Evening star., 1951-12-26
The Approaching DeodIine

CeaSe-HTe negotiations Will De feacned tomorrow.
If final agreement has not been made by
that time it Is hardly to be expected that full
scale resumption of the war will be the immedi-
ate alternative. Presumably unless the Commu-
nsts should break off the talks, the negotiations
will be continued for a reasonable period. There
has been enough progress to justify that.
Eventually, however, we will find ourselves
in one of two situations and we will be forced to
make some critical decisions.
One possibility is that the talks will finally
fail and that there will be no armistice. In that
event we shall have to resume the war and in all
probability enlarge its scope. If the bitter fight
ing OF the past year and half has taught us
anything 1t is that decisive military victory
cannot be won in Korea through ground fighting
with the forces we have there, or with any force
that we have in prospect. If the truce talks fail
we will eventually be compelled to carry the war
to China proper with air and sea power.
The other possibility. of course, is that the
negotiations will be successful in the sense that
an armistice will be agreed upon, the terms re-
duced to writing and signed by the appropriate
parties If this happens what will we do then?
AS Mr.. Truman has repeatedly said, an
agreement with the Communists is not worth the
paper 1t is written on. Their pledges mean moth
ing unless it is to their advantage to keep them
do we go about creating in Korea a sanction that
will insure respect for the agreement?
There has been rather widespread assump-
tion that the army will be kept there to police the
truce. But that might prove impracticable if not
impossible. For when armies are left to mark
time in desolate land such as Korea, morale
diSintegrates and combat effectiveness is quickly
lost Furthermore, it might be years before final
settlement could be reached, and public opinion
in this country would not tolerate a policy of
stationing American troops in Korea indefinitely.
Finally there is the point that the troops are
needed elsewhere. From the point of view of our
own purely military interests Korea is not
good place to keep the bulk of our ground troops.
The alternative. in event of an armistice is
to withdraw most of the ground forces and set up
some other deterrent to Communist violation of
the truce terms And that deterrent, the military
factors being what they are, could only take the
form of notice to the Chinese Communist re-
gime that any substantial violation of the truce
would result in an immediate enlargement of the
war. This notice should be stated in general
terms, but the unmistakable intent behind it
should be to attack China proper with the avail
able weapons-planes and warships
Perhaps we would have to serve this notice on
our own responsibility, for it is doubtful that
many of our u N. allies would join such project.
We should also have to accept the risk that an
attack on China would mean war with Russia
although that risk would not be great unless the
Russians should want war, and in that event the
risk is always present.
There will be a strong opposition, of course,
to any such policy this. But in view of the in
tolerable military situation in which we find our
selves in Korea, it is the policy which seems to
make the most sense, and the chances are that it
will attract increasing support as time goes on.