Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1951-02-06
The Free Can Be InyincibIe

In his interview With united States News d
World Report" General ]. Lawton Collins, Army
Chief of Staff, has reverted to a thesis which
numerous military political and scientific au-
thorities were beginning to expound with in
creasing vigor not long before the outbreak of
aggression in Korea last June. Ensuing events,
especially the reverses suffered by our American
and allied United Nations forces, thereupon
made any official public discussion of the subject
seem inappropriate and untimely, if not ironical.
Nevertheless, nothing happened then, or has
since happened to disprove the basic validity
of the thesis, and General Collins has rendered
a service in calling attention to it again.
Stated with some oversimplif1cation the
thesis is this: That the Soviet Union, despite its
enormous quantitative superiority in things like
tanks and infantry divisions can be stopped dead
in its tracks by relatively much smaller de-
fensive forces in the free West OF course, this
assumes that the Russians will not attack in the
next two years or So But If that assumption is
southland it is based on the deterrent power
of our atomic arsenal and our ong-range stra-
tegic bonbers-then there is ample reason to
believe that the United States and its Atlantic
Pact Allies, making the most of modern weapons,
can organize and integrate their strength In
way that will enable them, with considerably
fewer men, to hold on to Western Europe against
the vast numbers of troops that the Kremlin
could unleash in an attempt to take It,
One of the best statements along this line
was contained in an address delivered early last
June to the American Club of Paris by DR.. Van
nevar Bush, the distinguished scientist who is
Intimately acquainted with military matters and
who is allergic to optimistic pipe dreams. The
points he made at that time deserve to be re-
peated now They include the following: Cd
The development of new defensive weapons con-
stitutes "the most encouraging chapter since the
end of the war;; ca the Atlantic nations can
work together with the "conviction that we, the
free peoples can take care of ourselves; 90
"the time is coming when small group of we'll
trained troops can hold off large masses OF men,;
"a "the means are noD at hand to make the
heavy tank obsolete and to end the days of
breakthrough' go four or five years of intensive
effort-perhaps considerably less than that in
view of how the West has stepped up its pre-
paredness since his speech in Paris-will sound
the death knell of huge armies and CO. sit will
then be fully evident that Europe is In position
to prevent an invasion"
The actual and potential new defensive
weapons (some already here and others on the
way include the hollow shaped charge" fired
from bazooka like recoilless gun, and squash
head" ammunition that can be shot from a
regular artillery pece-devices so devastating to
armor that heavy tanks may in fact even now be
pretty valueless In addition, as General Collins
and others have indicated, we may be getting
very close to the production of things like atomic
artillery shells and guided missiles with A-bomb
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. that could wipe out the
significance of Russia's massive armies When
we add to this prospect our American and allied
naval and air superiority, our Incompatible pro-
ductive might and the Kremlin's striking in
feriority in steel, OIL alphabetically and other
measures of ability to wage protracted war, we
get better idea of our true position in the
balance of power.
In other words, if they carry through with