In the Far East, the tactics of communist imperialism have reached heights of violence unmatched elsewhere—­and the problem of concerted action by the free nations has been at once more acute and more difficult.

Here, in spite of outside aid and support, the free government of China succumbed to the communist assault.  Our aid has enabled the free Chinese to rebuild and strengthen their forces on the island of Formosa.  In other areas of the Far East-in Indo-China, Malaya, and the Philippines—­our assistance has helped sustain a staunch resistance against communist insurrectionary attacks.

The supreme test, up to this point, of the will and determination of the free nations came in Korea, when communist forces invaded the Republic of Korea, a state that was in a special sense under the protection of the United Nations.  The response was immediate and resolute.  Under our military leadership, the free nations for the first time took up arms, collectively, to repel aggression.

Aggression was repelled, driven back, punished.  Since that time, communist strategy has seen fit to prolong the conflict, in spite of honest efforts by the United Nations to reach an honorable truce.  The months of deadlock have demonstrated that the communists cannot achieve by persistence, or by diplomatic trickery, what they failed to achieve by sneak attack.  Korea has demonstrated that the free world has the will and the endurance to match the communist effort to overthrow international order through local aggression.

It has been a bitter struggle and it has cost us much in brave lives and human suffering, but it has made it plain that the free nations will fight side by side, that they will not succumb to aggression or intimidation, one by one.  This, in the final analysis, is the only way to halt the communist drive to world power.

At the heart of the free world’s defense is the military strength of the United States.

From 1945 to 1949, the United States was sole possessor of the atomic bomb.  That was a great deterrent and protection in itself.

But when the Soviets produced an atomic explosion—­as they were bound to do in time—­we had to broaden the whole basis of our strength.  We had to endeavor to keep our lead in atomic weapons.  We had to strengthen our armed forces generally and to enlarge our productive capacity-our mobilization base.  Historically, it was the Soviet atomic explosion in the fall of 1949, nine months before the aggression in Korea, which stimulated the planning for our program of defense mobilization.

What we needed was not just a central force that could strike back against aggression.  We also needed strength along the outer edges of the free world, defenses for our allies as well as for ourselves, strength to hold the line against attack as well as to retaliate.

We have made great progress on this task of building strong defenses.  In the last two and one half years, we have more than doubled our own defenses, and we have helped to increase the protection of nearly all the other free nations.