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      1. The Strategic Effects
 
      
 
 
In Europe at the present time the continuance of the political 
      independence of the Low Countries and the small states of Northern 
      and South-eastern Europe, including the Middle East, depends 
      upon the power and resources of the British Empire and France.
 
      The essence of this power is the naval supremacy of the British 
      fleet and the land defenses of France. Assuming the defeat of 
      the United Kingdom and France, consequent upon failure to maintain 
      command of the sea and to protect themselves adequately from 
      aerial attack, the British and French navies could no longer 
      exist. The strategic bases now occupied by Great Britain would 
      pass to the victors, and Germany, Italy and Japan, as a naval 
      coalition, would be dominant in European waters, the eastern 
      and south Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific.
 
      As a result, although the United States now holds Alaska, Hawaii 
      and Panama, it is not improbable that America might find it impossible 
      to maintain the strategic triangle Dutch Harbor-Hawaii-Panama 
      against such a coalition adequately supplied with naval bases.*
 
      
 
 
*K.G., Singapore, Hongkong, Manila, Sydney (?), Simonstown, 
      West African ports, the Canaries, the Azores, Gibraltar, the 
      West Coast of Ireland, and the Falkland Islands.