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00:00What would happen if Russia attacked NATO and China invaded Taiwan simultaneously?
00:05Well, imagine Russia attacks Estonia, triggering NATO's collective defense obligation.
00:10Then, hours later, China begins an invasion of Taiwan.
00:14This is the scenario that turns Pentagon force planning slides into insomnia.
00:20Two nuclear-armed adversaries, two major wars, two theaters separated by thousands of miles,
00:26and Washington would have to make decisions in hours that could determine whether either conflict stays contained.
00:33The Pentagon suddenly needs submarines in two oceans, fighters on two continents,
00:38missile defenses protecting bases thousands of miles apart,
00:42intelligence watching two enormous battlefields,
00:45and industrial capacity capable of replacing weapons almost as quickly as they're being fired.
00:51And here's the ugly part.
00:52America's enormous military budget can't simply create another military overnight.
00:57The same submarine can't fight in two oceans.
00:59The same missile can't be fired twice.
01:02And some of America's most important weapons take years to replace.
01:06So, could the United States actually fight Russia and China simultaneously?
01:11Well, the answer reveals something about American military power that doesn't get nearly enough attention.
01:16Much of it depends on other countries.
01:19Hey friends, Wes O'Donnell here.
01:20I am a defense analyst and a veteran of the United States Army with the 101st Airborne Division and the
01:26U.S. Air Force.
01:27And today, we're examining a hypothetical scenario that American military planners have studied in various forms for years.
01:34Russia launches an attack against NATO, while China attempts to invade Taiwan.
01:39We'll follow the Pentagon's response during the opening days,
01:41examine which American military capabilities both theaters would need,
01:45and investigate the ammunition problem that could quickly become a major constraint.
01:49Then, we'll get into the most interesting question.
01:52America possesses the world's most extensive network of military alliances and defense partnerships.
01:58Could that network allow Washington to manage two enormous conflicts at the same time?
02:03And there's a fascinating contradiction at the center of this scenario.
02:07America's alliances give it extraordinary global reach.
02:10But some of its capabilities that the Allies depend on most are precisely the ones the Pentagon would need in
02:15both wars.
02:16So let's start in Europe.
02:17Imagine Russian forces cross Estonia's eastern border following weeks of escalating military tensions.
02:24Russian missiles strike Estonian military facilities.
02:27Estonian troops engage the invading forces.
02:30And British and French personnel, already deployed in Estonia, are placed on high alert.
02:34The Estonian government requests NATO assistance.
02:37The North Atlantic Council meets and determines that Russia has carried out an armed attack against an alliance member.
02:43And Article 5 is invoked.
02:45Now, Article 5 doesn't automatically mean every NATO member declares war on Russia.
02:50The treaty requires members to assist an attacked ally,
02:53with each government determining what action it considers necessary,
02:57including the possible use of military force.
02:59But in our scenario, the military consequences are immediate because NATO already has forces stationed along its eastern flank.
03:06Britain leads NATO's multinational battle group in Estonia, supported by France.
03:11Canada leads the multinational force in Latvia.
03:14Germany has substantial forces in Lithuania.
03:17American troops are positioned in Poland and elsewhere across Europe.
03:21These deployments create a fundamentally different military situation from the one Russia encountered when it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
03:28Because NATO personnel are already present in the threatened region.
03:33Estonia's military would be fighting to defend its own territory.
03:36Other ally forces would receive orders from their governments,
03:39while NATO coordinated its collective response,
03:42and the U.S. would face urgent requests for additional intelligence, aircraft, missile defense, and logistical support.
03:49Oh, and reinforcements.
03:51Now, imagine that while Washington is organizing its response,
03:55another emergency arrives from the other side of the planet.
03:58China has begun attacking Taiwan.
04:00A full-scale amphibious invasion would require enormous preparation,
04:05so American intelligence would almost certainly have observed warning signs beforehand.
04:09For our hypothetical, those warnings have failed to prevent an attack.
04:13Chinese missiles are striking Taiwanese military installations.
