Simms: Cairo parley stressed need of Reds’ help
Allies’ desire for bases in Siberia emphasized by decisions
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
Washington –
The momentous decisions of President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo, reemphasize the compelling necessity for an understanding with Marshal Stalin.
To carry out the Cairo manifesto, it is clear that two things must be done. First, Nazi Germany must be smashed and the war in Europe brought to an end and, second, Russia must give us bases in Siberia from which to get at Japan proper. In short, she too must come into the war against Nippon.
Japan, it was decided in Cairo, must be shorn of all the territory grabbed since 1895, including Manchuria, Korea, Formosa and the Pescadores, the Philippines, the East Indies, the Pacific mandates, Indochina, Burma, Malaya and the rest.
That is a large order. It means reducing Japan to a third-rate power. To do so will be far from the cinch some predict after we lick Hitler and concentrate on the Far East. Nothing thus far indicates it will be an easy task.
Two alternatives
There are two alternatives. One – almost as long as bloody as the island route – is to retake Burma and build communications capable of supplying Chinese battlefields comparable to those in Europe and fight our way back to Shanghai. The other is for Russia to come in and provide us with more convenient bases in the Siberian maritime provinces.
But we would have to wait, of course, for possible Russian aid in Asia until the fighting in Europe is ended. Russia cannot afford a war on two fronts 5,000 miles apart. And as long as we ourselves are up to our necks in Europe, we are not in any position to take over and defend Siberia on our own.
Benefits for Russia
China excepted, Russia stands to gain more than any other power by the total defeat of Japan. Sooner or later, one must give way to the other in Northeast Asia. Both sides have long admitted this. They have already fought three wars over it – one declared, one undeclared and one diplomatic – only to reach the present stalemate.
Three-quarters of Soviet territory lies in Asia. Russia must have a dependable outlet to the Pacific, or Siberia will suffocate. A strong Japan blocks that outlet.
Korea was used as a springboard to Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. These territories constitute a springboard to eastern Siberia. Thus, when Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek announced that Korea and Manchuria would be taken from Japan, they were helping Russia as much as themselves.