New Strategy

The Administration last week announced two far-reaching decisions on disposition of U.S. armed forces in the Pacific that fitted with remarkable good sense into the U.S. defense plan worked out by the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last month (TIME, Dec. 20).

Secretary of State Dulles announced flatly that the U.S. regards Okinawa and the bulk of the Ryukyu and Bonin Island chains as "essential links" in the strategic defense of the whole Pacific area, intends to keep control of them "so long as conditions of threat and tension exist in the Far East." Under a defense system that accents air power and mobility, the Ryukyus and Bonins will be strong U.S. air and naval outposts in a defensive line that stretches along the China coast from Japan to the Philippines.*

Two days later. President Eisenhower announced in Augusta that the U.S. will soon bring home two divisions (some 32,000 men plus support troops) of its six Army divisions from Korea as a first step in the gradual reduction of its ground forces there. The withdrawal, said Eisenhower, was further proof "that we ourselves have no aggressive intentions, and that we are resourceful and vigilant to find ways to reduce the burden of armament and to promote a climate of peace."

But, he warned, withdrawal should not be interpreted as weakness. First, the Republic of Korea forces have been substantially built up (to 19 divisions) to handle any renewed attack. Second, the United Nations forces have promised that a breach of the Korean armistice "would be so grave that, in all probability, it would not be possible to confine hostilities within the frontiers of Korea." Added General Ike, in a thinly veiled promise of an atomic counterattack: "Our growing national air power possesses greater mobility and greater striking force than ever before . . . The U.S. military forces in the Far East will be maintained at appropriate levels ... to fulfill the commitments which the U.S. has undertaken in that area . . ."

*One exception to the U.S. rule: the U.S. will return to Japan the Amami Oshima group of the Ryukyus, five main islands with a population of 200,000, and the first bit of war-lost territory that Japan has regained.

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