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Show A Free World Can Be Defended Only By a Common Defense That the free nations most exposed to the Soviet military threat should have forces in being to meet it was obvious as soon as the aggressive policies of Russia and the continued mobilization mobiliza-tion of its vast army were revealed after the war. That these defense forces shoudl be welded into a common defense system was a novel idea. In the past a common military command had been achieved only after war had broken out and sometimes with difficulty even then. The object of NATO was to set up a combined force with a common command and a common defensive plan in order to prevent war. Defensive unity was called for by the overpowering over-powering weight of the Russian army, never demobilized after the war, occupying the satellite countries, and constantly in readiness to implement Russian policy by the use or the threat of force, as the Berlin blockade, the communist take-over in Czechoslovakia, the guerilla warfare in Greece, and the brutal suppression of the Hungarian Revolution were all to demonstrate. demon-strate. So long as the United States had an atomic monopoly, Europe could rely upon a small but effective NATO force to prevent a swift subjection of Europe by a quick offensive in aid of internal subversion; and upon the United States Strategic Air Command to stop a massive attack. When the Russians acquired atomic weapons and a strategic ' air force, this NATO defense plan was no longer adequate. And when the Russians, by successful orbiting of their Sputniks, showed that they possesed the rocket techniques to span the oceans with unpiloted atomic warheads, they also underlined the mounting peril to our Strategic Air Command. A defense crisis arose,' which continues because the present administration has not put the necessary resources, brains and determination into repairing and restoring our military positions. |