INTERNATIONAL: History at the Corner

The greatest of Axis pincer movements threatened the world last week. The pinch was aimed at Russia. Indirectly it was aimed at all world hopes of escaping the worldwide designs of Adolf Hitler.

The western prong of the pincer was the German Army closing on Moscow (see p. 24). The eastern prong so far consisted of small Japanese generals sipping green tea, studying their detailed plans for attacking Siberia. But now that a Japanese general was premier at last (see col. 2), it seemed inevitable that Japan would attack Siberia.

If the pincers crushed the armies of the U.S.S.R., they would thereafter encounter pulp and eggshell. Only geography and a brittle British Army now bar Germany from the Middle East, Suez and Africa. In Europe’s southwest corner obedient satellites (see p. 32) seemed prepared to help in the conquest of Africa, which would cut the British Empire into eastern and western halves. With Russia gone, China could do little but accept a peace dictated by the senior partner of the Axis. If the Axis spreads its dominion over the continents of Eurasia and Africa, the pincers will be ready to reverse their bite. The U.S. would then be squarely in their jaws, with Britain in one ocean and Australia in the other as outposts of the Western Hemisphere.

To prevent the development of such a double-pincers movement, the shadowboxing U.S. and its fighting allies have one obvious tactic: to pinch first. Last week the U.S. was pressing in the Atlantic, holding its previously applied pressure in the Pacific. There was a suspicion that Japan’s bellicose gesture was the result of a demand by Adolf Hitler, not only to attack Siberia, but to divert the U.S. from its warlike moves in the Atlantic (see p. 28).

History for the next 1,000 years (Adolf Hitler’s favorite figure) may be decided by the relative force of the opposing pincers. And the decision may be won not in the west, as the world had taken for granted, but along the fringes of the South China Sea. To keep Russia and China fighting back-to-back against the closing pincers, the Allies must keep a supply line to Russia open. The Archangel and the slender Caucasus lines might also be cut by Nazi arms. Only Vladivostok would then remain. Since the U.S. is committed to the delivery of aid to Russia, a Japanese attack on Siberia would be a direct assault on U.S. policy.

If that occurs, the U.S. may soon have to decide with its Far Eastern allies whether to close on Japan. Those allies are willing and ready to help. But without direct fighting aid from the U.S. they may not be strong enough to take the lead. The crisis in the Pacific may soon be one where the U.S. will have to face the issue of fighting.

A decade ago Japan marched into Manchuria without resistance and world his tory turned a corner. Last week the greatest decade of aggression in history brought the world close to another corner.