North Korea’s Military Strategy Part 2/2
carlisle-www.army.mil
© 2003 Homer T. Hodge
Parameters, Spring 2003, pp. 68-81.
Evolution of the Korean People’s Army
KPA military doctrine — or, to use the North Korean (and Russian) term, military art — has followed the former Soviet (and current Russian) model very closely throughout its evolution.35 The KPA, although claiming lineage to the anti-Japanese guerrilla force of pre-World War II days, was established on 8 February 1948, under Soviet military tutelage, as the primary instrument for carrying out Pyongyang’s military strategy of reunifying the peninsula. Although efforts to liberate the southern half of Korea through armed insurgency and covert action began earlier, planning, organization, and training for military reunification was the primary mission of the KPA from 1949 on. Veterans of the 1930s anti-Japanese guerrilla operations and Koreans who had served with Chinese Communist military formations against both the Japanese and later the Chinese Nationalists constituted the core cadre of the new KPA; however, the organization, training, doctrine, and military art closely mirrored the Soviet military thinking and practice of the period. The Soviets provided weapons and equipment as well as training tothe new force. Key KPA officers, including Kim Il Sung, had received training and military experience in the Soviet Union during World War II. Additionally, a cadre of Soviet army advisors assisted in training and in KPA tactical and operational-level planning.36
On 25 June 1950, the KPA launched a military campaign to reunify Korea by force. However, despite impressive initial successes, the intervention of United Nations (UN) forces, led by the United States, reversed the situation. By October, UN forces had crossed the 38th parallel dividing the two countries and were rapidly overrunning North Korea as they pursued the remnants of a defeated and fleeing KPA. The intervention of 260,000 Chinese forces in November halted and turned back the UN advance. By early summer of 1951, the front line had generally stabilized across the middle of the peninsula. Although two years of often bloody fighting continued while the two sides negotiated, a military armistice was concluded on 27 July 1953, separating the two military forces through the establishment of the DMZ roughly following the line of contact between the two opposing forces at the time.
After conclusion of the armistice, the KPA began rebuilding its military capabilities, which had seriously weakened during the war. Economic reconstruction was the most pressing task of the regime, and the military buildup initially took a lower priority; however, the KPA underwent an intensive program to improve professionalism among its officers, implement a higher training standard, and attain and maintain greater battlefield capability. By mid-1958, the KPA had reached a level of combat readiness that permitted the complete withdrawal of all Chinese forces remaining in North Korea after the cessation of the war. By 1960, KPA ground forces consisted of approximately 430,000 personnel in 18 infantry divisions and five brigades.37
North Korea’s national strategy for reunification underwent significant expansion and refinement beginning in 1960. Having failed to reunify the peninsula by purely military action, Kim Il Sung recognized the need to combine political and diplomatic efforts with an offensive military strategy. He articulated this approach in his “Three Fronts” strategy, which called for revolutions within North Korea, South Korea, and internationally.38 In December 1962, the Fifth Plenum of the Korean Workers Party Central Committee adopted a three-phase plan to employ both conventional and unconventional means to affect reunification: (1) create a military-industrial base in North Korea, (2) neutralize the United States by subverting and destroying the US-South Korea alliance, and (3) liberate South Korea through employment of insurgency and conventional force.39 To implement the first phase, the leaders established four basic policies: arming the entire population to prepare for protracted warfare, increasing the sophistication of military training, converting the entire country to a “fortress,” and modernizing the armed forces. The second phase, which began in October 1966, consisted of small-scale attacks against US and South Korean forces deployed along the DMZ to break US national will. The third phase, based on Mao’s People’s War and the experience of the Vietnamese communist insurgency, began in early 1968 and involved infiltration of SOF into South Korea to organize a socialist revolution among the populace. According to the plan, success in the third phase would set the stage for a conventional military offensive to reunify Korea under Pyongyang’s leadership.40
Despite a period of increased tension, violent clashes, and much bloodshed during 1966-1969, the North Korean military strategy ultimately failed to achieve its goals of breaking the US-South Korean alliance or creating an armed revolution in South Korea. However, Pyongyang’s strategic objective of reunification remained unchanged, and by the 1970s North Korean leaders modified their military strategy to adopt a more conventional approach. This change was probably driven not only by the failure of its 1960s policy, but also by the belief that the United States was withdrawing its ground forces from Asia. This belief was based on the announcement of the Nixon Doctrine in 1969, which called for a draw-down of US forces in Asia, the withdrawal of the US 7th Infantry Division from South Korea in 1971, and, later, the fall of South Vietnam and President Carter’s plan to withdraw US ground forces from South Korea.
