable against attacks
| launched from greater distances.
In this attempt the Japanese were at
least partly successful, and they retain
| their strategic freedom of action to a
| greater extent than do the Germans,
subject to the remark that this freedom
| of action is seriously impaired by eco
nomic weakness-that is, by inability to
| replace adequately their losses Of air
craft, naval vessels and merchant ship
ping.
| AS applied to the case of the United
| Nations, it is fair to say that two of them,
| the United States and Great Britain.
possess freedom of action and therefore
strategic mobility to very high degree,
| largely by reason OF their command of
the sea- They can thus deploy their
forces all over the world, they can strike
in Europe, in Africa, in Asia or the
islands of the Pacific, subject only to
the limitations of their resources and
their transportation facilities.
The United States is entirely free from
any fear of attack on her home terri
air power, Great Britain enjoys almost
equal freedom; while of the Great Brit
ish dominions only Australia at the
moment is even remotely in danger Of
enemy attack. This Anglo-American
freedom of action is, however, threatened
| to some extent by enemy attacks upon
the sea communications which are its
essential and lfe-giving arteries
Russia was almost completely deprived
of freedom of action by reason of the
| fact that she had to devote the whole of
her energies to repelling the German
assault. 1t is only now that she has
begun to regain to some extent her
freedom of action by the success of her
new offensive, which is reducing the
Russian by the reclamation of industrial
and agricultural resources. Not yet, how
| ever, has Russia regained full strategic
! mobility, that is to say, the ability to
strike at Germany anywhere she chooses
along her whole frontier, or even to turn
| upon Japan should her high command
| wish to do SO.
China for the moment has no freedom
of action at all, lacking offensive power
| and being confined entirely to holding
present positions against Japanese pres
| sure
All this is said by way of illustrating
| the growing necessity for better ma
| chinery Of inter-Allied cooperation in
| the prosecution of the war. During the
| period when the United States and Great
Britain were the only Nations possessing
| freedom of action, the machinery Of the
| combined chiefs of staff, providing for
| military cooperation between them,
worked well enough In practice. Now
that Russia is regaining her freedom of
action, it is vitally essential that British.
| American and Russian operations should
| be much more closely co-ordinated
| against Germany, the common enemy.
| When Japan's turn comes. an essential
| contribution to her defeat will necessarily
be the restoration of Chinese freedom Of
| action by the reopening of communica-
| tions with that country in order to pro-
vide the Chinese forces with the equip
ment necessary to enable them to take
| the offensive.
We are leaving behind us the period in
which mere Anglo-American conversa-
tions and arrangements will be adequate
for the direction of the war.
| The greater the extent to which our
Russian and Chinese Allies regain their
freedom of action, the greater the need
for tightly organized coordination OF
| affort amony all fol1r mowers in an