PATTERN OF NEW WAR

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27490, 26 October 1954, Page 14

PATTERN OF NEW WAR

Use Of Nuclear Weapons (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, October 25. Lord Montgomery’s statement to the Royal United Service Institution on the manner in which any new war will be likely to start and be fought has been given much prominence in the national press and has provoked several of the more serious newspapers to discuss at length his two main points —that with the arrival of atomic and thermonuclear weapons, the organisation and methods of both attack and defence need drastic overhaul, and that this calls above all for co-operation, not competition, among the services. “The Times” says that presumably Lord assumptions were not far from the latest N.A.T.O. opinions. “Basically his theme was

the coming annexation of warfare by air power. This will be the dominant factor in a future war. But air* power does not end in the air. Against the peril of a new bombardment, land armies themselves must be capable of being moved rapidly by air. “Their line of supply, with roads, railways and ports out of action must be based on air lift. “Lord Montgomery also believes that a major factor in the control of the seas will be air power.

“Much of what he says may be disputed, but the burden is plain. New weapons and their effects mean airdominated warfare and the secret of success will be flexibility and centralised control of all air forces in the theatre of war. The important question is not who should control what. It is. rather how best the new requirements can be applied by all services working together as one.” The “Daily Telegraph” says that few will now be disposed to question the basic assumption that nuclear and thermonuclear weapons will be used by both sides at the outset of a world war.

To take this for granted and to plan for it must be a big factor in preventing a local conflict from developing into a general war. ,

“If as Lord Montgomery says we have reached the point of no return in developing atomic weapons—and the same must be assumed of Russia—there follows the necessity for fresh thinking about all arms of defence; about their balance and respective functions and about their equipment and training.

The “Scotsman” says it is “interesting, inevitable and horrifying” that it should be taken for granted in high quarters that nuclear weapons will be used at the outset of any new war. “Lord Montgomery thinks that so long as we could start, a tremendous nuclear bombardment the moment we were attacked, the enemy could not afford to do anything about it. “But surely it is obvious that an island like this is a nice, compact, little target for destruction by nuclear weapons whereas our targets in the East will be relatively widely scattered.

“A nuclear bombardment of London would create more paralysis of national effort than a similar attack on Moscow. The Russians would have somewhere to go. The sea, which has so long been our safety, might now be our prison.”

The “Glasgow Herald” says: “If a timid citizen wanted confirmation of some of his worst fears he got it. So now we know, and the strange hopes vanish that humanity, having used gas and napalm and atomic bomb would refrain even if only out of fear from using newer weapons, including more horrible ones still to be perfected. The position simply is. that with whatever we are attacked, we will defend ourselves.”