Evening star., 1951-07-25

for a stable and peaceful world
the danger to us remains. We
must move ahead steadily ano
firmly to build our strength, re-
gardlesS of what tune the Soviet
Union happens to be playing al
the moment. In that strength lies
our only security. We must moi
be distracted from it by the
switching ON of Russian lullaby
War Doesn't Solve Problems.
Neither war nor weakness is
the way to meet the Soviet chal-
lenge. We will counter force with
force, If necessary. but war does
not solve problems-it multiplies
them. Weakness, on the other
hand, would lead to defeat, with
or without war. Between these
two extremes lies a middle course
which seeks to block Soviet expan-
sion without war, by building an
effective system of collective Sc
Ecurity. and by making it strong
This is the course we are follow
ling.
The job before us-the great re-
armament effort of the free ma
tionS has an urgent priority, If
we are to reduce the risk Of war
and pass safely through the dam
gers of these next few years.
The dangers of war and Of dis
integration will continue until
the free nations have fully re-
paired their military weakness. 1t
must be understood that weak
ness not only invites attack; what
is even more menacing, it para
lyzes the viii to resist and makes
for political disintegration.
The massive effort which is
just now gaining momentum in
our country and among our allies
to build up our ornaments is not
an endless job. nor one without
limits. Tt has specific goals. both
as to amounts and as to time.
Must Achieve Force.
What we are building is an
adequate deterrent force against
military attack. We already have
the means to guarantee that a
general military attack against us
would be costly to the aggressors.
We must now achieve a force of
sufficient size to make it plan that
such an attack could not succeed.
How big does this force need to
be? Our best military experts.
working together with those Of
our Allies, have developed Stra-
tegic plans which estimate the
numbers of men, planes, tanks,
guns, and so forth, which we and
our Allies need to ensure that a
Soviet attack upon us could not
succeed.
We do not have to match the
Soviet armies man for man, or
gun for gun, since our mission is
to deter, not to attack, but we
have long way to go before we
reach safe deterrent level.
Communist armed forces at
present total some 8 million men.
The Soviet Union has more than
4 million men under arms. Chi
nese Communist forces exceed
312 million men. The European
satellites regimes have nearly q
million men.
The Soviet Union has more
than 200 divisions, fully mobilized.
In addition, the Soviet Union has
a trained reserve of massive pro-
portions. The Soviet air force is
the worlds largest in peacetime,
with more than 10000 f1rst-line
aircraft, a large proportion of
which are jets of excellent quality.
What these figures mean for
us is that we have a long way to
go before we can breathe more
easily.
Let's look at what we are doing
to reduce as quickly as we can
this risk of war.
Building Strength at Center.
First Of all, we are building
strength at the center. We are
mobilizing the great strength of
the United States so that we will
have readily available forces, and
a production base that will enable
us to expand rapidly If necessary.
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