번역중 [3/20까지]Power and Alliance : Assessing Military Balance in Korea

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Chapter 3
Power and Alliance : Assessing Military Balance in Korea


Powerbased theories, particularly realist theories, advance power distribution as a central independent variable that shapes a state's alliance behavior. At the crudest level, they argue that a state is engaged in internal and external balancing acts to maintain the power balance between it and its adversaries. A corollary, directly derived from the theories, would suggest that alliances are maintained for the same reason they were created: to balance power. In this chapter, I test this corollary against the U.S.Republic of Korea (ROK) Alliance: I assess the ROK's military capability to defend itself against a possible North Korean invasion in order to test the realist corollary that the U.S.ROK alliance is maintained to correct the power imbalance in the Korean peninsula.
I consider various measures of military strength to assess the conventional force balance between North and South Korea. There is no single magic formula one can use to compare the military might of two countries except for a natural experiment, a real war. But a number of methods have been devised and used over the past few decades to assess the correlates of forces in the European theater. They generally fall into two groups: static and dynamic methods. The former comprises two techniques: bean counting and aggregate measures such as Armored Division Equivalent (ADE) or TASCFORM; while the latter can be further divided into Lanchester and nonLanchester models and into low and highresolution dynamic models. These two methods are far from being perfect but, if applied carefully and complementarily, can provide some measures of military effectiveness.
The issue of conventional force balance on the Korean peninsula has been controversial, and opinions are divided sharply between optimists who ascribe to the ROK the capability of defending itself and alarmists who view it as incapable of deterring or defeating a North Korean attack. Overall the balance of the assessments is rather heavily skewed in favor of the latter. The body of optimist literature is small but growing steadily. To see if the pessimists' position is warranted, I will first examine the analyses on which the pessimists-optimists debate is based, a task made easier since most of these analyses have resorted to a single measure of power assessment: that of bean counting. A second and more challenging task is to engage the optimists most of whom argue that the ROK, combined with U.S. military power projection, can defeat an attack by the North. I find their argument persuasive but analytically uninteresting for by their own account the Combined Forces Command (CFC) of the U.S. and the ROK, supplemented by forces deployed from overseas, has military power so overwhelmingly superior to the North's. Their limited conclusion is a direct outcome of the question that has driven their research: whether the CFC can stop a North Korean invasion. I refine their analysis by disaggregating the CFC's capability and focusing on South Korea's capability by itself. All the measures I employ to assess the conventional force balance produce a consistent and mutually reinforcing conclusion that the ROK by itself is capable of stopping a North Korean invasion without losing much ground.
This conclusion raises an interesting theoretical question while at the same time it has direct policy implications for Washington's and Seoul's defense postures. On the theoretical front, it challenges a pillar of the realist paradigm that military alliance is a function of power (or threat) balance. If there is parity in military strength between North and South Korea, the sources of the U.S.ROK alliance persistence need to be found elsewhere. And in such a case, this leaves us with a Realist anomaly much like the case of a NATO that is growing stronger in the face of diminishing threats. At the same time, on the policy side, my analysis shows that the U.S. contribution to South Korea's defense is dubious at best. Although the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) provide unique assets, particularly C3I, that the ROK Army (ROKA) lacks, these assets are not essential to the South's defense. On the basis of my analysis, I conclude that some of the arguments advanced in favor of U.S. military reduction have a sound analytical basis and merit more serious consideration. This conclusion raises an immediate question: why then is the alliance maintained? Hence the purpose of the chapter is to raise the question, which I will try to answer in the rest of the study.
In the first section of the chapter, I lay out a strategic basis for military balance analysis. This is followed by two sections on static measures. In the fourth section, I apply dynamic analyses to assess the likelihood of a successful blitzkrieg by North Korea. Finally, I conclude with comments on the implications that my analysis has for international relations theory and for U.S. military posture.

Conventional Force Balance in Korea
A comparative assessment of opposing military forces must start with an understanding of political objectives and strategies of both sides because different means and ends set divergent military requirements, an obvious point that is neglected by many analysts. For the purpose of the force balance analysis in this article, South Korea's strategic objective is defined to be the level of military capability that deters a North Korean attack. As Mearsheimer argues in his seminal treatise on conventional deterrence, conventional capabilities sufficient to deny the attacker the option of blitzkrieg are crucial to effective conventional deterrence, for the attacker is then left only with the attrition strategy, and will likely be dissuaded from launching hostilities by the prospect of a long and costly war with uncertain outcomes: Because the cost of an attrition strategy is always high and because success is relatively uncertain, deterrence is very likely to obtain when an attacker has this strategy as his only option. Mearsheimer's theoretical discussion is consistent with the conclusion that Blainey draws in his historical study of the causes of war: most wars were initiated by those who believed that [t]he coming war ... would be short; conversely, dilution of the shortwar optimism reduced the likelihood of war initiation.
Although it is impossible to ascertain North Korea's strategy with confidence, Pyongyang seems to have adopted blitzkrieg as its strategy of choice. First, it is faced with an opponent who enjoys an enormous advantage in the resources it can mobilize for its war efforts: South Korea has a population twice as big and an economy ten times as big as North Korea. Even if the North has a large reserve army of 500,000, the South has nine times as many reserves for it has a larger population who serve shorter terms in the military. A long war would only increase the time and thus the opportunity for the South to mobilize its resources to the full to fight the North. Second, the North lacks the resources with which to wage a long war. Producing no oil domestically, it relies for its petroleum supply on imports from overseas, particularly China and Russia. Pyongyang's oil imports have dramatically declined in the 1990s primarily because of Russia's reluctance to export to the DPRK on credit. As a result, North Korea is very short of petroleum, oil and lubricants (POL), with reserve stocks that could sustain an active military campaign for only about 30 days. The lack of war materiel makes a long war of attrition a less attractive option. And finally, North Korea's order of battle suggests that Pyongyang employs the blitzkrieg as its strategy. It has an exceptionally large armored force with 3,600 main battle tanks, about 400 more than the Germans mobilized for the entire European theater in 1940. It has invested heavily in making its artillery and infantry mobile, and has acquired 25,000 armored personnel carriers and 54,000 selfpropelled artillery. It has shifted a majority of its ground and air forces closer to the DMZ, packing over 65 percent of its army within 100 kilometers of the DMZ. The heavily armored, highly mobile and forward-deployed forces are optimally configured for a blitzkrieg. They would be much less effective in an attrition war.
Given the nature of the threat, South Korea's strategic objective therefore must be to maintain a capability sufficient to stop a North Korean blitzkrieg. . According to Mearsheimer's conventional deterrence logic, South Korea would then be likely to deter Pyongyang's adventurism, for Pyongyang would know that its blitzkrieg would turn into a war of attrition that it would be likely to lose. In order for the South to derive the level of forces necessary for this objective, this measure of sufficiency needs to be integrated with Seoul's theater strategy.
I take forward defense as the South's base strategy for three reasons. First, it closely resembles the first parts of the Combined Forces Command's defense strategy although the CFC's operation plan contains elements of defense in depth (embodied in three defensive belts) and of maneuver warfare (associated with the Air Land Battle Doctrine). Second, Korea's geography dictates the forward defense: Seoul, the most important strategic target in any scenario of a North Korean blitzkrieg, is only 40 kilometers away from the DMZ. South Korea does not have the option of trading space for time. And finally, as my theoretical inquiry calls for an assessment of whether South Korea can by itself deter a North Korean attack, I must exclude from my analysis deep air strikes, a key component of a maneuver war strategy, as that would require American air power support.
In short, I will try to determine if the ROKA can muster enough strength to execute a forward defense strategy and to convince the North that it is not likely to succeed in a blitzkrieg against the South. For whether or not deterrence obtains in a future crisis would largely depend on whether the North Koreans think they can launch a successful blitzkrieg. In the following section, I examine the balance of forces in light of the doctrine and topography of the theater to assess the likelihood that the North will launch a successful blitzkrieg.























