Ultimatum?

The U.S., greatly helped by the Churchill mission, has reached with its U.N. partners in the Korean war an agreement in principle that may be a solution to the Communists' campaign of conquest in Asia. Its gist: if the Communists, after settling for a truce in Korea, begin a new aggression, the U.N. should try to punish Red China by some means more effective than merely picking up the Korean war where it was left off. The plan is to put the decision in the form of a warning, or ultimatum, to be proclaimed through the U.N. when & if a Korean armistice is signed.

The ultimatum plan lies behind the hints of retaliation against Red China publicly voiced by Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden. It is the outcome of the U.S. National Security Council's recommendation on how the U.S. should conduct the war in the Far East from now on (TIME, Jan. 14). The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff are, in fact, broadening the proposal: it holds that an air and sea attack on Red China should be launched not only in the event of renewed aggression in Korea, but also in the event of a Chinese Communist move against Indo-China, Burma or any other sector of Southeast Asia.

Strategic Initiative. This plan is not necessarily an "expansion" or "extension" of the U.S. armed commitment in Asia. It can be just the opposite. Holding the war to the narrow limits of the Korean peninsula has strained U.S. naval and strategic air power by giving it a task for which it was not designed. Last week the U.S.A.F.'s Major General Roger M. Ramey, operations, chief of the Air Force general staff, said: "It is the Yalu River which has forced upon [us] an air war that is predominantly tactical. Less than 3% of the entire Far East Air Forces' effort [was] required to paralyze North Korean industry by neutralizing 18 strategic targets."

The other 97% of U.S. bombing effort is actually used to fight war on the ground. The ground war has no strategic objective. U.N. commanders would just as soon be where they are as to be 50 or 100 miles farther north. Destruction of the Chinese army in Korea is not possible unless U.N. strength in Korea is built far above its present level. Air power is largely wasted if its mission is merely to help an army which has no specific goal.

The unfruitful task now performed by

Air Force and Navy units is costly out of all proportion to any results that can be hoped for. The U.S. and its allies, by strictly limiting their attack to Korea, tell the enemy where they will strike and invite him to concentrate air and antiaircraft defense against them. What's more, the area attacked contains scarcely anything that contributes to the Red air power--such as plane factories, fields, air supply dumps.

Deterring Aggression. Bringing the U.N. air and sea attack to the China mainland would give Air Force and Navy the strategic goals for which they are designed. It might disorganize Red China's industries and communications, notably coastal shipping. It would certainly compel the Reds to spread their defensive air power thinly up & down the 2,500 miles of Chinese territory. Unless the Reds brought in from Russia another 1000 or more

MIGs, the U.N. would need no more planes than are now available in the Far East in the Air Force and in the fleet.

The new strategic plan might have a further effect. If it failed to persuade the Chinese Communists that aggression does not pay, and if they managed to mount overwhelming ground forces in Korea, U.N. troops could be withdrawn. Instead of fighting on the enemy's terms, with the weapon of his own choice (mass manpower), the U.N. would rely on its naval and air advantage to set back Communist China's dream of power through consolidation and industrialization. Faced with that threat, Red China's masters might be induced to keep the peace.

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