Evening star. [volume], April 09, 1943, Page A-16, Image 16

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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AFTER VICTORY:
Will Key Bases Assure U. S. Lasting Peace ?
The first problem facing the United States at the Peace
Table will be how best to avoid a recurrence of War. Any
Plan that avoids settlement of this issue obviously can
result in only a temporary truce. • Newsweek believes
that a discussion of this problem now is of tremendous
interest and importance to every American. Therefore,
the "Postwar Horizons" section in the current News
week explores fully one of the most vital phases of the
Peace Problem—the securing of key military, naval, and
air bases throughout the world. The facts presented in
this story have been gathered and assembled by News*
week's corps of seasoned observers and writers, all of
whom have direct access to vital sources of information.
This story is presented here as a public service to all
thinking Americans concerned with tomorrow's world.
AFTER we have won this war,
/% we jhave to keep it won.
Armed bases must be
established to hold down the ag
gressors who precipitated the
conflict and to check the over
ambitious powers who would try
to start another one.
As things now stand, the United
States would end the war with only
an inner line of defensive works in
the Atlantic Ocean no nearer Europe
and Africa than the West Indies,
and in the Pacific Ocean with only
a patrol route from Pearl Harbor to
Australia, plus what it could take
from Japan.
•
Without further steps, this coun
try will not have any direct or
participating rights in lands within
striking distance of Germany or
Japan. It will not have legal rights
in those other distant regions where
open commerce and transit will be
essential to our postwar security in
the shrunken world.
It is not likely that any postwar
base agreements will involve, in the
long run, the quartering of American
troops at bases beyond the Atlantic
and the Pacific. Rather, discussion
in responsible circles tends toward
study of an organization in which
any country detecting threats in its
“watch zone” could call for and get
help as soon as the threat was veri
fied by some form of United Nations
general staff. But regardless of the
form of organization the peace
The April 12th Newsweek contains
many other significant features of
importance to thinking Americans.
If you have your copy of News
week, you will be interested in:
Why Rommel's Army Can Escape
Tunisia.
How the Draft of Fathers will
Operate.
How the Quakers are Helping
North African Needy. 1
Why Industry May Face An
Aluminum Shortage.
What Correspondents in Tunisia
Are Up Against.
Why Farmers Are Optimistic
About Food Production.
How War Has Changed The
British Empire.
How The Nazi Intelligence
Bureau Has Been Crippled.
•.. plus the News and Significance
of the week's events the world over.
watch takes, it must be backed by
bases — bases located and stocked
with modern weapons keyed to the
uses and requirements of air power.
THE PAST: For 120 years the United
States laid plans that might be
termed quartersphere defense. We
were pledged under the Monroe
Doctrine to defend Latin America
from outside aggression, but there
was no evident plan to carry out
this task if the doctrine were seri
ously challenged.
In our prewar setup, Cavite, near
Manila, and Guantanamo, Cuba,
were little more than refueling de
pots and minor repair ports for the
Fleet. Dutch Harbor, Alaska, was an
important Navy patrol headquar
ters backed by air forces at Kodiak,
Alaska. Now Kodiak and Dutch Har
bor supply an air-attack base in the
Western Aleutians from which we
hammer the Japanese on Kiska.
The prewar Pacific base program
hinged on Pearl Harbor as the cen
ter of a line running south from
Dutch Harbor and Kodiak to the
Hawaiians and east to the Panama
Canal. Pearl Harbor was connected
■-»- -—_ . * _
with the Philippines by air via Mid
way and Wake Islands, leading to
Guam and the Philippines. We had
developed Samoa as a refueling stop
but as little else. The same was true
of many other small islands south
west of Hawaii.
In the Atlantic, prior to 1940, the
United States had no real base out
side of the continental United States.
Norfolk was the center of Atlantic
naval operations, with other large
yards at Boston and New York. The
Army maintained at Mitchel Field,
L. I., its principal air establishment,
while Langley Field, near Norfolk,
was the Navy’s primary airfield on
the Atlantic Coast.
We had a refueling base at Guan
tanamo, but little else.
The Canal Zone itself was stud
ded with weapons, including gun
emplacements and airfields hacked
out of jungles, but this work was
exclusively defensive —useful only
when an attacker came within range
of the fighter planes and guns in
the Canal Zone.
As a first expansion step in 1940,
President Roosevelt obtained rights
to establish bases in the West Indies,
on 99-year lease from Britain, in
exchange for 50 over-age destroy
ers. Trinidad, seat of the Caribbean
Defense Command, has been devel
oped. Other outposts are at Ber
muda, Nassau, Jamaica, Antigua, St.
Lucia, and British Guiana. At the
same time we obtained base rights
in Newfoundland and permission
from the Dutch to protect oil refin
eries on Curacao.
By reciprocal arrangements we
obtained in Brazil the right to de
velop military air-transit rights on
the “bulge” near Natal, and permis
sion to put ground forces in Dutch
Guiana to protect valuable mines.
This gave the United States, for the
duration of hostilities, a relatively
solid line of air- and sea-base facili
ties extending from Iceland and
Greenland to Brazil.
