Two-War Strategy Faces Test

For decades, the U.S. Armed Forces planned and trained to fight simultaneous wars on the east and west ends of Asia if they had to.

But the mounting threat from North Korea, coming as a huge buildup continues in the Middle East for possible war against Iraq, has the Pentagon concerned that key parts of the military would be stretched thin if two wars erupted at the same time, defense officials and military experts say.

With airplanes and special forces troops also still tied up in Afghanistan, shortages in certain high-tech aircraft that would be needed in both North Korea and Iraq, and perhaps also precision munitions and some kinds of troops, mean a second-front war in Korea would take longer to win and entail more casualties, the officials and experts say.

Ultimately, the outcome of a two-front war would “not be in doubt,” said Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “In gross numbers, the military can do what it is doing in the world today, plus taking on two problems,” he said in an interview with The Times.

“What’s at risk is the timeline you’d like to do it on,” Pace said. “Of course, anything that is longer will have more risk.”

The stresses have drawn new concern as the regime in Pyongyang has threatened to restart its nuclear arms program, while the Bush administration has been gearing up for a possible campaign to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The North Korean regime, aware of the U.S. military’s limits, has continued a series of provocative moves in hopes of gaining diplomatic advantage and American concessions. North Korea has announced that it restarted a key nuclear reactor, which would create more spent fuel rods that could be used for bombs.

There might also be a major delivery system, according to U.S. intelligence officials who said Wednesday that they believe North Korea has an untested ballistic missile capable of reaching the western U.S.

The United States has repeatedly said it wants a diplomatic solution. On Wednesday, the United Nations’ nuclear agency declared North Korea in violation of international treaties and sent the dispute to the Security Council, which could impose sanctions on the already isolated country.

Miscalculation Feared

Despite North Korea’s belligerence, U.S. officials say they believe it is unlikely that Pyongyang would risk the regime’s survival by starting a war. Yet experts point out that the Stalinist state has miscalculated before, and some fear that Pyongyang, in its haste to build nuclear arms and gain desperately needed U.S. aid, could launch a military action or cross undeclared American “red lines.”

A war on the Korean peninsula, one of the world’s most heavily armed regions, would be bloody and difficult in any circumstances. U.S. military planners believe that the most likely scenario would be a North Korean invasion of its southern neighbor, rather than a direct missile attack by the North on the United States.

The long-standing U.S. military plan for the region, called Oplan 5027, envisions that the North Koreans would begin a war by launching a huge artillery and rocket bombardment from their entrenched positions north of the demilitarized zone in an effort to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire.” Some U.S. military officials have estimated that the North Koreans could pump out 500,000 shells an hour from the 10,000 artillery tubes and 2,500 multiple rocket launchers, most of which are within 30 miles of the South Korean capital.

The bombardment, which would probably include chemical shells, could kill hundreds of thousands of South Koreans in the first few hours, allied military officials have said.

Special forces and infantry troops from North Korea’s 1.1-million-strong army, many of them dug into a honeycomb of 3,000 tunnels and caves, would surge across the demilitarized zone to try to quickly seize Seoul and advance as far as possible down the peninsula.

The plan calls for the United States to initially rely largely on the 600,000-member South Korean forces, plus the 38,000 U.S. troops and the aircraft in South Korea to fight off the onslaught.

In the case of a two-front war, the Pentagon’s goal would be to focus first on the war in Iraq, and then to shift full attention to Korea when Baghdad was conquered, analysts say.

The plan says that after the initial clash, U.S. forces in Korea would be augmented with troops and planes from Japan, Pacific Rim air bases, aircraft carriers, Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. Ultimately, about 690,000 U.S. troops would be called in for a fight that the Pentagon has estimated would last more than four months.

The plan calls for the allied forces to ultimately push deep into North Korean territory and overthrow the regime.

Yet that plan for the American buildup would be slowed by the U.S. military commitments not only in the Persian Gulf but also in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Djibouti. Between 8,000 and 10,000 U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan. Some elite Special Forces troops are deployed there, as well as many of the high-tech planes that would be in demand in Iraq and North Korea.

With U.S. forces expected to reach 200,000 in the Persian Gulf by early March, there is already unmet demand for cargo planes, as well as special purpose reconnaissance, battle-management, intelligence and refueling planes, defense officials acknowledge.

Some experts believe that shortages in certain kinds of specialized infantry units, and combat support troops, could slow the American response.

Defense officials and military experts declined to predict how many extra casualties the delays would cause. A former commander of U.S. forces in Korea, Army Gen. Gary Luck, predicted in 1994 that a war could entail 1 million casualties on the peninsula, most among Koreans.

Shortages Could Appear

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst and former defense official, wrote in a recent article that the U.S. forces would face “severe shortages” in aircraft for jamming, intelligence, communications, surveillance and battle management. The Pentagon has enough of these specialized planes for only one big regional war, though it has enough personnel for two, wrote Cordesman, who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

He cited one example of the kinds of delays the forces might face.

It would ordinarily take U.S. forces three weeks to begin bringing in added tank and mechanized infantry units to supplement the units that are already in the theater. But if there was a war with Iraq, because of a shortage of cargo planes, that time might be extended to 45 days, Cordesman wrote. And he said the ground forces would also face a shortage of specialized infantry vehicles, combat-support troops and support gear.

Land reinforcement “would be limited and lightly equipped and then slow to arrive,” he wrote.

Pentagon officials have insisted that they have all the precision munitions they will need for any war against Iraq. Yet if there were two wars to wage, commanders would start asking for as many as they could get, including satellite-guided bombs to be used against dug-in positions, analysts say.

Precision munitions “would be one of the pressure points,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who is on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

U.S. forces would also want a large supply of cruise missiles, already in high demand, to take out North Korean communications centers, air defense nodes, and command posts, analysts say.

Walter B. Slocombe, who was undersecretary of defense for policy during the Clinton administration, stressed that he believes the Pentagon clearly would have enough resources to handle two wars, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has asserted.

At the same time, Slocombe noted that in the 1999 U.S.-led war against Yugoslavia, which involved only half the aircraft needs of a full regional war, “we were pretty well maxed out” on special purpose planes.

With two wars, the response “would be somewhat slower,” Slocombe said. “If it takes longer, it takes longer, and that always has costs.”

Issue Long Debated

The issue of whether the Pentagon’s 1.4-million active duty troops are enough to fight two wars has long sparked debate among defense experts.

Bush administration officials came into office arguing that using the two wars model to size the force was outdated thinking, and urged the Pentagon to find a new approach.

But the administration backed away from a radical change in 2001. And now, the twin crises of Korea and Iraq have convinced some advocates of a large force that they’ve been right all along.

Gary Schmitt, executive director of the Project for the New American Century, said he believes the threat of a second war shows that the Pentagon hasn’t had enough forces for two wars for some time, though its formal plans call for it to have sufficient troops to handle such contingencies.

Because large parts of the force are always in training, and other parts are off duty, “unless you really have a surplus of men under arms, you barely have enough manpower to take care of one war, not to mention holding, then winning, the other one,” Schmitt said.

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Times staff writer Esther Schrader contributed to this report.