Atomic War in Asia

When the Asian-African conference opens at Bandung next week, the question of United States policy in the Far East is certain to be near the top of the agenda. Communist China can be expected to treat the conference as a major step in its effort to discredit the United States in the eyes of uncommitted Asians. Unfortunately, Chinese charges of American warmongering in the Far East may well find willing listeners even among non-Communists.

For too many Administration leaders have made too many rash statements about the Far Eastern crisis. Although the United States is committed to a peaceful settlement of the crisis, Congressmen, State Department officials, and military authorities have spent much of their time discussing the frightening alternative. The idea of atomic bombs falling on China's densely populated cities has alarmed neutralist-minded Asians everywhere, and many non-Asians as well. "Massive retaliation" may be an eye-catching slogan, but it is time that the Administration re-evaluated its applicability to the facts of possible war in Asia.

If efforts to reach a peaceful settlement of the crisis fail and the Chinese Communists attack territory which the United States has pledged to defend, then this country obviously must meet the challenge with military force. But massive atomic retaliation against Chinese cities, in response to a Chinese attack with conventional arms would be unthinkable. It probably would be unthinkable. It probably would be militarily ineffective in itself, since China's urban industrial base is still largely undeveloped. More than that however, such a response to a Communist attack would do serious harm to the American position in the world.

The United States would be abandoning its policy of containing aggression. Massive retaliation would signal American determination to destroy the Communist regime in China, even though Russia would be almost forced to enter the war to prevent the defeat of her chief partner. And massive atomic retaliation means total war against a civilian population, with disastrous consequences even in non-Communist world opinion. Non-Communist Asia would surely turn against the West and anti-American feeling in our European allies would rise to new heights.

Under present military circumstances, the United States should be able to repulse Chinese aggression in Asia without resorting the use of atomic or hydrogen bombs on China's cities. Conventional military weapons could probably stop any attack on Formosa, in view of the evident Chinese weakness in sea-power. If the Communists launched a mass offensive in Korea, the United States might find it necessary to employ tactical atomic weapons. But there is an essential distinction between these tactical atomic weapons--such as artillery shells and airplane rockets--and large atomic and hydrogen bombs. Informed military men say that a defending force could use these tactical explosives in an actual fighting zone to break up an enemy attack. Atomic attacks against enemy cities would be unnecessary to repulse aggression, so long as repulsion and not complete destruction of the aggressor country remained the objective. It is important that the President announce in advance of actual war an American decision to reject the policy of massive retaliation. A declaration to that effect might help to reassure the Chinese Communists that the United States intends to contain them, not destroy them. It would go far toward re-assuring our allies and Asian opinion that we are committed to the concept of limited war in self-defense. Above all, a clear assertion of the American determination to resist aggression with as little loss to enemy civilians as possible would provide a needed clarification of our moral position in the world.