Professional Soldiers ® - View Single Post - Stirring stick and a bottle of soju: The next Korean War (or the one after that)

**Airbornelawyer** · 06-02-2004, 13:43

On SOCNET there was a brief thread on a Korean news story on the pending 2/2 BCT deployment to Iraq. The story mentioned that the US was also considering redeploying some additional forces to the south of the peninsula, away from the DMZ. The plan to move more US forces south is in fact old news, pre-Iraq war, and is unrelated to the Iraq deployment. However, it reminded me of the strategic dilemma in US/ROK relations that this redeployment is unlikely to fix, and may actually worsen. I invite your thoughts and analysis.

The long term strategic dilemma in Korea is this:

For 50 years, we have defended South Korea from the threat posed by the North. Whether a million US troops in 1954 or 37,000 today, the main US mission was to defend South Korea. Other than to those troops, North Korea was not really a direct threat to the US (although the impact on our allies and economic partners of a regional war would be an indirect threat to the US).

Now, North Korea is seeking to develop nuclear-armed missiles capable of reaching the United States. If they do so, or are on the verge of doing so, then North Korea becomes a direct threat not just to South Korea or Japan but to the US.

Given this looming threat, the US must consider preemption, to destroy North Korea's missile and nuclear capabilities at a minimum, or even to change the regime. But it is simply tactically impossible to destroy all of the North's offensive capability in one first strike, and our number one priority will necessarily be the nuclear facilities and missile launch sites that threaten us. Therefore, it is just as inevitable that North Korea will be able to launch at least some retaliatory strike or counterattack across the DMZ. Given the large percentage of the South's population living within short-range missile and tube artillery range of the DMZ, massive South Korean civilian casualties may be expected.

So this is the strategic conundrum: for 50 years, the strategic interests of the US and South Korea coincided. If the balloon went up, Americans and Koreans would die side by side to save South Korea.

Now, however, we are fast approaching the day when our strategic interests diverge. The US may soon be forced to make a choice where thousands of South Korean lives will be sacrificed to save thousands of American lives.

The nature of our relationship is changing, and for many South Koreans not in a good way. If you were a South Korean, and you saw the US considering a preemptive strike and moving its forces away from the main zone of retaliation, mightn't you become skeptical or cynical of our motives? What would your response be?* We may have to consider removing all our troops from the peninsula, lest they go from being a North Korean tripwire to being South Korean hostages.

_________

* The "rational" response, of course, would be for the US and the ROK to work together to defang the North to preclude preemption from becoming necessary, but this is an example of the prisoner's dilemma - what would be the rational choice for each working together may not be the rational choice for each working separately. In the classic prisoner's dilemma, each party ends up pursuing its own "rational" self-interest and each ends up screwing himself and the other.

06-02-2004, 13:43	#1
Airbornelawyer Moderator Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,954	Stirring stick and a bottle of soju: The next Korean War (or the one after that) On SOCNET there was a brief thread on a Korean news story on the pending 2/2 BCT deployment to Iraq. The story mentioned that the US was also considering redeploying some additional forces to the south of the peninsula, away from the DMZ. The plan to move more US forces south is in fact old news, pre-Iraq war, and is unrelated to the Iraq deployment. However, it reminded me of the strategic dilemma in US/ROK relations that this redeployment is unlikely to fix, and may actually worsen. I invite your thoughts and analysis. The long term strategic dilemma in Korea is this: For 50 years, we have defended South Korea from the threat posed by the North. Whether a million US troops in 1954 or 37,000 today, the main US mission was to defend South Korea. Other than to those troops, North Korea was not really a direct threat to the US (although the impact on our allies and economic partners of a regional war would be an indirect threat to the US). Now, North Korea is seeking to develop nuclear-armed missiles capable of reaching the United States. If they do so, or are on the verge of doing so, then North Korea becomes a direct threat not just to South Korea or Japan but to the US. Given this looming threat, the US must consider preemption, to destroy North Korea's missile and nuclear capabilities at a minimum, or even to change the regime. But it is simply tactically impossible to destroy all of the North's offensive capability in one first strike, and our number one priority will necessarily be the nuclear facilities and missile launch sites that threaten us. Therefore, it is just as inevitable that North Korea will be able to launch at least some retaliatory strike or counterattack across the DMZ. Given the large percentage of the South's population living within short-range missile and tube artillery range of the DMZ, massive South Korean civilian casualties may be expected. So this is the strategic conundrum: for 50 years, the strategic interests of the US and South Korea coincided. If the balloon went up, Americans and Koreans would die side by side to save South Korea. Now, however, we are fast approaching the day when our strategic interests diverge. The US may soon be forced to make a choice where thousands of South Korean lives will be sacrificed to save thousands of American lives. The nature of our relationship is changing, and for many South Koreans not in a good way. If you were a South Korean, and you saw the US considering a preemptive strike and moving its forces away from the main zone of retaliation, mightn't you become skeptical or cynical of our motives? What would your response be?* We may have to consider removing all our troops from the peninsula, lest they go from being a North Korean tripwire to being South Korean hostages. _________ * The "rational" response, of course, would be for the US and the ROK to work together to defang the North to preclude preemption from becoming necessary, but this is an example of the prisoner's dilemma - what would be the rational choice for each working together may not be the rational choice for each working separately. In the classic prisoner's dilemma, each party ends up pursuing its own "rational" self-interest and each ends up screwing himself and the other.
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