\ -68— \ wasteful targets for bombs of such concentrated power and relative scarcity; their mobility makes them practically impossible to hit with super=rockets of great range; and those of the United States Navy at least have shown themselves able, with the assistance of their own aircraft, to impose an impressively high ratio of casualties upon hostile planes endeavoring to approach then, But the question of how their own security is affected is not the essential point. For it is still possible for navies to lose all reason for being even if they them selves remain completely immme. A nation which had lost most of its larger cities and thus the major part of its industrial plant might have small use for a fleet. One of the basic purposes forrwhich a navy exists is to protect the sea-borne transportation by which the national industry imports its raw materials and exports its finished commodities to the battle lines, Moreover, without the national industrial plant to service it, the fleet would shortly find itself without the means to function. In a word, the strategic issues posed by the atomic bomb transcend all tactical issues, and the 19,6 test and the controversy which will inevitably follow it will no doubt etIhe. serve to becloud that basic point, “:\ iz a Outlines of a Defense Program in the Atomic Age What are the criteria by which we can appraise realistic military thinking in the age of atomic bombs? The burden of the answer will depend primarily on whether one accepts as true the several postulates presented and argued in the previous chapter, One might go farther and say that since none of them is obviously untrue, no program of military preparedness which fails to consider the likelihood of their being true can be regarded as comprehensive or even reasonably adequate, It is of course always possible that the world may see another major war in which the atomic bomb is not used. The awful menace to both parties of a reciprocal use of the bomb may prevent the resort to that weapon by cither side,