The Coming OpCon Debate
Rumors in Washington are building that the South Korean government will soon ask President Obama to delay the dissolution of Combined Forces Command, a/k/a OPCON in 2012.
The Stars and Stripes has a rather unbalanced piece on the preposterous idea of South Korea assuming the lead command role in its own defense, which this piece by Doug Bandow more than balances.
I think that on the one hand, most conventional thinkers on both sides of the Pacific still see America’s contribution to an alliance in terms of boots on the ground, but I think it’s politically outdated and a recipe for defeat for us to default to those terms. North Korea is clearly aware that it can’t match us conventionally, and is assuredly looking for unconventional and deniable ways to attack Americans — military and otherwise — in South Korea. This means that a war in Korea this time isn’t going to start with T-34’s rolling down the Western Corridor. It will start with truck bombs, subway bombings, gas attacks by sleeper agents using materials obtained locally, and God-knows-what horrible device transported into South Korea by tunnel. Having observed on a daily basis the easygoing vulnerability of our installations in South Korea, this could mean hundreds of American casualties on day one. I shudder at the thought of the South Korean casualties.
Such a turn of events remains unlikely as long as Kim Jong Il knows that the answer would be “thirty seconds over Pyongyang.” That’s why the alliance matters. Frankly, I see a U.S. Army presence in South Korea as doing little to deter North Korea’s likely strategy, but tying down at lot of manpower that’s needed elsewhere and endangering a lot of American lives for no clear military purpose. While I support the idea of a “lighter footprint” abroad generally, and default to empowering local forces before supporting U.S. troop commitments abroad, don’t mistake this for isolationism, which is usually just post-hoc escapism to justify surrender because war is, you know, hard, even when vital U.S. interests are on the line. In places like Afghanistan and Iraq, where we’re in combat against Al Qaeda, having an army on the ground combats a direct threat to the United States and its freedoms, and therefore serves our vital interests. That’s not the case, however, when (a) the host nation is physically and financially capable of raising a sufficient army, even if it chooses to spend its money on other things, and (b) there are other, more efficient and effective ways for America to contribute to the allied nation’s defense.
To that end, I think our commitment to South Korea should be modernized (and downsized) to match modern military and political realities. Our strongest “hard power” contributions to South Korea’s defense are air and naval power, logistics, intelligence, training, and communications — all of them relatively flexible and capable of being calibrated to meet whatever threat or crisis South Korea may face, in the context of America’s own hierarchy of interests at that moment. We can also make strong “soft” power contributions with financial and diplomatic pressure on North Korea, broadcasting and other forms of subversion, and giving South Korea strong financial and logistical support for the pacification of North Korea.
That’s why I think Bandow also goes too far when he suggests that even if North Korea has committed an act of war by sinking the Cheonan, that we pick this moment to unilaterally abrogate the alliance. I’m all for averting a second Korean War, but what Bandow proposes would signal weakness to North Korea at a time when it represents an indirect (proliferation) threat to the United States as well.
How much further do you want to reduce US Army landpower in Korea???? We are already down to a level that doesn’t even rise to symbolic deterrence. Without boots on the ground to share some of the land combat risks, our advantages in air and sea power are less credible.
A little caution here. If the PRC occupies the DPRK when it collapses, and proclaims the threat against the ROK and Japan has been
eliminatedreduced, the Leftists in the ROK will probably succeed in getting the USFK off the pen. That will open the door for Korean War II as China will want to absorb the rest of Korea and won’t have a good reason not to.In light of that scenario, the only acceptable outcome is reunification under ROK governance. That is highly improbable without USFK support. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a mature OPLAN to stablize NK after Pyongyang collapses and the state fails. There is also an urgent need to tighten the screws utilizing all instruments of the alliance’s powers to hasten that collapse.
I can tell you this: the ideological war is about to hit a crescendo as the DPRK can no longer keep information from the outside world out. This will precipitate a grave crisis as the Juche cult crumbles before the eyes of the beleagured North Korean people who will be hungry, sick, angry, confused, scared, and looking for a new ideology, a new strong man, a new way out.
Without strong and decisive political and military leadership, the narrow window of opportunity to invade North Korea with ground troops will rapidly shut as the PRC move in, or worse yet, a Ban Ki moon UN solution takes months to coalesce and fumbles away the most peaceful scenario. If the USFK has no ground troops in the field, there may be some difficulties in a US General directing battle from a sanctuary from which he orders bombs and missiles dropped on targets that hazard only Koreans.
The presence of US ground troops continues to be mission essential in this region. Even if the OPCON turnover succeeds without a hitch in 2012, the prospect of Leftist movements successfully getting USFK retrograded off-pen is fraught with a plethora of strategic risks for what is today the ROK.
The fact that a clandestine pipeline already exists between the two Koreas that is operated by Christians on both sides of the DMZ should not be dismissed or minimized. It may be the hope for a thoroughly united Korean peninsula that is sovereign, free, prosperous, and an ally of the United States.
I would add that I wholeheartedly agree with this analysis:
This will also mark the kind of resistance UNC could find in a post-KJI North. It will be every bit the kind of religiously-motivated war that we are facing in GWoT battlefields such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
Or, as Dr. Andrei Lankov writes,
At any rate, something unusual seems to be happening in Pyongyang and it’s probably the time to think about the future a bit more seriously. We are heading towards serious changes, and unfortunately nobody seems prepared.