Nuclear bees in North Korea

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, which President George W. Bush issued in September 2002, proposes actions to neutralize enemies before they field weapons of mass destruction for combative or coercive purposes: "The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction ... and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves." Preemptive military operations against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), better known as North Korea, would serve three elemental purposes: terminate nuclear proliferation by that antagonistic nation; eradicate currently existing North Korean nuclear capabilities; and deny Kim Jong II, DPRK's current president, the ability to assist transnational terrorist groups and countries unfriendly to the United States.

The best defense may indeed be a good offense, but preemptive action would be a dicey proposition against the xenophobic, belligerent, unpredictable and possibly nuclear-capable DPRK, which has been a mortal enemy of South Korea (the Republic of Korea or ROK) since Stalin formally installed a communist state north of the 38th Parallel in 1947.

This assessment presents pertinent aspects of the geographic context in which any preemptive U.S. strike might occur, summarizes opposing forces and identifies readily available reinforcements. It then speculates about U.S. preemptive options in conjunction with South Korea and Kim Jong Il's potential retorts.

The Korean peninsula, 600 miles long from north to south and 105 miles wide at the waist, embraces about the same area as Utah, but is shaped more like Florida. It shares an 850-mile border with China, along the Yalu and Tumen Rivers, and bounds Russia for 11 miles in the extreme northeast. The Sea of Japan, which both Koreas call the Eastern Sea, abuts its eastern shore. The Yellow Sea and Korea Bay wash the west. A nearly uninhabited demilitarized zone (DMZ), 151 miles long and 2.5 miles wide, separates the DPRK from the ROK, a faithful U.S. ally for more than five decades. The DMZ's current alignment, which dips within 25 miles of Seoul, makes the ROK capitol even more vulnerable than it was in 1950, when the 38th Parallel marked the border.

Few hard-surfaced roads serve North Korea. The best of them connect Pyongyang with the DMZ and Nampo with Wonsan. Some have been widened enough in spots to accommodate fighter-bombers based at adjacent airfields. In the South, four-lane super-highways link Seoul with all provincial cities, but cross-country movement is difficult or impossible for wheeled and tracked vehicles in the mountains and hill country, which covers 80 percent of the peninsula. The rugged topography does afford many opportunities for foot-mobile and heliborne forces to concentrate and disperse.

Topographic irregularities also generally furnish land forces with excellent concealment from enemies on the ground, as do forests, primarily in South Korea. Aerial observers have better views, but dispersed foes can be elusive, even in bare terrain, as cagey antagonists have repeatedly proven in Afghanistan. Multilayered clouds, low ceilings, winter icing, fog and high winds make air-to-ground engagements perilous among mountain peaks.

Good natural harbors are scarce, despite long, indented seashores. South Korea depends mainly on five much improved ports, of which Pusan and Pohang are best. Chongjin handles most maritime cargo on North Korea's east coast. Nampo is its west coast counterpart. Wonsan is the DPRK's main naval base. Both countries possess many military air bases.

Armed forces that seize, retain, destroy or indirectly control critical terrain enjoy distinctive (sometimes decisive) advantages. Major U.S. backup bases in Japan, Okinawa and Guam qualify as such critical terrain, along with candidates in five categories on the Korean peninsula:

* Seoul and Pyongyang not only are governmental, economic and cultural nerve centers, but have immense symbolic value.

* Seaports at Pusan and Pohang are indispensable points of entry for U.S. reinforcements and supplies.

* Principal airports in South Korea are indispensable springboards from which to project land-based U.S. and ROK airpower.

* Principal military bases, telecommunication nodes and logistics installations underpin military power in the ROK and DPRK.

* Nuclear production plants in North Korea, the proximate cause of conflict, would be prime targets if U.S. Armed Forces conduct preemptive action.

North Korea's active military personnel vastly outnumber ROK and U.S. counterparts combined, not counting the nearly 190,000 DPRK paramilitary security troops and border guards. Both countries claim about 4.5 million reservists, although reasonably well-equipped, trained and expeditiously mobilizable troops probably total no more than 500,000 apiece. In addition, the DPRK has 3.5 million lightly armed worker/peasant Red Guards that can nominally increase its uniformed total to almost 40 percent of the population.

