World War: EASTERN THEATER: Decision in a Week?

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The alternative to the tactics employed against Napoleon would be to stand on the defensive. The Russians did not seem to have decided last week whether to stand or fight backwards. But even to stand and try to fight in one place is not the better part of valor in Blitzkrieg. Modern war is like modern football—a thing of forward passes, mousetrap plays, end runs—and a seven-man-line power defense is no answer.

The only answer to modern offense is better modern offense, as the Germans so eloquently proved in their first defense in World War II in the Western Desert fortnight ago (TIME, June 30). The Germans have memorized and vitalized the fundamental theorem: "Attack is fire that advances, defense is fire that counter attacks." The first power to defeat Adolf Hitler in the field will be the one which can shoot his planes out of the air and push him over backwards.