04:17Chinese aircraft are attempting to establish control of the air.
04:20Chinese warships are moving into positions around the island.
04:23And amphibious formations prepare to cross the Taiwan Strait.
04:26Taiwan's military is fighting to prevent Chinese forces from establishing and sustaining a landing.
04:32Washington suddenly faces a second crisis with an entirely different set of obligations.
04:37See, Taiwan isn't a NATO member, but the Taiwan Relations Act requires the U.S.
04:42to provide defensive weapons and maintain the capacity to resist coercion against Taiwan.
04:47But it doesn't automatically require American military intervention if China invades.
04:52That decision would involve the president and Congress.
04:55So for our scenario, let's assume Washington decides to intervene militarily.
04:59The Pentagon now has to organize major operations in Europe and the Western Pacific simultaneously.
05:05And this is where the first serious resource problem appears.
05:08You might think the solution is straightforward.
05:11Send the army to Europe and the navy to Taiwan.
05:14Divide the air force between the two and hope everybody remember to bring enough fuel.
05:17Unfortunately, military operations don't divide themselves so neatly.
05:22Consider America's nuclear-powered attack submarines.
05:24Around Taiwan, American submarines would have important missions against Chinese naval forces since
05:29an invading army needs transport ships to reach the island
05:33and an enormous logistical operation to keep its forces supplied.
05:37And the ability to threaten those vessels is one of the significant military capabilities the U.S. could bring to
05:44Taiwan's defense.
05:45But American submarines would also have important missions in the Atlantic and the Arctic and European waters during a war
05:52against Russia.
05:52The Pentagon would have to decide where to allocate submarines already deployed,
05:56those preparing for deployment, and those undergoing maintenance.
06:00And there's no convenient way to manufacture another Virginia-class submarine
06:04because somebody in Washington has discovered a scheduling conflict.
06:07Now consider American aerial refueling aircraft.
06:11Fighters need fuel.
06:12Bombers need fuel.
06:13Surveillance aircraft need fuel.
06:16My old E-3 Sentry needs fuel.
06:19And aircraft crossing the Atlantic or operating across the enormous distances of the Pacific are going to need fuel.
06:25So a major conflict around Taiwan could create an extraordinary demand for tankers,
06:29particularly because Chinese missiles would threaten American aircraft operating anywhere near the island,
06:35while European operations would require tankers as well.
06:38Then there's airborne surveillance.
06:40I spent part of my Air Force career aboard the E-3 Sentry AWAC,
06:44so I have some experience with the enormous amount of coordination required to manage a modern air battle.
06:50Aircraft need to know where friendly forces are operating, where threats are approaching,
06:55and how those threats are moving.
06:57And both theaters would require extensive airborne surveillance, satellite intelligence, secure communications,
07:03and command and control capabilities.
07:05America possesses exceptional resources in these areas, but they're also finite, and the enemy gets a vote.
07:12American air bases, communications networks, satellites, logistical facilities,
07:16all of those themselves could become targets in a high-intensity war.
07:20So Washington would have to support both campaigns while protecting the military infrastructure needed to conduct them.
07:26Let's look at the map.
07:27Europe has substantial military forces of its own.
07:30Poland, Britain, France, Germany, Finland, Sweden, and other NATO members possess capable armies, air forces, and navies.
07:38Heck, Sweden by itself is one of the most technologically advanced military forces out there,
07:43with Gripen fighters and Barracuda multispectral camouflage.
07:47And the Pacific also contains important American allies and partners.
07:50Japan has advanced maritime and air forces.
07:53Australia contributes significant naval and intelligence capabilities.
07:56And the Philippines occupies strategically important geography.
08:00So perhaps the Pentagon could concentrate most of its attention on China,
08:04while European allies handle the conventional war against Russia.
08:07Well, that's broadly consistent with the direction of America's current defense strategy.
08:11The Pentagon's January 2026 national defense strategy places greater emphasis on defending the American homeland
08:18and deterring China, while expecting European allies to assume greater responsibility for defending their own continent.
