The US loses a two-front war against China and Russia – overstretched, unprepared, ignorant

The commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, testified to Congress in April 2021 that the United States might well face a two-front or even a three-front war if Russia were to invade Ukraine and/or other Eastern Europe nations, China were to attack Taiwan, and North Korea were to attack South Korea simultaneously and in coordination. Adm. Richard testified that the United States currently has no contingency plans for how to confront two allied nuclear superpowers in a future war. Thus, the ability of the United States and its allies to survive, let alone win, a war fought with such powerful, unconventional weapons against our enemies remains very much in doubt.

In a recent article in the National Interest, former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs A. Wess Mitchell expanded upon this increasing danger warning that:

The greatest risk facing the twenty-first-century United States, short of an outright nuclear attack, is a two-front war involving its strongest military rivals, China and Russia. Such a conflict would entail a scale of national effort and risk unseen in generations, effectively pitting America against the resources of nearly half of the Eurasian landmass. It would stretch and likely exceed the current capabilities of the U.S. military, requiring great sacrifices of the American people with far-reaching consequences for U.S. influence, alliances, and prosperity. Should it escalate into a nuclear confrontation, it could possibly even imperil the country’s very existence. Given these high stakes, avoiding a two-front war with China and Russia must rank among the foremost objectives of contemporary U.S. grand strategy [emphasis added]. Yet the United States has been slow to comprehend this danger, let alone the implications it holds for U.S. policy…A debate has erupted among defense intellectuals about how to handle a second-front contingency…There has been much less discussion of how, if at all, U.S. diplomacy should evolve to avert two-front war. In the current budgetary environment, though, the most likely outcome could well be the worst of all worlds—namely, that America will continue to try to overawe all threats…while reducing real defense spending. Such an approach keeps U.S. power thinly spread…This creates an ideal setting for an increasingly aligned Russia and China to conduct repeated stress tests of U.S. resolve in their respective neighborhoods and, when conditions are ripe, make synchronous grabs for, say, Taiwan and a Baltic state.