Is The Pentagon Preparing for a Two-Front War?

By Logan Williams, Warrior Contributor

Undeniably, the last several years have been some of the most tumultuous in contemporary history. 2020 – 2021 brought a global pandemic, and 2022 – 2023 has brought several wars, each with the potential to escalate to a regional or global conflict. Global pandemic notwithstanding, these conflicts are a direct result of the United States’ relative retreat from global leadership following the end of the Cold War.

On February 24, 2022, Russia’s limited, subversive, hybrid war in eastern Ukraine transformed into a brutal, massacrous, full-scale invasion, that has tested the West’s unity, conviction, and military preparedness.

On October 7th, when Iran-backed Hamas subversives initiated a terrorist assault against the people of Israel, the conflict in Ukraine had become a contracted war of attrition. The United States’ righteous support of the Ukrainian people’s courageous resistance had severely diminished the United States’ stockpile of crucial munitions and weapons systems. When war once again broke out in the Middle East due to concerted acts of international terror, many policy-makers in the United States began to experience understandable consternation. It became painstakingly clear that – regardless of whether the United States had the political conviction, which is a different conversation, entirely – the United States did not have the material and logistical capabilities to support its allies through two prolonged wars of attrition, even though both conflicts have immense geopolitical significance.

Yet, these are far from the only two conflicts that will potentially call upon significant United States’ defense resources.

Through a sham referendum, Venezuela announced its intent to annex an oil-rich portion of Guyanese territory; despite recent news coverage stating that Venezuela’s totalitarian leader, Nicolas Máduro, has vowed not to resort to the use of force in the land dispute, if history is any guide, that promise is laughable and violence should be the only expected outcome. If violence was not the intent and the expectation, there would have been little reason to reject the ICJ’s authority over the conflict. Venezuela is a shell-state that has been occupied by Cuba and which provides Cuba with a source of income through its fossil fuel revenues, and Maduro’s government is the perpetrator of many crimes against the global community, such as Venezuela’s participation in drug smuggling and its state sponsorship of terrorism. Recognizing this, the President of the United States has already indicated that the U.S. will begin overflights in Guyanese airspace, which is a strong indicator of the United States’ support for Guyana, and the United States’ intent to protect Guyana from any expansionist wars of aggression. Additionally, Great Britain has declared that it will reposition a naval patrol vessel to Guyana in support of its “regional ally and Commonwealth partner.” Brazil has deployed troops to its border with Venezuela, in an effort to prepare for any hostile Venezuelan action on that shared border, however unlikely a prospect.

The long-standing Houthi insurgency in Yemen has become inflamed by the explosion of the Israel-Palestine crisis. The Houthi movement began as a rejection of foreign intervention in Yemen, but in reality, it is an extension and a consequence of decades of Soviet as well as Cuban subversion, beginning with the Aden Emergency toward the end of the Sixties. The Houthis have conducted numerous attacks on international shipping with Iranian backing, and have pledged to continue doing so, in an effort to damage Israel, as well as the United States and the West. The U.S. Navy has undertaken an enormous responsibility to defend vessels in the vital Red Sea trade corridor.

Finally, China has drastically increased its violations of Taiwanese airspace, and it has presently stationed naval vessels proximate to Taiwanese territorial waters ahead of the island nation’s upcoming elections. All this, in addition to Xi Jinping’s attempts to prepare the PRC to invade Taiwan by 2027.