Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1942. PACIFIC STRATEGIC VALUES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 April 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1942. PACIFIC STRATEGIC VALUES.

JT would be a very serious state of affairs for Australia, and also for New Zealand, if a predominant section of authoritative opinion in the United States held the views on Pacific strategy expressed by Mr Hanson Baldwin, military commentator o/the “New York Times’’ and summarised in a cablegram published yesterday. In brief, Mr Baldwin contends that in the strategy of the Pacific Australia and New Zealand do not play principal roles and that: — Hawaii, China, India, Burma, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, or the Russian bases in the Pacific offer better possibilities as offensive springboards than Australia. The actual development of the American war effort rather plainly implies a decisive rejection of the theories advanced by Mr Baldwin. The appointment of General MacArthur as Com-mander-in-Chief of the Allied land, sea and air forces in the. South-Western Pacific, the establishment of the Pacific War Council in Washington, and the accompanying movement of United States forces, demonstrate that considerable importance is attached to warlike action in this part of the world. It does not follow, of course, that action in other Pacific areas should be, or is likely to be, neglected as time goes on. While it is not to be denied that it is by way of the Aleutian Islands and Russian bases in the Pacific (if these hist were available, which at present they are not) that the United States could most directly attack Japan, and that at an ultimate view there are far-reaching possibilities of action in China, Burma and India, it is very far from being established that the United States therefore could afford to abstain from co-opera-tion with the South Pacific Dominions and the other territories, including the Philippines, to which they stand in a directstrategic relation. Looking at things as they-are, it counts for a great deal that Russia at present is absent from the list of nations represented on the Pacific War Council. The “New York Times,” the newspaper for which Mr Baldwin writes, has expressed the hope that Russia will be an active member of the anti-Axis Alliance in the Pacific before the year is out. It will be an excellent thing if that anticipation is realised, but it is rather futile to discuss the position on the basis of active Russian partnership while that partnership has yet to become an accomplished fact. Some of the most essential of the North Pacific bases which Mr Baldwin says offer better possibilities as offensive springboards than Australia at present definitely are not available. This evidently relates for practical purposes to China, and even to some extent to Burma and India, as well as to Russia. It may be true that concentration On Australia as an Allied base in the Pacific could be carried to a dangerous extreme. This was suggested by the Washington correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald” in an article written on the eve of the Japanese occupation of the Netherlands East Indies. It was feared by one school of thought in the United States, the correspondent observed, that if Japan succeeds in capturing the Netherlands East Indies and consolidating her position there, she will cease her pressure further south—against Australia—and turn her attention north and westward, to Siberia and India. This would make an Australian material and fighting force reservoir too far away, and would produce a situation from which the United Nations have suffered all along—over-insurance of one theatre of war at the expense of the under-insurance of another, which suddenly becomes vital. It is no doubt very necessary that the Allies should be prepared to meet and deal with such a change in Japanese strategy as is here envisaged. The idea, however, that if Japan elected to concentrate her efforts against Siberia and India the Allied base in Australia would be too far away, over-insured and relatively useless is decidedly unconvincing. Large and complex questions are involved, but it may be supposed that General MacArthur meant precisely what he said when he declared not long ago that his task in Australia was to organise an American . offensive against Japan.