European reaction to the American inter-service dispute has been slow in coming: Although Europe registers the least significant political and military moves of the United States with nervous sensitivity, the American inter-service dispute did not provoke any interest in Europe until late 1949. Even since, it received but slight attention. This in itself is a discouraging symptom; it reflects that apathy which accompanies the resigned and conscious realization of Europe’s full dependence on American military aid.
With the exception of the eastern Europeans whose only hope lies in their dreams of an American forceful advance beyond the present iron curtain, and the inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula who, because of geographic reasons, believe that the English- speaking powers are and will continue to be compelled to count on their rugged and unique lands under whatever circumstances, the European regards the armed power of the United States as the inimitable, inevitable, but at the same time wholly incalculable factor of his security if an attack should come from the East. In all probability, this conception will continue to exist after 1952- 53, when—-if the calculations of American foreign policy introduced by the “containment” program in 1947 shall prevail—the Western European armed forces should again constitute a potential power factor while the present territorial status quo remains.
Whether ground shield or aerial umbrella, American power is regarded in Europe as being committed for purely defensive tasks. In addition, the European is prone to believe that air superiority and the subsequent threat of atomic bombing are the only deterrents of Russian aggression today. Whether this deterrent is sufficient or not, does not enter into the European’s calculations, mainly because he feels himself absolutely incapable of influencing the decisions of the American military planners. This is the main reason why the European showed no particular interest in the American inter-service dispute.
On the other hand, the realization that the present objective of American foreign policy in Europe is simply the “containment” of Russia along the present Elbe-Saale-Ems line; furthers this defensive psychology. The pattern of American participation in two world wars is again closely bound with this perception. First, defense; then, retaliation; a classic pattern in the fight of angels and devils. Because a Third World War would seem to be definitely ideological in character, this concept and the subsequent logic of a primarily defensive and retaliatory strategy is still very popular in America— but not so in Europe.
To Europeans it is obvious that the character and objectives of a Russo-American War must be understood as entirely different from the last two World Wars.
Both world wars, and especially the second, were of increasingly ideological character. This concept of the two wars was primarily adopted, as well as furthered, by the United States. It is, of course, known that ideological wars are practicable only when based on one point: a popular definition of the war aims. Almost invariably that war aim is the total annihilation of the enemy as he is popularly and officially conceived, seldom as a people but usually as a regime, or a system, or sometimes a political philosophy. The one and simple aim of World War II was to crush the Axis and Japan. Thus, while the war had a seemingly limited ideological and political goal, its geographic- strategic aims were flexible in character and almost unlimited in extent.
Any war between Russia and America must be, however, different. Neither the complete liquidation of the Soviet armed forces, the occupation of the whole (or most) of the Soviet Union, nor the forceful eradication of the entire Stalinist regime and order could be the aim of the Western Powers. It is not feasible; even if it were, it is not practical. Therefore, in contrast to American war aims in World War II, a war with Russia must necessarily be a war of limited objectives.
In more specific terms, the most important, and perhaps the only one, of these limited objectives would be the restoration of the Russian-European frontier. In September, 1949, Mr. Churchill voiced such a belief at the Strasbourg European Assembly, contending that this frontier should be reestablished along the so-called Curzon Line. It is not in the realm of this article to discuss whether the Russian-European border should be drawn along the line of 1940, 1921, or perhaps that of 1772. The fundamental fact remains that, whether or not the Department of State admits it in so many words, the primary goal of American foreign policy must be the restoration of European unity, and restoration of European unity must be based on terminating the sectional independence of the entire continent.
However paradoxical it may sound, this is a limited objective necessarily restricting the scope of any military conflict which might break out by anticipatory Russian offensive action or due to an inflexible Russian stubbornness blocking and paralyzing American foreign policy in Europe.
Thus, a Russian-American War, however global its over-all spectre, should not basically differ in its limitations of objectives from those wars which the United States fought in the nineteenth century with Mexico and Spain for plains and waters contiguous to American territories and essential for American security.