In the early 1970s, following the lead of Soviet military leaders and theorists who were rediscovering and beginning to apply the 1920s-1930s thinking of Soviet military theorists Svechin, Tukhachevskii, Triandafillov, and others on operational art and “deep operations,” the Soviet-trained officers of the KPA were developing their version, termed “Two Front War.” As they envisioned it, a very large conventional force, greatly reinforced with artillery, armor, and mechanized forces, employing surprise, speed, and shock, would break through the DMZ, envelop and destroy South Korean forward forces, and rapidly overrun the entire peninsula. This operation would be supported by a second front composed of SOF infiltrated deep into the South Korean strategic rear to destroy, neutralize, or disrupt South Korean and US air operations; command, control, and communications; and lines of communications.41 Throughout the 1970s, in the first of a two-phased force expansion plan, North Korea emphasized the commitment of scarce resources, development of industry, and military expansion and reorganization necessary to create such a force.42
During the 1970s, senior KPA officers writing in official journals echoed Soviet military thinking as they characterized the nature of modern warfare as three dimensional, with no distinction between front and rear, highly mobile, and increasingly dependent upon mechanization, task organization, and improved engineer capabilities.43 These articles presaged dramatic increases in mechanized and truck-mobile infantry and self-propelled artillery battalions and ultimately a major expansion, reorganization, and redeployment forward of KPA ground forces.
Beginning in the early 1980s, North Korea began execution of phase two of its force expansion plan by reorganizing its ground forces to form four mechanized corps of five mechanized infantry brigades, an armor corps, and an artillery corps. Most of the mechanized brigades were created from motorized infantry divisions in the forward corps. Two of the four mechanized corps, the armor corps, and the artillery corps were deployed in the forward area along avenues southward just behind the infantry corps located along the northern boundary of the DMZ. By the mid-1980s, the KPA had activated a second artillery corps comprising long-range artillery assets. Additionally, it had reconstituted those forward divisions from which the mechanized forces had been formed.44 The ground forces had increased from 720,000 in 1980 to 950,000 by 1994. Forward-deployed forces (those within 100km, or about 60 miles, of the DMZ) had increased from 40 percent to 70 percent of total troop strength.45
The end of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union had a traumatic impact on Pyongyang. North Korea suddenly found itself not only without significant ideological allies but also without essential economic and military assistance. In response to this profound predicament, beginning in 1990 North Korea embarked on a comprehensive five-year program to prepare the nation for war without outside assistance.46 This war preparation campaign was much broader and more rigorous than any previous effort and had the close attention of Kim Il Sung until his death in 1994. An effort to further improve the capabilities of the KPA was an important element of this campaign. This improvement included reorganization, redeployment, and reinforcement, as well as quantitative and qualitative increases in training at all echelons. Despite serious resource shortfalls and a declining economy, these efforts continue to the present.
Soviet military art has probably continued to be the dominant influence on KPA strategy, operational art, and tactics. In 1978, Kim Il Sung directed that “Military Foundation Day” be changed from 8 February to 25 April—the nominal day of establishment of his anti-Japanese guerrilla army in 1932—to glorify the supposed indigenous Korean origins of the KPA and obscure its Soviet origin. However, the KPA almost certainly remains a Soviet clone, despite North Korean media statements to the contrary. Since at least late 1998, and possibly earlier, the KPA has been in the process of increasing and concentrating tactical and operational combat power well forward.47 This approach closely mirrors Soviet theoretic and practical reaction to threats to their operational and strategic depth posed by the US Army’s AirLand Battle doctrine and NATO Follow-On-Forces Attack strategy of the 1980s.48 Lessons learned from studying the 1991 Gulf War, US operations in Kosovo, and current operations in Afghanistan have probably inspired further KPA efforts in this direction.49
Initiation of a campaign to reunify Korea by force is a political decision that may never be made. However, the KPA has had decades to develop a campaign plan with a small number of military objectives that is probably extensively scripted and war-gamed and would require limited flexibility and modification. KPA forces are deployed optimally to launch an attack. The absolute need for surprise dictates that an attack must be made when tensions on the peninsula are low and preferably when the United States is engaged elsewhere—e.g., in Iraq—when US forces in Northeast Asia are deployed out-of-area and when US stockpiles of high-technology munitions are low. Although the possibility of a North Korean victory seems counterintuitive, at least to outside observers, Pyongyang’s continued focus on maintaining and improving its offensive military capability at great cost indicates that the leadership believes it is still possible.
