Daily Times

Warning: Those who start two front wars lose. 81 years ago this month, after overrunning Western Europe, on June 22, 1941, Adolph Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa-the invasion of the Soviet Union-embarking on a two-front war. He, like Napoleon 125 years earlier, lost and the Third Reich was destroyed. Before publicly releasing its new National Security Strategy, the Biden administration should revisit strategies that took on two major adversaries more or less concurrently. That history is sobering and applies to America, raising what may be the most crucial, unaddressed strategic question facing the nation.

Has the United States committed a similar unforced error by opening up a strategic two-front military confrontation against China as “the pacing threat” and Russia without defining what is the actual as opposed to hypothetical dangers posed by China and Russia to the US and global security? During much of the Cold War, the US maintained a “2 1/2 war” strategy against the USSR and a very weak PRC. Vietnam showed the folly of the half-war strategy. Fortunately, the Soviet Union imploded. But that was then.

The past two administrations’ strategic objectives were to “contain, deter and, if war comes, defeat” China and then Russia, followed by a list of lesser adversaries. But both the Obama and Trump strategies were unachievable and unaffordable emphasizing military power as the default solution.

Because of uncontrolled, real annual cost growth for every defence item, the current force cannot be sustained even with an $800 billion budget this year.

China, Russia and lesser threats have not been contained or deterred in practice. A war that could easily become thermonuclear is unwinnable. And because of uncontrolled, real annual cost growth for every defence item from people to precision weapons and pencils of at least five to seven per cent, the current force cannot be sustained even with an $800 billion budget this year. The perplexing result is that the more spent on defence, the more the force shrinks!

The Trump strategy was also predicated on fait accomplis that have not occurred: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and Russia seizing the Baltic states. But despite all the heated rhetoric suppose China concluded that peaceful integration of Taiwan was the only realistic option and Russia understood that attacking a NATO member meant World War III. Should US strategic thinking change especially in light of the war in Ukraine that demonstrated how such preemptive attacks can be disrupted and defeated with the right strategy and weapons?

China is economic and military power. Russia is a nuclear weapon and energy power. China has threatened the use of force particularly against Taiwan but has not used it. Russia has invaded a neighbour and threatened to use nuclear weapons. Both are not bordered by allies.

But China and Russia have enormous weaknesses that are too often discounted or ignored. China’s underclass of around half a billion people living at or below the poverty line exacerbates the demographic nightmare of a declining and ageing population where fewer workers support more retirees amidst a shortage of females; excessive debt largely due to a real estate bubble, and pandemic lockdowns and assaults on the business and entrepreneurial classes that choke innovation and productivity. Indeed, it is not inconceivable that some form of internal implosion in China is possible.

Likewise, Russia has a declining population and an economy entirely dependent on energy exports. Its vaunted military has failed to meet expectations and in many ways has proven incompetent. It is being bled white in Ukraine. And its political system has no plan for leadership succession.

The strategy must recognize these weaknesses and realities. But will it? Claiming that this is a battle between democracies and autocracies, likewise, is a false dichotomy that is not helpful as a strategic foundation. The president’s forthcoming visit to Saudi Arabia exposes the fatal flaw in this argument as the Kingdom remains highly autocratic.

But the US seems destined to continue on its current course. One of the few areas Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree on is that more defence is needed whether or not that is the most appropriate response. That means the US will confront two major powers simultaneously as the centrepiece of its strategy and attempt to field a military it cannot afford as part of that plan.

The US has been there before. Vietnam, Afghanistan and the second Iraq War may not have been second fronts or Operations Barbarossa. But they failed.

Unless China or Russia implode or fundamentally change regimes, however unlikely, is the current US strategy destined for a similar outcome? More importantly, is anyone thinking about that?

The writer is a senior advisor at Washington, DC’s Atlantic Council and a published author.