It is precisely because of this realization that the basic aspects of the present inter-service dispute are deeply disturbing to many who view it through European eyes. To the majority of spectators, strategic air power appears necessary because the United States is compelled to anticipate an eventual retaliatory air offensive against Russia. This is the one, generally acknowledged and commented upon truth. But it is only a half truth. The other “half” is more important: The present, however slight, emphasis of American military planning on strategic air power rather than on naval power is a clear indication to Russia that the U. S. has no intentions to fight an offensive war against her.
To comment upon this seemingly baffling and contradictory statement, one has to delve into the past.
Ever since Russia stepped out of her geographic isolation and became an European as well as world power, the only wars in which she was decisively beaten were wars in which her enemies could employ superior naval forces against her. Such was the case of the Crimean War in 1854-56, of the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-05 (whose development and implications are still vividly remembered by many Americans) and of the Baltic-Polish War of 1919-20.
The famous “urge to the sea,” explained and interpreted by literally hundreds of books, articles, and pamphlets, was and is accompanied by another phenomenon in Russian history: this is what might be called the “fear of the sea.” Since the end of the eighteenth century, when Russia had consolidated her immense western holdings by eliminating Poland as her final opponent, after Sweden had retired beyond the sea and Turkey was falling back, the vastness of the Russian plains made it well-nigh impossible for Russia to be exposed to the kind of fate which many of Europe’s peoples, particularly the western Slavs, Poles, and Czechs, suffered. Russia could not be annihilated. She could not be permanently subjugated. But she could be defeated.
Such a defeat, whether blocking her advance or compelling Russian retreat, was constantly feared in St. Petersburg. Of salient significance, the much feared defeat could be administered by naval forces, acting in concert with land armies advancing inland from bridgeheads.
Catherine the Great made compromises over Poland with Austria in order to free her hands and expedite the Russian mastery of the Northern Black Sea shores in spite of the evidence which then showed the imminent end of Turkish rule in those areas and the inevitability of subsequent Russian conquest. Catherine feared an eventual European war with France or Britain joining in with Turkey to establish a base for operations in the Black Sea area. Her fears seemed to be far-fetched to many of her advisers and to most of the contemporary observers; yet, her predictions came true seventy years later with the Crimean War.
During the Napoleonic era Russia again showed unmistakable evidence of her sensitivity to the threat of Western sea power. Although military writers are usually inclined to view Russian activity as exclusively that of a landpower nature, the fact is that naval considerations were very important in Russian designs then. When, after considerable hesitation, Russia joined the anti- French coalition for the first time in 1798, fears of a French naval offensive in eastern waters, eventually dangerous for Russia, were predominant. In 1797, Napoleon gained the Ionian Islands for France, which could serve as a potential naval base. On May 21, 1798 the French fleet set out from Toulon for Egypt. The shadow of French naval power over the eastern Mediterranean made Paul I, Tsar of Russia, break with traditional Russian policy; aligning himself with Turkey, he obtained permission, early in 1799 to move his fleet out of the Black Sea. As a result the Turks saw the unusual spectacle of a grim Russian fleet sailing peacefully through their Straits to help them against the French.
It is known and has been unnecessarily often repeated how Alexander I during and before 1812 had left no stone unturned to convince Napoleon that a French attack on Russia was foolish and unnecessary. Like Stalin in 1940 and 1941, the Russian Tsar snubbed the British Ambassador with manners which reached the limits of insult, in order to convince Napoleon of Russia’s rigid and distinctly anti-British neutrality. But it is not usually remembered that the most critical diplomatic juncture arrived with an announcement of the British Ambassador; in view of the concentration of the French and satellite armies weighing menacingly upon the Russian borders, Britain was ready to dispatch a fleet into the Baltic to stand by, aloof but prompt to intervene when the French attacked Russia. “Tell your Lords,” said Tsar Alexander to the British Ambassador, “that I shall fire on your ships.” Alexander did not wish to see the British warships in the Baltic; he knew that when their arrival would be signalled, Napoleon would at once order the attack, for, knowing the ease with which the Baltic shores can be controlled from the sea, the Frenchman wished for a land campaign solely in order to beat the Russians and not be bothered with probabilities of another Peninsular War in Livonia, Courland or Finland.
