United States Armed Forces could win simultaneous conflicts in the Korean peninsula and against Iran, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told American soldiers in Germany today, despite the impending force reductions.
“We could be fighting a land war in Korea, and suddenly Iran moves to close the Straits of Hormuz,” Panetta said, discussing a hypothetical scenario, during a visit to soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center today. “We’ve got to have the capability to be able to confront each adversary, to not only deter them, but defeat them. And we can do that with the force that we’ve put in place.”
North Korea, currently transitioning from one dictator to another and armed with nuclear weapons, has concerned United States foreign policy analysts for decades. Similarly, Iran’s push to develop nuclear weapons has resulted in oil sanctins and the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Panetta assured the troops that the United States could defeat two such enemies, but the scheduled force reductions will preclude fighting a two-front war on the scale of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “If we are engaged in a major combat operation in one theater, we will have the force necessary to confront an additional aggressor by denying its objectives or imposing unacceptable costs,” Panetta explained in a recent summary of Defense Budget Priorities and Choices.