Conclusion
The ideological underpinnings and strategic culture of North Korea’s regime emphasize the dominance of militarism epitomized by a strong army. Reunification of the peninsula on North Korean terms remains the foremost strategic goal of the regime. North Korea’s severe and probably irreversible economic decline over the past decade places the regime’s survival in question. Therefore, North Korean leaders must see reunification on their terms not only as their historic purpose but also as essential to long-term survival. Continued investment in a powerful military organized and deployed to execute an offensive military strategy, despite its drain on a moribund economy, strongly suggests that North Korean leaders perceive its military as probably the only remaining instrument for realization of that goal. At the same time, they must realize that time is not on their side.
In his book, The Origins of Major War, Dale Copeland sets forth a strong argument that a state facing irreversible economic decline but still possessing military power vis-à-vis a competing state may resort to preventive war, especially if it perceives its own decline as deep and inevitable.50 One might counter by arguing that Pyongyang must know that it lacks any military superiority over the United States, which guarantees the defense of South Korea through the security treaty. This is no doubt true, as evidenced by the effective deterrence of a US military presence in South Korea for the past five decades. However, it is not so certain that Kim Jong Il judges South Korean military forces alone as superior to the KPA. North Korea’s continued insistence that the question of reunification can be settled only among Koreans, and that the withdrawal of all foreign forces is essential to that process,51 suggests that Pyongyang would prefer to deal militarily with the South Korean army alone.
North Korea’s military strategy remains an offensive strategy designed to achieve reunification by force. While the KPA has deployed forces to protect its coasts, airfields, and especially the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, the overall forward deployment of forces and, particularly, forward deployment of large numbers of long-range artillery underscore the offensive nature of its strategy.
Renunciation of reunification as its premier goal, shifting to a defensive military strategy, or dismantling of the military force to achieve it would gravely undermine the raison d’etre of the regime. North Korean leaders see the demise of the Soviet Union as primarily the result of Gorbachev’s “New Thinking,” which included the shift of the Soviet Union’s military strategy to “defensive defense.” Therefore, regime survival depends on staying the course. Simply stated, Pyongyang cannot abandon its offensive military strategy.
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NOTES
1. Peter J. Katzenstein, “Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security,” in The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1996), p. 6. The author describes culture “as a broad label that denotes collective models of nation-state authority or identity carried by custom or law. Culture refers to both a set of evaluative standards (such as norms and values) and a set of cognitive standards (such as rules and models) that define what social actors exist in a system, how they operate, and how they relate to one another.”
2. Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (Pyongyang: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1998), p. 2. The current North Korean constitution was adopted in 1972; it was revised in 1992 and again in 1998. The paramount importance of reunification is a central theme in this constitution as well as the first North Korean constitution adopted at the founding of the regime in 1948. The preamble to the charter of the [North] Korean Workers’ Party declares that “the present task of the Party is to ensure the complete victory of socialism in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the accomplishment of the revolutionary goals of national liberation and the people’s democracy in the entire area of the country.”
3. National Intelligence Council Conference Report, North Korea’s Engagement—Perspectives, Outlook, and Implications, 23 February 2001.
4. Victor D. Cha, “North Korea’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: Badges, Swords, or Shields?” Political Science Quarterly, 117 (No. 2, 2002), 215.
5. This has been a continuous theme of North Korean media since the mid-1950s. For a recent example, see Kim Chong-sun, “Military-First is Road to Victory of Anti-Imperialist, Independent Cause,” Nodong Sinmun (Labor Newspaper), 19 June 2002, p. 6.
6. Prominent adherents of this view are Bruce Cumings and Selig S. Harrison. For example, see Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun (New York: Norton, 1997), p. 461; Cumings, Parallax Visions: Making Sense of American-East Asian Relations at the End of the Century (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1999), pp. 132-33; Harrison, “The Missiles of North Korea, World Policy Journal, 17 (Fall 2000), 13-24.
7. Kim Jong Il is the current head of state and national leader of North Korea. He is the son of and successor to Kim Il Sung, the founder of the regime, who died in July 1994.
8. North Korea invests 25 to 33 percent of GNP annually in its military. General Thomas A. Schwartz, Commander, UNC/CFC/USFK, testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 7 March 2000, 27 March 2001, and 5 March 2002.
