October 66 UNITEDSTATESARMYCOMMAND and 6ENERAL STAFFCOLLEGE,FORTLEAVENWORTH, KANSAS
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d @ }! In This lcw.ie October 66 UNITEDSTATESARMYCOMMAND AND 6ENERAL STAFFCOLLEGE,FORTLEAVENWORTH, KANSAS COMMANDANT Major General Michael S. Davison ASSISTANT Ct)MMANDANT Brigadier General Robert C. Taber The Military Review is published by the United States Army Command and General Staff College in close association with the United States Army War College. It provides a forum for the expression of military thought on national and military strategy, national security affairs, and on doctrine with emphasis at the division and higher levels of command. ,,. .-. ,“{--.~. ;- 7. :3’ l.: , ... ., , j$, , .,1 . )&‘. ;: :p& I&;: , ‘“. ., “~ ,$-q; ~. .?.. - 2.;: Military Review Professional Journal of the US Army Military Campaigns . ., . Anthony Sas 3 UN Peace Forces and International Law . LTC Joseph k!. Corvino, USA 8 Return of the North Sea Ghosts , . Leslie Anders 19 Two Wiews on Wiotnam: Let’s learn From the French . (JOL Charles P. Biggie, Jr., USA 27 Specter of Dien Bien Phu . COL William F. Long, Jr., USA 35 leadership . GEN Matthew B. Ridgway, USA, Ret 411 Malhrovslry’s Manchurfan Campaign . Raymond L. Garthoff 5D Nuclear Weapons Sharing . W. B. Bader 62 Implications of tho Developing flreas . LTC L. D. Overstreet, USA 70 A Dragon With Nuclear Teeth . COL Ch’ien Cheng, Republic of China Army 1$ Soviet Defense Poficy . Marshal R. Y. Ivlalinovsky, Soviet Army 85 Choose Your Weapon . COL Stanley W. Dziuban, USA, Ret 9D MNitaryNotes . 97 Military Books ................. 1D7 The VIEWS expressed in this me azine ARE THE AUTHORS’ and not necessarily those of{ the US Army or the Command and Generaf Staff College. .. ‘3 Editor in Chief COL Oonald J. Oelaney Associata Editor COL John B. Mcl(inney Army War College Assistant Editor LTC A. Leroy Covey Faatures Editor MAJ Charles A. Gatzka Spanish.AmerioanEditor LTC Ren6 Ramos Bracilian Editors LTC ParrloA. F. Viana LTC Walter J. Faustini Production Officer MAJ Norman C. Murray Staff Artist Charles k Moore MILITARY ffEVl!l-Published monthly by the U. S. Army Command and General Staff Colleae, Fort Leav enworth, Kansaa, in En Iiah, Spaniah, and Portuguese. Uae of funds for printing of this publication haa been approved by Heat quarters, Department of the Army, 28 May 1965. Second.claas postage aid at Fort Le?yenworth, Kansse. Subscription rates $4.00 (US currency) a year in the United Statea, B“!rlte~ Statqa mlhtary rmat oflicea, and thoee cormtriea which$re members of the Pan.American Postal Umon (mc!udwrgSpain); $5.00 a year in all other countriqs amgle copy price 50 canta. Address subscription mad to the Book Department, U. S. ArmY Commend and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansaa 66027. (Extractedfrom a speech by President Lyndon B. lohn- PEACEINASIA son, Washington, D. C., 12 July 1966) If enduring peace can ever come to Asia, all mankind will benefit. But if peace fails there, nowhere else will our achievements really be secure. By peace in Asia I do not mean simply the absence of armed hos tilities, For wherever men hunger and hate, there can really be no peace. I do not mean the peace of conquest. For humiliation can be the seedbed of war. I do not mean simply the peace of the conference table. For peace is not really written merely in the words of treaties, but peace is the day-byday work of builders. The peace we seek in Asia is a peace of conciliation between Corn munist states and their noncommunist neighbors, between rich nations and poor, between small nations and large, between men whose skins are brown and black and yellow and whiter between Hindus and Moslems, and Buddhists and Christians. It is a peace that can only be sustained through the durable bonds of peace: through international trade, through the free flow of people and ideas, through full participation by all nations in an international community under law, and through. a common dedication to the great task of human progress and economic development. PO L-J---JAN MILITARY o CAMPAIGNS ~ AnthonySas P T WAS Napoleon Bonaparte who Ionce said that the secret of war were lukewarm, if not cold, regarding lies in the secret of communications. such an endeavor. Thie is witneseed This maxim has been valid whenever by the uncoordinated planning and and wherever armies faced one an lack of cooperation among the three other, but it hae frequently been ig services. After futile efforts ,of the nored by military leaders. An out Luftwaffe to bomb England into sub standing example of the negative at mission, the invasion was postponed, titude regarding this dictum is that and German military planners on or of the German and Italian High Com ders from Adolf Hitler began to focus mands with respect to the Mediter