The DPRK and ROK both emphasize ground forces and field roughly the same number of divisions, but North Korea is quantitatively superior in most other respects. They have: 42 more separate combat brigades; three and one-half times as many main battle tanks (3,500 versus 1,000); 560 amphibious tanks (the ROK has none); an equivalent number of towed artillery pieces as the ROK, but the DPRK's are larger caliber with longer ranges; 3,000 more self-propelled tubes; 16 times as many multiple rocket launchers; and air defense suites that dwarf South Korean analogues. The South Korean Army is quantitatively superior only in armed helicopters.

Neither possesses a large navy. South Korean destroyers, frigates and corvettes outnumber DPRK holdings nearly five to one (43 against nine). Two ROK marine divisions and a separate marine brigade possess amphibious assault capabilities that North Korea can by no means duplicate, but the DPRK Navy is quantitatively superior in every other category. Its 26 submarines, 100-plus torpedo boats, 40-plus antiship missile craft and swarms of shallow draft gunships are especially well suited for hit-and-run operations along both coasts.

North Korea maintains something like 70 airbases, although most are skimpy installations on standby. Its bomber-fighter-attack aircraft inventories substantially ex-ceed South Korean counterparts (620 to 470). DPRK helicopter holdings are three-fourths as large as comparable ROK assets, all of which belong to the Army.

U.S. Army contributions to the defense of South Korea center on the truncated 2nd U.S. Infantry Division (Mechanized), which stands guard with two brigades astride high-speed avenues of approach between Seoul and the DMZ. That token force, in concert with associated combat and support troops, amounts to a 27,500-man "trip wire" that signals U.S. intent to honor treaty commitments if DPRK spearheads head south. Pacific-based reinforcements feature the 25th Infantry Division (Light) in Hawaii and major elements of one Marine expeditionary force in Okinawa.

Only two on-site U.S. fighter wings routinely furnish air cover over South Korea, but Air Force assets in Japan and Guam are readily available. Carrier aircraft based at Yokosuka, Japan, are merely minutes away when their ship is in port. Strategic reserves, mainly in the continental United States, would provide most of the naval and air power as well as air/missile defense augmentation during preemptive operations against North Korea.

It is true that quantity has a quality all its own. Large forces retain stronger capabilities than smaller forces after suffering heavy losses and possess otherwise unobtainable flexibility. The full significance of numbers, nevertheless, is revealed only in context with qualitative factors, many of which are intangible. Typical considerations include education, training and combat experience; discipline, loyalty, morale and adaptability; technological competence; logistical systems; command, control, communications and intelligence (C^sup 3^I); dispositions; and leadership. Distinctive strengths and weaknesses consequently are evident on both sides.

A few nuclear weapons, coupled with suspected biological and confirmed chemical warfare systems, would give North Korea imposing retaliatory capabilities. Medium-range SCUD C surface-to-surface missiles currently can cover the entire peninsula. The longer range No Dong 1 could attack the U.S. naval base at Yokosuka, Japan. Taepo Dong 1 missiles, which may number as many as 10, endanger U.S. garrisons on Guam and Okinawa. Scientists who seek to perfect untested Taepo 2s must solve guidance, staging, reentry and other technological problems before a nuclear-tipped DPRK missile can put targets at risk in Alaska, Hawaii and the continental United States.

DPRK defenses are among the world's most formidable. Cleverly concealed surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and anti-aircraft guns provide an awesome umbrella over the national capitol, in-depth defensive positions within 60-70 miles of the DMZ and nuclear plants that produce fissionable materials farther north. Hardened facilities, many buried in bedrock, probably shield subterranean nuclear storage vaults and uranium enrichment sites as well as missile launchers, artillery, combat aircraft, naval craft and logistical installations. Furthermore, illegal fortifications violate the DMZ virtually to the centerline.

Extensive liabilities nevertheless cramp North Korean capabilities. No reliable allies seem available since the Soviet Union collapsed and China ceased active military support. Most weapons and equipment are antiquated. T-34 and T-54/55 tanks of World War II vintage vastly outnumber T-62s, which the Soviet Union ceased to produce in 1975. First class air superiority aircraft, typified by late model MiG-29s recently acquired from Russia, are too few and too antiquated to control skies anywhere over the Korean peninsula (nearly three-fourths of all DPRK fighters are MiG-17s, 19s and 21s, which update models that only first flew in the 1950s). Fifteen out of 19 SAM brigades are armed with SA-2 missiles that were state-of-the-art during the Vietnam War. Fuel, repair parts and other military stock-piles reportedly are sufficient to last three months or less.

