Grand Strategy

"A whole torrent of water has gone under the bridge since a year ago. . . . We have faced the future, and Pearl Harbor is already a long way behind."

So said the Des Moines Register, But the best proof of how the torrents had thundered under the bridge for the U.S. came last week, not from a remembrance of things past, not from an actual theater of war, nor even from an American. Instead it came from the quiet announcement of a Briton; an announcement so underplayed that its significance did not at first even dawn on U.S. consciousness.

Captain Oliver Lyttelton, British Minister of Production, merely said, as he prepared to return to London, that he had taken from the White House "a more complete agreement" on production and Lend-Lease. Actually, the new understanding meant that U.S. strategy, which had been knocked into a cocked hat at Pearl Harbor, could now look far into the future.

>The U.S. and Britain will dovetail production, concentrate on what each can do best, will not attempt to build self-sufficient arsenals.

>The size of U.S. armed forces in 1943 will be held down to the number that can be moved and equipped without cutting down Lend-Lease shipments to the Allies. (The 10,000,000-man Army & Navy talked of a few months ago will be trimmed to around 8,000,000 for 1943.)

>Army, Navy, Maritime Commission and civilian demands will be cut to fit raw-material supplies--and to leave ample resources for Lend-Lease.

>First-class fighting equipment will be sent wherever it can best be used, whether by U.S., British, Russian or Chinese troops.

In theory, the U.S. has always accepted these principles, which are basic to a strategy of full offense. In practice, in a year marked by Pearl Harbor, the siege of Stalingrad and the British defeat in Africa in June, the Army & Navy had never dared conform. They tried to build every kind of materiel, expanded as fast as they could outfit the men, often hoarded equipment. If the agreement that Oliver Lyttelton got is really a matter of practice this time, Pearl Harbor is indeed a long way behind.

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