Last month, the U.S. Commission on the National Defense Strategy released a report proposing that the Pentagon develop a “Multiple Theater Force Construct” sized to tackle simultaneous threats in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. This will be necessary to address the growing risk of war with both China and Russia in overlapping timeframes, as one of us has previously written in these pages. Less obvious, but also important, however, is the need to address the threat of a simultaneous war with both China and North Korea.
There is a real and growing risk of conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan, and the Pentagon already considers war with China as its most important “pacing” threat for prioritizing future military capabilities and resources. Contrary to conventional assumptions, however, it is unlikely that such a conflict would be contained to the Taiwan Strait.
Rather, a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan would almost certainly become a region-wide war, engulfing the Korean Peninsula, and pulling in both North Korea and South Korea. This is because China would have a strong incentive to strike U.S. bases in South Korea and to urge North Korea to provoke and tie down U.S. forces there. Similarly, North Korea could choose to join the fight to preempt a feared U.S. attack, take advantage of a distracted United States to settle old scores with its rival in Seoul, or influence the outcome of a war that would have profound implications for its own security.
Further, a lack of preparedness for this two-front war scenario gives Beijing and Pyongyang an additional incentive to attack precisely to exploit this U.S. and allied vulnerability. The United States and its allies must, therefore, update their defense strategies and postures to prepare to deter, and if necessary, win, a simultaneous war against both China and North Korea.
As part of a two-year series of studies and tabletop exercises sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, we analyzed the risk of a simultaneous U.S. conflict with both China and North Korea. We concluded that a war with China would also likely become a war with North Korea, and conversely, a war with North Korea could lead China to intervene. While the second scenario has already received some attention, we believe that the most likely and dangerous path to a two-front U.S. war with both China and North Korea actually starts with a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan.
If China were to attack Taiwan, Washington would likely employ military forces operating from bases in the region against China’s attacking forces. In retaliation, or to preempt this possibility, Beijing would have a strong incentive to strike regional U.S. bases, including those in Japan and South Korea.
Even if Beijing were only to strike bases in Japan, Chinese aircraft and missiles would need to fly over or past the Korean Peninsula, threatening U.S. and South Korean forces there, while also risking being shot down by U.S. and South Korean air and missile defenses. In addition, or alternatively, China might also actively encourage North Korea to provoke or attack South Korea and Japan, in order to tie down and distract U.S. forces from the ongoing fight around Taiwan.
Furthermore, North Korea might have compelling reasons of its own to join the conflict. Seeing Washington distracted in Taiwan, Pyongyang may engage in opportunistic aggression against what North Korean leader Kim Jong Un now calls its “principal enemy,” South Korea. In addition, as the U.S. military mobilizes large-scale reinforcements to the region, Pyongyang may assess this buildup will enable a “regime change” attack on North Korea either while or after the United States defeats China. North Korea has repeatedly declared that its doctrine is to strike first if it sees a threat to its regime “on the horizon.”
Ultimately, North Korea is unlikely to stand by as its most powerful patron battles its most powerful enemy in a war that would determine the fate of the region, with profound implications for Pyongyang’s security. A Chinese defeat would likely leave North Korea dangerously isolated, whereas a U.S. defeat could drive U.S. forces from the region and dramatically improve North Korea’s military position.
Even if Korea does not become a second front, the possibility would still impinge on U.S. efforts to defend Taiwan. The need to deter and, if necessary, defeat a North Korean attack would tie down some portion of U.S. forces, attention, and resources. Seoul might even seek constraints on whether and how Washington could operate its forces within and from South Korea in a war over Taiwan, to avoid provoking China or tempting North Korean opportunism.
Many analysts wrongly assume that Washington and Beijing have a shared interest in maintaining stability on the Korean Peninsula, particularly to avoid North Korean nuclear escalation, and that they would tacitly agree that North and South Korea are out of bounds in a war over Taiwan.
This is a flawed premise. It applies peacetime logic to wartime and was born out of the optimism of a more cooperative era in China-U.S. relations. If China starts a war with Taiwan, that is evidence that its leaders have decided that regional stability is no longer a top priority. Even if Beijing moves cautiously at the outset of a conflict by, for example, foregoing strikes on U.S. bases and encouraging North Korean restraint, such caution would quickly evaporate as the war continues, especially if Beijing fears that it might be losing. Moreover, while Beijing may hope to control Pyongyang, past evidence shows that Kim often marches to the beat of his own drum.