Force to Force Ratios in the Theater
The North Korean People's Army (NKPA) enjoys an overwhelming numerical superiority over the ROKA in manpower and every weapons category. The NKPA's army consists of 26 infantry divisions, 15 armored brigades, 24 truck mobile infantry brigades, and a Special Forces command. The ROKA is comprised 19 infantry and 3 mechanized infantry divisions, and 12 infantry, Special Forces, and counterinfiltration brigades. The North's army is estimated to total 930,000 soldiers, outnumbering the 575,000 men in the South Korean army by about 1.6:1. The North outnumbers the South in tanks and mortars by roughly fifty percent. The NKPA has more than twice as many artillery pieces as the ROKA while enjoying a 4to1 superiority in selfpropelled artillery and a 16to1 supremacy in multiple rocket launchers. In addition, North Korea has produced and deployed surfacetosurface missiles that can reach almost all of South Korea.

Table 3.) The Balance of Forces, 1997

Category North Korea South Korea NK/SK
Manpower 930,000 575,000 1.6
Armored Carriers 2,500 2,490 1.0
Tanks 3,000 2,130 1.4
Mortars 8,100 6,000 1.4
Artillery 10,600 4,540 2.3
SelfPropelled Art 4,500 1,040 4.3
Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 19971998 (London: Oxford University Press, 1997).

The ROKA's alarming numerical inferiority, however, conceals a number of crucial qualitative differences. Most of the South's military equipment is more advanced and more capable than that of the North's although both Koreas have a large stock of old Soviet or American designed tanks. For example, the North's main battle tanks, T54/55 and T62 were introduced in 1949 and 1961 while the South's M47 and T48 were introduced in 1948 and 1952 respectively. According to a study done to eval‎uate the upgradability of the old generation tanks, it was not considered possible to incorporate advances in armored protection, engine efficiency or firepower in the Soviet tanks, whereas the American tanks were easily adaptable. Taking full advantage of their upgradability, South Korea upgraded most of its M48s to M48A3s or M48A5s between 1980 and 1990 while North Korea is left with its fleet of antiquated tanks. During the same period, moreover, the South began producing a new-generation tank, K1, that carries several stateoftheart features found in the M1 Abrams. K1A1, an upgraded version, is equipped with a CO2 laser range finder and a Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer (CITV) together with composite armor, an integrated fire control and an adjustable suspension, which make K1A1 comparable to America's most advanced tank, M1A1. If M1A1's qualitative advantage over Iraq's T72 tanks in the Desert Storm is any indication, the South's K1A1s would probably enjoy a similar, if not greater, edge over the North's T62s, Sovietdesigned tanks one generation older than T72s. As I show later in an armored battle simulation, the South's qualitative edge, combined with the fact that it will be fighting in a prepared defensive position, does more than compensate for its numerical disadvantage.


Seoul has invested in the military far more than Pyongyang in the past two decades, as Figure 3.1 shows. The South's military spending began to surpass the North's in 1972, and has continuously widened the gap throughout the rest of the 1970s and the 1980s, resulting in a cumulative difference of $38.7 billion by 1990. In 1990 it spent $5.9 billion, more than two times as much as the North's $2.5 billion (in 1980 constant figures). Given the wide margin in the actual spending amounts, it would not be unreasonable to interpret the North's higher military spending ratio as representing Pyongyang's desperate efforts to match its adversary's spending level obviously without success.
Assuming that only one fourth of the military expenditure is spent to improve the quality of the military's fighting capability, with the rest spent for maintenance and operation, we can estimate that the South cumulatively invested about $10 billion more than the North on new weapons and upgrades for the past twenty years. Since the ROK's manpower in uniform is about 40 % smaller than the North's, the amount that Seoul has invested in each soldier to improve his combat power is disproportionately larger. In addition, South Korea's far heavier investment in support systems should increase its effective combat power beyond what is represented in simple comparisons of firepower. The qualitative advantage, which has accrued in weapons systems and training over the past two decades, however, is not readily captured by a simple numerical comparison. The bean count buries the difficulties in comparing apples and oranges.
To circumvent the lack of comparability between militaries armed with different weapons systems, the U.S. Army developed in the 1970s the notion of the armored division equivalent (ADE), an overall measure of capability based on firepower, mobility, and survivability. According to this methodology, each weapon is assigned a Weighted Effectiveness Index (WEI), which is then added for the unit to produce the Weighted Unit Value (WUV). By aggregating weighted effectiveness indices for each weapon in a division as opposed to simply counting numbers of men and weapons the ADE is meant to provide a meaningful unit of comparison.
In order to apply this measure to the NorthSouth balance, I make a number of assumptions because of some uncertain factors. First, detailed TBO&Es for each division of North and South Korea's armies, which would be necessary to calculate the ADE's, are simply not available in open literature. Therefore, I assess the total ADE for Korea's armies as a whole. Second, as a rule, my estimates are conservative: when there is a wide area of uncertainty, I assign a ceiling figure to North Korea while ascribing a floor index to South Korea. As a result, I end up comparing, unfairly, the upperbound ADE for the North with the lowerbound ADE for the South. The actual ADE ratio would be much more favorable to the South than my calculations suggest. The scores derived from this methodology indicate that the potential combat effectiveness of North Korea on a theater basis exceed that of the South Korean forces by a smaller margin than the bean count suggests. The total WUV of combat units in the South equals 1,427,489 against the North's total of 2,003,554. The North has 41.1 ADEs and the South 29.3 ADEs, resulting in a 1.4:1.0 advantage for the North in terms of ADE. In order to see if this theaterwide aggregate ratio gives the NKPA enough military might to pull off a blitzkrieg, more detailed analyses are called for.
Table 3.2) Summary of WEI/WUV Force Balance, 1997
Category North Korea South Korea Ratio
Small Arms 819,000 600,000 1.4:1
APCs 48,275 14,600 3.3:1
Tanks 183,360 110,413 1.7:1
Antitank Guns 125,000 276,321 0.45:1
Artillery 507,240 185,045 2.7:1
Mortars 320,679 241,110 1.3:1
Total 2,003,554 1,427,489 1.4:1

