New guidance indicates departure from ‘two-war’ strategy

The new U.S. defense guidance puts forward a new war strategy in an apparent departure from its “Two Major Regional Conflicts” concept.

The MRC is designed to win two major wars in two different regions ― a strategy that experts say is no longer suitable for the debt-ridden U.S., which is struggling with public fatigue from a decade of costly warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. created the strategy after the end of the Cold War to equip its military with the capability to fight and win two major wars in regions such as the Korean Peninsula and the Persian Gulf.

Experts call the new strategy a “one plus” strategy, in which the U.S. seeks to win a war in one region while deterring another in another region. But the guidance appears to remain strategically ambiguous, as it does not clarify whether it will abandon the MRC.

The new strategy triggered concerns here of a diminished the U.S. Army commitment in the event of war, should its military engage in a major war in another region.

“Even when U.S. forces are fully committed to a large-scale operation in one region, they will be capable of ‘denying’ the objectives of ― or imposing an unacceptable cost on ― an opportunistic aggressor in a second region,” the guidance reads.

Given this, experts say that rather than abandoning the “two-war” strategy, the U.S. may maintain capabilities to manage two wars, but use limited ground forces in one of them.

“While defeating an enemy in a major all-out war, the U.S. is likely to use aerial and naval assets to strike hostile forces from a distance in a somewhat limited warfare in another region. But we still have to wait and see what the new concept actually means,” said Lee Dae-woo, research fellow at the think tank Sejong Institute.

Given the possibility that the U.S. may not send massive numbers of troops as stated in the allies’ joint operational plan, security experts pointed to the need to bolster Korea’s ground troops.

Some others, however, argue that bolstering Army staff runs counter to the global military trend of focusing on air and naval power to protect increasingly important maritime interests.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)