March 29, 2024
National security experts in the United States and Indo-Pacific are increasingly focused on the potential for war with the PRC, particularly a war that results from a PRC attack on Taiwan. The US and its allies have also long been deterring renewed aggression on the Korean Peninsula, while also monitoring North Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities in recent years. Though conventional thought often considers these scenarios separately, it is growing increasingly likely that a war with one of these adversaries in East Asia would horizontally escalate to include the other, generating a far more challenging scenario for which the US and its allies have not adequately prepared. With the nuclear arsenals of both the PRC and North Korea expanding in quantity, diversity, and capability, the United States must also prepare for the increasing risk that one or both of its East Asian adversaries would escalate to limited nuclear attacks in the event of a conflict. These interrelated challenges present a severe threat to US deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. Therefore, the United States and its allies must take urgent action to shore up intra-conflict deterrence against, and prepare for, horizontal escalation to simultaneous conflicts with the PRC and North Korea, as well as vertical escalation to nuclear weapons employment.
Markus Garlauskas is the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He leads this new initiative’s efforts focused on security, prosperity, and freedom in the Indo-Pacific region. He led projects focused on deterrence and defense issues in East Asia as a nonresident senior fellow from August 2020 until assuming his duties as director in January 2023.
Garlauskas served in the US government for nearly twenty years. He was appointed to the Senior National Intelligence Service as the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for North Korea on the National Intelligence Council from July 2014 to June 2020. As NIO, he led the US intelligence community’s strategic analysis on North Korea issues and expanded analytic outreach to non-government experts. He also provided direct analytic support to top-level policy deliberations, including the presidential transition, as well as the Singapore and Hanoi summits with North Korea.
Garlauskas served for nearly twelve years overseas at the headquarters of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and US Forces Korea in Seoul. His staff assignments there included chief of the Intelligence Estimates Branch and director of the Strategy Division. For his service in Korea, he received the Joint Civilian Distinguished Service Award, the highest civilian award from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Garlauskas holds a BA in History from Kent State University. He earned a Master’s Degree from Georgetown University’s Security Studies graduate program, where he is now an adjunct professor.