Three former four-star commanders of Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces in Korea, who scrubbed this study in draft, believe South Korean forces qualitatively outclass DPRK rivals more than most U.S. or ROK leaders acknowledge, partly because Air Force flying hours and tank training programs are far better. U.S. air power, naval power, technological superiority and decades of allied collaboration further strengthen the U.S.-ROK coalition. Standoff air and missile strikes could simultaneously engage North Korean nuclear installations, armed forces and lifelines from east, south and west, a priceless advantage given U.S. target acquisition capabilities, stealth aircraft, land attack cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions. U.S. and ROK forces plan together, train together and, in most instances, employ interoperable weapons, equipment and supplies. Computers accelerate decision-making cycles and enhance military operations in myriad other ways. Common C^sup 3^I architecture, procedures and rules of engagement foster unity of effort.

Even so, there is scant cause for complacency. Porous anti-missile defenses in South Korea, Japan, Guam and Okinawa leave crucial command posts, seaports, airfields and supply depots nearly naked to ballistic missile attacks. DPRK rocket launchers and long-range artillery massed near the demilitarized zone could endanger Seoul and its defenders.

Hypothetical Military Operations

Hypothetical U.S. preemptive courses of action and North Korean responses outlined below constitute rude escalation ladders with unevenly spaced rungs. Each side, however, could (and probably would) skip rungs or elect some synergistic combination. Presentations summarize salient strengths and shortcomings of each option, but express no preferences and predict no outcomes.

U.S. Overtures: U.S. armed forces could execute three of the following five overtures unilaterally. ROK participation could significantly strengthen Option A and possibly Option B. Options C and D clearly would require South Korean collaboration.

* Option A: Blockade North Korea. The U.S.-ROK coalition, along with minesweeping assistance from the Japanese Navy, could install impervious naval blockades off both coasts of North Korea. Strictly enforced cordons could prevent pariah nations from shipping militarily useful products to the DPRK, deprive that already impoverished country of other sustaining resources and thereby break its back. Naval blockades could also intercept surreptitious outgoing maritime shipments of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, components and delivery vehicles en route to rogue nations and transnational terrorist groups that threaten the United States, its allies and friends. U.S. and ROK flotillas could easily defeat enemy surface combatants and submarines that try to break the barrier.

Several potential shortfalls, however, are evident. Serious problems could arise if blockaders barred ships from China, North Korea's most prominent trading partner. Overland consignments from China and Russia could compromise naval blockades. Small but nevertheless important exports from the DPRK to rogue states and freelance terrorists might continue by air. Most important, naval blockades are acts of war that might precipitate unpredictable acts by the volatile Kim Jong Il.

* Option B: Destroy DPRK Nuclear Facilities. Belligerent DPRK spokesmen acknowledge the possession of plutonium weapons (perhaps as many as five, according to official U.S. estimates) and the intent to produce more. Intelligence reports also identify, but do not precisely locate, covert uranium enrichment programs that could begin to bear fruit as early as 2004. The pursuit of suitable delivery systems continues apace. Combat operations to obliterate or curb North Korea's budding nuclear capabilities thus deserve serious consideration, unless nonmilitary pressures reverse those trends, which presently appears unlikely.

U.S. attack aircraft and cruise missiles armed with conventional munitions could easily eradicate North Korean nuclear structures on the surface. Special techniques coupled with caution, however, would be required. Direct hits on active reactors, for example, could blanket Seoul with radioactive fallout within a few hours and endanger southern Japan the next day, whereas collateral damage likely would be negligible if preemptors concentrated on electrical grids and other essential structures. Installations buried deeply in bedrock could survive bombardment by the best U.S. bunker-busting bombs now extant, but explosions that seal cavern entrances might make "buried treasures" permanently inaccessible.

Bad news nonetheless mitigates good. Subterranean nuclear production and storage sites magnify target acquisition and engagement difficulties immensely. Those dispersed among many caves may defy detection.

