COMPOSITION OF THE FORCE The specific composition and command structure of the additional type force required to implement the proposed strategy will be discussed in detail in a subsequent article. A consideration of the desirable characteristics of such a force is necessary here, however, to establish the validity of the military aspect of the proposed optimum integrated strategy. In the first place, the conditions under which such a force may be committed serve to shape the force. It may be required to fight alone for a variable period of time, it may be required to fight in conjunction with local national forces or local guerrillas, or it may fight in coordination with other allied forces. Add to these varying conditions the fact that it must be capable of fighting in a relatively undeveloped area with no lines of communication or in a well-developed area with well-established lines of communication. Local procurement potential in the combat area may vary from nil to plenty. The attitude of the local populace may vary from active opposition to all-out military support. The local military potential may vary from the gendarme's club to a significant number of divisions. The force must possess both a military capability and a political capability. Its Army element must be transportable by land, sea, or air; it must be capable of fighting immediately upon landing and without reinforcement; it must be capable of sustained action; it must be capable of assimilating or being assimilated by indigenous forces in being; and it must be capable of operating for a limited period of time supported entirely by air logistics. The Navy component of the force must include its own carrier arm with attendant firepower and logistical elements, an antisubmarine force capable of sustained action, and a logistical element capable of sustaining the other elements of the force from prestocked bases near the periphery. The air component must have a tactical element capable of immediate commitment, it must provide essential strategic mobility to the Army portion of the force, and it must be capable of providing tactical air support at required radius distances. Force Must Be In Being Such a force must be a part of the military forces in being and if committed must be temporarily replaced by other forces. Requirements for this force cannot adversely affect the mobilization status of NATO or other major alliance forces in being unless the constituent elements can be rapidly replaced. Existing stockpiles and procurement forecasts must be revised to support the force if committed in any peripheral area. A vexing problem inherent to the present military-politico situation is our dependence on the current cooperation of our allies to permit prior establishment of military lines of communication. It is all well and good. for us to propose that air lines of communication can be established wherever necessary but in view of the present tendency to spend more and more Air Force money on bombers and less on transport aircraft, such a proposal is not realistic. To possess the required degree of combat readiness we must have ground bases and depots stocked and in operation prior to commitment of major forces. Preferably these installations should be relatively close to the area of contemplated operations and should utilize land or sea transportation routes. Floating logistical support means supplemented by air lines of communication operating from bases near the periphery must be capable of functioning with minimum delay. CONCLUSIONS The United States must adopt an optimum integrated strategy which supports and strengthens our military-diplomaticeconomic potential. The objective of this strategy is to deter general war, to maintain, as a minimum, the status quo in our present alliance structure, and to prevent further Communist encroachment in peripheral countries. Such a strategy includes a calculated risk for peripheral war but greatly reduces the risk of major war. The roots of the problem are many and varied but the integrated strategy proposed provides not only the necessary force but announces the intention to employ as many elements of the force as are necessary to sustain our national objectives. The integrated strategy must encompass economic aid, diplomatic maneuvering, and the threat of or actual use of military force either consecutively or concurrently. The strategy must be capable of execution in a minute amount or to the maximum degree at the opportune moment. It must be defensive-offensive in nature and possess the inherent momentum to take maximum advantage of errors. Basic Policy Unchang The proposed strategy does from our historic policy of noni in internal affairs of other na at the same time, it gives us the oppose Communist interferenc Communist areas. The prime essential of the pro itary strategy is the establishm earmarked military force in bei port national policy. The force required to imple strategy must consist of land, se elements with the necessary log tential. The combined force mus bility, flexibility, and psychologi in excess of current capabilities be capable of immediate comm total or in part. (To be continue This military strength, to be impressive, must be properly balanced stre applicable to any likely situation. By balanced strength I do not mean, as term is sometimes interpreted, equal strength of Army, Navy, and Air should be recognized that increases of one type of strength beyond a ce point eventually encounter the law of diminishing returns in measures of terrence. Balanced strength means flexible, proportioned strength, inclu military means in various forms-means appropriate to cope with small as well as big wars, with wars in jungles or mountains as well as in Eur