SOVIET UNION LACKING INDUSTRIAL POWER TO WAGE WAR ON AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26996, 3 February 1949, Page 5

SOVIET UNION LACKING INDUSTRIAL POWER TO WAGE WAR ON AMERICA

From E. G. Webber, NZPA Special Correspondent Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 2. The well-known American military commentator, Hanson Baldwin, in a book entitled “ The Price of Power,” which is published this week in Britain by the Fioyal Institute of International Affairs, says that Russia is unlikely to go to war with the United States because the Soviet industrial capacity is at least 25 years behind the American. If, however, such a conflict should occur, Mr Baldwin considers it inevitable that Britain and the British Commonwealth will fight on the side of the Americans, not only because of their existing alliances and common sympathy, but also because both Britain and the Commonwealth are now primarily dependent upon the United States economically and politically. Mr Baldwin makes no secret of his conviction that the United States to-day holds the future destiny of the world in its hands and that upon the average American’s'realisation of the responsibilities now being assumed by his country depends the peace of mankind, at least in this generation.

In potential resources, he states, the Soviet Union is probably the most powerful country in the world to-day, while its great man-power resources make it unquestionably the most powerful military nation. Its military power, however, is weakened by its lack of sea power, and the fact that its air force is a service powerful in quantity rather than in quality. More important still, however, the Soviet Union is so far behind the United States technically, and so many of its resources are undeveloped and inaccessible, that its reserves must remain for many years potential rather than actual. Militarily, Mr Baldwin considers that Britain’s world-wide system of bases offers her great advantages, while the number and excellent quality of her aircraft and ships, the skills of her craftsmen and the character of her people give her many of the longterm elements of military greatness. The United Kingdom, however, because. of the overcrowding of its population and its dependence upon outside food supplies, and because of the development of new weapons, is peculiarly vulnerable. It can also no longer afford the insurance of a large army, navy and air force. . Economically, Mr Baldwin considers that Britain is "sick,” and that she must recognise the fact that she can no longer pursue her traditional policy of preserving the balance of power in Europe to her own advantage. Since the end of the war British policy has been one of withdrawal, but one significant development has been the diversion of British resources and British strategic planning to Africa. The withdrawal of Britain from India, Burma, Egypt and Palestine, and the instability of the political situation in the Middle East, renders this traditional British lifeline no longer tenable, but Britain’s position in Africa offers her the opportunities of providing alternative routes and defence bases. Political developments in South Africa may cause the present British plans to be revised, but there is no doubt in Mr Baldwin’s vie.w that South Africa has already been selected as the alternative site for the British capital if London should be destroyed or too greatly threatened in any future war.

Mr Baldwin emphasises his belief that the United States and the British Commonwealth are mutually interdependent from the defence point of view, and that their present alliance depends upon much more than common sentiment, language and ideology. To the United States, he says, Britain is an essential advance base in any future conflict, while to Britain, the United States represents not only defence in depth, but also the only Power at present capable of protecting the widespread Commonwealth. This interdependence Mr Baldwin considers, renders any policy of British neutrality in a future world war an impossibility. Mr Baldwin bases his belief that Russia is in no position to provoke war with the United States upon these facts:— First, Russia is unable to produce an atom bomb stockpile before 1970 at the earliest because she is short of uranium, of scientists and of technical equipment. Secondly, Russia’s steel production in 1950 will be -only about 40 per cent, of America’s present output. Thirdly, the Russian railway and transport system is inadequate to meet another world war, and it is vulnerable to air attack. Fourthly, Russian industry is more concentrated, and therefore more vulnerable to air attack than is American industry. Fifthy. America is much more advanced than Russia in research into guided missiles, germ warfare, poison gases, and submarine and air weapons. While admitting that by 1960 the number of males of military age in Russia will outnumber the combined war man-power of the United States, Britain and the British Commonwealth, the low countries and Scandinavia, Mr Baldwin remarks: “Victory in modern war is no longer won by big battalions, but by big factories backed by big laboratories.” Mr Baldwin considers that the chief weaknesses of the present American position are inadequate military intelligence, the fact that on the experience of the recent war American soldiers have not the “ same stomach for fighting ” as the Russians, and finally, the general American disposition to take refuge behind the belief that large numbers necessarily represent security.