their attention upon Eastern Europe, ranean theater of operations during specifically the Soviet Union. the Second World War. After the >direct assault upon the When German troops-with token British Isles was abandoned in the help from the Italians—had victori late summer of 1940, some high-rank ously concluded the campaign in West ing Germans, including Grand Ad ern Europe by the end of June 1940, miral Erich Raeder, pointed out that the next logical step in trying to end Britain could etill be dealt a powerful, the war successfully would have been if not mortal, blow. This could he ac the defeat of Great Britain. This complished by severing her vital east- might have been accomplished by di west line of communications through rect invasion ,acrose the English Chan the Mediterranean Sea by occupying nel, but with few exceptions all the the British-held bases of Gibraltar higher war leaders of the Third Reich and Malta. October 1966 “ Such a maneuver would interdict It was suggeeted that an attempt a significant part of Allied, especially be made to take Gibraltar by para British, eeaborne traSic to and from troopers backed by forcee that had the Middle and Far Eaet, forcing it croesed Spain. However, after pro to take the long route via the Cape of tracted negotiation with Spanieh Good Hope. It might, moreover, aid leadere, thie plan wae eventuaUy determined military efforts on the part dropped because the Spanish demands of the MIS from Libya into Egypt for euch collaboration proved to be exceesive and unrealistic. Strategic Location From a tactical standpoint, an oc cupation of the island of Malta would have been eimpler to carry out than an aeeault upon Gibraltar. Strategi cally, it would certainly have been most beneficial to the Axis cause. This rocky ieland with an area of about 100 equare milee hae little to offer ae far as raw materials are concerned. Practically all food and fuel muet be imported. Ite location made Malta strategically important eince it ie only about 60 miles south of Sicily, about 200 miles northeaet of Tripoli in Libya, and a similar dietance eaet of Tunieia. It lies about midway along the 2,200-mile-long sea route from Port Said and Alexandria to Gibral Grand Adadrsl Erich Reeder recognized tar. During the war, it formed a key tie strategicvalueof 4Xbraltersnd ?dalta link in the Allied supply line, with and the Nile Valley. This would de docking and repair facilities and a prive Britain of the use of the Suez refueling baee. For two years—July 1940 to mid Canal, threaten her petroleum eources eummer 1942-an attempt on the part in the Middle Eaet, and pose a flank of the Axis to wreet thie etrategic ing threat to the Soviet Union. croeeroads from British handa might Anthony SW ti Associate Professor have been crowned with eucceee. The of Geography at the Univeraitg of period between eummer 1940 and Sonth Caro13mzat Columbia. He holds early spring 1941 seemed especially a Ph. D. in Geographg from Cfnrk propitious for such an endeavor. The ?hiVeT8itU, WOYCe8tOT,Ma88fEChIWette; Germans during that time still had at and ha been on the Geography 8taff their dieposal a large force of highly at the Un$vemitg of Bfa@awd, and trained paratroopers that could have at Madimn CoUege, Harrieonburg, been employed in occupying the Brit Virginia. Thie article, writtctt while he woe a member of Madison CoUege, ieh airbasee on the island. was made poem”ble,in part, through a Even when the greater part of this reeearch grant from that college. elite force wae ultimately deetroyed 4 Miliity Review during the struggle for Greece and sity of a strong, continuous Mediter Crete in April and May of 1941, a ranean and North African war policy. Malta invasion might well have suc His vacillating and often negative at ceeded. Axis aifields and embarka titude for this theater of operations tion ports were only 60 to 70 miles was reflected in his considerations of away in Sicily, a powerful Italian fleet Field Marshal Rommel’s efforts as but was stationed on Taranto, and the a sideshow, aimed at cont@ning tbe Axis enjoyed air superiority over the Allies with a minimum of men and mid-Mediterranean. It is strange that so little attention was paid to Malta-apart from bomb ing and strafing raids+uring the time that German and Italian troops under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel fought their seesaw battles with the British in the Western Desert and Cyrenaica. For, just as Malta was vitally important to the Allied cause, an Axis occupation of the island would have safeguarded the supply route from Italy and Sicily to Libyan ports, thus assuring Field Marshal Rommel’s Afvika Km-pa of much needed mate riel and fuel. Invasion Pos@oned It appears that a determined effort to invade the island was contemplated only once, and that was during the us .4TnwPhoto.