A little less than half a century later, the Crimean War began, the only all-European war in the golden hundred years between 1815 and 1914. It was also the only European war in two centuries in which Russia was decisively defeated in a way that her designs had to be more-or-less permanently shelved. An Anglo-French-Turkish fleet sailed into the Black Sea, landed a great army which stormed ashore, invested Sevastopol and captured it in a long siege. But Sevastopol was the only Russian city of importance which the enemy had taken. The vast lands of Russia were untouched by the war. There was absolutely no chance for that strange coalition of Britain, Turkey, France and Sardinia to march on Moscow or even Kiev or Yekaterinoslav. A Russian victory on land could have driven the invaders back and then reduced these; such a victory could have brought Prussia into the war on Russia’s side; also, the British-French alliance was becoming more and more fragile. Why was it, then, that Russia asked for peace?
The answer is that Russia feared more landings expedited by British naval power. Hence, the appearance of the Union Jack off Riga and near Kronstadt made the Tsar sue for peace. Indeed, despite the chance to defeat the small British expeditionary force or move against the Empire through China or Persia or in India, he feared their eventual action in the Baltic area.
This was by no means the last manifestation of Russian sensitivity to sea power. Subsequent history was to present additional evidence of the vulnerability of Russia to naval power. In 1878 it was British naval forces whose mere menace frustrated the almost fully realized Balkan projects of Russia. Again, a quarter of a century later, the Japanese-Russian War repeated the Crimean' experiences in their successive stages; naval superiority, successful landing, investment of the main Russian naval base, defeat of the remainder of Russian naval forces. Then Russia asked for mediation and peace. Naval considerations were also predominant in bringing about the full change in Russian foreign policy between 1905 and 1907, for the Entente with Britain was reached after it had become evident that the menace of Germany, common for the two, excluded the probability that intervening British sea-power would aggress upon Russian plans in the Balkans or elsewhere.
During the Civil War of 1918-21 naval power had a decisive role. The Allies landed at Archangel, Odessa, Vladivostok, and a minor landing was undertaken in the Caspian. The story of the interventionist skirmishes is again well-known; the Allied intervention was less than a half-measure and henceforth unsuccessful. Yet, the strategists of the Bolshevists, Trotsky and Lenin, themselves had feared this minor threat coming from the sea although only a few thousand troops were involved, more than they feared the vast land-lock which the German and Austrian armies threw around the western belt of Russia. During the death struggle of the Revolution they feared Allied intervention from the seas even more than the danger of the White generals in 1919. While the Civil War lasted until 1921, the star of the Bolshevist armies began to rise steadily after mid-1919, when, mainly due to a change in British foreign policies, the interventionist attempt was gradually abandoned and the Allied bridgeheads disestablished. But British naval forces continued to operate in the Baltic until late 1920. There is a certain strategic lesson to be learned from the fact that the only White general able to prove a substantial menace for the Reds after 1919 was Yudenitch, trying to march on Petrograd. Because he had British naval support, he was dangerous; after that support was partially withdrawn, he was defeated.
One of the most important and most successful achievements of the post-World War I peacemaking was the setting up of the three Baltic republics: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. While the gallant fight of the native patriots should not be underestimated, the final defeat of the Russians in the winter of 1919-20 was again due to the appearance of British naval forces in the Baltic. Only the active British support from the sea made it possible for the Baltic independents to drive the Russians out from the coastal regions and, finally, from the whole territory. Political and strategic considerations alike forced the Russians to conclude peace treaties with the Baltic republics early in 1920; they did so in order to terminate the presence of the British warships in the Baltic area. It was important that these should go, for further to the south a great Soviet offensive on land was being mounted against Poland.
The German-Russian War of 1941-45 had also remarkable naval aspects. From German documents it can be seen that it was Admiral Raeder and the Naval High Command which consistently opposed Hitler’s attack on Russia. The German naval hierarchy estimated the foolish risk of the two-front war more correctly than most of the army generals and those of the air force. Raeder and his associates knew that the defeat of Russia could only be achieved if the whole German army, navy, and air force could be concentrated on the Eastern front. They correctly saw that naval superiority and subsequent advantages, even in the very limited Baltic theater, were of primary importance in a war against Russia. From a political viewpoint, they detected Hitler’s fallacy of having provoked a war with Russia, for the naval people knew that Russia had been, was, and will always be considering seafaring Britain, and not landlocked Germany, as her main potential enemy.