* Option C: Invade North Korea. Extreme provocation, such as proof that the DPRK is about to shower South Korea with nuclear weapons or provide transnational terrorists with nuclear capabilities, could prompt U.S. and ROK decision makers to trigger Options B and C simultaneously. Doing so might catch communist forces off balance, upset their plans, short-circuit their timing, catch unwary units in the open and substantially increase prospects for quick, decisive victory.

Option C unfortunately would require a preparatory buildup because combat power now in place is insufficient for a push on Pyongyang, if one subscribes to widespread beliefs that frontal assaults by land forces against first-rate foes in formidable defensive positions demand numerical superiority. (Quantitatively inferior assault forces sufficed during Operation Iraqi Freedom in March-April 2003, but Saddam Hussein's best forces were far from first-rate.) The introduction of massive reinforcements would not only forfeit surprise but perhaps tempt Kim Jong Il to preempt.

* Option D: Defend Against DPRK Invasion. Option D has been in effect since 1953. U.S. contingents astride invasion corridors that enter South Korea near Seoul will soon relocate to positions a few miles farther south for political reasons. That move will dilute deterrence very little, if at all, and should strengthen combat capabilities, because U.S. forces will enjoy greater freedom of action if North Korean troops invade.

* Option E: Employ Nuclear Weapons. The President of the United States in extremis could conceivably authorize the employment of nuclear weapons to forestall or offset unacceptable situations, if all else failed. The following five triggers are illustrative:

* North Korea initiates nuclear warfare first.

* Conventional munitions fail to neutralize North Korean nuclear production plants.

* Competing contingencies leave insufficient combat power free for military operations in Korea. Peacekeeping duties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo, for example, likely will absorb a sizable share of U.S. deployable forces for the foreseeable future, while Iran looms ever larger on DoD's scope.

* Damage to ROK seaports and airfields precludes the rapid introduction of adequate U.S. reinforcements and supplies.

* A costly war of attrition otherwise could drag on indefinitely.

U.S. nuclear firepower unquestionably could terminate armed combat quickly and cost-effectively. Decisive results would send loud and clear messages to others who would vest transnational terrorists with nuclear, biological and chemical warfare capabilities, or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and/or its associates.

The first use of nuclear weapons in combat since August 1945 nevertheless might have seriously adverse political, military and psychological implications. World opinion could condemn the United States as an "outlaw." Consequences could include fewer U.S. friends and less international influence. Some signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty could instead seek to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons as trappings of national power. Worst of all, psychological reservations that have long inhibited nuclear warfare might diminish, even among other charter members of the nuclear club (Great Britain, France, Russia and China).

North Korean Retorts: Winston Churchill once said, "However absorbed a commander may be in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account." The DPRK could respond to U.S. overtures in several different ways. Among other things, U.S.-ROK Options A, B and C would constitute preemptive acts of war and thereby legally allow North Korea to retaliate in accord with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which explicitly states that "nothing shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security" (italics in the original). The DPRK has been a U.N. member in good standing since September 17, 1991.

* DPRK Option A: Intensify Transnational Terrorism. Highly publicized DPRK atrocities during the last 35 years include a 1968 guerrilla attack on the Blue House (South Korea's White House) and a botched attempt to assassinate ROK President Park Chung Hee that spared him, but killed his wife, in 1974. Assassins in Rangoon missed President Chun Doo Hwan, but butchered six ROK cabinet ministers along with 11 aides in 1983. Bombers in 1987 obliterated a South Korean airliner with 115 passengers and crew aboard.

North Korean terrorists have been quiescent ever since, but Kim Jong Il provides technicians, trainers, weapons and other support to renegade groups and states that engage in transnational terrorism. DPRK Option A would expand the scope and intensity of such activities and perhaps include direct North Korean actions on unprecedented scales.

* DPRK Option B: Invade South Korea. Kim Il Sung and his successor Kim Jong Il have ignored temptations to invade South Korea on at least three occasions since 1953. The first window of opportunity opened between 1965 and 1972, when U.S. armed forces were heavily involved in the Vietnam War. Post-war pacifism made American military intervention politically improbable between 1973 and 1981. The third opportunity spanned August 1990 through February 1991, when the campaign to liberate Kuwait occupied most U.S. long-haul airlift and sealift assets plus major combat formations.