08:25In June, the East Center for Strategic and International Studies published an extensive study
08:30examining how America and its allies might organize themselves for simultaneous conflicts against China and Russia,
08:36proposing an approach that places the Indo-Pacific first, Europe second,
08:41and calls for substantial allied participation alongside a much larger wartime industrial effort.
08:47That gives us a potential division of labor.
08:49But here's the complication.
08:51Europe still depends heavily on American military capabilities.
08:55The International Institute for Strategic Studies released a major assessment this September,
09:00identifying persistent European shortages in personnel,
09:03artillery, air defenses, ammunition, logistics, and readiness.
09:07And according to the IISS, European NATO members are unlikely to provide the backbone of continental conventional defense
09:15without American resources before 2030.
09:18Think about what that means for our hypothetical.
09:20Europe could contribute enormous amounts of combat power against Russia,
09:24but still require American assistance in exactly some of the areas the Pacific campaign would also demand.
09:30intelligence, strategic support, missile defense, long-range weapons, specialized logistics,
09:36and don't forget about ISR, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
09:40So now the Pentagon has to decide how much of that limited capacity it can allocate to each theater.
09:45The Pacific creates its own alliance complications.
09:48Japan occupies one of the most strategically significant positions in any potential conflict around Taiwan,
09:53since American forces operating from Japanese bases are much closer to Taiwan
09:58than forces launching from Guam or Hawaii or the continental United States.
10:03Japan also possesses substantial military capabilities that could affect a regional conflict.
10:09But Tokyo would have to make its own decisions about participation
10:11and the use of Japanese territory for combat operations.
10:15Australia and the Philippines would face decisions based on their own national circumstances
10:20and existing defense arrangements.
10:22And if China attacked American bases in Japan or Japanese territory itself,
10:27the conflict would acquire additional treaty and military implications.
10:31But the important point is that America cannot automatically assume every partner enters a war against China,
10:36and without allied access to regional bases, American operations would become a bit more difficult.
10:42But what happens at home?
10:44Well, at some point, this stops being a war Americans experience through maps on television.
10:49Reserve and National Guard units would likely begin mobilizing.
10:53Defense plants would come under pressure to increase production of missiles and air defense interceptors,
10:58spare parts and precision weapons.
11:01Ports, rail networks, cargo aircraft, and commercial contractors would become more important to moving forces and equipment overseas.
11:09The U.S. would also have to assume that the homeland itself would become part of the battlefield.
11:14Russia and China both possess significant cyber capabilities.
11:17So military networks, defense contractors, transportation systems, communications infrastructure,
11:23and other critical services will face attack.
11:26A war around Taiwan could also hammer global semiconductor supply chains and commercial shipping.
11:31While a major European conflict would add further pressure to energy markets, insurance, trade,
11:37and eventually, the most serious consequence becomes human.
11:41American casualties would begin arriving home from two different theaters.
11:45We haven't experienced that since 1945.
11:47That's the moment a force planning problem becomes a national war.
11:51The question would no longer be simply whether the Pentagon could move enough ships and missiles.
11:55It would be whether the U.S. could sustain the economic, industrial, political, and human cost of doing it for
12:02months or years.
12:03But now we reach the problem that could affect both wars simultaneously.
12:08Ammunition.
12:08In 2023, the Center for Strategic and International Studies ran 24 iterations of a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan.
12:16The numbers were ugly.
12:17In those simulations, the U.S. typically expended more than 5,000 long-range missiles during just three weeks of
12:24fighting.
12:25And in every iteration, American forces exhausted their inventory of long-range anti-ship missiles during the first week.
12:31Now, those were war games built around specific assumptions.
12:35They don't tell us precisely how many weapons a real conflict would consume.
12:40What they do show is how quickly modern precision warfare can burn through inventories that took years to manufacture.
12:46And China wouldn't be the only customer.
