NEW BALANCE OF POWER MOON ROCKET AND MOON-STRUCK WEST

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28821, 16 February 1959, Page 10

NEW BALANCE OF POWER MOON ROCKET AND MOON-STRUCK WEST

[By Captain

B. H LIDDELL

HART]

(Bv Arrangement witn the "Naw Korle Kerala Tribuna”)

There has now been time to assess the scientific evidence provided by the Russians’ successful launching of Lunik, and from that to deduce its wider bearing on the strategic situation of the Western Powers in relation to Soviet Russia. The military, psychological, and political effects on their defence are potentially tremendous. They have been given little attention in the West so far. This disregard and apathy would be astonishing if it were not ail too characteristic of the way that the Western countries, then headed by France and Britain, ignored the revolutionary implications oi mechanised warfare a generation earlier, and the warning they blazoned for anyone whose eyes were open.

The reaction of the Western countries to the latest warning message, given by the Sputnik and the moon-rocket, has been like that of valley-dwellers awakened by the bursting of a dam, and then falling asleep again without thought that a flood is pouring down on their houses. These Russian achievements have shattered the prim- premise on which Western defence policy has proceeded in building up its strategic organisation—the complacent assumption that America has, and will continue to have, a strong superiority over Russia in nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them to their targets. A comfortable assurance has been expressed on this score year after year and has even been reiterated frequently during the last 12 months. Astonishing Precision But the performance of the moon-rocket, following on that of the Sputniks, has demonstrated to Western scientists that the Russians have developed n system of guiding large rockets, at immensely long ranges, which Is far ■more accurate than the Americans have yet evolved. The Russians are the masters in the rocket field, and have established a lead that will be hard to overtake. An error of only 2 per cent/ in aiming at a target nearly a quarter of a million miles away, and. subject to. time complications as well, as gravitational pulls, Is an astonishing degree of precision —ten times better than the Americans expected in their attempted moon shot last autumn. A Power that already possesses such an ■accurate system Should have little difficulty in delivering hydrogen bombs, at a range of 3000-5000 miles, close enough to the great cities and industrial areas of America to wreck them and wipe out most of their population. The moon-rocket is shattering to faith in the superiority of American weapon-power and in the protection thus promised against aggression. It is the bursting of the dam that covers the N.A.T.O. valley. The effect may be catastrophic psychologically, even if ity. : ..■ » - ■ ' . This does not mean . that the West’s nuclear power, embodied mainly in the U.S. Strategic Air Command, has ceased to be a deterrent and protection. It remains a deterrent to. and thereby an indirect protection against, nuclear attack so long as the capacity for retaliation is sufficient to ensure that any surprise blow—any attempt at a ■nuclear Pearl Harbour likely to prove mutually suicidal But it has become doubtful whether the former "great deterrent” remains a sufficient deterrent to lesser forms of aggression, or even to a strong invasion with conventional forces. Nuclear Nullity

For nuclear parity leads to nuclear nullity—because the suicidal boomerang result of using such weapons induced strategic sterility. Moreover, parity in this sphere does not require equality in numbers—of bombs and their carriers—but only the capability of delivering the minimum, a very low minimum, that would suffice to wreck the mainspring of the main power on the other side—the capital and great industrial centres. The mere probability is paralysing and sterilising. Indeed, it is ironically apt that an alternative meaning of the word “parity” is “the condition or fact of havJ"® b ? n l? Offspring.” By giving birth to the atomic bomb, America gained a temporary strategic advantage; but the sequel has been to annul her potency. Nuclear nullity inherently favours and fosters a renewal of nonnuclear aggressive activity—a field m which the West is much weaker than its opponents as a result of having pinned so much faith for so long to supremacy in nuclear power.

Now that Russia has taken the lead in the rocket field, as a counterbalance to America’s strategic air force, the very large and long-existing numerical superiority of Russia and her allies in ground forces becomes much more formidable. The combination is likely to strengthen her confidence, and theirs, in their ability to develop pressure on the West with impunity. That in itself tends to make local incursions and minor wars more likely. It may even foster a belief in the possibility of conducting a larger-scale invasion without such risk as hitherto of bringing on nuclear war. Would U.S. Retaliate?

In the past, American military spokesmen' have often declared that their forces would retort with nuclear weapons to any attack on countries or places in the N.A.T.O. area. More recently the qualifying phrase “major attack” has been used, although still with the implication that even a local frontier incursion would be met with nuclear action if other means did not quickly suffice to stop it and compel a withdrawal. Moreover, most of the training of the NA..T.O. forces during the last five years has been based on the assumption that nuclear weapons wiU be used, and immediately, against any aggressive move.

Whenever the slightest doubt has been voiced about possible American hesitation to retort in this way, it has been indignantly contradicted on every level. Little regard has been paid to the approaching state of nuclear paritynullity, or stalemate, which has now arrived.

Would an American government venture to launch its nuclear weapons to stop an encroachment upon, or even a strong invasion of, the territory of

a small ally abroad once it realised the likelihood of such a retort precipitating a nuclear counter-stroke upon its own, now accessible and very vulnerable, homeland? Will its small allies abroad continue to believe that Americans would, if it came to the point, take such a suicidal risk on their behalf? More important still, will the Russians believe it? To the coldly calculating men in the Kremlin, such extreme self-sacrifice must look so nonsensical as ‘to be improbable. Much depends, therefore, on whether the men in the Kremlin take due account of emotional reactions and pressures on the other side. History shows that these can make nations disregard all reasoned considerations of self-interest and even selfpreservation. Khrushchev and the other conductors of Soviet policy would be wise to remember Hitler’s fatal miscalculation in 1939, based on the assumption that the British were too rational to plunge into war and risk their own destruction in fulfilment of a hasty promise to Poland. The Strongest Chick Not only Hitler, but Stalin too, then failed to reckon with the emotional surge that swept Neville Chamberlain’s Government into war—in the most unfavourable circumstances and regardless of the disastrous consequences. The best hope for th, world now, in the potentially suicidal nuclear age, is that Stalin’s successors may take account of that lesson, as well as of the American people's quicker and more intense emotional reactions. Such a reckoning would form much the strongest check upon a Soviet invasion of N.A.T.O. territory. But the development of nuclear stalemate makes it of vital importance .to strengthen and improve—in efficiency and readiness for action —the NATO, ground forces’ capability of checking any local encroachment or pounce that the Russian, or satellite forces might attempt, emboldened by the new balance of power in the nuclear field resulting from their lead in longrange rockets. For the primary danger today is of an accidental rather than of a deliberately planned nuclear war. This danger lies in the possibility that sqme aggressive move, unless qqickly curbed and quenched, might develop uninten-. tionally into nuclear war. The surest safeguard would ba to make N.A.T.O. ’’shield forces strong enough to repel a mass tovasion without using nuclear weapons. But that is a dim hope. It would suffice, and it is more urgent, to raise them to the degree of strength and mobility capable of repelling any audden and limited pounce—particularly the kind of “24-hour” pounce that the Communists might now be tempted to make in the belief that America would accept such a local reverse rather than risk her own destruction; The execution of such a coup would not require, nor allow'/cope for. more than about half a dozen highly mobile divisions, mechanised or airborne. That is the measure of the most likely threat with which the Western Powers must reckon. —World Copyright; all rights reserved.