-13The atomic bomb will be introduced into the conflict only on a gigantic scale, No belligerent wovld be stupid enough, in opening itself to reprisals in kind, to use only a few bombs. The inital stages of the attack will certainly involve hundreds of the bombs, more likely thousands of them, Unless the . argument of Postulate II and IV in the previous chapter is wholly preposterous, the target state will have little chance of effectively halting or fending off the attack, If its defenses are highly efficient it may dovm nine planes out of every ten attacking, but it will suffer the destruction of its cities, That destruction may be accomplished in a day, or it may take a week or more, there will be no opportunity to incorporate the strength residing But in the cities, whether in the form of industry or personnel, into the forces of resistance or counter-attack, The ability to fight back after an atomice™bomb attack will depend on the degree to which the armed forces have tinde thabselves independent of the urban commmities and their industries for suspiy and support, The proposition just made is the basic proposition of atomic bomb warfare, and it is the one which our military authorities continue consistently to overlook, They continue to speak in terms of peacetime military establishments which are simply cadres and which are cxpected to undergo an enormous but slow expansion after the outbreak of hostilitics, 60 Therein lies the essence of what may be called 0. General HH. Arnoldts Third Report to the Secretary of War is in general out- Standing for the breadth of vision it displays, Yet one finds in it statements like the follotring: "An Air Force is always verging on obsolescence and, in time of peace, its size and replacement rate will alvays be inadequate to meet the full demands of war, wilitary Air Powcr showld, thereforc, be measured to a large extent by the ability of the existing Air Force to absorb in time of emergency the increase required by war together with new ideas and techniques" (page62), Else~ where in the same Report (page 65) similar remarks are made about the expansion of personnel which, it is presumed, will always follow woon the outbreak of hostilitics, But nowhere in the report is the possibility envisaged that in a war which began with an atomic bomb attack there might be no opportunity for the expansion or even replacement either of planes or personnel, The same omission, needless to say, is discovered in practically all the pronowmcements of top-ranking Army and Navy officers concerning their ovm plans for the future, to