12:48At the same time, NATO forces in Europe would be consuming artillery ammunition, long-range strike weapons, air defense interceptors,
12:56cruise missiles, and other precision weapons against Russia.
12:59Some of those requirements are unique to one theater, but others overlap.
13:04SM-6 is a good example.
13:06American warships in both Europe and the Pacific could require large quantities of the missile for air defense and other
13:11missions.
13:12Patriot presents an even more obvious problem.
13:15European forces would need Patriot interceptors against Russian ballistic and cruise missiles.
13:20American forces in the Pacific would need sophisticated missile defense protecting airfields, command facilities, logistics hubs, and other critical infrastructure
13:29from Chinese missiles.
13:30You can move missiles between theaters, but you can't fire the same missile twice.
13:35And replacing one isn't simply a matter of writing a bigger check.
13:38Some advanced American weapons contain specialized seekers, rocket motors, electronics, and energetic materials, and components produced by a surprisingly small
13:48number of factories.
13:49Expand one production line, and another bottleneck might appear upstream.
13:54Sure, the factory might be able to run faster, but the supplier making one obscure guidance component might not.
14:00And that's important when a war consumes weapons in days that industry replaces over months or years.
14:06And remember, the U.S. would not be entering these two wars with full magazines.
14:11American forces are already fighting Iran.
14:13So imagine Russia moves against NATO, China attacks Taiwan, while the United States remains heavily committed in the Middle East.
14:21Now Washington isn't suddenly opening a second front.
14:23It's potentially trying to manage three.
14:26American naval forces are already operating around the Persian Gulf.
14:30Missile defense systems are protecting American forces and allies.
14:33Tankers, combat aircraft, intelligence platforms, warships, maintainers, and logistics units are already committed.
14:41More importantly, that conflict has already consumed some of the weapons Washington would want available for a Russia-China crisis.
14:49Reuters reported in August, citing U.S. sources and outside estimates,
14:52that roughly 65% of America's Patriot Interceptor Inventory has been expended during the Iran conflict,
14:58along with at least 38% of its THAAD interceptors, and somewhat less than half of the American Tomahawk Inventory.
15:05Those aren't public Pentagon inventory counts, so treat the percentages as estimates.
15:10Regardless, the underlying military problem doesn't depend on the exact number.
15:14Wars consume inventory.
15:15That changes the starting position.
15:17Instead of asking whether the U.S. possesses enough capability to fight two major adversaries,
15:23planners may have to ask how much capability remains immediately available
15:27after another campaign has already taken its share.
15:30And that's a much nastier force planning problem,
15:33and it's what I previously described as threat convergence.
15:36Separate crises begin interacting because they draw from the same pool of military resources,
15:42industrial capacity, logistics, and political attention.
15:44Russia doesn't need to coordinate perfectly with China for this to happen.
15:48China doesn't need to coordinate with Iran.
15:50The conflicts simply need to overlap.
15:53And there's another actor watching all of this.
15:55North Korea.
15:56Pyongyang would not need to launch an invasion of South Korea to affect American planning.
16:01Imagine a major North Korean missile test,
16:04or a troop mobilization, or artillery movements near the DMZ,
16:08or a confrontation involving South Korean or Japanese forces.
16:11Washington would immediately have to ask whether this was theater or preparation.
16:16And that uncertainty alone has military consequences.
16:20Aircraft remain in the region.
16:22Ships remain available.
16:23Missile defense interceptors stay positioned around South Korea and Japan.
16:27Commanders hold ammunition in reserve.
16:30Reinforcements that might otherwise move toward Taiwan suddenly have another contingency
16:34competing for attention.
16:35That's one of the less visible effects of simultaneous crises.
16:39An adversary doesn't always have to attack you to consume your resources.
16:45Sometimes it only has to create enough uncertainty that you can't safely move them somewhere else.
16:50And at that point, the Pentagon's problem becomes less about fighting every crisis
16:54and more about deciding which risks it can afford to leave uncovered.
16:58And there's another limitation that rarely appears in discussions about who has the most fighters or ships or submarines.