During the whole campaign—in spite of the relative weakness of German naval forces operating against them—the Russians tenaciously held onto their naval bases, even after these had been completely encircled and were strategically untenable. Such great cities as Minsk, Smolensk, Kiev, and Charkov were abandoned, but on the Black Sea shores every major port from Odessa to Tuapse was bitterly defended, even at the cost of great sacrifices in material and manpower. The Baltic States were hastily abandoned by the right wing of the Soviet army groups in the first weeks of the war. Along the whole Finnish front a rapid retreat marked the first part of Finland’s separate “little war,” and was practically concluded by August, 1941. But the Russians stubbornly stuck to the almost useless naval base on the Hanko peninsula, which was not taken until the end of October of that year.
The first major city which the Russians recaptured in 1941 was a great port at the estuary of the Don, Rostov. The only major strategic operation during the Russian winter campaign of 1941-42, excepting the various local counteroffensives, was a daring Russian amphibious landing in the Crimea around the ports of Yevpatoria and Feodosia. The 1942 spring and summer campaign commenced with a violent battle on the Kertch peninsula controlling the eastern approaches and connections of the Crimea.
The Russian “fear of the sea” has continued to exist after the war. The barometer of Russian foreign policy and, at present, of Russian-Western relations, is the Russian attitude towards Turkey. Because the nationalistic Turkish republic was independent and seemingly unwilling in 1921 to serve any British interests, Soviet Russia was the first nation to sign a pact with the new republic. Therefore, from 1921 to 1938, Russo-Turkish relations were very friendly. Then after 1938, when Turkey felt compelled to approach France and Britain in view of the danger of an Axis war in the eastern Mediterranean, Russian-Turkish relations cooled off at once—months before the conclusion of the Russian-German Pact. From mid-1939, Russia kept bullying Turkey until about March, 1941, when the German invasion of the Balkans necessitated a reappraisal of Turkey’s position as a bulwark and keeper of the Straits—this time against Germany. Probably with good reason, Russia feared that the Turks would revenge during 1941 and 1942 these Russian infidelities, but Turkey kept studiously neutral. But when Russia’s German dangers receded, Russia turned again. From 1944 to 1947 a mounting Russian propaganda campaign and frontier pressure first indicated, then introduced and finally almost climaxed, the period when, once more, the Atlantic sea-power was being considered as the greatest enemy of Russia.
It must be therefore noted that it was not the so-called Marshall Plan but the enunciation by the President in March, 1947, of the policy of extending military aid to Turkey and Greece which was and still remains the most important commitment of American foreign policy today. This historic commitment characterizes a new global responsibility of America as a sea power. To any of its manifestations Russia reacts nervously indeed. It has been reported that the visit of the Missouri to Turkey in 1946 provoked unexpected and, to American eyes, curiously perplexing Russian reactions. None of the American aid given to Turkey and Greece disturbed the Russians more than that of naval character. The strengthening of the Turkish and Greek navies is being commented upon most angrily by the Russian press, decrying it as evidence of aggressive intentions against the Soviet Union, charges which are only sporadically repeated when it comes to the Greek or Turkish armies.
The present Stalin-Tito dispute and the now revealed Russian-Yugoslav diplomatic divergences dating back to 1945 again indicate the naval preoccupations of Russia, for, while the territorial issue of Southeastern Carinthis was handled differently by Belgrade and Moscow, up to the present day the two stood fast against any compromises which would strengthen the Italians in Trieste.
In 1938, in 1940-41, and recently during the post-war period, large-scale forced population shifts of a deportative nature took place in the Soviet Union. Minority groups, nationalities and regional tribes which the man in the Kremlin considered as eventually sympathetic to external enemies of the Russian state were deported inland. The Crimean Greeks, whose ancestry dates back to the Byzantine and Genoese period of the Middle Ages, suffered sporadic deportation from 1938 onward. In 1940-41, a great number of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, especially from the coastal sectors, were removed into Asiatic and Siberian regions. After 1945, Crimean Tartars, together with the remnants of the Greeks, continued to be deported and, according to recent reports, another great wave of deportations began in 1948 and is proceeding now along the Black Sea and Baltic shores.
