Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-03-22

As Army Chief of Staff General Matthew
B. Ridgway is naturally-and rightly-a strong
advocate of ground troops. Further even though
he may be inclined to want more of them than
other military experts deem necessary in our
jet-propelled atomic hydrogen age, his basic
position on the subject is not disputed by either
the Navy or Air Force.
This position, as set forth the other day
in General Ridgway's address to the National
Press Club, is that "the Army is playing and
will continue to play a vital role" in efforts
to achieve inter-allied security against the
threat of Red aggression. The advent of
A-weapons and the H-bomb, it is true. has
profoundly affected the nature of warfare, but
ground forces-regardless of how they may have
to be reorganized in keeping with modern mill
tary technology-Still remain as indispensable
to the safety of our own country and the rest
of the free world as sea and air power.
Perhaps this would not be so if the Kremlin-
controlled Red empire we're not investing as
much as it is in strength on the ground. But
the fact is, as General Ridgway has said, that
the world behind the Iron Curtain, despite hav-
ing within its reach the same type Of weapons
as we are producing, has made move to
reduce its land forces. Instead, wholly apart
from its genuinely formidable air position and
its deadly submarine potentialities, the Soviet
for instant combat-about ITS infantry and
armored divisions, plus 10 European satellite
divisions and a 2-million-man Chinese Com
muniSt army.
It Is because of this tremendous Red land
power in being-and also because of conceivable
wars in which atomic hydrogen weapons would
not be used for one reason or another-that our
allied world must maintain ground forces on
large scale and in the most up-to-date form
possible. OF course. when it comes to numbers,
the United States cannot match the Russians
man for man, but we can and must see to 1t,
as General Ridgway has emphasized, that
our Army-though it may be excelled in guam
tity-is never exceeded in quality of personnel,
weapons, or equipment"
Our Joint Chiefs of Staff, together with the
civilian heads of our military establishment, are
well aware of all this, and SO our land power
whose primary mission is to check and defeat
advancing enemy ground forces and provide an
ant-aircraft artillery shield against attack from
the Sky-is being trained and armed accordingly.
A-weaponS and the H-bomb have made it
neither obsolete nor obsoleScent. On the con-
trary, in President Eisenhower's words, its i'm
portance continues to be such that 1--WE are
planning the greatest peacetime Army we have
ever had, one million men,"
In short, despite our so-called military "new
look"-a loose phrase deplored by the President
Our defense authorities recognize that it would
be folly of the worst kind to neglect our land
strength General Ridgway may have exagger-
ated bit in suggesting that if war should come
--even an about atomic hydrogen wharf.-the
final victory could be won only on the ground,
but there can be no doubt about the soundness
of his views on why our Army is as indispensable
as ever and why every effort should be made
to insure that it will be the worlds best in
quality.