with wars in which atomic weapons are used, and with those in which at weapons are not used. Balanced strength includes the means to put out b fires promptly before they can spread into general war. Nowadays, the Army is developing a new awareness of the obligation deal with brush fires. Since World War II it has been the threat of a g atomic war which has engaged most of our attention. To counter this th we have expended great efforts in developing an atomic deterrent in orde assure our national survival. This effort has been properly the primary on this period but the time is coming, if it is not already arrived, when our fenses need to be examined particularly with regard to their readiness to with the small war, because if not quickly countered, the small war may 1 to that big war which we are all so terribly anxious to avoid. General Maxwell D. Taylor tage of Cock Unchange gy does n y of noninte other nat ves us the at terference John Bloch--A Neglected Prophet Adolph G. Rosengarten, Jr. IN AUGUST 1898 in a rescript of Czar Nicholas II the Imperial Russian Governof the prop ment proposed an international conferestablishmerence to discuss means of reducing arma ments and ensuring the benefits of real ind durable peace. ce in being to imple With a view to guaranteeing such a ɔf land, sea peace, the proposal observed that the great essary logi powers had lately concluded alliances and force must t had developed their military forces without sychologic shrinking from sacrifice. These efforts had been without result. The ensuing armed pabilities peace was a crushing burden, borne by the ate commi peoples with increasing difficulty, and -e continued might well lead, the proposal concluded, to the cataclysm it was desired to avert. During the following spring, the first Hague Peace Conference was held. It anced streg neither ended the armed peace nor reduced t mean, as the pace at which the race for superiority y, and Air. was being run. A second conference in yond a certe 1907 produced no better results, and the easures of European nations continued to drift into, ngth, includror to march toward, the holocaust of ith small w 1914-18. I as in Euro The present intention is to resurrect a which at book which was widely believed at the put out bra time to have influenced the czar's decision to issue the rescript. Written by a Russian, it consists of six volumes and is comprehensively entitled The Future War in Its Technical, Economic and Political Relations. Its interest lies in the accuracy of the predictions which it made about the tactics which would be used in World War I, the strategy which would end it, and e obligation t -eat of a gr ter this thre ent in order primary one when our adiness to den I war may her the social and political conditions which would exist in Europe when it was over. Significantly, this forecast, although not invariably correct, ran quite contrary to orthodox, prewar military doctrine. Furthermore, the work gives a picture of European society and economy as seen at the time by a penetrating and well-placed observer. Finally, its existence was so extensively publicized by reviewers and in articles that it may well have contributed to the climate of both governmental and public opinion about the cause, the course, and the consequences of war; a climate which made possible the peace conferences whose ultimate consequences may prove to be greater than their immediate ones. Influences Toward Peace There were, of course, other contemporary influences-from episodes on the backstairs to negotiations conducted in the public view on the kings, governments, and peoples of Europe. It is a historical commonplace that "the Russian proposal was due to financial stringency and the inability to keep up with the armaments of Austria and the other powers." Also voluntary, unofficial societies, like the Arbitration Alliance and the Interparliamentary Union, were currently agitating for the New Jerusalem when war would be no more. And the Roman Catholic Church, always interested in promoting peace, took credit in a periodical with having initiated the idea of the peace conference, Attaching greater importance to the common man and to the rise of the modern industrial state, John Bloch contradicted orthodox military D. Taylor doctrine in forecasting the course and consequences of World War I ! claiming that the papal nuncio had suggested it to the czar at his coronation in 1894. In contrast to these utopian appeals, John Bloch's was a reasoned and realistic demonstration of the need to find some better means than war of settling international disputes. Unfortunately, he was discursive, prolix, repetitious, and overwhelming in detail. His targets were seemingly the sovereigns of Europe and their civil and military advisors, rather than the middle and lower classes, although implicit throughout is the reliance on public opinion as the ultimate sanction. In effect, Bloch was a prophet with material honor, but to whom inadequate attention was paid by the Romanovs, the Hapsburgs, and the Hohenzollerns, to their sorrow, and by the professional European soldiers to their shame. Advisor to the Czar Before summarizing his argument mention should be made of the man and of the steps he took to make himself heard. Jean de Bloch, to use the French style, was born in Poland in 1836. His career in business brought him riches and social status, for the czar, not birth, gave him the particle which preceded his surname. He made a fortune in banking and rail Mr. Adolph G. Rosengarten, Jr., is a graduate of the General Staff Course of the U. S. Army Command and General Staff College in 1943. He attended Princeton University and holds the Bachelor of Laws (1930) and Master of Arts (1949) degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He entered active duty with the 111th Infantry Regiment, 28th Division, in 1941. He was Assistant S3, Chesapeake Bay Sector of the Eastern Defense Command, and subsequently transferred to the War Department, Special Branch, and was detailed to the G2 Section, First Army. After separation from the service he entered the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania and was Assistant Instructor in History there from 1946 to 1949. He now practices law in Philadelphia. road building, and it was as ar railways that he went with th his staff to the theater of the R ish War in 1877. It was on th that he acquired what is currer as a dim view of the top brass, which he took but small pains his writings. Following earlier books on 1 nances and railroads, Bloch's v war, profusely illustrated, di and accompanied by an atlas, a] Russian in 1898. According t evidence, so strict was Russian that a personal interview with was needed to secure permissio the book. A French edition entitled War lation of the Russian Work 'T War From Its Technical, Ecor Political Points of View' was issu thereafter. And Bloch had a Ge tion published in Berlin in 1899. Based on a comparison of th tables of contents and on some s ing, the Russian original,1 save on how to provision Warsaw i seige, appears to have been faith completely translated into both t and German editions, although Russian contains the extensive phy. Syllabuses which were cond of four chapters from the last which Bloch had summarized his and drawn his conclusions also v lished in France and Germany in popular consumption. English Editions Weak The complete work has never be lated into English. One-volume appeared in both England and th States in 1899, identical except 1 Let there be no mistake: the autho read Russian. The complete Russian editi Charlemagne Tower Collection of the U Pennsylvania whose library service kind furnishing the comparisons referred to of this essay which is based on the Fre A copy of that edition is possessed by versity. German editions are at Princeton and elsewhere. titles: the former being Is War Now Impossible and the latter The Future of War. Each contained a prefatory conversation between the author and William T. Stead, an English magazine editor who was last seen alive reading a book in the smoking room of the Titanic. In it Stead stated that what followed was a translation of the sixth and final volume of the Russian edition. This is not the case and the English reading public actually got a haphazard abridgment constructed of bits and pieces drawn from the entire work. For example, in volume five of the Russian, French, and German editions the growth of 19th century, European socialism is described at length and the prediction made that it would mature under the stimulus of war. Actually, the only parts of this volume incorporated into the English versions are excerpts from two gory chapters on wounds and the care of the wounded. Thus the unity and many pertinent observations of the original are lacking in our editions and some local experts subsequently have criticized Bloch for his inaccurate forecasts. However, in the original many of those which have proved to be wrong were qualified, or they may have been inserted either to placate the Russian censor or to serve a particular end. That the English were given such an inadequate summary is not surprising when it is remembered that the same year that the czar issued his rescript and Bloch published his book, Kipling admonished his countrymen to make "no truce with Adam-Zad, the Bear that walks like a man." Whether this warning was the riposte to the current Russian expression that "God had made the English and somebody else the other people" may be left to conjecture. A Constant Campaigner In an unofficial capacity Bloch attended the Hague Conference of 1899 where he gave the delegates a series of private re ceptions accompanied by an ample buffet and a lecture by the host. Because those lectures, which were later published in France, were so frank, it was expected that Bloch would get into trouble on his return to Russia. This did not occur and he set up a booth at the International Exhibition held at Paris in 1900 at which the horrors of war were shown by means of lantern slides. He also wrote Some Lessons of the Transvaal War which appeared in 1900 in an English magazine. Finally, before his death in 1902, he established a Museum of War and Peace in Switzerland. Since the appearance of the English abridgment, bearing as its title the rhetorical question Is War Now Impossible, there have been both small wars and big ones. Therefore, Bloch's six-volume brief, designed to prove that in fact war is impossible, can well be regarded as a labor of love and reading it a waste of time. But the word "impossible" also may signify the impracticable, and in the sense that the ends sought by those wars were not obtained by them, the experience of mankind in the 20th century supports Bloch's position. Analyzed Military Art To develop this position he examined the state of the military art as it existed in 1898 after the 20 years of European peace. The recent invention of smokeless powder not only permitted individual riflemen and the combat unit to remain concealed, but its greater power flattened the trajectory and increased the range and the penetration of the bullet. In addition, a reduction of the caliber of the rifle, and consequently of the weight of the cartridge, not only bettered its accuracy but augmented the ammunition available in battle. Inevitably, the next war would produce enormous casualties, because these improvements, including Maxim's machinegun, combined with corresponding develop |