It is noteworthy that no deportations were undertaken in the Ukraine, in spite of the fact that the Ukrainian population cooperated with the Germans during the war and as late as 1948 certain insurrectionist and anti-Soviet partisan activities existed there. Anyone who doubts Russian fear of sea assault needs but to glance at the map. These mass deportations were and are presently occurring in those coastal regions of the Soviet Union which are considered vulnerable to eventual amphibious landings.
In addition, these preparations are an organic part of basic Soviet military plans. Along these shores, great installations are being built. Contrary to popular belief in the U. S., the most secretly guarded and unapproachable regions of the Soviet Union are not the Urals but the coastal strips from Narva to Kaliningrad (Königsberg) and from the Crimea to Varna in Bulgaria. The Rumanian and Bulgarian coasts are fully controlled by Russian soldiery; on the Baltic shores even the local fishing industry is being gradually liquidated. Along that coast, Russian families were brought from inland to settle. Coastal artillery and defense fortifications, together with rocket sites further south, are being installed throughout the whole Soviet Baltic region.
Russia is fully aware of the danger of limited wars against her. For that: reason the paradoxical fact should be made known to the American public, already overstuffed with ideology, that the leaders of Russia cannot believe, nor easily imagine, that the United States, whether because of their incidental alliances or within the framework of a “capitalist conspiracy,” would launch an all-out ideological war of destruction, exhaustion, chaos and perhaps even withdrawal and defeat. In other words, the Russians cannot believe that the U. S. would be so blind as not to recognize the real and historic weaknesses of Russia. If there was a man whose whole life and soul were tuned to a pitching ideological crusade against Russia, it was Adolf Hitler. Yet, in September 1941—at a time when neutral and competent observers were inclined to believe that full German victory in Russia was a matter of weeks—even Hitler said to Papen at this climax of his successes and power that after a certain line was reached in Russia, approximately from Murmansk to Maikop, he would eventually consent to negotiate with Stalin who was, after all, “a great man who had accomplished deeds hitherto unheard of.” The Atlantic alliance does not have to reach the Murmansk- Maikop line; its aims are more limited: The only practical objective is the reestablishment of the Russian-European frontier.
Such an attempt is feared by the men in the Kremlin. Such an attempt necessitates the aforementioned Russian military preparations, for the Russian-European frontier lies approximately along the line from Baltic to the Black Sea—the Narva-Odessa line. This line is not only a goal. It so happens that it is the exact line for propitious military operations coming from both coasts. Both the Baltic and the Black Sea coasts are wide, open, and indefensible against amphibious landings. Perhaps nowhere in Europe are there such continuous stretches of ideal landing-grounds and beaches as those from Danzig to Narva and from Varna to Nikolayev.
Neither should the awed cliches regarding the Russian land-mass becloud our vision from strategic possibilities. The distance between the Baltic and the Black Sea is none too great. Between Memel and Odessa it is less than 750 miles. This is the relatively narrowest “waistline” of Russia. It is the traditional Russian-European frontier. Its restoration would be not only a political, but also an ideal strategic, goal. By way of comparison, the distance between the Normandy and southern French bridgeheads of 1944 was only two hundred miles less—550 miles—and the allied armies fanning out therefrom met each other a hundred days after the Overlord and thirty after the Anvil landing, whereas in France the coast was much more difficult to approach and take. The Russian terrain, interspersed by rivers and minor ranges, presents practically no natural obstacle between Königsberg and Galatz, Riga and Odessa, Tallinn and Cher- son with the exception of the avoidable Pripet marshes.
