FUTURE OF WAR

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 156, 30 December 1925, Page 7

FUTURE OF WAR

STRATEGICAL PROBLEMS

DIFFICULTIES OF MILITARY PROBLEMS

NEW DISCIPLINE FOR MECHAN-

ICAL MEANS.

The strategical problems which face us to-day, though less obvious to the iiasses of the people, are more numerous and complex than those which faced us in 1914, writes a military correspondent of the London "Daily Telegraph;" an officer holding a high position in the Army, who haa made a special study of military problems. Then Gefmany and her allies formed v definite pivot around which our strategical ideas could revolve. Today this pivot has been removed, and, coincidental with its removal, a veritable tornado of revolution has swept over the greater part of the world, to corrode and dissolve the political foundations of States, nations, aud even of races of men. Europe, though exhausted, is still divided and truculent, and much in the same condition the Greek cities and Republic were in after the Pelopounesian war. Ever since the days of the Tudors the stability of British power has been the axle-pin of European liberties and peace, because geography has placed us outside the immediate turmoil of the Continent, aud has enabled us to choose our partners as we saw fit. As long as our command of tho sea is maintained we cannot be invaded; yet this command Jias meant that our laud forces must remain small. • Not only -because we cannot afford a largo Army as well as a largeNavy, but to add such an Army to our .Fleet would threaten every nation on the Continent and force them to cflter into coalition against us. Possessing but a small Army, >we have normally been compelled to seek a powerful ally abroad, and as the pivot of our foreign policy had been the maintenance of tho balance of power, we have almost invariably supported the second strongest Continental nation, as.we did in 1914.

In the past our supremacy at sea hits not only enabled us to support our Continental Allies on land, but to maintain our own frontier inviolable, and under this protection to build up a formidable army to reinforce our original Expeditionary Force. Time has always o°een the crucial factor, and whilst in the past naval supremacy and 1 the slowness of land warfare' have enabled us to find the necessary time wherein, to make good our military deficits) modern inventions are adversely influencing this condition by leaps and bounds. The submarine Las undermined the economic, if not the naval, foundations of our sea wall, and is, I think, exerting even a greater influence on our foreign policy than surface craft have done in the past; for every year our overseas' trade is becoming more and more vital to our existence. Again, we are no longer the island we were a few years ago,' for how we can be attacked by aircraft, and if our Air Force cannot guarantee command of the air, which, ill- spite. of sire, is a very."sp<ScuUi,tive. problem^ an-ecoiiomic blockade,, followed by an intensive bombardment of; our great cities, might well.bring the nation to its knees. Time wherein, to prepare is tlius/yearly being reduced, for improvements ill threedimensional forms of attack are steadily progressing. ■ MECHANICALISATION OF OUR I ARMY. Curious as it may seem, the solution of this problem of gaining time, I Which, of all strategic problems, is the most important of all, is not only to be sought in the increased efficiency of our Navy and Air Force, the one to guarantee our command of the sea and the other\>f the air, but in the. reformation of our Army. To-day our land forces possess little power against Similarly constituted conscript armies, but were they reorganised on a "petrol, in .place^of a muscular, footing—that is, were they mechanicalised—they would undoubtedly prove a most formidable weapon against the conscript horde, ,and possibly an equally formidable weapon for the attack of enemy submarine bases and coastal aerodromes. Nor are such operations the dream of an unbalanced mind, for in the summer of 1917 a coastal attack based on the crude tanks of that period was planned and' practised.. It may, however, be urged that, if we mechanicalise our Army, Continental Powers will follow suit, and that consequently little is to be gained,, for a few years hence the strategical conditions will be' exactly as they are today. This, however, is not so, for not only are we the leading industrial nation of the Old World, and bo well placed to mechanicalise, but the size of meehanicaliscd armies will depend, not on population—the foundation of conscript armies—-but on industrial potentialities and fuel supply. Moro important still, the expense of creating and maintaining such land forces will not permit of Continental nations simultaneously attempting to gain command of the sea and air. In the past our immunity against sea, and consequently land, attack has not only depended on the size and efficiency of our Navy, but on the amount of money . Continental Powers were compelled to spend on their land forces. We thus see that changes in the military instrument are profoundly'influencing strategy. No sane Englishman wants another war, yet every saae Englishman wants to feel- certain of his bread and butter. This certainty very largely depends on the balance of power, and the mechanieahsation of our Army is an important step towards its re-establishment. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTOR. Once the balance of power is re-es-tablished, and peace, for its period, has been rendered stable, then time will be gained to consider the future nature of war. The Napoleonic ideal of absolute warfare has been at the bottom of all j&ur troubles. The foundation of this system of war is the nation in arms—the horde. warfare is slow, brutal, and destructive; mechanical and chemical warfart are far more rapid and humane. I believe that gas as a weapon is the instrument which will humanise war, and, consequently, democratise and civilise it. I do not believe that it will end all suffering and destruction, or that it will abolish war any more than chloroform and prophylactics elided human suffering or abolished surgery. But I do believe that it will mitigate the horrors and destructive propensities of war.

The piychological effect of an. at tack by a mechanicalised and '' caemi

calised" army may be denoted as "democratic." By means of it a nation can be attacked, not only rapidly but simultaneously on its frontiers and hundreds of miles behind them. In tho past, a strong nation has felt secure behind its military and naval forces. The future possesses no such guarantee; consequently, the reality of war will be far more present to each individual citizen than it has been in the past; consequently, nations will become less susceptible to those sudden panics which have so often detonated war. Once great nations in bulk are induced to think of war, in place of locking it up like a skeleton in the cupboard, the first stop will be gained in changing the nature of war, for this nature is but the coefficient of human war thought, or the lack of it. Mechanicalisation, I feel, will change the war outlook, as.surely as steam-power changed the economic outlook in the last century.

A mechanical army, I have shown, demands a) new discipline, a discipline based on intelligence. It will, therofore, compel soldiers as well as civilians to think; and thinking soldiers backed by a nation which understands war will soon realise that absolute warfare is but the coefficient of absolute government, that, indeed, it is a barbarous relie of the past.

Finally, war is a world-force which nuist^j-un its course; it cannot be abolished .any more than earthquakes can, but its implements and the ideas regarding their use can surely be rendered less crude, just as houses can be built to withstand seismic shocks. Therefore, it seems to mo that the war problem for the whole civilised world is a dual one. First, that our existing methods of war aro archaic, and this must be realised; secondly, that only by changing the tools of war can we change" the mind of its workers. Then, perhaps,' little by little, will civilised nations be able to establish such a condition of waging war that, whon the next conflagration flames across. Europe, the world will realise iu the peace which follows it the iniior meaning of tho noble words cut on the plinth of General Sherman's statue, namely, that "the legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace." Then, and only then, will war have become democratised.