By courtesy as war participants,
our Army, Navy, and Air Force are
using bases, some of which we have
built ourselves, in the British Isles
and Africa. But with the exception
of leased rights in New- .
foundland, Bermuda,
and the West Indies, we
have no postwar base
rights, any more than
we have the right to use in peace
time the far-flung commercial air
ports discussed in this department
in the past
THE FUTURE: What is the outline of
base requirements to protect the
United States?
Pacific: We shall no longer, in
the postwar world, let security de
pend on a tenuous line westward
across the Pacific which ends at the
Philippines. Such a defense is con
sidered no defense at all and it
would leave us impotent, as it did
before, to be of assistance to China
or to watch Japan.
The rough plans in outline indi
cate a chain of strong bases, with air
and ground forces and sea patrol,
from Pearl Harbor to the southern
doorstep of Japan. With Midway
and Wake Islands as stepping
stones, Guam will be turned into
a fortress, as the Navy has desired
for many years. Palau Island will
become the intermediate stop be
tween Guam and the Philippines,
where our treaty rights with that
island country permit full develop
ment of facilities.
Linking the Philippines and Jap
an, there could be a series of works
ranging through the Island of For
mosa and the Ryukyu Archipelago
right into Nagasaki, an excellent
spot in Japan from which to assure
control over that country.
The North Pacific will find us far
stronger than ever before, probably
with Kiska developed as a way sta
tion on the road to Kamchatka,
Russian territory and, we assume,
friendly territory. For the future, as
far as one can see, the Russian forces
at Vladivostok will face Japan from
the west. The Pacific shore of Asia
also will find strong United Nations
forces at the key points of Singa
pore and Hong Kong.
With Japan thus insulated, it will
be a matter of future estimate as to
the forces required to assure the
security of the Netherlands Indies,
a security formerly based on the
false premise that Britain's great
naval establishment at Singapore
could do this trick in conjunction
with American naval forces in the
Pacific.
Atlantic: Our Atlantic patrols will
involve close cooperation with Brit
ain, although we shall be able and
probably will desire to exercise a
larger hand in that ocean than prior
to 1939. The importance of air
commerce gives the United States
a vital interest in protection and
maintenance alike of the northern
route to Europe via Newfoundland,
Greenland, and Iceland, and in the
southern route through Trinidad,
Brazil and on to Africa.
This plan raises no concern re
garding the northern routes which
terminate in Great Britain, but does
meet with strong impact on the
question of Africa. It creates the
question whether we should not
seek American air and naval facili
ties in the vicinity of Dakar, Gam
bia, or Freetown, or at least estab
lish facilities in Liberia. Here is a
terminus that tests the Mahan
theory.
Europe: The immediate postwar
problem of policing Germany, Italy,
and Japan, and their satellite coun
tries will be carried out by theforces
which conquer them and by the
commanders of those forces, it is
anticipated, but beyond that emer
gency period there is the problem
of the long watch to see that the
trouble makers keep the peace.
The European policing operation
involves large calculations in air
and ground forces plus probably
heavy supply requirements to be
shipped by surface vessels from the
United States until Europe again
has rehabilitated its food supplies.
To sea control of the Mediter
ranean, which will continue to be
exercised by the bases at'Gibraltar,
Malta, and Alexandria, has been
added the element of air security.
The logical center for a concentra
tion of bomber and fighting airplanes
—perhaps for troops to be flown by
glider to any troubled spot in South
ern Europe — is Tunisia, which at
Bizerte sticks like a fist up into the
Western Mediterranean. Military
students see the further need for
air bases probably at Crete and, if
an arrangement could be made with
Turkey, near Ankara.
Britain will stand as guardian
over Western Europe, but the sea
route around the North Cape to
Russia opens the need for another
air base in Norway, possibly at
Trondheim, to act as guardian of
the northern route for all nations.
To the eastward, by the south
route around Asia, there already
exist strong sea and air bases at
Aden, at the southern gateway of
the Red Sea, on Ceylon and at Sin
gapore, where the British sphere
begins to meet the American pro
tective sector in the South Pacific.
-SIGNIFICANCE
The political organization of the
world after victory will largely de
termine, in the long run, the size
and distribution of the armed forces
of the victors. Smaller forces and
fewer bases will be needed to keep
Germany and Japan disarmed than
to disarm them in the first instance.
Smaller forces and few bases will
be needed if the great powers
among the victors find that they
can work together than if they feel
that they must maintain arms for
eventual use against each other.
The American and British Gov
ernments are exploring their way
toward a worldwide system of secur
ity based upon collaboration among,
first, “the big four” and, then, all
the United Nations. Attainment of
this further goal might be hindered,
the State Department feels, by pre
mature crystallization of national or
regional plans for postwar security.
There are several ways in which
we could obtain the bases most
essential to our primary security.
Many of them, especially in the
Pacific, will have to be recovered
by force. Our long-term rights to
their use could be established by
annexation or mandate, by purchase
or lease, or by arrangements for the
use of bases in which ownership is
retained by other friendly powers.