The armor/antiarmor balance is an important measure of the armored capability of each side versus systems on the opposing side that are designed to defeat the armored vehicles. As such, it can indicate the degree to which either side may dominate the battle with offensive maneuvers. To analyze this balance, I compare the entire armor (tanks plus APCs) on one side against all systems capable of fighting armor (tanks plus antitank guns) on the other side. This balance shows that both sides have substantially more antiarmor capability than their opponent's armor capability. The South has a 1.7 to 1 advantage over the North's armor and the North has a 2.5 to 1 advantage over the South's armor. According to this measure, both should be effective in combating the armor of their opponent. This stands in stark contrast to the situation at the start of the Korean War when ROK had practically no antiarmor capability.
The firepower balance is a composite of the relative effectiveness of artillery and mortar on the two sides. These systems are dedicated to the suppression and destruction of the opposing forces in support of infantry and mechanized operations. With respect to fire support effectiveness, the North enjoys a clear superiority in numbers. As O'Hanlon argues, however, ROKA artillery is about five times more accurate and lethal than the North Korean People's Army (NKPA) tubes. Achieving a fivetoone or greater advantage in the artillery duel would more than compensate for the allies' numerical artillery disadvantage.
The measures show that North Korea has an advantage in overall combat effectiveness as well as in most weapons systems. The armor/antiarmor balance, however, suggests that an armored breakthrough would be difficult for either side to achieve. Now the question is if this ratio gives the South enough strength to deter a Korean blitzkrieg. To answer the question, we need to look at the force ratio by sector.

Force to Force Ratios by Sectors
A theaterwide force comparison is a good indicator but can be misleading when used to assess the likelihood of a blitzkrieg, as is well illustrated by the BDM Corporation study of the 1940's force balance in Central Europe. The study, applying the WEI/WUV method to the Battle for France in 1940, found that the Allies had an advantage of 1.3 to 1 on a theaterwide basis. Although the combat effectiveness of the two adversaries, as measured by WEI/WUV for the entire theater, was relatively evenly matched, the outcome of the battle was anything but what the ADE measures suggested. If the measures are applied to each sector of the theater, however, they yield interesting results: although the Germans had somewhat unfavorable ADE ratios in the Northwest and Southern Sectors, they had a 4 to 1 advantage in the Central Sector where they made a breakthrough.
This suggests that in order to assess the likelihood of a blitzkrieg we need to look at sectoral ADE ratios rather than a theater ratio. But then we immediately face a problem because we do not know where the North Koreans might concentrate their forces to make a breakthrough attempt. Even worse, they could feint or camouflage a concentration in order to confuse and disorient the defender, moves an analyst could not predict a priori. I circumvent the problem by assuming, consistent with my overall conservatism, the worst case: the North concentrates its forces in a sector of attack without the South's detection while the South's defense is evenly spread along the border. I operationalize this assumption below and put it in the context of the theater terrain and of the doctrines that the North and South are likely to employ.
Although there is no consensus on the forcetoforce ratio needed to stage a successful blitzkrieg, there is little doubt that the attacker needs an advantage in force because he, in his offensive operation, has to expose himself to the defender's fire. Mearsheimer suggests that the attacker needs a 3 to 1 force advantage as a general rule. Although historical studies show that some militaries succeeded with a much smaller ratio, the rule seems to hold if the analysis is confined to a division or corps sector of a breakthrough attempt, as Mearsheimer specifies for the 3:1 rule's condition. Dupuy's study of combat corroborates Mearsheimer's rule as far as it is applicable to the force balance in Korea. Dupuy suggests that the defender's combat power is increased by a factor of 3 if he is in a prepared defensive posture in rugged terrain. One can surmise that if the North attempts to make an armored breakthrough in a sector where the ROKA is in a prepared defensive position, it would want to mobilize a force at least three times as large as the South's force in the sector.
In the initial offensive stage of the Korean War in June 1950, the NKPA commanded a 1.5:1 force ratio in the theater but established a 2.1:1 advantage in the breakthrough sector of Chorwon. For the Pusan breakthrough in September 1950, on the other hand, the UN forces established a 2 to 1 force ratio in manpower and an even more favorable ratio in artillery and other areas at the sector. Weapon fire power superiority was probably about six to one over the North Koreans. In the air the Far East Air Forces had no rival over the battleground, and on the flanks at sea the United Nations naval forces held unchallenged control. Even with this overwhelming power, the UN forces did not launch their breakthrough offensive until one day after the Inchon landing, in order to take full advantage of the demoralizing effect the news might have on the North Korean soldiers.
The Soviet doctrine during the Cold War and the NKPA's doctrine are known to call for a force ratio higher than the Korean War ratios or historical averages. The Soviet doctrine, for example, called for a 3 to 1 force ratio in infantry, a 6 to 1 in artillery and a 5 to 1 in tanks, ratios that match the average ratio that the Soviet forces maintained in their offensive operations during the Second World War. According to the U.S. Army, furthermore, the North Korean doctrine for a successful offensive operation calls for forcetoforce ratios that far exceed both Mearsheimer's 3:1 rule and the Soviet norm: i.e. 35:1 in armor; 68:1 in artillery; and 46:1 in infantry.
Based on the above discussion, I judge a 2 to 1 ratio to be a conservative threshold for a North Korean blitzkrieg attempt. In the following analysis, I postulate that Pyongyang will decide to strike if it can mobilize its forces so as to achieve better than a 2:1 force ratio in a sector. In other words, the South's chance of successfully deterring a North Korean blitzkrieg, since it cannot know where the North may attempt to break through, depends on its ability to deploy its forces along the DMZ so that the force ratio on every sector never falls below 1:2.
Assume for now an idealized space that poses no constraints on the size of forces that can be deployed. If the South decides to commit all its forces to the front, it can deploy 2.9 ADEs per 25 km. After using 29 ADEs as a holding force along the DMZ, the North now has 12 ADEs left to concentrate in a breakthrough sector. Therefore, the maximum possible force ratio it can achieve in a 50 km sector is (12+5.8):5.8 = 3.1:1. The forcetoforce ratio does not guarantee the ROKA the capacity to deter a North Korean blitzkrieg.
The forcetospace ratio constraint, however, limits the NKPA's ability to concentrate. Common sense suggests that only so many armored vehicles and soldiers can fit into a given geographical space unlike the above idealized space. Even if one can concentrate ten Ar
mored Divisions in a particular sector, only the forces that are deployed in the frontal area would serve as an effective fighting force. Furthermore, too much force can pose multiple difficulties in maneuvering while at the same time making the concentrated force vulnerable to the adversary's fire. Posen suggests that one ADE per 12.5 km would seem a good theoretical maximum, i.e., a maximum of four ADEs can effectively operate along a front of fifty kilometers, and notes that a force density beyond this level can actually impede the operation. Bermudez argues that the North Korean doctrine calls for a combined arms brigade attacking on a front of 1.5 to 2 km and a tank battalion (31 tanks; 3050 m between each vehicle) on a front of approximately 1 km. Chung Min Lee, on the other hand, suggests that the current North Korean doctrine calls for 100 tanks per kilometer in breakthrough sectors although the Soviet doctrine envisions deploying 33 to 50 tanks. Lee's suggestion seems a little extreme since it will allow only ten meters for each tank that is three to four meters wide
For defenders, Posen and Mearsheimer argue that 0.5 to 1 ADE, occupying 15 to 25 kilometers in depth, can guard 25 kilometers of front. The doctrinal norm for a North Korean division is between 12 and 20 kilometers. South Korean norms are probably similar. Now I assume that the ROKA, taking Posen's and Mearsheimer's counsel, allocates 1 ADE per 25 km for a total of 10 ADEs along the DMZ, holding 23 ADEs in reserve. The NKPA also has to dedicate 10 ADEs along the front as a holding force, leaving 27 ADEs to bring to an attempted breakthrough sector. Therefore, it seems possible for it to have as favorable a force ratio as it wants: a 5:1 ratio is certainly within easy reach. If we apply Posen's theoretical maximum (1 ADE per 12.5 km), however, the NKPA can allocate 4 ADEs to a 50 km wide sector where the ROKA has 2 ADEs deployed. This gives only a 2 to 1 force advantage for the North. The North Koreans, of course, can choose to exceed the theoretical maximum in order to achieve whatever force ratio they deem necessary. We need to look at the terrain carefully to assess the most likely strategy.
Large military forces moving offensively would be forced by time and logistic support requirements to move through the major natural crossings of the DMZ. The terrain along the DMZ is rugged, particularly in the eastern half. There are ten primary land crossings in the DMZ. Although infantry can still move through the intervening hills, its offensive capability would be much lower than mechanized forces because of the lack of significant logistical support from vehicles. The ten crossings largely coalesce into three primary avenues of approach: the Chorwon and Musan corridors in the west and the East Coast corridor. I judge that the Musan, Chorwon, Kumhwa (joining the Chorwon at Uijongbu) and East corridors can be used by NKPA armored brigades to attack the South. The western attack corridors are about 15 kilometers wide each and lead directly to Seoul while the eastern one is only 4 kilometers wide and offers no easy passage to Seoul because of a major mountain range running north to south. The North Korean military took these three routes to advance southward in the initial phase of the Korean War. Although the Musan corridor has some wide, flat areas, the Imjin River and the Han River estuary impose severe terrain restrictions on the movement of heavy armored forces, seriously impeding a rapid blitzkrieg. Given the difficulties posed for armored units in the East Coast and Musan corridors, I focus on the Chorwon corridor that runs between mountains for 47 kilometers to Seoul.
Although the North may make a breakthrough attempt in a 50 km wide sector, the terrain restrictions along the DMZ limit the size of corridors available to armored vehicles to a maximum of 15 km. Even if we take Lee's extreme maximum, which would allow the NKPA to deploy 1,500 tanks, (a more realistic estimate would be much lower) extrapolating possible ADEs from the number of tanks, I estimate that the North can commit at most 2.2 ADE worth of its combined arms brigades to the Chorwon corridor. If the North manages to send in 1.8 ADE worth of infantry soldiers on the surrounding hills and mountains, the overall force ratio in the sector would amount to 2 to 1. If one ADE worth of infantry is committed to the sector, however, the North can achieve only a 1.6 to 1 force ratio for the breakthrough sector. This result falls well below the 2 to 1 that I set as a threshold for a North Korean blitzkrieg.
The result of the foregoing static analysis is summarized in the following table. As apparent in the table, the forcetoforce ratio moves from a definite breakthrough possibility to an unlikely breakthrough. The static analysis shows that the most favorable forcetoforce ratio the North can attain in any sector along the DMZ is 1.6 to 1, well below the 2 to 1 force ratio that I established as a threshold for a North Korean blitzkrieg. These numbers represent mere indicators of the effective military power that the two Koreas have, and as such do not predict the outcome of a war. Given the extreme conservatism built into every layer of my calculations, the cumulative effect of which may credit the North with extraordinary capabilities bordering on the unrealistic, the static analysis indicators still strongly suggest that the South has a capability that is adequate to deter a North Korean blitzkrieg.
Table 3.3) Force-to-Force Ratios
Bean Count ADEtheater ADEIdeal Sector ADEChorwon
N/A 1.4:1 3.1:1 1.6:1