Guaranteed risks seemed to outweigh uncertain gains in each of those instances, but preemptive U.S. Options B and C could trigger a North Korean invasion on extremely short notice if Kim Jong Il believed he had little to lose. Three strategic objectives appear plausible: rapidly penetrate U.S. and ROK defenses that hug the DMZ; seize and hold Seoul hostage to encourage early ROK capitulation; control the entire peninsula before U.S. reinforcements arrive. Ballistic missiles almost certainly would attack high-level military command posts, seaports, air bases, telecommunication nodes and logistical installations. North Korean special operations forces, which total about 90,000, might attack political leaders and other sensitive targets to create countrywide confusion and expedite the progress of armored spearheads. Their capacity for destruction would be immense, even if cited strength figures were a small fraction of those claimed. Chemical weapons could magnify defensive problems considerably.

* DPRK Option C: Initiate Chemical Warfare. DPRK commanders might turn Option B inside out to maximize U.S.-ROK vulnerabilities and minimize their own. Rather than launch a potentially suicidal invasion of South Korea, which would expose armored columns to devastating U.S. air strikes, North Korean artillerymen could, without warning, unleash massive, sustained chemical warfare attacks against heavily populated Seoul and forward defenses south of the DMZ. Combined Forces Command counteroffensives, launched to limit mass civilian casualties, would compel participants to abandon protective positions before reinforcements arrived and conduct frontal assaults against carefully concealed, deeply entrenched enemy troops.

* DPRK Option D: Initiate Nuclear Warfare. North Korea is believed to possess only a few low yield nuclear weapons that may be too heavy for available missiles to lift, but it would not take many to create a catastrophe. (The U.S. inventory contained only two in August 1945.) DPRK troops could initiate theater nuclear warfare and might hit lucrative targets as far away as Japan, Guam and Okinawa if available devices are light enough to load atop Taepo Dong 1 missiles.

Careful target selection could make the best use of limited stocks in any case. Snoopers, for example, have found at least four large North Korean tunnels beneath the DMZ and suspect as many as 20. A gigantic crater caused by a nuclear device would instantaneously breach U.S.-ROK forward defenses and release a lethal radioactive cloud that would envelope all forces down-wind if just one nuclear weapon erupted anywhere beneath the westernmost third of the DMZ. Kim Jong Il's troops then could pour south over high-speed routes on both flanks while confusion reigned following the first-ever use of nuclear weapons against armed ground opposition. Some pundits cite Seoul as a lucrative target, but it is hard to see why Kim Jong Il would want to level that city rather than preserve its skilled man-power and economic treasures for his own benefit. U.S. reinforcement schedules, however, would be shattered if a shipboard- or truck-delivered bomb demolished Pusan harbor.

Thomas Hobson, who kept a 16th-century livery stable in Cambridge, England, told customers to take the horse nearest the door or none at all, which, of course, was no choice at all. U.S. policy makers and planners who contemplate preemptive operations to neutralize North Korean nuclear capabilities confront Hobson's choices that are little better.

A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff prefaced his assessment of this survey with these words: "This world has a number of problems which are not amenable to immediate, or even short term, solutions. Among them, I count North Korea. If North Korea starts a war, North Korea loses-big. If anybody else starts a war on the Korean peninsula, the ROK, and just about everyone else involved also loses- or, at least, has little to gain."

Any of the U.S. options described above could trigger uncontrollable escalation that would create appalling casualties on both sides of the DMZ and promise a Pyrrhic victory at best. Unilateral actions by the United States without unqualified ROK agreement and willing participation every step of the way would be immoral as well as ill-advised. Inaction while Kim Jong Il develops a robust nuclear arsenal and perhaps supplies nuclear weapons to U.S. enemies, unfortunately, would worsen any future confrontation.

COL. JOHN M. COLLINS, USA Ret., joined the Army as a private in 1942, retired as colonel in 1972, spent almost 24 years as senior specialist in National Defense at the Congressional Research Service and has been a Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow at National Defense University since 1996. He has written 12 books and many magazine articles on military matters.

Copyright Association of the United States Army Aug 2003
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