17:04Military equipment isn't available all the time.
17:07Submarines enter maintenance.
17:08Ships require repairs.
17:10Aircraft need engines and inspections and spare parts.
17:13Pilots have maximum flying hours.
17:16Crews need rest.
17:17Weapons need testing.
17:19Runways and ports need repair after attack.
17:21That problem gets worse over time.
17:23The opening weeks of a war might be fought with forces that were already deployed and ready.
17:27But by week three, maintenance begins accumulating.
17:30Damaged equipment enters repair facilities.
17:33Aircraft start consuming spare engines and components.
17:37Ships need replenishment.
17:39Trained specialists become another scarce resource.
17:41And both Russia and China would try to make that process worse.
17:45American bases, ports, fuel storage sites, communication systems, depots, and transportation networks would themselves become targets.
17:53So sustaining two wars means more than replacing missiles.
17:57It means repairing the system that fires them.
17:59And hanging over everything we've discussed is the danger that neither conventional war remains conventional.
18:06Russia and the U.S. possess enormous nuclear arsenals.
18:09China is rapidly expanding its own.
18:11Britain and France maintain independent deterrence.
18:14A direct NATO-Russia war would therefore begin under a nuclear ceiling from the first hour.
18:20Every major strike would carry questions about escalation.
18:23Does NATO attack military facilities deep inside Russia?
18:26Does Russia strike logistics hub further west than Europe?
18:29What happens if conventional attacks hit radar systems or command facilities associated with nuclear warning?
18:36Well, one side could misinterpret an attack on conventional military infrastructure as an attempt to blind its nuclear forces.
18:43The Pacific creates a separate escalation problem.
18:46A U.S.-China war could involve attacks on air bases, naval facilities, satellite communications, missile sites, and command systems that
18:53may serve both conventional and strategic missions.
18:56That overlap creates ambiguity.
18:59And ambiguity involving nuclear weapons is generally something military planners prefer in very small doses.
19:05So commanders would be trying to fight two high-intensity conventional wars while constantly asking whether today's tactically useful strike
19:13creates tomorrow's strategic catastrophe.
19:15There may be weapons available that political leaders decide are simply too escalatory to use.
19:20That means raw inventory never tells the whole story.
19:23And this is where we have to be careful with the entire scenario.
19:26Nobody can responsibly tell you who wins two unprecedented simultaneous wars by counting aircraft or ships.
19:34There are just too many variables.
19:36How large is Russia's attack against NATO?
19:38Does Russia attack only Estonia or does the war spread across the Baltic region?
19:42How much warning does NATO receive?
19:44How far does China progress in the opening hours around Taiwan?
19:48Does Japan directly participate?
19:50Do the Philippines permit extensive American combat operations from its territory?
19:54How much of China's invasion fleet survives the first week?
19:57What condition are American ammunition stockpiles in when the fighting starts?
20:01What's happening in Iran?
20:03What does North Korea do?
20:04How quickly can industry expand?
20:06And above all, do any of these conventional wars cross the nuclear threshold?
20:10We also shouldn't interpret this scenario as a prediction.
20:13U.S. intelligence assessed back in March of 2026 that China was not planning to invade Taiwan in 2027 and
20:21had no fixed timetable for doing so,
20:23even as Beijing continues building the military capability that could make an invasion possible.
20:28The point of this scenario is force planning.
20:32Military planners have to think about terrible combinations of events exactly because governments don't get to choose when emergencies overlap.
20:39And this is where the answer becomes less glamorous than comparing an F-35 with a J-20.
20:45The opening days would certainly matter.
20:47American submarines could devastate Chinese amphibious shipping.
20:50NATO airpower could contest Russian operations in Europe.
20:54Long-range missiles could destroy important targets.
20:57Advanced aircraft and sensors could shape both battlefields.
21:01Then the clock starts.
21:02Missile magazines empty.
21:03Aircraft enter maintenance.
21:05Damaged ships need repair.
21:06Air defense interceptors disappear.