Blitzkrieg? Dynamic Analysis
In the first part of the dynamic analysis, I apply a FEBA (Forward Edge of the Battle Area) movement model to assess the theaterwide movement of the front line. In the second part, I narrow the analytical scope to a hypothetical armor battle in the Chorwon sector, to which I apply a Lanchester analysis. Finally, I consider the effects that air force is likely to have on the ground campaign.
While mobilization schedules played a key role in assessing conventional force balances in Central Europe during the Cold War, I focus my analysis on the standing attack because of differences in force readiness and deployment schedules. In Cold War Europe, both NATO and WTO kept many of their military units at low levels of readiness, and thus varying degrees of mobilization were required to bring the forces to full strength. Also, even if sizable military forces faced off in Central Europe--particularly in Germany, larger reinforcement forces were kept in the Soviet Union and the United States, away from the intended battlefield.
In Korea, by comparison, most of the active units are kept at full strength and at high levels of readiness on both sides of the DMZ. The North has invested heavily in initial combat power at the expense of the logistic support capabilities required to sustain a prolonged conflict. The strategic warning time is estimated to range from a few hours to no more than 18 hours. The situation is made more urgent by the redeployment of the North's ground and air forces closer to the DMZ in the 1980s and 1990s.
Secondly, although the South's current OPLAN calls for reinforcements from Japan and the U.S., and the North's plan probably envisions fighting these reinforcements in addition to the forces stationed in South Korea, I exclude from my analysis all overseas reinforcements as well as U.S. assets stationed in the South for the reasons I laid out in the beginning: the purpose of my inquiry is to assess the likelihood that South Korea by itself can deter or defeat a North Korean blitzkrieg.
In the following analysis, therefore, I assume a standing attack by the North: it attacks the South without mobilization. To account for the worries that the South has about a surprise attack, I further assume that the North has deployed all its forces along the DMZ to be ready for offensive operations, without being detected by the South (although this amounts to failing to notice at least three mechanized corps driving 80 to 100 kilometers south to the border).

