FUTURE WARS

Shannon News, 26 January 1926, Page 4

FUTURE WARS

STRATEGICAL PROBLEMS. NEW DISCIPLINE FOR MECHANICAL MEANS. The strategical problems which face us to-day, though less obvious to the masses of the people, are more numerous and complex than those which laced us in 1914 (writes a military correspondent of the London ‘Daily Telegraph,’ an officer holding a high position in the Army, who has made a special study of military problems). Then Germany and her allies formed a definite pivot around which our strategical ideas could revolve. To.day this pivot has been removed, a veritable tornado of revolution has 'swept over the greater part of the world, to corrode and dissolve the political, foundations of states, nations and even of races ol .ueii Europe, lhough exhausted, i. ■ ■ ru ' ■ 1 . ! li ■ ' : V- . . ;u 'i, - , since lim days of tile Tudors m stability of British power has .men the axle pin of European liberies and peace, because geography nas placed us outside the immediate turmoil of the Continet .and has en>- . i bled us to choose our partners as we saw fit. As long as our command of the sea is:, maintained we cannot be invaded; yet this command has meant that our land forces must re. main small. Not only because we cannot afford a large army as well as a large Navy, but to add such an Army to our fleet would threaten i. very nation on the Continent and force them to enter into coalition against us. Possessing but a small Army ,we have normally been compelled to seek a powerful ally abroad and as the pivot of our foreign policy had been the maintanence of the balance of power, we have almost invariably supported the second strongest Continental nation, as we did in 1914.

In the past our supremacy at sea lias not only enabled us to support our Continental allies on land, but to maintain, our own frontier inviolable, and under this protection to build up a formidable army to reinforce'-, our original Expeditionary Force." Time has always been the* crucial .factor, and whilst in the past naval supremacy and the slowness of land warfare have enabled us to find the neces. sary time wherein to make good our military deficits, modern, inventions are adversely influencing this condition by leaps and bounds. The submarine has undermined the economic, if not the naval, foundations- of our sea wall, and is, I think, exerting even a greater influence on our foreign policy than surface craft have done in the past; for every year our overseas trade is becoming more and more vital to om - existence. Again, we. are no longer the island we were a few years ago, for now we .can be attacked by aircraft; and if our Air Force, cannot guarantee command of tire air, which, in spite of size, is a very speculative problem, an economic blockade, followed by an intensive bombardment of , our 5 great cities, will bring the nation to its knees. Time wherein to 1 prepare is. thus yearly beihg reduced, for improve, rnents in three dimensional forms of attack are steadily progressing. Meehanielalisaiion of Our Army

Curious as it may seem, the solution of this problem of gaining time, which of all strategic problems is the most important of all, is not only to bo sought in the increased efficiency of our Navy and Air Force, the one to guarantee command of the sea and the other of the air, but in the re“ formation of our Army. To-day our land forces posses little power against similarly consituted conscript armies, but were they reorganised on a petrol in place of a muscular footing—that is, were they mochanicalised —they would undoubtedly prove a most formidable weapon against the conscript horde, and possibly an equally fornii. aide weapon for the attack of enemy submarine bases and coastal aerodromes. Nor are such operations the dream of an unbalanced mind, for in the summer of 1917 a coastal attack based'cn the crude tanks of that period was planned and practised . It may, however, be urged that, if we mechanicalise our Army, Continental Powers will follow suit, and that consequently little is to be gained, for a few years lienee the strategical conditions will be exactly as' they are to.day. This ,however, is not so, for not only are we the leading industrial nation of the Old world and so well placed to merchandise, but the size of mochanicalised armies will depend not on population -the foundation of conscript armies—but on industrial potentialities and fuel supply. More important still, the expense of creating and maintaining such land forces will not permit of Continental nations simultaneously attempting to gain command of the sea and air. In the past our immunity against sea, and consequently land attack has not only depended on the -size and efficiency of our Navy, but on the amount of money Continental Powers were compelled to spend on their land forces. We thus see that changes in the military instrument are profoundly influencing stategy. No sane Englishman wants another war, vet every sane Englishman wants to feel certain of his bread and butter. This certainty very largely depends on the balance of power, and the meclianicalisation of our Army is an import., ant step towards its re-establish-ment. The Psychological Factor.

Once the balance of power is reestablished, and peace, for its period, has been rendered stable, then : time will be gained to consider the future nature of ■ war. The Napoleonic ideal of absolute warfare has been at the bottom of all our troubles. , The foundation of this system of war is the nation in arms—the horde. Horde

warfare is slow, brutal, and destructive; mechanical and chemical warfare are far more rapid and humane. I believe that gas as a weapon js the instrument which, will humanise war, and consequently democratise and civilise it. I do not believe that it will end all suffering and destruction, or that it will abolish war any more than chloroform and prophylactics ended human suffering; or abolished surgery. But I do not believe that it will mitigate the horrors and destructive propensities of war. The psychological effect of attack by a mechanicalised and “chemiscalised’ ’army may be denoted as “democratic.” By means of it a nation can ,be attacked, not only rapidly, but simultaneously, on its frontiers and hundreds of miles behind, them, Jn the past ,a strong nation has felt secure behind its military and naval forces. The future possesses no such guarantee; consequently the reality .of war will be far more present to each individual citizen than it has been in. the past; consequently nations will become less suspeetible to those sudden panics which have so often detonated war. Once great nations in bulk are induced to think of war in place of locking it up like a skeleton in the cupboard, the first step will be gained in changing the nature of war, for this nature is but the co-efficient of human war thought or the lack of it. Mechanicalisation, I feel, will change the war outlook as surely as steam power changed the economic outlook in the last century. A mechanical army, I have shown, demands a new discipline, a discipline based on intelligence. It will therefore compel soldiers as well as civilians to think; and thinking soldiers backed by a nation which understands war soon realise that absolute warfare is *but the coefficient of absolute government; that, indeed, it is a barbarous relic of the past. Finally, ,war is a world force which must run its course; it cannot be abolished any more than earthquakes can, but its implements and the ideas regarding their use can si/rely be rendered less crude, just as houses can be built to withstand seismic shocks. Therefore "it seems to me that the war problem for the whole civilised world is a dual one. First, that our existing methods of war are archaic, and this must be realised; secondly, that only by changing the tools of. war can we change the mind of its workers. Then, perhaps, little by little, will civilised nations be able to establish such a condition of waging war that, when the next conflagration flames across Europe, the world will realise in the peace which follows it the inner meaning of the noble words cut on the plinth of General She •- man’s statue —namely, that “the legitimate object of Avar is a more perfect peace.” Then, and only then, will war have become democratised. •