talking to a friend today he said he seen a interview with rumsfeld(sp?)that we could fight 2 wars at one time with Iraq and n.korea.
I really don't think we would be able to fight 2 wars at one time.even though we have one of the best militaries in the world.
we would stretch our sources too thin to be able to fight 2 wars.
what is everyone's else opinions on this.

if this is a repost question sorry didn't see it .

We have the material resources. The problem would be manpower. If war was fought on two fronts for any length of time the draft would probably be necessary. It would also kick the national debt into orbit.

And what pray tell do you know that Rumsfeld doesn't?

if your asking me I don't know nothing, I didn't mean to implied that I did, but I don't think it is going to be as clean as some people think,if we do go to war with Iraq he will use chemicals against our soldiers and I hope like hell we tell the UN to go to hell and nuke the hell out of Baghdad, plus saddam has 10 years to build his weapon arsenal and he probably does have some small range nukes.
even though there are inspectors there looking for them he probably has them lock up in caves somewhere on some portable launcher.

I am hoping that the inspectors will start finding weapons soon.  Especially since they complained about not getting enough information from the USA.  I think we were holding back information until Iraq filed it's report so we could show the world that they were lying.  And I do believe that things won't be as clean either because this won't be fought on open ground.  But it needs to be done and done now.

Hasn't it been law that our military must be able to fight on 2 different fronts since the end of WWII ?

Not a "Law," but just the fundamental basis of our defense policy. The plan used to be to maintain a military capable of handling two "Major Regional Contingencies" (MRCs) - such as Korea and Southwest Asia. During the Cllinton years, the policy was revised somewhat. It bacame a matter of being able to fight in one MRC and hold another enemy at bay long enough to where we could defeat enemy number one and start a counterattack on enemy number two afterwards. Our current force structure is tied into this latter philosophy.

The truth is, out military was so severely gutted in the '90s that we could barely  maintain ourselves in peacetime. It was so bad that we regularly had broken tanks sitting in maintenance waiting for a production run to complete before a needed part could arrive. Of course, these runs wouldn't even be contracted until the demand for said part had reached a certain point. We truly lived off of our "fat" in terms of supplies and spare parts for the first part of the '90s. By '98 there was hardly anything left in the inventories.

I have observed radical changes in just the past year and a half or so. We are starting to seriously increase our ability to deply and sustain our forces - though the actual amounts of those forces is still rather low.

hanau,
No offense, but the credibility of your opinion is hurt pretty badly when you state that we have "one of the best" militaries in the world. It is by far the most powerful military in the world by a very long, long shot.

And that makes it one of the best.....


Scott

Both wars would be fought like Desert Storm, I think. Massive air campaigns to break their backs, then a quick sweep by ground troops to secure the targets. By "quick sweep" I do not mean to imply that it would easy or bloodless. Just done in a fast and overwhelming manner.....

Scott

By all means I am not military nor do I have the smidgin of knowledge that a lot of you past and/or present military do have.

Therefore I do pose this question. In a ground war scenario. wouldnt Iraq be more swift and with less casualties than N Korea due to lack of places to hide in the desert?

My worry with N Korea is this. WE AMERICANS dont need our kids coming back from war like they did in Vietnam. Our troops were basically there with their hands tied behind their backs. Go in there 100% or dont go in at all.

Korea is nothing like Iraq, the situation is very different. As people have stated here repeatedly, Korea is an infantry battlefield; tanks and high-altitude bombing will only be effective in certain areas.

Air strikes will work against static targets and supply lines in the open but won't be very effective in the mountains. Close air support like AC-130s, A-10s and Helicopter gunships that weren't available in the First Korean War should be very effective in the Second Korean War, though (both of which the North Korean People's Army has very little of).

As for an "overwhelming manner", the US only has 37,000 troops there and the South Korean miltiary is about 650,000. By contrast the North Koreans have a 1.1 million man army mostly deployed to their side of the DMZ. The "overwhelming" factor will by with the North Koreans.