FEBA Movement Model
Posen and Epstein have proposed two different combat models that simulate, without resorting to the Lanchester equations, the frontline movement. Posen's model moves the FEBA (Forward Edge of the Battle Area) at a historically determined rate as long as the offender maintains a force ratio at or above a threshold level in the face of accumulating attrition and expanding FEBA. The model then generates the Force Needs curve that each side has to meet to continue the offensive or defensive mission. This curve is compared with each side's mobilization curve to assess the adequacy of its forces in the theater. Epstein's model produces the FEBA movement as an outcome of the attrition rates in the course of the offensive/defensive. Each side has a threshold attrition rate, pain threshold, beyond which the attacker halts the offense (and the defender withdraws). While Posen's model indicates whether each side has forces adequate for defense or offense in the theater as a whole, Epstein's captures battle dynamics in a sector.
Applying Posen's model to the Korean situation poses some difficulties. It assumes that the attacker makes an advance of 5 kilometers per day if he can maintain a certain level of force strength in the front. Posen surveys a large pool of combat data to justify the advance rate, which might be a reasonable estimate in Central Europe. As indicated above in the section about sectoral force ratios, however, battles in Korea present a very different picture. In the fluid state of the Korean War, the attacker, whether it was North Korea, China, or UN forces, early on often advanced as far as 20 kilometers a day; in the static war of attrition which ensued, neither side advanced more than four kilometers even in intense ten-day combat situations. As an approximation to what might happen in a second Korean War, we could estimate an average advance rate based on the battles near what became the DMZ. The movements of the FEBA in the latter stage of the war, however, were carefully controlled by political considerations related to the ongoing armistice negotiations rather than dictated by military logic. Because of the difficulties in assigning a value to Posen's key input variable, I choose Epstein's model instead and run several possible scenarios.
Results from Epstein's simulation suggest that the South in general can hold its ground against the North's blitzkrieg attempts (See Appendix A and Figures A1 through A4). I run the simulation for four different scenarios, combining two force ratios with two exchange ratios, and for each scenario I consider the likely outcome of a surprise attack. For a surprise attack (defined as lasting two days), I assume that the North is willing to take ten percent attrition rates and manages to sustain a 1 to 1 exchange ratio. In all four simulations, the South does not suffer attrition rates higher than the threshold, 5 percent, and thus is able to defend the front without yielding any ground. As time progresses, both sides lose considerable strength and are quite likely to reinforce the frontline force with reserves. The actual outcome of the combat, thus, would depend on each side's reinforcement capacity.
Given that both have large reserves in the second echelon which are more than adequate to keep the frontline units at full strength, I do not take reinforcement to be a problem. The South makes tactical withdrawals of four kilometers for the first two days of the surprise attack. Otherwise it holds the defense line and conditions can reach a stalemate as the fighting drags on. There is, however, one case where reinforcement makes a crucial difference. When the North launches a surprise attack with a 1.6 to 1 force advantage and an exchange ratio of 1 to 1.75, the result is catastrophic for the South: the South loses heavily in the first two days and never recovers from the loss, being forced to retreat every day. If the South reinforces the front strength to its full level by the start of the third day (and the North does the same, to be fair), however, then the South can maintain the attrition rate below the threshold and thus hold the line. Given the large reserves in the second echelon, I take the reinforcement scenario to be more credible than the repeated retreat. In fact, the frontline units will get reinforced by default when they withdraw two kilometers to the rear where the second echelon forces will be waiting in a prepared position. On the other hand, the North will have more difficulties, as the reinforcements have to travel a longer distance across enemy territory through opposing fire. Adaptive Dynamic Model simulation results corroborate the static analysis: the South has the capability to stop a North Korean blitzkrieg.

Lanchesterian Analysis of an Armored Battle
Here I consider the likely outcome of a clash between armored forces of the North and South in the Chorwon corridor. To model the situation, I adapt the Lanchester equations for directed fire since they resemble most closely the combat between two armored forces lined up in two opposing parallel lines. If the above dynamic models used aggregate force measures such as WEI/WUV to generate outputs, Lanchester models take as input the number of individual weapons systems such as tanks. In other words, this is a higher resolution model that can produce a more realistic picture of a battle. On the other hand, if one attempts to develop a Lanchester model that incorporates more than two independent weapons systems interacting with each other, the model's reliability decreases exponentially. Therefore, I start out modeling a battle between tanks in a narrow sector and then complicate it by bringing in such factors as qualitative differences in tanks and prepared defensive positions. Then I sketch out a possible way of modeling a battle that involves multiple weapons systems, if only to indicate the possible complications of using a Lanchester model.
I assume that the North mobilizes as many tanks as it can bring to bear upon the defender in the sector and that the South spreads its tanks evenly in four sectors. I assume for analytical purposes that the North chooses the Chorwon corridor as the main axis of advance where their armored brigades will make their best breakthrough effort. Of its 2500 available tanks, I assume the North brings 1500 tanks to bear upon this sector (all of its 600 T62s and 900 T59s) and that they deploy tanks 20 meters apart, tighter than their minimum doctrinal interval in order to squeeze the maximum number of armored vehicles in the sector to ensure their numerical superiority. They then can have 700 tanks deployed in the frontline with the rest standing in the second and third echelons. Now we assume the South can send only a quarter of its tank forces (500 tanks) to the sector because it has evenly spread its inventory of 2,000 tanks in the four possible corridors for armored attack (as I laid out in above discussion of the terrain).
Given the characteristics of the terrain, North Korea's armored forces would be reduced to acting as a battering ram, and would be slowed by manmade obstacles, and by killing zones : areas where antitank weapons fire is directed from the mountains on either flank of the corridor. With limited mobility, the forces forming the battering ram would make excellent targets for artillery fire and close air support. The obstacles include tank ditches, mine fields, and tank traps. South Korea has constructed a complex integrated barrier system south of the DMZ consisting of a ten-foot-high chainlink fence supplemented with minefields, ditches and electronic sensing devices. Reinforced watch towers, concrete bunkers and guard posts were established behind this fence. Thousands of acres of brush were cleared along roads and fences and around military positions near the southern boundary of the DMZ. Behind these front line barriers, the ROKA constructed a series of wellfortified defensive positions, commonly called the Hollingsworth Line, consisting of three defensive belts: Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. Although very little information exists about the fortifications, it is known that reinforced bunkers have been built for weapons aimed at corresponding killing zones.
The modeling shows that the South's tank force would be quickly decimated if its 500 tanks are matched against 1500 North Korean tanks of the same effectiveness. If qualitative differences are taken into consideration, the South is able to overcome the numerical inferiority and defeats the North. If the North reinforces the losses in the frontline with second echelon forces at the end of time One, it nullifies the South's qualitative advantage. If the South's tanks fight from prepared defensive positions, they can quickly and without much loss destroy the North's reinforcements. If the North can sustain reinforcements and maintain the frontline at full strength, it can put up a good fight on the front. As soon as it runs out of reserves, however, it quickly loses the battle. The Lanchester simulation indicates that an armored battle in a narrow sector will favor the South assuming they have qualitatively superior tanks in prepared defensive positions), against the North whose advance will include many obstacles.

