Colonel Blunt

By one of those historical accidents wherein an author, an idea and a ready public all collide at the right instant, Lieut. Colonel William F. Kernan became a nationally quoted strategist overnight. His Defense Will Not Win the War (Little, Brown; $1.50), a fast, hot, rough-&-tumble book that people could eat up, hit the bookstands when everyone was saying the same thing.

Colonel Kernan is dead sure that Hitler can be beaten only by going after him, smashing him, routing his armies. His thesis is simple: the U.S., Britain and France relied too long on defense outposts (Singapore, Hong Kong), defense lines (the Maginot for France, the oceans for the U.S.), the classic seapower doctrines of Admiral Mahan. (One chapter title: "Mahan Was Wrong!") France fell because the French and British generals were gripped by the "defense myth." So fell Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Kernan pointed the lesson: by trying to defend everywhere, the Allies had held nowhere.

"It is impossible to hold any possession, island or base, by a defense whose principal buttress is an existing sea supremacy. Unless the foundations of victory are laid by the formation of an adequate land army . . . mere sea power ... is useless except for rescue work. . . ." (Cf. Dunkirk, Crete).

Colonel Kernan says that if the U.S. keeps on the defensive, it will keep losing to the Axis. "We think . . . that all we have to do to stop Hitler is to step up the output of our 'defense industry,' increase the output of tanks and planes, train more and more flyers . . . induct more and more selectees, build an ever-increasing number of battleships, spend more and more billions, arm every defending democracy to the teeth, line the pockets of every enemy of Hitler with our gold. . . .

"It is not enough. . . .

"For the Germans have by this time built up an offensive force . . . that can take care of, crush, capture and absorb any amount of war material, tanks, planes, guns, trucks, munitions--as long as that material is used defensively."

How To Win. Colonel Kernan's formula for victory is a return to the slashing tactics of Napoleon, Wellington, Marshal Foch (whose Conduct of War he has translated).* His battle slogan is the famed dispatch from Foch at the First Battle of the Marne: "My right is exposed, my left is heavily attacked, my center is unable to hold its position, I cannot redistribute my forces. The situation is excellent. I shall attack."

Says Kernan: wars are not won or lost in outposts like the Philippines; they are decided in headlong clashes at the great centers of military strength. His own plan is for a U.S.-British offense against Italy ("the solar plexus of the Axis") this spring, using three-fourths of the U.S. Fleet, at least half of Britain's, every bombing plane and every transport of both nations, an A.E.F. of 200,000 men a month.

By attacking Italy, he argues, the Allies would force the Axis in Europe to fight on two fronts; by capturing Italy, the Allies would control the Mediterranean and Africa, open the back door to the center of Germany, catch Hitler "between the upper and nether millstones of British-and Italian-based American sea power." The United Nations could then move on Japan with land-based armies through Russia and China.

Colonel Kernan's plan would draw many a criticism. But the keynote of Kernan's book--attack--was the mounting watchword of the week. To the U.S. as a nation the thought of dynamic, aggressive warfare was just what the people ordered.

* Now of the 18th Field Artillery, Lieut. Colonel Kernan once taught languages at Georgia Tech, medieval philosophy at Harvard, was literary executor to late, great Harvard Philosopher Josiah Royce.

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