and a 1.5-to-1 advantage in personnel over its potential adversaries, the U.S.Republic of Korea defenses to the south.
By 1996, KPA major combat units consisted of 153 divisions and brigades, including 60 infantry divisions/brigades, 25 mechanized infantry brigades, 13 tank brigades, 25 Special Operations Force (SOF) brigades, and 30 artillery brigades. North Korea deployed 10 corps, including 60 divisions and brigades in the forward area south of the Pyongyang-Wonsan line. The KPA ground forces were composed of 20 corps commands, including four mechanized and two artillery corps, as well as a Tank Instruction Guidance Bureau and an Artillery Command, Reconnaissance Bureau, and one Light Infantry Training and Guidance Bureau (formerly the VIII Special Corps controlling the SOF).
Figure 4 reflects the disposition of the KPA Corps along the DMZ and other military units throughout the country. Although it is difficult to know North Korea’s precise intentions or aspirations, by 2004 its forces were deployed along the DMZ in such a manner that they could support an invasion of South Korea. In particular, the percentage of North Korean forces deployed within 100km of the DMZ has increased significantly during the past 2 decades, with approximately 70 percent of its military units, and up to 80 percent of its estimated aggregate firepower, within 100km of the DMZ. With these forward deployments, North Korea theoretically could invade the South without recourse to further deployments and with relatively little warning time. The KPA continued to modernize its military as North Korea announced an annual defense budget of 15.5 percent of the government budget, or about 30 percent of its gross national product (GNP). Reportedly because of fiscal constraints, North Korea seeks to increase its development and procurement of asymmetric weapons systems including missiles, chemical, and biological munitions — and continue its development of nuclear weapons.
By 2006, North Korea’s asymmetric or unconventional warfare programs (SOF, WMD, etc.) measurably contributed to the country’s security from external threats and complemented its conventional military capabilities. The continued conventional force improvement and asymmetric capability acquisition provided a measured balance to offset capability deficiencies and poor readiness while attempting to satisfy North Korean military strategy requirements.
NK National Security Strategy. North Korea appears to have two primary strategic goals or objectives: (1) the perpetuation of the regime, and (2) reunification of the Fatherland (Korean peninsula) under North Korea’s control. The first is really noncontroversial, although analysts quibble about the precise terminology. The second is more controversial, and specialists disagree. However, there are good reasons for concluding that reunification by force has not been ruled out as a regime goal by Pyongyang.
Source: Gause, North Korean Civil-Military Trends, September 2006, p. 36.
Figure 4. Kpa Military Disposition.
North Korea’s constitution describes reunification as “the supreme national task.” 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 version of the document, 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] KWP declares that “the present task of the Party is to ensure the complete victory of socialism in the DPRK and the accomplishment of the revolutionary goals of national liberation and the people’s democracy in the entire area of the country.”
This supreme national task should never be forgotten, as it permeates the entire foundation of North Korea’s strategy and doctrine. North Korean media always has held that the North Korean military is for defensive purposes (defense against foreign invasion by “imperialist aggressors and their lackey running dogs” [i.e., the United States and South Korea]).
This defensive argument is reinforced by North Korea’s supposed fear that the United States will use the Bush Doctrine of 2002 to conduct a preemptive strike against North Korea’s nuclear facilities. However, as Homer T. Hodge explains, the North Korean leaders view the southern half of their country as occupied by “U.S. Imperialists,” and “defense” does not refer to defending North Korea but defending the entire Korean peninsula. Moreover, when Pyongyang officials speak of “peaceful reunification,” their conception of what this entails may be rather different from that of their counterparts in Seoul, Washington, and elsewhere. The Swedish ambassador to Pyongyang recalls being amazed at the terminology employed by a DPRK official in 1975 when the official congratulated North Vietnam for its victory over South Vietnam at a state banquet. The speaker commended Hanoi “on achieving the peaceful unification of Vietnam.”
North Korea continues to pursue and develop offensive-oriented weapons such as ballistic missiles, nuclear weapons, and submarines. Reunification through force of arms appears to remain possible to Kim Jong Il.
One should not forget that Kim Il Sung attempted to militarily reunify the Korean Peninsula in 1950 with his invasion (characterized by North Korea as the “Fatherland Liberation War”) into South Korea. Some scholars like to characterize this conflict as a proxy war between the two superpowers. However, as Bruce Cumings and other historians have observed, it was Kim Il Sung who planned and led this civil war.
Three Revolutionary Forces. 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. In 1960, Kim Il Sung articulated a “Three Fronts (Revolutionary Forces)” national strategy. These revolutionary forces referred to those revolutionary forces in the north, in the south and the international community necessary for the reunification of Korea and were later redefined as three phases of war. The north revolutionary forces meant “the transformation of the Military Might,” southern revolutionary forces as the erosion of the South Korean alliance with the United States, and the international revolutionary forces would be the diplomatic war to increase support for Pyongyang and isolate Seoul.
In 1962, the Fifth Plenum of the KWP 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 U.S.-South Korea alliance; and (3) liberate South Korea through employment of insurgency and conventional force.
Despite a period of increased tension, violent clashes, and much bloodshed during 1966-69, the North Korean military strategy ultimately failed to achieve its goals of breaking the U.S.-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.
A long history of bloody incursions into South Korea underscores the offensive mission of the KPA. It is important to note that from 1954 to 1992, North Korea is reported to have infiltrated a total of 3,693 armed agents into South Korea. Not counting North Korea’s invasion of South Korea that triggered the Korean War (1950-53) North Korea’s major terrorist involvement includes: attempted assassinations of ROK President Park Chung Hee in 1968 and 1974; a 1983 attempt on ROK President Chun Doo Hwan’s life in a bombing incident in Rangoon, Burma (Myanmar); and a midair sabotage bombing of a South Korean Boeing 707 passenger plane in 1987.
Provocations have continued intermittently up to 2003 in the form of armed incursions, kidnappings, and occasional as well as regular conventional threats to turn the South Korean capital of Seoul into “a sea of fire” and to silence or tame South Korean critics of North Korea.
By 2003, according to USFK estimates, there had been 1,439 major provocations and DMZ violations since 1953 with 90 U.S. troops killed in action (KIA), over 390 ROK KIA (to include six Republic of Korea [ROK] Navy seaman killed by an unprovoked attack