At the same time, it is likely that China would intervene in any war that starts in Korea. Like in the 1950s, China would not stand by as the United States and South Korea decisively defeat, and threaten to potentially end the regime in, North Korea. While it is unlikely that Beijing would seek to engineer a war on the Korean Peninsula, it could benefit from such a conflict by bogging down and exhausting the military resources of the United States, South Korea, and other allies.
China would have many options to hamstring a U.S. and allied campaign, including supplying Pyongyang’s war effort, establishing “buffer zones” to preclude operations near China’s borders, and intervening directly with military force. Then, when the time is right, Beijing could also take advantage of the expenditures and commitment of U.S. and allied military resources to attempt military action against Taiwan or elsewhere in the region, like in the South China Sea, before U.S. and allied militaries can fully recover. This logic holds even if Beijing and Pyongyang do not coordinate in advance, and even if Beijing is unhappy that Pyongyang’s recklessness provoked the initial conflict.
Unfortunately, the United States and its allies are largely unprepared for such scenarios. U.S. and allied capabilities, command-and-control arrangements, and posture (including forces, bases, and agreements with allies) are not well suited for simultaneous conflict with China and North Korea. Rather, all of these considerations are designed primarily for one fight or the other. This gap is reinforced by organizational biases, stovepipes, and various misalignments between allies and U.S. military warfighting headquarters.
Deterring and fighting a war with North Korea is the responsibility of the bilateral U.S.-South Korean Combined Forces Command (CFC), supported by U.S. Forces Korea and by the multinational United Nations Command (UNC). Seoul emphasizes the North Korea threat and, in an attempt to steer clear of antagonizing Beijing, avoids discussing what these commands might do in the event of a Taiwan conflict, particularly skirting the possibility that U.S. forces could operate from South Korea in a war against China. This reticence precludes systematic preparation for such scenarios, and might even encourage China to believe that it could get away with attacking Taiwan while maintaining Seoul’s neutrality and sidelining America’s forces in South Korea.
Meanwhile, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, headquartered in Hawaii, is responsible for deterring and defeating Chinese aggression in the region. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command lacks established multinational military structures like the CFC, UNC, or NATO to integrate with allies to deter and defeat China. Therefore, a multinational force to counter a Chinese attack today would have to be centered on U.S. Indo-Pacific Command with allies plugging in, or by inventing a model for coordination on the fly. Most worrisome, it is unclear how a U.S.-led multinational force defending against Chinese aggression would coordinate with or incorporate the CFC.
Indeed, this current lack of preparedness may even make a two-front war scenario more probable by giving both Beijing and Pyongyang an incentive to expand the conflict to exploit U.S. and allied vulnerabilities.
To prevent this nightmare scenario, the United States and its allies should re-conceptualize preparing for a conflict with China or North Korea as part of a broader Indo-Pacific campaign that will require deterring—and potentially defeating—both adversaries simultaneously. The first step in making this possible is to openly acknowledge that preparing to simultaneously confront China and North Korea is both prudent and vital. This will require changes to military planning, command and control arrangements, allied interoperability, and force posture.
Most importantly, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and the CFC must integrate their efforts and prepare together to fight both adversaries at the same time.
To make this possible, Seoul should publicly declare that its alliance with Washington will approach threats from China and North Korea as realistically interconnected rather than artificially separated. It should ensure that there are no illusions in Beijing that South Korea will stay neutral if U.S. bases in the region come under attack from China. Similarly, Washington should ensure Pyongyang knows that the United States will maintain its ironclad commitment to help defend South Korea even in the event of conflict with China.
Next, the ongoing transformation of the U.S. military headquarters in Japan and of U.S.-Japan command and control arrangements should be explicitly designed to facilitate combined military operations with other allies—such as Australia and the Philippines—to confront both China and North Korea simultaneously.
Finally, the United States, Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and other allies and partners should openly engage in robust planning and military exercises to prepare to simultaneously fight China and North Korea in various scenarios—while protecting operational details.
Once this hard work has been completed, Washington should clearly communicate its increased preparedness in order to strengthen deterrence against China and North Korea and reassure regional allies. No one wants a simultaneous war with China and North Korea, but failing to prepare visibly and properly for this very real possibility is the surest way to bring it about.
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