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The Array. Russia, the only other owner of a first-class military potential, has taken a different course. Russia still has 4½ million men under arms and 15,500 combat airplanes in service, is building a submarine Navy. By best military estimate, Russia has 93 divisions, 7,200 combat airplanes on its European frontier; 82 divisions and 6,000 planes poised toward the Middle East. In Korea and facing Japan she has 13 divisions and 700 aircraft. In Siberia are 20 more divisions and several hundred aircraft in reserve. Within 30 days Russia could build to 10½ million trained men; within six months, to 12 million, including youngsters, who would thus be put under military control but could not be fully armed or equipped. This mighty power, restricted in range and striking force by Russia's lack of long-range aircraft, is the nightmare that haunts U.S. military strategists. Russia has the power on hand to sweep to the Channel, to the Persian Gulf and the oil areas, to the southern extremity of Korea, or through China. Obviously it is not in Russia's immediate calculations to make any such vast move, which would certainly bring on World War III. Military men feel that only an accident, e.g., a hasty, intemperate move by a Russian satellite, could precipitate such a catastrophe. But it is within Russia's potentialities, and that is what military men worry about. Men fighting the battle of foreign relations worry about it, too.
Slow Decay. In the U.S. armed forces, only the Navy and its Marine Corps are anywhere near fighting trim. The Navy has fleets in both oceans, each built around a striking arm of six big carriers. Within 90 days it could bring the first of the zipper fleet out of its cocoons, within a year complete the job. The Marines have their 2nd Division and a reorganized 3rd Brigade; the 1st Division is on its way home from China. Between them, the Navy and Marines have 6,000 aircraft, almost all designed only for the support of the fleets and amphibious operations.
The Army Air Forces, which would be first to fight in a new war, are still in the early stages of reorganization; the Army Ground Forces, the same. The job of reducing the 8,300,000-man Army of V-E day to peacetime size had been done with a sledge hammer instead of a wrench. Along with its veteran citizen-soldiers, the Army has also lost scores of its brightest professionals, who would not endure the skimpy salaries and slow decay of peacetime Army life.
One -Shave -a -Week. The Army's strength today is a little above a million men, but they are largely tied down by occupation, supply and housekeeping chores. Of the 89 divisions in service when Germany fell, the Army has only twelve left. Less than three are available to join the Marines in immediate action today, and all of them are in the U.S.: the understrength 2nd Armored and 2nd Infantry, the 82nd Airborne.
The 500,000 Army men overseas are mostly green youngsters—the new, volunteer, "one-shave-a-week" Army. They are largely police and riot squads. There are only two divisions in Europe, both tied down by occupation duties, and the equivalent of a third in separate constabulary regiments. In the Pacific, General MacArthur has seven divisions, also committed to the occupation job.