A Russian campaign with a necessarily limited objective, based predominantly upon naval and tactical air superiority in the Baltic and the Black Sea, is within the means of the Atlantic Alliance and could be expected to reach a successful conclusion. Simultaneous amphibious operations in Eastern Europe, coupled with minor landings elsewhere along the lengthy and indefensible coastline of the Soviet Union, would soon confront the Russians with the classic strategic dilemma. As soon as the bridgeheads are consolidated and the possibility of encirclement develops, their troops in Poland, eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Balkans would be compelled to rapidly withdraw from these potentially hostile lands to meet the challenge at a much shorter line. There is, on the other hand, no reason existing why the United States and Europe should not offer an honorable peace to the Russians, at the moment when the military and political objectives are reached along the Russian- European frontier. There is little in the history of Russia and in the past of Stalin to indicate that he would stubbornly reject such an offer. Such a concept, of course, is based on the reasonable supposition that strategic bombing in general and the employment of atomic weapons in particular should be kept in reserve until this first phase of the campaign has succeeded. Having been offered reasonable conditions, in face of a further advance into Russia, the manpower potential of a hundred million burningly anti-Russian liberated eastern Europeans and the subsequent psychological guilt complex, ever so decisive in Russian history, finally, in face of the threat of atomic warfare, there is little in that history or in Communist experiences in tactics which would say that Stalin and the men in the Kremlin would be doctrinaire-wise immune to offers of negotiations at such a juncture and under such conditions. When Molotov himself spoke of the Turkish Straits in November, 1940, as “the historic gateway of British attack against Russia,” it is strange to read General Arnold’s statement reproduced by a world-wide magazine: “Russia .. . has no fear of a navy, since she cannot see how it can be employed against her.” It rather seems that it is now the United States which cannot see how her navy can be employed. Daily it becomes more evident that the strong and almost unilateral emphasis upon American air power—its connotations by the homoludens form grounds of an interesting sociological anthropological-historical analysis is but a new form of American isolationism. It is also interesting to observe that the greatest supporters of the strategic bombing force are those men in Congress who come from the landlocked part of the United States and having lacked contact with the sea and with the lands beyond it. Their traditions were, and latently continue to be, suspiciously xenophobe and violently isolationist. The American neo-isolationism has some parallels in the periods of histories of other nations when the mute belief in economic and technical achievements brought about a feeling of spiritual lull and self-professed, false security. The mechanical inclinations and exaggeratedly economic education of the average American only furthers this false feeling. The Strategic Air Force may well one day become the American Maginot Line. That the State Department is prone to accept the prevailing opinion of underestimating the contemporary potentialities of sea power can be seen from the disturbing symptom that, in spite of their requests, neither the Turks nor the Greeks are members of the Atlantic Pact—nor have they been sufficiently encouraged to form a Mediterranean Pact. When this became clear— early in 1949—at once a slight but nevertheless significant improvement in Russo- Turkish and Russo-Greek relations followed. And it had a strong influence on unexpected leftist gains in the Greek election of March, 1950. The principal fact remains that as long as the United States is strengthening her Strategic Air Force rather than her naval power, and as long as Washington restricts the geographic scope of the Atlantic alliance, thereby indicating American acquiescence in the present division of Europe, Russia can feel confident that, for the foreseeable future, she has nothing to fear. It is hard to believe that, however pacific the mood of the American people might be, the aim of American foreign policy is to convince Stalin of the above and let him wait and prepare, in his good old Russian tradition, for more propitious times and chances.
Finally, let us once more return to the “limited war” concept. There is one great “if” of World War II which should be at least glanced at. What would have happened if Hitler had not attacked Russia? Captured documents establish with incontestable certainty that he committed a blunder of tremendous magnitude by attacking Stalin, who was benevolently inclined toward Germany. We shall, however, refrain from analyzing the tempting political aspect of the “if” question and revert to the military. For the outbreak of the German- Russian War changed and beclouded the militarily revolutionary character of World War II. The German-Russian War of 1941- 45 was a war fought largely with World War I weapons and with a basically World War I conception; it was fought almost exactly along the lines on which the military writers and thinkers of World War I projected and imagined the next war to be fought—whereas practically everywhere else the character of World War II upset all previous predictions and calculations.
