Monday, Nov. 04, 1946

To Darkest Africa

Modern weapons (guided missiles with or without atomic warheads) have made the British Isles indefensible against a power holding the Continent. Looking far ahead, military men (who must visualize World War III even as statesmen struggle with the peace) realize that the U.S.British defense system must find other strategic strong points. In a stratospheric rocket war, the best offense may be a deep defense.

Last week, as Britain's political leaders reaffirmed the bonds linking Britain and the U.S. (see above), her strategists in London were reorienting to a global defense centered on the Indian Ocean. Some old soldiers still romanticized about the vulnerable Mediterranean "life line," but a new school of planners envisioned a military girdle (with a two-way stretch) around Africa's equatorial belly.

No Retreat. In Nigeria, on the underside of western Africa's Atlantic bulge, the British might have a shipping and supply contact either with the home isles or, in dreaded necessity, with a refugee government in Canada. From Nigeria the girdle could reach east to Kenya, along any of several possible roads, absorb a string of World War II airbases, make a junction with the north-south Cape Town trunk road (see map).

The British plan was no retreat. With evacuation of Egypt guaranteed within three years, the Empire needs more room and stability than either Palestine or Trans-Jordan can afford. There would be some barriers--natural and political. In Cairo this week, Egypt's ailing Premier

Ismail Sidky Pasha, back from London discussions (sometimes limited by Sidky's bladder trouble), embarrassed Britain by letting his spokesman claim that Bevin had promised Egypt sovereignty over Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. A quick denial came from the British, who had no intention of surrendering military or administrative control of this northernmost link in the prospective Nigeria-Kenya chain.

From the Sudan south, the Central African bastion would widen out. From it, the British would be able to slam the gates of Suez on any aggressor. They could rake an enemy in the Persian oilfields with rockets launched in Kenya or Khartoum. No threat to a peaceful Soviet Union, the African girdle might be a potent barrier to Russian expansion across the Middle East toward India.*

Crouch & Swing. There was no Maginot Line mentality in the Central African conception. The 19,000-foot snowcap of legendary Kilimanjaro might be a figurative Gibraltar at the approaches to the Indian

Ocean, but the field of rocket fire would stretch south to the protected seaways of Good Hope, north to the Middle Eastern land bridge uniting three continents. Britain (or Suez) could be saturated overnight by enemy rockets; huge Africa could absorb thousands, and still shoot back. In those green hills far away, Britain (and the U.S.) could, if the worst came, crouch defensively, have time and room to launch an atomic roundhouse.

-Rocket-line distance from Khartoum toTeheran (on the Persian plateau, Alexander the Great's classic Indian invasion route) is only 1,700 miles. Longest wartime rocket flight was about 200 miles, by a German V2. The V-2 launched in New Mexico last September had a theoretical range of 1,500 miles. Designed, but still dependent on solution of fuel problems, are 3,500-mile rockets. Other rocket-line distances from the African girdle: Khartoum to Suez, 950 miles; Kenya to Moscow, 4,000 miles; Lake Chad to Munich, 2,200 miles; Khartoum to Sofia, 1,800 miles.

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