21:08Spare parts become scarce.
21:10Fuel has to cross oceans.
21:11Replacement troops and equipment have to move through ports that the enemy knows are important.
21:16And factories thousands of miles away suddenly become part of the battlefield equation.
21:20That's when the strength of the alliance system becomes so decisive.
21:24In Europe, the United States doesn't have to provide every tank or artillery piece or fighter or frigate or soldier.
21:31Britain brings forces.
21:32France brings forces.
21:35Poland brings forces.
21:36Germany, Finland, Sweden, Canada, and the Baltic states bring forces.
21:41NATO already has a command structure designed to make those militaries operate together.
21:45In the Pacific, Japan provides formidable air and naval capabilities along with strategically vital geography.
21:52Australia brings submarines, aircraft, intelligence, logistics, and access.
21:57The Philippines provides geography that dramatically changes the operational problem around Taiwan.
22:02Those allies don't eliminate America's resource constraints, but they do change what Washington has to provide.
22:08That's the distinction.
22:10The United States becomes most valuable where its capabilities are hardest for allies to replace quickly.
22:16So submarines, intelligence, long-range strike, missile defense, strategic airlift, refueling, command and control, and other specialized enablers.
22:25The stronger that allied conventional forces become, the more American capacity can concentrate on those roles.
22:31And I think this is the real lesson from the scenario.
22:34For decades, American global military power was described by counting American things, aircraft carriers or fighters or bombers or submarines
22:45or troops.
22:45Well, that way of measuring power makes less sense in a world where the U.S. could face simultaneous crises
22:52across several theaters.
22:54The more useful question becomes, how much military power can the U.S. organize?
22:59That includes American forces, but it also includes British aircraft operating over Europe,
23:04Polish ground forces defending NATO's eastern flank,
23:07Japanese ships protecting approaches to Taiwan,
23:10Australian bases supporting operations across the Pacific,
23:13Canadian troops already positioned in Latvia,
23:17French nuclear and conventional forces,
23:19allied intelligence networks,
23:21ports, airfields, repair facilities,
23:23fuel, factories,
23:25and the political agreements that allow all of those pieces to operate together.
23:29America's greatest military advantage is something China and Russia cannot manufacture.
23:35They don't possess an equivalent global alliance network.
23:39Sure, Russia has partners.
23:41China has partners.
23:42But the U.S. has treaty allies with advanced militaries positioned directly beside the regions where these wars would occur.
23:49That changes the calculation.
23:51It also creates responsibility.
23:54If European allies can't defend much of Europe without large American reinforcements,
23:58Washington has less freedom in the Pacific.
24:00If Pacific allies can't provide bases and military forces,
24:04America has to bring more capability across a much larger ocean.
24:07Alliance burden sharing has been minimized to arguments over defense budgets.
24:12But in a simultaneous war scenario, it becomes force structure.
24:16So let's go back to the opening hours.
24:18Russia attacks Estonia.
24:20China begins an assault on Taiwan.
24:23Washington now confronts two major wars separated by thousands of miles.
24:26And perhaps another conflict is already consuming American resources in the Middle East,
24:31while North Korea watches for an opportunity to create one more crisis.
24:35The big question isn't whether the U.S. has the world's most powerful military.
24:39The question is whether that military, together with its allies,
24:43can sustain enough combat power across multiple theaters after the first magazines began to empty,
24:49and the first maintenance problems began accumulating.
24:52That's the dirty little secret of American global military power.
24:56The U.S. built the world's most capable military.
24:59It didn't build it, though, to fight the entire world alone.
25:03American power works best as alliance power.
25:06And in a Russia-China convergence scenario,
25:09those alliances wouldn't be a supporting feature of the American war plan.
25:13They'd be the war plan.
25:15That is it for today, my friends.
25:16Thanks for watching.
25:17For more military analysis and coverage of the world's major security stories,
25:22subscribe right here to the New York Post on YouTube.
25:24And as always, stay safe out there.
25:26Wes out.