Had Hitler not attacked Russia in 1941, there would have remained but one factor which stood between him and final victory: sea power. Had the bulk of the German army not been sent to bleed itself white on a tremendous land front, there was but one possibility for the Atlantic Powers to defeat Germany: through sea power. World War I showed already that, should the allies of the “sea island” naval powers, Britain and America, be ejected from the European continent, the vast realm of Eurasia and the “land-island,” “heartland” powers, Germany or Russia, could be attacked from the peripheries in a series of amphibious operations, concluding in typical “little wars,” limited campaigns with limited objectives. Had Churchill been enabled to use tactical aircraft in 1915, the Dardanelles landing would have undoubtedly succeeded and the whole character of World War I would have changed accordingly. Modern warfare, with all its devices, is obliged to cease aiming at the costly and often impossible annihilation of the enemy forces. Instead it must strive to reduce and exhaust them, in which process psychological-political planning assumes vast importance. Saxon Powers in World War II could not concentrate on a major battle to defeat their opponents in toto: but could win separate, minor battles in geographically very important areas. The methods of modern transportation, tactical air power, and motorized infantry, and the unsurpassed strategic mobility of balanced naval power, made it possible to employ a relatively very limited number of troops in decisive battles in World War II, the modern conditions of warfare having made it impossible to the peripheral counterattacker, and inadvisable even for the land powers, to concentrate on one great battle in order to liquidate there the bulk of the enemy armies. With the exception of the Russian War, it was “little wars” which characterized the operations of World War II.
Naval power is a prerequisite for such armed endeavors. The African, Sicilian, Italian, and French campaigns were basically such “little wars,” in whose execution naval power was not only instrumental but wholly indispensable. That the concept of numerous, diverse, and genially planned limited campaigns did not become realized in popular thinking is due to the fact that the Allied command had decided to concentrate upon the cross-Channel invasion of France, and from the moment that this decision had been taken, the southern European campaign became of secondary importance: the aim was the diversion of German forces there but not decisive victory in that area. Had there been no Russian War and because of the subsequent military reasons, or, due to political reasons, had the landing in western France been discarded, the Mediterranean campaign would have proven primarily important and would have been fought—and probably won—almost exclusively through a successive series of minor landings. The difficulties of the Salerno and Anzio operations were due to the fact that these were in reality half-measures. From the moment that the Allies landed at Salerno instead of further north, it was evident that Italy was not the mam invasion route. From the lately published accounts we learn that in 1944 it was planned to undertake a landing on the Istrian peninsula also, and had the supreme command accepted Mr. Churchill’s wise and foreseeing idea to break into the Balkans from Italy through the Ljubljana Gap, the Istrian landing and possibly another subsidiary one on the Albanian or Yugoslav coast would have been instrumental.
Ample proof exists today to support the limited campaign idea, wherein a combination of balanced naval power and tactical air power and adequate land power, applied at various points in a coordinated strategy with necessarily limited objectives, remains perhaps the only means to break an enormous land power. The war of the future will probably be constituted by a series of intuitive “little wars.” Obviously such a conclusion clashes with the current emphasis on ideological menaces which in turn necessitates a preparation for ideological war based on unlimited retaliation with unlimited objectives—a kind of war in which strategic air power becomes the “chosen instrument.”
Here, again, the interservice controversy assumes deep significance as viewed by European eyes. Almost all of Europe learned its lesson of air power through the bitter experience of temporary German air superiority at first. Only a limited number of central Europeans know about strategic bombing by experience, and therefore the average European is, unfortunately enough, not too able to distinguish between strategic and tactical implications. Europe’s experience in air warfare was predominantly tactical, and it should be emphasized that strategic air operations were practically non-existent on the most important land-front, that between the Russian and German armies. There are, then, the moral and political considerations of air power. It would be dogmatically repetitious to continue dwelling on the evident lessons of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey. It might be nevertheless emphasized that, even as a purely defensive and retaliatory factor, strategic air power had failed to prove decisive. The bomb-load which the RAF and AAF dropped on Germany during 1942 was many, many times more than that endeavored by the RAF in 1940. Yet, because of German land operations in Africa, as well as the Atlantic submarine threat to the sea lanes with the subsequent naval losses, Britain, had it not been for the Russian diversion, would have been (and perhaps still was) in a much worse position in 1942 than in 1940.
