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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCould the U.S. fight dual wars in North Korea and Iran? After diplomacy breaks down, questions loom.
The seeming collapse of the North Korea summit and the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal have led top officials in the Trump administration to once again make veiled references to military action, with President Trump most recently touting American might in a speech Friday at the U.S. Naval Academy.
But beyond the saber-rattling is a sobering reality well known by strategists and planners at the Pentagon: The unlikely, worst-case scenario of sliding into open armed conflict with both Iran and North Korea simultaneously would strain the U.S. military to a degree few Americans could fathom.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has repeatedly warned that an open conflict on the Korean Peninsula alone would be catastrophic, resulting in the sort of warfare the U.S. military hasnt seen in generations. The outside chance of a conflict with Iran at the same time would present Pentagon leaders with logistical, tactical and personnel challenges unenviable for any commander.
Former top Pentagon officials say the possibility of coinciding wars with Iran and North Korea remains extremely remote, and the United States could drift in the space between diplomatic breakthrough and all-out war for years. Still, if the dual wars were to occur, they would test decades of contingency planning that anticipates huge risks to the U.S. armed forces despite ultimate victory.
Both fights would be costly, said David Ochmanek, a senior researcher at the Rand Corp. and a former top Pentagon strategist in the Clinton and Obama administrations. In the end you would expect the U.S. and its allies to prevail but at a human and material cost that would be almost incalculable, particularly in the case of the Korea example.
For decades dating back to the Cold War, planners at the Pentagon have grappled with the question of how the U.S. military should prepare for the remote possibility of having to fight two full-scale regional wars at once. The new national defense strategy issued by Mattis, however, emphasizes the need to build up military capability for a possible great-power conflict with Russia and China, and largely backs off the focus on waging two regional wars at once that once consumed the Pentagon.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/could-the-us-fight-dual-wars-in-north-korea-and-iran-after-diplomacy-breaks-down-questions-loom/ar-AAxOzwA?li=BBnbcA1
The dotard wants to get his war on.
VMA131Marine
(4,457 posts)We still have troops in Afghanistan and Iraq/Syria.
tazkcmo
(7,419 posts)Shoot, those are just little skirmishes that the American people need not concern themselves about.
Sarcasm
BumRushDaShow
(137,933 posts)let alone being in Niger and Yemen.
tazkcmo
(7,419 posts)We would quickly exhaust our reserves after calling up the Guard and Reserve forces. What a shitstorm that would be.
thbobby
(1,474 posts)I bet the trump klan would be the first to serve when the draft is requested.
dalton99a
(83,332 posts)dameatball
(7,532 posts)Girard442
(6,328 posts)Thats a game-changer. Did everyone forget?
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Oh, never mind.
msongs
(69,451 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)These days, you never know.
DFW
(55,942 posts)North Korea's topography and indoctrinated military would make it a slaughter of unimaginable proportions. And Iran would never be confined to Iran. Shi'ites all over would join them, and the whole Middle East would go up in flames, Israel included. Netanyahu would discover too late that Trump would drop him like a hot potato if he and his country's geography proved inconvenient in an all out war against most of Islam.
But here's why it will not come to any of that. By the way, this was the ONLY argument I ever ended up winning with Wes Clark, who was positive that Cheney would invade Iran once he got bored with Iraq. I told him no way.
Republicans are basically cowards by nature. They do not attack countries that they think will shoot back (Iraq was a major miscalculation, not an exception, they just believed their own bullshit). Reagan attacked Grenada, Bush I attacked Panama, and stopped at the Iraqi border after chasing him out of Kuwait (the only justifiable venture of any of them, and that is only so because his own inept Ambassador to Iraq convinced Saddam he could invade Kuwait without repercussion from us--we had a moral obligation to clean up the mess we had caused). But Iran and North Korea have a well organized military, and have been preparing for an invasion from the USA for decades. Trump is the kind of jerk that would invade Liechtenstein or San Marino, and then look smugly at the cameras after getting the go-ahead from Bolton to declare victory.
One thing will tell us if Trump is really preparing, in spite of all this, to invade either NK or Iran. If it should come to light that he or any of his family is buying up stock in the company that makes body bags--THEN worry.
dalton99a
(83,332 posts)DFW
(55,942 posts)But there's always St. Kitt's or Anguilla. I don't think we've attacked either of them recently.
Actually, considering his attitude toward Puerto Rico, he could attack the island of Vieques. That would certainly satisfy the Republican requirement for "not likely to shoot back."