9. Peter Slevin and Karen DeYoung, “N. Korea Reveals Nuclear Program,” The Washington Post, 17 October 2002, p. A1.
10. Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic, p. 2. See also the “Study Material” for North Korean military personnel entitled “On Eliminating Illusions about the Enemy and Sharpening the Bayonets of Class” published by the Publication House of the Korean People’s Army and reprinted in Wolgan Choson (Monthly Korea), 1 March 2002, pp. 72-81, hereinafter “Study Material.”
11. The high-ranking North Korean defector Hwang Jang Yop, described as the chief political ideologue and principle regime authority of Juche, reportedly told Selig Harrison, in an interview in Pyongyang prior to Hwang’s defection, that a communist revolution in South Korea was “completely out of the question.” Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1998), p. 401.
12. “Study Material.” In this, Kim Jong Il is quoted as stating, “My view of reunification is armed reunification in nature.” This point is further explained: “The history of the past half a century demonstrates that as long as US imperialists and southern Korean puppets remain in our country, the fatherland’s reunification is absolutely impossible. For the fatherland’s reunification, there exists only one method: force of arms.”
13. Nicholas Eberstadt, The End of North Korea (Washington: AEI Press, 1999), ch. 2, pp. 25-44. Recent statements in the North Korean media have prompted some to speculate that Pyongyang may be initiating steps to deal with chronic shortages; however, it is premature to conclude that North Korea is moving toward adoption of a market-oriented economy. See “North Korea Ending Rationing, Diplomats Report,” The New York Times, 20 July 2002; “Stitch by Stitch to a Different World,” Economist, 27 July - 2 August 2002.
14. Juche, also transliterated as Chuche, is Kim Il Sung’s application of Marxism-Leninism to North Korean culture and serves as a fundamental tenet of the national ideology. “Based on autonomy and self-reliance, chuch’e has been popularized since 1955 as an official guideline for independence in politics, economics, national defense and foreign policy.” Mattes Savada, ed., North Korea: A Country Study (Washington: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1994), p. 324.
15. Stephen Bradner, “North Korea’s Strategy,” in Planning for a Peaceful Korea, ed. Henry D. Sokolski (Carlisle, Pa.: US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, February 2001), p. 48.
16. Ibid. Bradner’s “North Korea’s Strategy,” provides the most enlightening and comprehensive explanation of North Korea’s national strategy of which I am aware.
17. South Korea, despite setbacks experienced during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-99, has continued to achieve an incredible record of growth. North Korea, by contrast, faces desperate economic conditions with little hope of relief or growth under the Kim regime. See data in CIA, The World Factbook, cia.gov. Cha, “North Korea’s Weapons of Mass Destruction,” describes an almost 20-fold gap in the GDPs of the two economies, p. 215.
18. Donald S. MacDonald, “The Role of the Major Powers in the Reunification of Korea,” The Washington Quarterly, 15 (Summer 1992), 135-53.
19. Adrian Buzo, The Guerrilla Dynasty: Politics and Leadership in North Korea (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), p. 1.
20. Ibid., p. 239.
21. Bradner, p. 24.
22. Buzo, p. 27.
23. Although the term, “military-first politics” was first pronounced officially in 1998, it is described as “not the product of recent days. The overall political history of our socialism . . . can be called the history of military-first leadership.” “In order to culminate the socialist cause in the long-term confrontation with imperialism, we must naturally give importance to the military. The military-first political style . . . forges ahead with the overall socialist cause by putting forward the military as the pillar for revolution.” Nodong Sinmun (Labor Newspaper) and Kulloja (Worker) joint special article, “The Military-First Politics of our Party is Invincible,” June 1999. Nodong Sinmun and Kulloja are both official publications of the North Korean government and, as such, present the regime’s interpretation of events and direction of thought for the nation.
24. Schwartz testimony.
25. US Department of Defense, Country Handbook: North Korea (Washington: DOD, August 2000).
26. Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., North Korean Special Forces, Second Edition (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1998), p. 1.
27. DOD, Country Handbook: North Korea.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. The US X Corps executed amphibious operations at Inchon on 15 September 1950 and at Wonsan on 25 October 1950.
31. Information derived from an unclassified briefing, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence J2, US Forces Korea, as cited in Bradner, pp. 34-35.
32. FEBAs are concentric, fortified defensive belts situated across the peninsula as part of the defense of the ROK. Bradner, p. 20.
