It turns out that as early as August 25, 2012 Kim approved this “plan” at a meeting of the military leadership, which was attended by all the generals with a rank of corps commanders or higher. Kim Jong-un himself has since inspected military units and checked the extent to which the army is carrying out its task. It has been suggested that preparations for war had been scheduled to be completed by the end of 2013, but then the deadline was postponed for a year. Ostensibly, in 2015 the DPRK will start the “great unifying war”.
The essence of the “plan” is to quickly defeat South Korean forces, including through the use of nuclear weapons, and to take the whole country in seven days. It is supposed to happen so quickly that the United States will not have time to land its units. In the event of failure, Pyongyang anticipates terminating the war in 15 days.
What can we say about this “shocking news”? Firstly, the development of such plans is a routine exercise for the military of any country. In the Russian General Staff, there may be a plan for war with Australia, but this does not indicate Russian imperial plans to capture the fifth continent. If we accept the existence of such plans as proof of aggressive intentions, then what do we make of the set of well-known operational plans of the US-South Korean side, aimed at both the direct military invasion of the North (operational plan 5027) and regime change as a result of a series of destabilizing activities (plan 5029). The existence of these plans is no secret, just as it is no secret that elements of these plans have been played out in military exercises in recent years. Does this mean that North Korea should also loudly draw attention to the aggressive plans of Seoul and Washington?
Secondly, in the form in which it is described, this plan is a good element for the comics or an action-thriller associated with reality only via the vivid imagination of the author. If we analyse it in terms of real preparation for war, we see that the intimidation of an Everyman has nothing to do with the development of a real campaign.
Let’s assume that Kim Jong-un and his entourage are neither suicidal masochists nor the main villains from an Indian film, which in the beginning kill the entire family of the protagonist so that at the end of the film he can come and exact revenge. Starting a war must proceed from a rational possibility to win it. North Korea does not have such a possibility.
The army of the DPRK, as of October 2014, has about 1.2 million troops. The number of soldiers in the Army of South Korea is about 630 thousand, with very different technical equipment. Even without the 28,500 US troops deployed in the south of the Korean Peninsula with a significant number of heavy weapons, the North is inferior to the South in the number of strike aircraft, attack helicopters, armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, surface warships, and anti-aircraft missile systems. The North has superiority in the number of personnel and the number of main battle tanks and artillery systems, but even in these areas its superiority is not even twofold. If we use the American TASCFORM calculation methodology, the entire North Korean Air Force will be equivalent to two squadrons of F-16s, and the total fire-power of its ground forces is equivalent to five modern “heavy divisions”.
Add to this the logistical problems. First of all, this is the technological backwardness of the KPA, on which a crisis is superimposed by the shortage of fuel and spare parts. The DPRK has fuel for 30 days, food for 60 days of war . Then, in this situation, the United States will be able to redeploy troops in South Korea much faster than the seven days indicated in the plan, while at the same time starting a campaign with a long-range missile strikes against command and control infrastructure.
We also consider the question of diplomatic cover. Russia and China will certainly protect North Korea somehow if it is under attack, but if Pyongyang itself unilaterally initiates the conflict, neither Moscow nor Beijing will support it – war in the region goes against their interests.
It is also not entirely clear how North Korea intends to end the war in case of failure. After an unprovoked large-scale invasion, the pre-war status quo will not be possible – only the surrender of the regime which will be deprived of support.
Let’s now return to the balance of forces, all the more so as this is a good way to give the audience an idea of the combat capabilities of the army of North Korea.
The only relatively modern combat aircraft in the DPRK Air Force are the MiG-29B/UBs delivered in 1988-1992. Of relative value may be the 34 Su-25s. For comparison: the smaller ROK Air Force currently has more than 220 modern American fourth-generation fighters – F-15Ks (60), F-16Cs (118), and F-16Ds (48), as well as modern weapons for aerial combat. The South Korean media has spread the message that North Korea is attempting to buy ultramodern Su-35 fighters from Russia, but this model is not available for export. The Gagarin Aircraft Plant has a full load of orders from the Russian Air Force, and is to deliver 48 fighters this year (at the end of last year it manufactured and delivered only 34)5.
