Evening star., 1950-03-15
The Free Worlds Strength


about the need for new appeals to the Kremlin
to end the cold war, all of us could do worse
than remind ourselves that the actual and po-
tential power of the non-Soviet world-leaving
aside armed forces in being-far outweighs that
of the world behind the Iron Curtain.
This point is best illustrated by iron and
steel In this highly chronological age, their
output constitutes one of the most important
measurements of the strength of nations, par
ticularly in terms of ability to produce land
vehicles, ships, planes, A-weapons and the vast
multiplicity of other things needed to wage
protracted modern war.
How do the Russians stand in this held?
The answer is that they stand far down the list.
For If their own figures may be taken at face
value they have not yet succeeded-despfte an
all-out effort-in achieving an annual produc-
tion of iron and steel equal to that reached in
the United States as long ago as the year 1913.
Stated another way, our current output OF these
absolute industrial essentials Is roughly three
times as great as the Soviet Unions.
Thus taken either by itself or coupled with
the impressive production of Britain, France,
the Ruhr and Western Europe as a whole, our
American output of iron and steel bulwarks the
free world with power resource Overwhelmingly
superior to Russia's That Is q fact Of first
Importance, and as long as 1t remains fact
the men of the Kremlin will be hesitant in the
extreme about precipitating a shooting war.
After all, they probably have not forgotten that
the huge and courageous Red Army might have
been destroyed by Hitler had not our lease-lend
aid offset the grave deficiencies in Soviet pro-
ductivity.
Moreover wholly apart from things like steel,
there are other evidences of Russian weaknesses
vis-a-vs the West. For example, country can
not be truly strong when its standard of living
is as miserably low as the Soviet Unions. Nor
can it be truly strong, or free OF mass discomfort
and smoldering disloyalty, when millions OF its
citizens are held in save-labor camps. And GER
tainly it is not displaying superiority when 1t
denies to the peoples under its control any con-
tact with the ouside world In short, its Iron Cur
tain its police-state terrorism and all its other
tyrannical acts and devices are outward signs OF
the very opposite of inward strength and self
confidence.
BY way of contrast as Secretary Acheson
has declared to the Advertising Council, "The
Communist countries together have two
thirds of the worlds population, three efourths OF
the worlds economic productive power and
potential preponderance of the worlds military
power They have the highest standard of living
and the greatest ability to help underdeveloped
areas achieve higher standards of living. They
have on their side the appeal of independence
and of national loyaltieS. They have the greatest
attraction of all-human freedom"
It would be foolish, of course, for the free
world to be complacent The Soviet Union,
despite its many basic weaknesses, is plainly too
heavily armed right now and too great poten-
tial menace to be underestimated. That said,
however, the non-Communist countries should
not go to the opposite extreme of overestimating
the power OF that menace or forgetting their
own immense individual and collective forces of
strength
For it is true, as Mr.. Acheson has said, that
with that strength on our side we can win the
cold war and establish good peace We ought
not to hypnotic ourselves with the idea that the
Kremlin is all-powerful. It is not. If we and
like-mnded nations hold fast together against
it, if we carry through with the Marshall Plan
and other measures needed to cope with it, its
inherent weaknesses likely to force it to play
fair ball in due course.