33. Ibid., p. 35.
34. A constant theme in North Korean military writings is the requirement to take the offensive, even in the defense. A typical example is found in a 15 June 1999 Nodong Sinmun article by Ch’e Song-kuk, “Strong Self-Reliant Defense Capability is an Essential Guarantee for the Safeguard of Sovereignty”:
Defense for the sake of defense is a passive way of military action. With that sort of response, it is absolutely impossible to bring on a favorable turn in a war situation. If we should cling to it, we are bound to suffer tremendous damage and eventually be defeated. Only when we respond to a preemptive attack with a more powerful counterattack, we can deal the enemy a devastating blow, reverse the situation and win victory. Taking the initiative in military action by combining firm defenses with powerful offensives is the way of combat to throw the aggressors into confusion, force them on the defensive, and win final victory.
35. KPA organization, deployment, and operational and tactical doctrine have historically reflected, and continue to reflect, a strong Soviet influence. See DOD, Country Handbook: North Korea. Many senior KPA officers have been trained in Soviet military schools, and Soviet military thinking has been the dominant influence in KPA military school curriculums and doctrinal writings.
36. Roy E. Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (June-November 1950), United States Army in the Korean War series (Washington: GPO, 1986), ch. II.
37. Kiwon Chung, “The North Korean People’s Army and the Party,” in North Korea Today, ed. Robert A. Scalapino (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963), pp. 105-24.
38. Buzo, p. 60.
39. Ibid., pp. 68-69.
40. Ibid., p. 69. Bermudez and Daniel P. Bolger, Scenes from an Unfinished War: Low Intensity Conflict in Korea, 1966-1969, Leavenworth Papers Number 19 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1991) provide excellent, detailed overviews of this period.
41. Young Choi, “The North Korean Military Buildup and its Impact on North Korean Military Strategy in the 1980s,” Asian Survey, 25 (March 1985), 341-42; David Reese, “North Korea: Undermining the Truce,” Conflict Studies, No. 69 (March 1976), pp. 2-3; Richard D. Stillwell, “Korea: The Implications of Withdrawal,” Asian Affairs (September-October 1977), pp. 279-89; Joe Wood, “Persuading a President: Jimmy Carter and American Troops in Korea,” Studies in Intelligence, 40 (No. 4, 1996), 98-100.
42. Choi, p. 342.
43. A typical example is Kim Chol-man, “The Characteristics of Modern Warfare and the Factors of Victory,” Kulloja (Workers), August 1976, pp. 34-40.
44. Information in this paragraph is taken from Defense Intelligence Agency, North Korea: The Foundations of Military Strength (Washington: DIA, 1991).
45. Bradner, p. 34.
46. Defense Intelligence Agency, North Korea: The Foundations of Military Strength, Update 1995 (rev. ed.; Washington: DIA, March 1996), p. 13.
47. Schwartz testimony.
48. AirLand Battle and Follow-On-Forces Attack were strategies that emphasized applying long-range weapons and precision-guided munitions to attack an enemy’s forward forces while striking and destroying reinforcing second- and third-echelon forces before they could reach the battlefield.
49. Schwartz testimony.
50. Dale C. Copeland, The Origins of Major War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 2000), p. 20, writes:
A state . . . that is superior in military power but inferior in economic and potential power is more likely to believe that, once its military power begins to wane, further decline will be inevitable and deep. This is especially so if the trends of relative economic and potential power are downward as well. The state will believe that there is little it can do through arms racing to halt its declining military power: it would simply be spending a greater percentage of an already declining economic base in the attempt to keep up with a rising state that has the resources to outspend it militarily. Moreover, economic restructuring is unlikely to help, since the potential power that is the foundation of economic power is also inferior and declining. Under these circumstances, a dominant military power is likely to be pessimistic about the future and more inclined to initiate major war as a “now-or-never” attempt to shore up its waning security.
51. Although Republic of Korea President Kim Dae-jung has said that, during private meetings in Pyongyang during the June 2000 ROK-North Korean Summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il agreed that the continued presence of US military forces in Korea was needed for regional stability (see, for example, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, 3 March 2002, translation of interview with former ROK Unification Minister Kang In-tok in Seoul Wolgan Choson in Korean), North Korean officials have continued to call for complete withdrawal of US forces. For a typical example, see Pong Sun-Hwa, “Realization of National Independence Idea Is Fatherland’s Reunification,” Nodong Sinmun (Labor Newspaper), 8 June 2002. |
