Prudent or paranoid? The Pentagon's two-war plans

The United States needs military forces sufficient to deter, and possibly even fight, wars in two places at the same time. But the Pentagon's current two-war concept - under which the US would send more than half a million troops to each of two all-out wars that began nearly simultaneously and overlapped in time - is excessive. Under a more realistic approach, the United States would plan for only a single all-out war that included a prompt massive ground offensive to overthrow an enemy government and occupy its territory. In a second possible war, it would rely more heavily on air-power in the early going - or on naval power, in the case of war in the Taiwan Strait. It would also rely more on key allies.