Air Power and C3I
The air/air defense balance provides a measure of the relative effectiveness of each side's air force to support a ground blitzkrieg attempt. Although the German blitzkrieg of 1940 is commonly portrayed as a ground offensive conducted mainly by armored vehicles, Germany's superior air power was critical to the success of the ground operations. The German Luftwaffe provided excellent support to the ground forces by attacking Allied defensive concentrations and providing suppressive fire for key offensive operations such as the crossings of the Meuse River. In comparison, the Germans could not make a breakthrough in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 when they lost their air superiority to the Allies.
In 1950 the North had meager air power by today's standards, but still enjoyed a huge advantage over the South's almost nonexistent air force. The North Koreans effectively utilized their air superiority in the opening phase of the Korean War to effect breakthroughs against the South's defenses. After the United Nations forces began mobilizing their air power, however, the North lost its air superiority and as a result its ground operations were consistently hampered.
Since the WEI/WUV methodology, devised for ground weapons, does not account for Air vs. Air-Defense systems, I adopt a different method to assess the likely impact that air power might have on ground combat. As a first approximation to WEI/WUV, I compare the total offensive air weapons of each side (bombers + CAS (Close Air Support)) against the total defensive systems (fighters + antiaircraft guns). Then I consider some qualitative differences and finally analyze combat dynamics using a model designed by Posen.
I will make the following comparison of total air capabilities using figures from The Military Balance 1991-1992. As of 1990, South Korea deployed 503 combat aircraft, including 36 F16 fighters while the North Korean air force consisted of 860 combat aircraft and 80 bombers. Using these figures, the theaterwide balance shows that the North commands a clear numerical advantage in offensive airpower over the South at the ratio of 1.7 to 1. The North, at that time, also enjoyed an even wider margin of superiority in the number of transport aircraft: 280 transport airplanes against 37, close to an 8 to 1 ratio. The North's numerical advantage begins to diminish if you compare offensive and defensive air capabilities: the North has a total of 1016 offensive air weapons, against which the South's air defense deploys 340 aircraft, 540 SAMs and 600 air defense guns; and the South has the offensive capability of 538 platforms against the North's 686 aircraft and 8,000 air defense guns. This simple comparison indicates that the North is not likely to have an effective air offensive capability but the North's sheer size has the potential to overwhelm the South's air defense capability.
Table 3.4) Air vs. AirDefense, 1991

Category North Korea South Korea
Fighter 376 132
Fighter/Ground Attack 310 208
Bomber 80 0
Attack Helicopter 50 98
Air Defense Gun 8,000 600
SurfacetoAir Missile ? 540

Source: The Military Balance 19911992 (London: Brassey's, 1991), pp. 167170.

The North's quantitative advantage, however, is largely offset by its qualitative disadvantage visavis the South's more modern aircraft manned by better-trained pilots. Of the North's 860 combat aircraft, 460 are MiG17s and MiG21s (and J7s, a Chinese version of the MiG21), Soviet fighters designed in the 1950s, while 260 are yet older vintages. Twenty-four MiG29s represent the only modern fighter aircraft in the North's inventory. And some studies show that those MiG29s do not match up favorably with the South's main fighter, F16s. Even if the MiG29 matched the F16 in its capabilities, as of 1990, the North had only 24 of them while the South had 36 in stock and 120 in the pipeline.
To analyze the contribution that air power might make to the ground tank battle without getting entangled in the intractable problem of sorting out the qualitativequantitative contradiction, I resort to a totally different methodology. For this analysis, I assume that the North has succeeded in making a breakthrough in the Chorwon sector, and that it now has 1,500 tanks to exploit the breakthrough. I also assume that the North has substituted fresh tanks for all those destroyed in and out of commission after the breakthrough battle. Having posited an idealized scenario, I now assess the possibility of preventing the exploitation force from arriving in Seoul, its tactical objective. For this analysis, I assume that the South can establish air superiority in its air space because of its qualitative edge combined with the advantages of fighting within its own air space.
The simulation results indicate catastrophic outcomes for the North's forces. Even if they make a breakthrough and send 1,500 tanks as an exploitation force, all of the tanks could be destroyed by airpower alone within two days, and before they reach Seoul. So, even in such a highly challenging and highly unlikely scenario, the South would have the capability to defend itself. For example, if Pyongyang sends 1,500 tanks and 2,500 APCs and does not stop its advance until all of its vehicles are destroyed, the South would need about 500 aircraft for close air missions. Even if some of its aircraft were disabled by enemy attack or mechanical failure, it could meet the need by raising the number of sorties to three per day.
South Korea has a qualitative advantage in air power, but if North Korea succeeds in catching planes on the ground with a surprise attack, its quantitative advantage might be a serious factor. With even fewer aircraft available after the initial blow, the South's air force would be hard-pressed to execute both an airtoair campaign and close air support. Since it is very unlikely that the North's aged aircraft could penetrate the South's sophisticated air defense system and catch its combat planes on the ground, I analyze instead the effect that North Korean missiles might have on the South's air capability when Pyongyang launches a surprise attack on the South's air assets. The results are hardly alarming for the South. Even if the North achieves a high degree of accuracy-- 50 meters of CEP, it needs to expend ten ScudB missiles to inflict 25 percent damage on a command center and 86 missiles to render one air base runway useless for operations. Given that ScudB CEPs are estimated at 0.15% to 3.3 % of the range, their CEP can easily be 100 meters, in which case the North needs 41 missiles and 101 missiles to destroy an air base command center and a runway respectively. In a war situation, the North would not be able to take all the preparatory steps, such as flying a balloon to measure the wind, and as a result its missiles' accuracy will be compromised even further. In other words, the North has to fire 40 to 100 missiles to disable ONE air facility while the South maintains more than 100 airfields, not to mention the extensive network of highways it can use to fly aircraft. Even if North Korea currently possesses more than 200 ScudB missiles, they pose little threat to the South's air capability.
North Korea has little amphibious capability to challenge the South's defenseno marine, just three amphibious light infantry brigadeswhereas South Korea has two marine divisions. Furthermore, to make things worse for the North Koreans, they face serious problems in communication, command, control, and intelligence, which would seriously constrain any ability to exploit breakthroughs. The German Army was able to identify weak spots in the defenses in and around the Ardennes Forest because it received accurate intelligence about the disposition of British and French forces before the Battle of France. Moreover, its ground and air units enjoyed better lines of communication among its frontline units and between these units and their headquarters. The combination of a German signal organization at the division level and individual radios for its tanks greatly contributed to its successful blitzkrieg. The German C3I system allowed it to concentrate its forces to gain local numerical superiority, outmaneuver British and French defenders, and exploit its breakthrough opportunities. The North's limited C3I capability, combined with the fact that its ground units rarely exercise beyond company levels, make a successful blitzkrieg by the North a remote possibility bordering on a fantasy.

