Stardate 20021229.2010

(On Screen): One analyst in South Korea that I read about speculates that the real reason that North Korea is creating a crisis now is because it hopes to take advantage of America's preoccupation with Iraq. By banging on its cage bars now, it hopes that the US can be panicked into making a quick agreement with North Korea, or that US allies can be panicked into bringing pressure to bear on the US for such a quick agreement.

It is a truism of negotiations that if one party is up against a deadline and the other is not, the one in a hurry is at a disadvantage. So it is frustrating the North Koreans mightily that the US government refuses to even talk to them, and shows no sign that it considers the situation urgent.

Most of the announcements made by various US government officials recently have been intending primarily to indicate to the North Korean government that we're not impressed by what they've been doing the last few days, and that we're not going to be rushed into making a foolish deal with them. That is exactly the right message to be sending to North Korea right now, and I'm glad that's what our government is actually doing.

One of those messages has been from Rumsfeld, who announced that the US would have no trouble fighting two wars at once (with the specific implication that they would be Iraq and North Korea). That is also correct; it's not just rhetoric.

We might not be able to fight two arbitrarily chosen wars, especially if they were similar, but we absolutely do have the ability to fight these two, and can do so even without using nuclear weapons in either theater. That's because each one would require different things from us.

In the Iraqi theater, we will probably end up using 4 carrier battle groups to supply air power, and in addition we will fly heavy bombers from Diego Garcia. Air tankers will fly from several bases in the area (I'm not exactly sure where but I suspect Oman will be a prime base for this kind of thing). JSTARS and AWACS will also fly from bases further from Iraq. We'll have fighters and fighter-bombers based in Qatar, and if the Saudis cave at the last minute (which is looking increasingly likely, because though they despise the idea of war, they hate being on the losing side and angering the US even more) then we'd also use airfields there. There are also fighters and fighter-bombers at Incirlik, and based in Kuwait. And there will also be some flights from Germany, though at this point I think our planners would be idiots to rely on those given that Germany has become a distinctly unreliable ally given to stab us in the back any time their leaders see minor advantage in doing so. Like Saudi Arabia, we'll take advantage of that resource if it actually is available when the cards are laid down on the table, but I have no doubt that our planning doesn't require either place.

The primary commitment to the Iraq theater is ground forces, which will be deployed there at the last possible instant so as to reduce the window of vulnerability to chemical attack to the bare minimum. Part of that will be deployment of a huge force of ground logistics, including trucks. In the Gulf War in 1991, it was necessary for the US to mobilize nearly every reserve and National Guard trucking unit we had in order to support ground operations by less than half of our divisions. Though the US is better prepared to handle logistical problems than anyone else in the world, it remains the case that this is something we do not have enough of, and we will use a larger percentage, probably the majority, of our logistical units in Iraq than any other military asset we have. (We won't need as many as we did in 1991 because we're not going to be using as large a ground force this time.)

We'll deploy one third of our carriers, probably one quarter of the Air Force, and right now it looks as if we will use no more than three divisional-equivalents of ground forces of various kinds, though they will be drawn out of more than three divisions all told. (Part of the reason why is that further units from those divisions could be deployed as reinforcements or replacements later if necessary.) And I suspect we'll end up keeping a substantial part of the Army and Marines on standby as a reserve in case things don't actually go as well as we'd like.

So suppose that while this is going on, North Korea launches its doomsday attack southward. US Second Infantry Division is there, and it would fight, but it's a mistake to try to claim that "we're protecting South Korea with our army". In actuality, the main reason that Second Infantry is there is so that it isn't possible for North Korea to attack the South without getting the US involved.

But the vast majority of the ground fighting would be done by the South Korean regular army and its huge mass of reserves. It would not be necessary for the US to move substantial ground forces into the theater. Our primary contribution to combat would be sea and airpower.

First, we would certainly deploy one carrier and probably two into the theater. Heavy bombers based on Guam would participate. We also have substantial air assets in Okinawa and in South Korea itself, and there will be large numbers of uncommitted air units remaining in CONUS would could be deployed to the theater if need be. (If necessary, we could activate ANG squadrons, but there will be regular Air Force squadrons available as well.) Okinawa is not ideally placed