US might have to fight two wars

ONE might call it the disaster scenario. The US goes to war with Iraq to rid Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction, but North Korean leader Kim Jong-il launches an attack on South Korea, forcing America simultaneously to wage two major wars.

And all this takes place even as US armed forces continue the military operation in Afghanistan launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has expressed confidence that the US military would be more than up to the task of winning two such big regional wars at the same time, while continuing to pursue the war on terrorism.

Military analysts said there would be numerous difficulties in facing such a triple threat, including getting sufficient numbers of troops and weapons to where they need to be, intelligently dividing up resources, and taxing the "brain power" of top policy makers.

"On paper, it's doable. Logistically, its probably complex," said Charles Pena, a defence policy analyst for the Cato Institute think tank.

"The real problem is that, even though we're a superpower and you should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time when it comes to focusing on what needs to get done, it's really hard to devote the necessary attention to more than one thing at a time."

Last week, Rumsfeld was asked whether the US was capable of pursuing wars with Iraq and North Korea and the war on terrorism all at the same time: "Yes, we are perfectly capable of doing that which is necessary. We are capable of fighting two major regional conflicts.

We're capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other. And let there be no doubt about it."

Jack Spencer, a defence policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation think tank, said the US military is in "a transition period" between the Cold War and a new reality: "During the Cold War, our strategy was containment, and we built our forces to be able to contain Soviet expansion.

After the Cold War, we decided it was in our interests that the force-sizing mechanism (regarding the number of US troops) would be to fight two major regional conflicts, one in the Middle East and one on the Korean peninsula. And we would build our forces capable of doing that.

The fact of the matter is, though, we never actually had that force because after the Cold War we built down to where we are now."

There are about 1.3 million active-duty troops in the US military, with about an equal number of reserves, according to the Defence Department.

The US active-duty force is about half to two-thirds of its Cold War levels. Michael O'Hanlon, a defence policy expert at the Brookings Institution think tank, said that simple mathematics indicates the US military could mount the forces needed to fight two major regional wars at once, even while continuing the Afghanistan operations.

However, getting the men and machines where they need to go poses a huge problem.