It is also generally not appreciated by the European public that because of the necessary service facilities and ground organization, an air force, however great its speed and awesome its spectre, is basically not very mobile. Shifting or establishment of even temporary bases takes a dear toll in effort and especially in time. For Western Europe, American strategic bombing has psychologically compensative purposes. The great American bombers, mighty and glowing, are admired in Europe as tokens of America’s inimitable technical superiority, and this form of crediting has its roots not only in one-sided experience but also in psychological factors. The awed homage before the young and tall mechanical genius of the New World, handling gleaming and sleek and sophisticatedly graceful inhuman monsters, is latent in these feelings. Strategic air power serves something of a too-democratic, man- in-the-street appeal. It pleases the mass- man, who can realize the retaliatory, destructive power of his nation or of his allies in a short report which drives home the pugnant acumen of the dramatically simple news of a great air raid against a city of the enemy; it is therefore not necessary to analyze the news within the perspective of months on a moving battlefront. Another psychological factor is the popular concept of the airman constituting a modern kind of hussardom, a celestial cavalry, the aristocratic arm of the twentieth century (with the exception of Germany and Britain, the composition of the air forces of all European nations had, until the forties, a certain aristocratic tinge), while the liberal traditions and age-old democratic concomitants of seamanship are generally unknown except to naval nations. Thus it happened that early in World War II many Europeans were easily accepting the German propaganda theme that battleships, and with them, sea power in general, were as well as obsolete because of aerial warfare; and even today most Europeans are yet unable to envisage the all too important potentialities of the great tactical weapon of our century, the aircraft carrier.
These are, of course, popular attitudes and not expert opinions, but their implications are important. The fact remains that in spite of Europe’s appreciation of sea power—- Mahan’s writings were surprisingly broadly read and commented upon even in landlocked countries of the continent—Europe is yet unable to see the United States as a predominantly naval power. Such hazy vision on the part of Western Europe is not sharpened by U. S. efforts, for the continuation of the American inter-service dispute does its best to obscure the naval position, tradition, and potential of America before European eyes. Throughout the nineteenth century when Europe was enjoying an era of almost miraculous economic and political progress and relative peace, the average European was absolutely unaware of the fact that it was Britain’s political concept based upon her naval power which constituted the underlying factor of that nineteenth-century order. The British were perceived as clever traders and the aristocrats of the century, while it was generally understood that the impact of their sea power was something of an extra-European matter. This faulty perception was partly, if not mainly, responsible for the disaster which broke out in 1914. (But even Britain did not consciously strive for a scheme of a great world order during that century.) Their power was mainly geared to achieve the reduction of wars both in size and in scope in Europe through her potentialities inherent in her sea power. Such reduction, on a global scale, should be the real aim of the United States today.
The very human traditions of seamanship run parallel with the maritime traditions of European liberal democracy. With the exception of Switzerland and certain other mountainous regions, the only democratic states of Europe were those nations which had contacts with the sea: Britain, Ireland, France, the Low Countries, the Scandinavian nations, and two of the three short-lived Baltic republics. The same applies to regions where the contact with the sea was predominant in the slow formation of democratic societies, even if the misfortunes of history did not allow for these to stabilize permanently in the forms of democratic nations.
It is imperative that in this Atlantic Age, which is already upon us, Europe should realize that the United States is a naval power, and that, coincident with such European recognition, these United States should not fail to perceive the potentialities of their sea power nor fail to envisage a propitious change toward world order and unity that can only be created through the self- conscious command of that strength.
Neither such desired European recognition nor such necessary U.S. perception can be expected as long as the present inter-service dispute is being settled in favor of strategic air power at the expense of sea power. To the Russians, who know their own strategic sensitivity to sea power, it simply means that the U. S. is embarking on a new period of isolation based on a long term defensive, Maginot Line complex. To thoughtful Europeans, emphasis on strategic bombing can be interpreted only as reflecting a foolhardy determination to wage an ideological war of unconditional surrender. The fallacy of such a concept is readily apparent to all Europeans who know the history of Russian- European relations. They realize that a war of limited objective, the restoration of the historic Russo-European frontier, is alone practical against Russia.
Little wonder, then, why Europeans have been puzzled by the U. S. policy of reducing to secondary importance the national sea power, which would be the principal requirement for waging a realistic war against Russia.