The first method, annexation or
mandate, presumably will be ap
plied to some of the Pacific islands
held by Japan before the war. But
in our arrangements with our Allies,
other methods will be used.
We leased bases in the British
Western Atlantic is
lands, but such lease ar
rangements are not an
ticipated on the sover
eign territory of Ameri
can nations and whether they will
be made elsewhere is a question
which has been left in abeyance
until the war is over.
The third method — access to
bases owned by friendly nations— i
is the one on which we are relying j
most heavily during the war. Some J
of these are outposts built or ex- <
panded with our money. We have i
them, on a reciprocal basis, with
Brazil and Iceland, and by friendly 1
arrangement with various smaller
Latin American countries, such as I
Guatemala. For practical purposes,
our bases and those of Great Brit
ain and most of her dominions are
pooled. This is one evidence of the
firmest and most far-flung collabo
ration ever achieved by two major
military allies.
The main trend of thought in our
government is toward extending
this wartime practice of pooling in
to the postwar world and amplify
ing it to embrace the other United
Nations. This would not mean that
the British Fleet would base on Nor
folk or San Diego or Hawaii, any
more than that the United States
Fleet would normally base on Scapa
Flow. It would mean, however, the
mutualizing of key bases essential
to world policing such as Singapore
and Gibraltar and D^Jcar or Free
town. The same test of mutual need
and mutual value could be applied
to various military air bases, such
as those we will need in French
North Africa for the protection of
the Western Hemisphere, as well as
to those needed for close control of
the defeated aggressors and the po
licing of the world generally.
After their recent experiences,
many of the relatively weak nations
are likely to feel more secure if they
grant base rights to major friendly
powers. Likewise, the great powers
can be expected to mutualize bases
to the extent that they trust each
other. If the determination to col
laborate in preserving the peace
permeates the victors, and espe
cially the “big four,” the legal and
technical arrangements for the com
mon use of various bases will be
solved easily. If this determination
is missing, the negotiations may
sow the seeds of the next war. The
arrangements made for the use of
bases will be the surest test of the
character of the peace.
Periscope Preview
From Newsweek's World
ivide Listening Posts
Capital Straws
General Eisenhower's reports to
Washington indicate that he's mare
optimistic about the Tunisian situ
ation than the commentators who
predict a 60- to 90-day campaign
. . . Washington has credible evi
dence from refugees that at least
40% of the Red Cross food reaching
Greece falls into the hands of the
occupying forces .. . There’s a good
chance that General Emmons in
Hawaii will be given command of
the Aleutians area; Admiral Nimitz
at Hawaii already has charge of
naval operations there.
Political Straws
As crack a political expert as Jim
Farley poohpoohs predictions of a
postwar milkary party; he believes
that returning veterans will fall into
the old party lines . . . The flurry
among state legislatures to adopt
anti-third-term resolutions is purely
a political teapot tempest and won’t
get anywhere.
National Notes
Don't be fooled by the apparent
inactivity of the Dies committee;
it’s busily investigating government
employes, particularly those work
ing for the OWI... The Agriculture
Department won’t have the head
aches of some other agencies in
complying with the Budget Bu
reau’s order to cut payrolls 5%; it
can transfer many of the 4,000 em
ployes that otherwise would have
to be dropped to Chester Davis's
new setup . . . Incidentally, Wash
ington sources say one reason for
the selection of Chester Davis as
food czar may have been that his
estimates of last year's food produc
tion were more accurate than those
of other government experts.
Trends Abroad
A stalemate on the Russian front
because of rain and mud now seems
likely until mid-May, although the
Red Army may be able to take
Smolensk . . . Chinese officials urge
changing the name of the Japan Sea
to Pacific Sea, claiming it would
have an important psychological
effect on Japan ... The pro-Ally
trend in the Swedish Government is
growing although Foreign Minister
Gunther is expected to continue to
follow an opportunist line.
Russo-Jap Status
It's clear that the once dangerous
tension between Russia and Jdpan
has now died down, at least tempo
rarily. The revelation that Lend
Lease shipments are reaching Rus
sia via the Pacific is one straw in
the wind. The publication in Mos
cow of ex-Ambassador Troyanov
sky’s book on why the U. S. lights
Germany is another.
Benes Hopes
Word from London is that Czech
President Benes, after weeks of
heeding “delay” recommendations
from his Washington representa
tives, is now determined to visit the
U. S. in the immediate future. With
postwar talks definitely under way,
he believes Czech claims should be
placed before F.D.R. now.
(The above are only a few of the
many Periscope views and forecasts
appearing in the current Newsweek.)
During recent months, more and more thinking Americans have been turning to
Newsweek for an authoritative view of today's world . . . and tomorrow's. For
its unique editorial content gives the future Significance of events . . . gives, in
Periscope, forecasts of things to come . . . gives the signed opinions of Ernest
Lindley, Raymond Moley, Ralph Robey, Admiral Pratt, and General Fuqua.
But wartime curtailment of paper leaves us unable to meet the increasing
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