Evening star., 1951-07-03
Let's Keep Our Guard Up

Whatever happens in Korea-and right now
there is no reason for unalloyed optimism about
the peace outlook there-this world is going to
remain dangerous for a long time to come The
threat cf Red aggression is hydra headed mon
ster. Even though it may be decapitated in one
place, it must still be reckoned with as an evil
capable of striking with barred fangs in numerous
other parts of the globe. The only thing that
can possibly deter it is adequate armed power
on the part of its woud-be victims
That is why the United States and its allies
in the non-Soviet world must not allow any
thing to distract them from the imperative task
OF building up their common defenses as fast
and as formidably as possible. For the truth is
as Defense Secretary Marshall has told the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, that even if
the Korean conflict is brought to satisfactory
conclusion we shall have passed through only an
incidental phase of the gigantic power contest
that the Kremln has set in motion on global
scale. At best, that contest foreshadows per-
haps many as ten years of explosive inter-
national tensions that may somehow be re-
solved peacefully in the end; at worst, 1t in
wolves nothing less than the ever-preSent danger
of an all-out shooting war;
SO it is clear that we and our friends abroad
regardless of a possible frightening of events
in Korea, must guard against any let-down in
the measures we are undertaking together to
organize powerful common front against
aggression. What we must keep constantly in
mind is that the world is full of places coveted
by the Red totalitarians and that at any time
next week, next month"; next year-the men of
the Krenlin, in their unremitting drive for
domination, may choose to strike either directly
or through their satellites at one or another
of those places. Korean settlement, if there
is one, will represent only a tactical shift in
their policy; as for the policy itSelf-a policy
aimed at spreading their tyranny everywhere
it will remain bascally the same as it has been
all along.
Indeed, we can be sure that there will be
no real change in that policy unless and until
the free world grows strong enough to make
the Kremlin fear the consequences of new
adventures in aggression Meanwhile, Indo-
China, Iran, Yugoslavia, Western Europe and
other areas must never lose sight of the menace
implicit in what General Marshall has described
as the rather ominous" build-up of the Soviet
bloc's armed forces. The menace is one that
should fill the United States and all its allies
with sense, of urgency and a driving deter
mination to keep their guard up and arrive as
quickly as they can at such a level of rearma-
ment and defensive readiness that the balance
of power will be tipped sufficiently in their favor
TO MINIMIZE the chances OF another total war.
Our allied program. of course cannot guar
antee the preservation of peace. Yet, assuming
that it is carried forward with all possible speed
and unity, it can serve as powerful restraint
on the Red totaltarians-a warning that they
will be inviting their own ruin if they start
another war in spite of our best efforts to pre-
vent it. In fact, in that sense, they may con-
ceivably find themselves so checkmated that they
will feel impelled in time to abandon aggression
as losing game and start cooperating for the
creation of genuine system of collective world
security That hope may prove to be anything
but forlorn if the free nations do not relax in
their effort to become truly strong.