Trends in Aerial Defense

Extract

In a speech made in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1949, Sir Winston Churchill said, “For good or ill, air mastery today is the supreme expression of military power, and fleets and armies, however necessary, must accept a subordinate rank.” This statement comes from a figure of world repute whose strategic instincts are steeped in naval tradition. It has been echoed by President Eisenhower in recent speeches and Eisenhower is a General of the Army. We can therefore take it that modern air weapons are supremely important for all major aspects of contemporary strategy and politics. The big questions are these: In an age when atomic and hydrogen bombs have demonstrated that they can devastate cities and military and naval targets in a way never before experienced, would the heavy bomber and long-range rocket inevitably get through and shatter air defense? Or could prohibitive losses be inflicted again and again on the raiders so that the scale of attack dwindled? And, furthermore, could the United States or the USSR, militarily or economically, sustain a long-range atomic or hydrogen bomb and rocket air offensive? These are indeed $64 questions which are likely to be unanswerable for several years to come.