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Show INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS "p VERYONE must realize by now that the )-'-' Japensee-American war is not an isolate conflict in the Pacific, without bearing on the wars that are going on' elsewhere in the world When the Japanese attacted Oahu without warnings, they were simply carrying outtheir part of a tremendous plan for world domination domin-ation that in all likelihood was framed in Berlin. Ber-lin. The amazing efficiency with which the Jap blitzkrieg was delivered, suggests a German Ger-man High Command influence. Japan's war leaders have ever been famous for suprise and subtlety. The Germans, on the other hand liave proven themselves masters of strategy and it is very probable that German staff officers had much to do with laying out the pattern of attack. As the President has said, this war is primarily pri-marily a war against Nazism and everything else is incidental to that. The reason for Germany Ger-many doing everything in her power to provoke pro-voke an American-Japanese war, are clear. First, actual American involvement in a major maj-or shooting war will mean that, for the time "being at least. American lend-lease aid to the Allies will be reduced. It may be necessary for both Britain and America to transfer naval nav-al strength from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Second, if Japan can succeed in her drive to isolate this country from the Far East, the Axis powers will have control of immense quantities of vital war materials, of which oil is the most important. For example, the Dutch, rulers of rich Batavia, are putting up a fine fight but they simply haven't the manpower, man-power, the ships and equipment to fight on alone. If British-American power were destroyed in the Far East, the Dutch would be through. It has long been said that this country should be able to defeat Japan in a very brief period of time. That might be true if it were possible to concentrate all American fighting fight-ing forces and production capacity on the prosecution . of a Pacific war. But we must maintain an Atlantic fleet of considerable size to help the British in combating the U-boat U-boat menace. And the President has said that aid to our Allies will continue, even though it may be temporarily on a reduced scale. In the long run most authorities think, this will come down to a war of resources, a war of oil production, steel capacity, etc. But even if Japan should collapse, Hitler, with all the resources of Europe, will remain. And the destruction of Hitlerism is the goal of all Allies. And none think that can be done easily. |