The North's CounterMeasures and the South's CounterCounterMeasures
North Korea will undoubtedly resort to countermeasures to disable or degrade the South's defense. In the early hours of an attack, for example, the North would most likely start a series of heavy artillery attacks, saturating South Korean frontline fortifications and its second echelon forces with several kilotons of explosives in less than an hour. Given the North's numerical superiority in artillery, this could severely damage the fortifications and degrade the South's ability to defend itself. The South, however, has built several belts of heavily fortified and virtually impregnable underground bunkers where troops can take shelter and counterfire. The North's artillery, initially sheltered in prepared positions, would have to move forward to attack as the FEBA moves, exposing itself to the South's counterartillery fire. Even if the NKPA has an advantage in the sheer quantity of its firepower, the ROKA has the advantage of fighting from protective bunkers.
Pyongyang will most likely deploy, together with armored units, assault units composed of engineers, infantry and supporting units, which will assist advancing troops by removing obstacles in their approach and securing strong points. These assault units will probably be drawn from the special purpose forces. Advances in and emphases put on armored warfare notwithstanding, a second Korean War is very likely to involve large-scale fighting between infantrymen in the mountains. Attacking infantry forces could move down the center of the peninsula. The mountains would make the advance slow, but if one or two ridges could be surmounted so that some units reached one of the eastwest valleys, they could move west down the valley and enter the flat lands south of Seoul. This would seriously disrupt South Korea's defenses. This is the likely mission the Special Purpose Forces would assign to its light infantry brigades deployed in the forward corps sectors, but even with the high levels of skill and morale that the North's special forces may possess, such a maneuver would be extremely difficult to achieve. In the mountains, small defensive units can successfully hold positions, and thus the attacker's success would depend on avoiding such positions. The defender, on the other hand, must ensure that he can position his infantry forces in front of the attacker. Doing so would require good tactical mobility, a task made more complicated by the absence of collateral lines of communications running eastwest. Hills also complicate the defense by limiting the range of radar and making it harder to scramble interceptors against sudden air attack.
The North's Special Forces are estimated to range from 60,000 to over 100,000 persons, organized into 22 brigades and at least 7 independent battalions. Its onetime lift capability, however, is limited to 5,000 persons by sea and 2,000 3,000 persons by air. The North's primary transport aircraft for airborne Special Forces is the An2 Colt, a 1947-vintage single engine multipurpose airplane with a payload of one ton. It can escape detection by the South's air defense radar by flying below the mountaintops down the valleys, and can complicate the South's fighters' interception efforts. At the same time, however, it can easily be detected by ground observers, and its low altitude and slow speed make it highly vulnerable to antiaircraft gunfire from the ground. Furthermore, the ability of the amphibious/airborne light infantry brigades to conduct effective operations in the South's rear is severely limited by their lack of heavy weapons and their dependence on extraordinary means of logistics support. Limits on their insertion capabilities, complicated by the vulnerability of their transport platforms, constrain operational flexibility and determine the allocation of strategic, operational and tactical missions. All in all, North Korea's special operations forces seem no more than highly trained infantry forces, given the multiple problems in their lift capability. Most North Korean special operations forces infiltrate overland and are dedicated to operational and tactical missions, that is, reconnaissance and combat operations in concert with conventional operations in the forward corps.
The North's Special Forces will face off against the South's own Special Forces and infantry in the mountains. South Korea has 7 Special Forces brigades and 3 counterinfiltration brigades. In addition, each South Korean infantry division has one organic reconnaissance battalion and each corps has one Special Forces regiment of four battalions. Since the ROKA is comprised of 11 corps and 19 infantry divisions, South Korea has a total of approximately 26 regiments of what is equivalent to North Korea's special operations forces. Also the South has one aviation brigade that operates several types of attack and transport helicopters that could be strategically deployed to support combat operations of the infantry divisions: South Korea has about 200 McDonnell Douglas 500MD helicopters, at least 50 of which are equipped with TOW antitank missiles; it also has about 50 McDonnell Douglas AH1S attack helicopters and 144 McDonnell Douglas UH1B/H transport helicopters. For infantry, 106mm/90mm recoilless rifles are the basic antitank weapons while TOWs are organized into independent units separate from the infantry divisions' main organization and equipment.
It is not easy to foresee the outcome of a duel between these two Special Forces. If Dupuy's Quantified Judgment Method provides any indication, one gives a unit in a prepared defensive posture in difficult terrain a capability multiplied by a factor of 3.0. To launch a successful infantry battle, in other words, an attacker must be able to muster a force three times as effective as the defender, a task hard to achieve for the North which has only 1.5 times as many foot soldiers.
On the other hand, the attacker can offset the defender's advantage by a surprise attack that degrades the defender's mobility and increases his vulnerability. Since the importance of surprise for an attacker varies inversely with his advantage in forces or the risks he faces from the victim's retaliation, surprise is vital if opposing forces are evenly matched. Surprise can be a way to gain superiority. Dupuy concludes, after comparing surprise attacks with nonsurprise, that surprise can be a force multiplier of 2: the combat capability of the side


achieving surprise was on the average almost doubled. If the North achieves tactical surprise, the South's advantages will be seriously compromised or nullified. However, given that the ROKA has three lines of defense and each line employs defenseindepth, combined with the fact that the South's defense line has no open flanks, it would be difficult for the North to achieve tactical surprise except in some squad or platoon sectors of the very first defense line. If it is difficult for the North to breach defensive lines in small sectors, it would be nearly impossible for it to turn the breach into a tactical operational advantage because coordination of units at a larger scale will be hampered by its limited C3I capability.
The Korean War experience showed that once either side established a continuous line of defense anchored to either coast, the attacker could make little advance no matter how much attrition he was willing to endure. Rapid advances were made only when one side failed to maintain a continuous line of defense with a force density of approximately one division per 30 kilometers. Before August 1950, when the UN forces for the first time established around Pusan a continuous line of defense with allied units left and right and some reserves in the rear, there had seldom been a continuous line beyond a battalion or a regimental position. Both flanks had generally been wide open, and enemy troops moving through the hills could easily overrun a defensive position. Once the UN forces established a defensive line along the Pusan perimeter with an even force ratio, the North's advance was halted.
If infantry played a significant role in supporting the armored breakthrough in the initial stage of the war, infantry fighting became much more pronounced once both sides established, along what became the DMZ, a continuous line of defense with a close-to-the-current doctrinal level of forcetoforce and forcetospace ratios. After the Allied forces had enough strength to deploy one division for every 13 kilometers of front in 1951, the communists failed to rupture the defensive line in their January offensive or to capture Seoul in their April offensive despite the appalling 10to1 casualty ratio they inflicted. In the latter stages, as force densities increased, neither side could make significant advances, transforming the battle into a static war of attrition. In June 1953, for example, the Chinese launched a major offensive against South Korean forces in the rough mountainous terrain northeast of Kumhwa. Despite concentrated and committed efforts by the Chinese, they gained only 3 km along a 13 km front after suffering 6,600 casualties within nine days.
A future North Korean blitzkrieg attempt is highly likely to degenerate quickly into a war of attrition that resembles the latter stage battles of the Korean War. Because the North has a smaller economy and more limited reserves, this infantry fight will be disproportionately more costly to the North. And the North Korean military is unlikely to make advances even if it is willing to pay the high price of trying. Faced with this near certainty of the costly attrition war whose outcome is likely unfavorable to the North, Pyongyang will be dissuaded from launching an attack in the first place. In other words, the South Korean military has enough capability to stop a North Korean blitzkrieg attempt, to turn it into an attrition war that is painful to Pyongyang, and thus to deter a North Korean attack. The South has a conventional deterrence capability.