The basis of the North Korean air defence system comprise S-75, S-125, and S-200 AAMSs which are unable to resist fourth generation Western combat aircraft. The new KN-06 anti-aircraft missile systems demonstrated at the parade in Pyongyang in 2010 are extremely difficult both to put into production and to operate. All this suggests that in case of a conflict, the enemies of the DPRK would quickly avail themselves of total air supremacy.
North Korean small submarines with a displacement of 130 tons could theoretically pose a threat to the ROK and US navies which are conducting regular exercises to work out issues of combating them (see . At the same time, these North Korean submarines possess, apparently, limited range and autonomy, as follows from the results of investigating the small Yugo submarine captured by South Koreans in 1998.
North Korea has 8,500 artillery pieces with calibre of at least 122 mm and 5100 multiple rocket launchers. Self-propelled chassis and a large number of reserve positions and underground shelters may make the destruction of these systems from the air difficult, but shooting at the maximum range, without adjustment, will be much less effective, not to mention the fact that a significant portion of these pieces of artillery cannot cover the entirety of Seoul, but only its northern suburbs. However, strikes against the enemy population and/or deliberate attacks against civilian targets can be actively used in the information war, and no one will protect the side that violates the rules of war.
The North surpasses the South in the number of “surface-to-surface” missiles, but the military importance of these missiles which use outdated guidance systems and non-nuclear warheads is void according to the experience of past conflicts. Rather, it is a weapon of intimidation, suitable only for shooting large targets, such as cities. But we considered the problem of using such weapons in contemporary conflicts in the paragraph above.
The number of special forces of the DPRK is close to 200 thousand. However, we must understand that we are talking about the relatively highly trained light infantry which is now the main fighting force of the North Korean ground forces. The training and weapons complex of the special forces is usually “sharpened” for a certain type of combat mission. When faced with a situation that regular infantry are fully capable of handling (for example – holding a defensive line against an enemy attack supported by tanks and aircraft), “special forces” often bear unreasonably high losses. Thus, special forces are able to seize territory, but not to hold it.
Now, about nuclear weapons. Let us even assume that (although Pentagon officials see no specific evidence) North Korea has sufficient technical capabilities to be able to reduce the size of a nuclear warhead in order to install it on a ballistic missile potentially capable of reaching the continental United States, or that similar missiles could be placed on a submarine. However, the use of nuclear weapons will not solve any strategic objective – but certainly provoke a reaction from the whole world and a similar response from opponents who have substantially greater nuclear capabilities.
Statements by the South Korean military and journalists portrayed the threat from the North as very picturesque, as extending beyond special forces, the nuclear weapons program, or weapons aimed at Seoul. North Korea is even credited with the creation of an “ion gun” that incapacitates military equipment, as well as high-speed hovercraft, the so-called “wavepiercers”. However, for some reason both of these technologies are still under development even in the US, but the South’s scouts believe that Kim Jong-un’s scientists are secretly ahead of everyone, and perhaps the same source will soon report that the KPA has acquired an entire flying tea service (more than just a flying saucer) and combat tripod.
What, then, is behind such disclosed plans which are more like the plot of the computer game “Homefront”, where the DPRK captures the ROK just at this time? In this context it is more worthwhile to draw attention to the statements of a number of conservative politicians of the ROK that 2015 will be the year of Korean unification. Such statements are also heard in the US, and so it is unclear whether the South Korean military intelligence just decided to earn itself more money under the pretext of new secrets “about the insidious plans of the North”, or whether we are dealing with a preparation of public opinion designed to justify a pre-emptive strike against such an insidious enemy. After all, one does not wave one’s fists after a fight, and the Iraq war also began not under the slogans of bringing democracy, but because “everyone knew” that, despite his claims of disarmament, Saddam Hussein was about to deal a blow to the civilized world with his never-found weapons of mass destruction.
Konstantin Asmolov, candidate of historical sciences, senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
