\.
~79~-
\
And it must be again repeated, the arms, supplies, and vehicles of transportation
to be depended upon are those which are stockpiled in as secure a manner as
possible.
At this point it should be clear how drastic are the changes in character, |
equipment, and outlook which the traditional armed forces mist undergo if they
are to act as real deterrents to aggression in an age of atomic bombs.
Whether
or not the ideas presented above are entirely valid, they may perhaps stimlate
those to whom our military security is entrusted to a more rigorous and better
informed kind of analysis which will reach sounder conclusions.
In the above discussion the reader will no doubt observe the absence of any
considerable role for the Navy.
And it is indisputable that the traditional con—
cepts of military security which this country has (oreOPSS over the last fifty
foe
years—-in which the Navy was auite correctly avowed: to be’“gur "first line of
Neve:
defense'~~seem due for revision, or at least for reco
eration,
For in the main sea power has throughout history proved decisive only when
‘it was applied and exploited over a period of considerable time, and in atomic
bomb warfare that time maywell be lacking.
Where wars are destined to be short,
superior sea power may prove nholly useless
The French naval superiority over
Prussia in 1870 did not prevent the collapse of the French armies in a few months,
nor Cid Anglo-French naval superiority in 19:0 prevent an even quicker conquest
of France—one which might verywell have ended the war.
World War II was in fact destined to prove
the conflict in which sea power
reached the culmination of its influence on history.
The greatest of air wars
Co
and the one which saw the most titanic battles of all time on land was also the
t
v could hardly have been otherwise in a war which was
+
y &global, 3 where the 2pooling
> of resources of the
great allies depended upon
their ability to traverse the highways of the seas and where American men and
materials played a decisive part in remote theaters which could be reached with
the requisite burdens only by ships.
That period of greatest influence of sea
sewer
greatest of naval wars,