Conclusion
Needless to say, one must be circumspect when considering the results from formal analyses. First, there is the problem of assessing the incentive to start a war and of gauging the ability to realize the potential capability in actual combat. Betts, for example, finds little historical evidence supporting the view that there is a high correlation between potential capability for conventional defense, and deterrence. Historically, many states have failed to deter attack even when their estimated capability to defend according to technical analysis of the prewar balance of forces was extremely high because the incentive to start a war was too high and/or the capability was not fully realized in the war. His counsel must be taken seriously but is less applicable, as he acknowledges, to Korea because many of his concerns stem from his worries about the political cohesion and will of the NATO forces, problems that South Korea can afford to worry less about.
Second, a war is an interaction between two groups of people, and predicting the outcome of such an interaction requires more than knowledge of military power. To arrive at an adequate understanding of the interaction, knowledge of the goals and general patterns of behavior of ourselves and the enemy must be coupled with an analysis of military hardware and personnel, as Rosen argues. My analysis evidently lacks this cultural/political dimension, but indirectly circumvents the problem by building in multiple layers of analytical conservatism. North Korea is given the advantages of a totalitarian society by assuming it can mobilize all of its war potential and execute its operations beyond historical standards; South Korea is given the disadvantages of a freeforall democratic society by assuming that it will be completely caught by surprise and will fight the concentrated enemy power with spreadout forces. This suffices for my purpose of assessing the South's ability to stop the North's attack.
Third, an analysis on paper cannot predict the outcome of a real war as it does not allow for the inevitable friction of war that Clausewitz appreciated so well. I agree with many critics of war-modeling that the fog, friction, and nonlinearity of war all combine to complicate, if not make impossible, the job of modeling. Detailed accounts of combat operations during the Korean War, as well as other wars, illustrate the confusion, shock and other factors that are extremely difficult to quantify, model, or predict. Predicting the outcome of a war is further complicated by idiosyncrasies and contingencies that abound in any war, factors that are by nature unpredictable.
The purpose of my analysis is not to produce a point prediction about the outcome of a potential conflict on the Korean peninsula, but to answer one question: can South Korea deter or defeat a North Korean blitzkrieg? Precisely because of the problems associated with modeling, I brought a number of independent measures to bear on the situation. If their results pointed in conflicting directions, very little confidence would obtain in the overall assessment of the balance; if they all pointed in the same direction, however, some confidence may be warranted.
All the above measures of conventional forces balance point in one direction without exception: South Korea has the capability to halt North Korea's blitzkrieg. These results are all the more remarkable because of the extreme conservatism built into all my analyses. The North Koreans were consistently given a very high level of capability, and were allowed to mobilize all their military might without detection and to concentrate their forces beyond the currently known doctrines and theoretical maximums. On the other hand, the South was always given the worst possible scores in its force effectiveness and little intelligence capability, and was not even allowed to counter-concentrate. Despite all these conservative biases, the South comes out strong enough to block a blitzkrieg attempt by the North. Furthermore, these results have been arrived at without accounting for American forces that are either currently deployed in South Korea or going to be sent there in a crisis.
The Korean War serves as a constant reminder of the destruction that a North Korean blitzkrieg can wreak on the South. History can be repeated, and it is imperative to take cautionary measures to prevent such disastrous history from repeating itself. To do that, appropriate lessons must be drawn from past experiences. The North Koreans were able to effect a major breakthrough because they had a number of advantages: a superior forcetoforce balance theaterwide, a better than 2 to 1 advantage in the breakthrough sector, air superiority (even supremacy), and the design and execution of an operational plan that maximized their advantages. On the other hand, the South had forces illprepared to fight such a mighty adversary: for example, it had no effective antiarmor weapons. The South's military did not have enough strength to maintain an adequate level of force density, making it extremely easy for the North Koreans to bypass strong blocking positions, turn the defense's flank or envelop the defenders. In the crucial first days of the war, moreover, the South's military leadership made what Appleman calls a really fatal error of planning to counterattack the North with units that could not be deployed at the location of the planned counterattack on time!
The differences between 1950 and 1990 are quite stark. South Korea now has enough strength to allocate one division per ten kilometers of front, which literally leaves no room to make a tactical error such as General Chae made in 1950. Theaterwide and sectoral force ratios have improved, leaving no sector under a 2 to 1 force ratio even in the worst scenario. South Korean soldiers are better equipped and better trained, and many of their officers and noncommissioned officers have had combat experience in Vietnam whereas the North scores less favorably in manpower terms, a reversal of the 1950 situation. The South enjoys air superiority; its antiarmor capability outnumbers the North's armor capability. South Korea has over the years built layers of impregnable fortifications for its forces and killing zones for an attack from the North. Not surprisingly, all formal analyses of the military balance confirm‎ one conclusion: the South has military power adequate to stop a North Korean blitzkrieg. Perhaps, the South's military has drawn the appropriate lessons from history and has turned them into appropriate force postures. Then my analysis merely confirm‎s its wisdom.
My analysis has one obvious policy implication for U.S. defense planning. It is not too imprudent to start thinking about withdrawing American ground forces and air wings from South Korea. An immediate withdrawal would not affect in pure military terms ROKA's ability to stop an NKPA offensive; but psychologically and politically, it would create serious and wide-ranging repercussions, as Nixon's and Carter's withdrawal plans did. In order to minimize the psychological and political impacts, the pullout needs to be embedded in a larger framework of peacebuilding in the Korean peninsula.
The U.S.R.O.K. alliance was formed in the 1950s to counterbalance the power superiority that North Korea seemed to enjoy over South Korea. U.S. participation was justified on the grounds that it was needed to restore the power imbalance caused by Pyongyang's power edge that had been amplified by the alliances North Korea had with the Soviet Union and China. In the 1990s, when North Korea's economy continued to decline and North Korea lost its traditional allies, there were many indications that the North's power advantage had been neutralized or replaced by the South's superiority. And yet, the U.S.R.O.K. alliance lived on despite such indications: i.e. it was persisting in the 1990s. It represents a rather clear case of alliance persistence as there were few noticeable changes in the political actors' perceptions of the danger, and few observable efforts, not just by the governments but also by oppositional social movement groups, to bring the alliance in line with the power change.
One can make the case that NATO was persisting in the 1990s since NATO also enjoyed a power advantage over its adversary. But in NATO's case, it is clear that there were many who perceived the power redistribution; while in the USKorea case, those who advocated for the maintenance of the alliance won the debate on its future early on, setting the stage for its expansion. A similar case can be made about the U.S.Japan alliance although it emerged under quite different circumstances and has served different purposes.
As I showed in the previous chapter, Waltz and Krasner provide a good starting point to build a theory of alliance persistence although both leave some of the key questions unanswered. Waltz's powerbalance theory remains indeterminate as to the interval from the time of power imbalance to the time of power balance, only predicting that willy nilly, balances will form over time. Krasner explicitly opens up the theoretical possibility of institutional lags, but he leaves it underspecified and undeveloped. To complete the intellectual project they began and left unfinished, we need to investigate the nature and causes of the institutional lag. To do this we need to recognize that an alliance, once it is formed, sets off a series of processes that affect the ways in which the statesociety is constituted and the ways in which the statesociety in turn affects the process of alliance transformation. In an effort to explain the phenomenon of the alliance persistence that I have brought into relief in this chapter, I turn to these processes in the following chapters.

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와~~~ 양이 꽤 많군요. 얼추 20여쪽. 기한 넘길 거 같습니다

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앗 그렇군요.. 미쳐 양을제가 체크하지 못했습니다. 원래는 이럴경우에는 쪼개올리게끔 챙겨서 말씀드리는데.. 이런 실수를...^^: 그럼.. 이 양만은 거물은 앵커님이 해주시는 걸루다.. 제 맘대로.. 추측해서 넘깁니다.. 수고해주세엽...^^*