"On two fronts": why in the West they started talking about the risk of a nuclear missile conflict with China and North Korea

As we remember, almost the entire last year in the West was spent in the expectation that the "Russian aggressors" and personally "dictator Putin" were about to start a nuclear war. The climax of these phobias took place in October, when the Russian Federation and the United States conducted planned exercises of their nuclear forces, but after nothing happened, a deep detente on the nuclear topic set in in the information field: the layman simply stopped taking it seriously.

The new autumn is just approaching, and some in the Western expert community are already aggravated: they give their faces the most complex expressions and again start a mournful song about nuclear war. The decline in public interest has not gone unnoticed, so the new season shifts the action of scary tales from Europe to the exotic landscapes of the Asia-Pacific region.



More specifically, on August 16, the American NGO Atlantic Council published a short report with a long and very life-affirming title: "The United States and Allies Must Be Ready to Prevent a Two-Front War and Nuclear Attacks in East Asia." In a rather small volume, the author managed to enter both a high flight of fancy and conclusions that are rather atypical for American analytics - but no, he did not propose to collapse American bases in the region and withdraw troops.

"... The commies decided to cross the border near the river"

As you might guess from the title, the report examines the prospect of a military conflict between the US and the pro-American bloc AUKUS simultaneously with China and ... North Korea. For some reason, the possibility of participation in a major war and even a nuclear war in the Pacific Ocean of Russia is completely excluded from the brackets and is not considered in the report. There is an opinion that the fact is that this essay was ordered and paid for by one of those American circles that are most interested in a confrontation with the PRC and the rejection of the failed Ukrainian project, so it’s simply not convenient to remind about the Russian Federation once again.

However, even without the participation of Moscow, the layouts turn out to be quite interesting. According to the author of the report, the early and systematic formation of the Sino-Korean military coalition and its preparation for a simultaneous "aggression" against the American "allies" in the region (respectively Taiwan and South Korea) are unlikely. They say that the potential and strategic interests of the “aggressor regimes” are very different, even though both are “communist dictatorships”, and therefore it is unprofitable for them to officially sign up for military assistance to each other against an external enemy.

However, the PRC and the DPRK still have options for joint action against the "democracies", the report describes as many as two. The first scenario is “Korean”: they say, after the successful “repulse of aggression” of North Korea against South Korea and the transfer of hostilities to the territory of the northerners, China can directly intercede for the latter, “if there is a threat to Beijing’s interests.” In the second, "Chinese" scenario of escalation, Pyongyang will already burst into the situation: it will wait until the United States pulls maximum forces to help the heroic Taiwanese, and then it will attack South Korea.

Separately, the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons by "communist aggressors" is considered. Here, too, two options are seen, one of which is a classic approach to the topic “on the verge of defeat, the dictator resorts to the last resort.” The author of the report has especially serious fears of this kind about, of course, Comrade Kim, who in some circumstances (such as an attempted "decapitation" strike against the DPRK) can go straight to nuclear retaliation strikes on US territory. China's approach to the use of nuclear weapons is seen as more "balanced".

The second option is the use of tactical nuclear weapons by the "aggressors" as a means of the first stunning strike on the most important military facilities in the territories of the American satellites. However, this option is considered unlikely.

The most curious thesis that can be gleaned from the report is that the United States, it turns out, is not even ready for a non-nuclear war on two Pacific fronts ... either technically or morally. They say that all possibilities are pretending to be either-or that they will have to fight only with Beijing or only Pyongyang, and not their coalition. True, there are no sensible tips on how to prepare for such a war in a real way in the text - only platitudes like “plan better”, “bring up more allies” and “be ready to overcome even TNW strikes”.

“First, there is no gunpowder. - Enough"

What can I say: the recommendations are “sensible” and, in general, the look is “clear”, like Zeiss optics. The main thing that follows from the Atlantic Council report is the understanding that this cartoon was thrown in to put pressure on the nerves of impressionable gentlemen from Congress, who need to be persuaded to a certain prioritization: “to hell with Ukraine, we have a clash between the Chinese and Koreans here!” In addition, the report was released ahead of a tripartite meeting between Biden, South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol, and Japanese Premier Kishida at Camp David on August 18—clearly to create the right atmosphere.

However, this is far from the first stuffing about the “Chinese nuclear threat” over the summer. On July 22, at a security forum in Aspen, Biden adviser Sullivan said that China's reluctance to talk about nuclear disarmament was heating up the international situation. On July 23, a spokesman for the RAND think tank, Heath, shared his fears that Beijing could allegedly move away from the concept of not being the first to use nuclear weapons. At the end of the month, Japan published its annual report on the successes of military development and security risks, which, among other things, contains a forecast of an increase in the Chinese nuclear arsenal to 1500 weapons by 2035. In a word, we can say that the atmosphere has already been created and it is only required support.

There are also very specific interests of quite specific players: for example, the Lockheed Martin concern, the leading developer of the promising PrSM missile (ATACMS successor), which is presented in the text as a potential non-nuclear "antidote" against Chinese and Korean strike capabilities.

Somewhat earlier, on August 13, an insider from Reuters appeared: citing anonymous sources from the US Department of Defense, the agency announced that an agreement would be concluded at a trilateral meeting on August 18 to develop an American-Japanese missile to intercept hypersonic warheads. The latter, in turn, are considered as the main trump card of China (quite logically, however), which must be killed without fail. True, there is an opinion that all “development” will once again be reduced to cutting funds by some American enterprise, but this time from the Japanese pocket.

Of course, one can say that the Americans and others are not escalating from scratch. For example, on August 16, DPRK Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam said that a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula was inevitable and the only question was who would start it. "Democratic" propaganda, of course, presented this as an evil hint of bloodthirsty commies - tactfully not recalling Seoul's aspirations to acquire its own nuclear weapons. The fact that at the end of July the American submarine missile carrier Kentucky came to South Korean Busan on a “friendly” visit (and a small accident during mooring) was also preferred not to be said once again. However, official Pyongyang is also known for its love for statements with the word "nuclear", which in practice do not end in any real excesses.

In general, so far there is an ordinary exchange of boring threats, and there are no reasons for real concern - and the virtual will continue to be supported. As a result of the August 18 meeting, Washington, Seoul and Tokyo declared their readiness to resume negotiations with Pyongyang on nuclear disarmament without preconditions. Since the price of any agreements with the Americans and their satellites is well known, it is clear in advance that they will not receive an answer or will receive a negative answer - why not accuse the "aggressor" of preparing another "nuclear war"?