Two-front war

World map in May 1940, prior to the Battle of France, with the Western Allies in blue, the Axis Powers in black and the Comintern in red. The Comintern joined the Allies in June 1941 upon the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, thus confining Nazi Germany to fight a two-front war.

According to military terminology, a two-front war occurs when opposing forces encounter on two geographically separate fronts. The forces of two or more allied parties usually simultaneously engage an opponent in order to increase their chances of success. The opponent consequently encounters severe logistic difficulties, as they are forced to divide and disperse their troops, defend an extended front line, and is at least partly cut off from their access to trade and exterior resources. However, by virtue of the central position, they might possess the advantages[1] of the interior lines.[2][3]

The term has widely been used in a metaphorical sense, for example to illustrate the dilemma of military commanders in the field, who struggle to carry out illusory strategic ideas of civilian bureaucrats, or when moderate legal motions or positions are concurrently opposed by the political Left and Right.[4][5] Disapproval and opposition by the domestic anti-war movement and civil rights groups as opposed to the bloody military struggle of the late Vietnam War has also been described as a two-front war for the US troops, who fought in Vietnam.[6][7]

  1. ^ Bernard Wasserstein (12 February 2009). Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in our Time. OUP Oxford. pp. 45–. ISBN 978-0-19-162251-9.
  2. ^ Cathal J. Nolan (2002). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations: S-Z. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 1712–. ISBN 978-0-313-32383-6.
  3. ^ "Interior Lines". Encyclopedia Com. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
  4. ^ Joshua Moon (13 September 2012). Wellington's Two-Front War: The Peninsular Campaigns, at Home and Abroad, 1808-1814. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 8–. ISBN 978-0-8061-8610-8.
  5. ^ Uri Friedman (March 3, 2017). "America's Two-Front War of Ideas". The Atlantic Monthly Group. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
  6. ^ Lawrence Allen Eldridge (18 January 2012). Chronicles of a Two-Front War: Civil Rights and Vietnam in the African American Press. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-7259-1.
  7. ^ Theo Farrell; Terry Terriff (2002). The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology. Lynne Rienner Publishers. pp. 119–. ISBN 978-1-55587-975-4.