Saturday, November 21, 1998
U.S. and S. Korea
prepare for war
Aggressive counter-attack is envisoned
By Richard Halloran
in the event of an invasion by
North Korea across the DMZ.
Special to the Star-BulletinSEOUL, South Korea -- In a fundamental change in strategy, United States and South Korean military commanders are completing a new war plan that calls on their forces to respond to a North Korean invasion not only by repelling the intruders but by marching into North Korea to demolish its armed forces, capture the capital of Pyongyang, and destroy the North Korean regime.
Said a senior U.S. official: "When we're done, they will not be able to mount any military activity of any kind." He said the combined forces of the U.S. and South Korea would abolish North Korea as a functioning state, end the rule of its leader, Kim Jong-il, and "reorganize" the country under South Korean control.
Before, U.S. and South Korean war plans called only for stopping North Korean invaders and throwing them back across the 4000-meter-wide Demilitarized Zone that divides this peninsula. In 1994, for instance, war plans called for repelling North Korea when conflict nearly broke out over Pyongyang's effort to develop nuclear arms.
Officials here indicated that the new war plan was being devised to take advantage of the steady deterioration of the North Korean People's Army, or KPA. Although it has slightly more than 1 million troops, they are armed with largely obsolete weapons and are in a reduced state of training and readiness because their nation's economic disasters have cut into food, fuel, spare parts, maintenance, and all other support.
Even so, U.S. officials fear that North Korea, on the verge of economic collapse, might strike out in desperation. "They may figure 'Use it or lose it,' " said an officer familiar with North Korea.
President Clinton is in Seoul this weekend to discuss U.S-South Korean strategy for dealing with North Korea with President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea.
U.S. officials declined to say whether the president would be briefed on the new war plan; it must be presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington and the Ministry of Defense here for approval before it goes into effect.
The new plan calls for a deliberate campaign to crush North Korean armed forces in what an official called "defeating them in detail." That means every gun and tank emplacement near the 151-mile long DMZ, ammunition and supply depot, bridge and crossroads, resupply and reinforcement route, air field and naval facility, commando base, headquarters and command post, and communications node is on a specific target list. More than half of the KPA is deployed just north of the DMZ.
A target of high priority would be the North Korean artillery corps deployed north of the DMZ where it could fire due south toward Seoul. Many of North Korea's 10,600 artillery pieces are old and have limited range but the 200 multiple rocket launchers of 240 millimeters that could hit Seoul are at the top of the target list.
Much of that artillery is parked in underground shelters that have been spotted by U.S. intelligence satellites and aircraft, but must be pulled out to fire and thus become vulnerable.
They can also be taken out by bombing exits before they emerge. "We can bury them," said a military planner.
South Korean forces of 672,000 troops would bear the brunt of the ground war and part of the air operations but would be backed by 35,700 American troops in Korea and an additional 41,300 in Japan, mostly on the island of Okinawa.
Although the South Korean and American force would be outnumbered, it is far better trained and armed than the North Koreans.
U.S. pilots, for example, average about 20 hours a month of flying time vital to their performance in combat. North Korean pilots are lucky to get 20 hours a year. On the ground, North Korea has 3,000 tanks, most of them of 1950s and 1960s vintage. South Korea has 2,130 tanks, many of which were built since 1985. Much the same comparison applies to artillery.
The balance of air and naval power would be provided by the U.S.
North Korean targets would be attacked by U.S. B-1 and B-52 bombers, which can fly over North Korea from the U.S. within 24 hours. More U.S. airpower would come from U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan and from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, which is based in Japan along with other U.S. warships.
U.S. submarines armed with cruise missiles regularly patrol off North Korean coasts and more could arrive from Pearl Harbor in Hawaii within five days.
The war plan envisions the possibility of amphibious assaults into North Korea by U.S. Marines into the narrow waist of North Korea to cut the country in two. "The entire resources of the U.S. Marine Corps would flow here," said a U.S. official, referring to the Marine division on Okinawa, another in California, and the third in North Carolina. The U.S. broke North Korean and Chinese forces with an amphibious landing at the port of Inchon, west of Seoul, during the Korean War of 1950-53.
U.S. military officers here have said repeatedly in public and in private that, if war breaks out, civilian casulaties on both sides of the DMZ could be horrendous but that there was no doubt that the combined South Korean and U.S. force would win.
Most U.S. reinforcements would pass through Japan, particularly Okinawa, which would likely cause political problems in that pacifist nation despite its alliance with the U.S. Those operations would test new U.S.-Japan defense guidelines that require Japan to provide logistic support in conflicts in Northeast Asia. President Clinton was scheduled to discuss security issues with Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in Tokyo before going to Seoul.
An issue critical to the success of the new war plan would be strategic warning in which the U.S. and South Korea pick up unambiguous signs that North Korea is preparing to attack. That warning time has been shortened in recent years to three days from 10 days as North Korea has sought to cover military movements. Instead of radio traffic, for instance, North Korean communications have shifted to land lines of fiber optics that are much harder to intercept.
If that unmistakable warning is seen, the new plan provides for the possibility of preemptive strikes that would seek to stun key North Korean units, particularly long range artillery and bombers, before they could go into action. Executing that plan, however, would require a political decision by both the U.S. and South Korean presidents that would depend on the situation at the time.
Officials here declined to say whether the U.S. and South Korea would seek to deter North Korea by presenting the outlines of the plan to North Korea in what are known as the "general officer talks" in Panmunjom, site of truce meetings since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Those talks were initiated by North Korea in an attempt to establish a direct dialogue between the North Korean army and the U.S. command here but are seen by U.S. officials as a means for crisis management. Four meetings have taken place since June but have been concerned with protests over a North Korean submarine incursion.
Richard Halloran, a former New York Times
correspondent in Asia, is a free-lance writer in Honolulu.
