less and less viable. South Korean acquisition of military hardware (both quality and modern), significantly improved weapon and sensor technology, and urbanization, coupled with presence of U.S. forces, precision munitions, counter-battery fire, and bunkerbusting bombs has diminished North Korea’s chances of a military reunification with control under Kim Jong Il.
However, possibly to counter this, North Korea is developing asymmetric capabilities with its SOF and WMD (discussed later). There are no indications that North Korea does not intend to fully commit itself to occupying the peninsula, all the way to Pusan. Thus, North Korea may have reversed the roles of the massive conventional forces along the DMZ and the Second Front Special Purpose forces.
The 70 percent of the KPA forces massed along the DMZ may be a feint to “fix” South Korean forces along the Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA), while the SOF conducts its unconventional and guerrilla operations in the South. Only when North Korea deems the time right would expected conventional attacks by KPA ground forces over the DMZ occur. These forces also would have to secure South Korean logistics to sustain the main effort since North Korea’s ability to do this is suspect. North Korea would not commit its main effort if Kim Jong Il did not feel it would win a total victory. However, North Korean miscalculations could lead to a failed offensive into South Korea which could result in a limited option plan for North Korea.
Lessons learned from the Vietnam War and the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 served as the foundation for the establishment of the KPA’s three pillared military strategy — surprise attack, quick decisive war, and mixed tactics. North Korea observed that during the Vietnam War, North Vietnam was able to counter a technologically superior force successfully, using aspects of special operations forces and psychological operations. The shift supplied the doctrinal basis for North Korea’s strategy of covert infiltrations into South Korea, assassinations, and attempts at fostering insurgencies in South Korea during the late 1960s. The 1966-69 period was characterized as a period of low-intensity conflict as scenes from an unfinished war.
During the 1970s, Soviet military thinking continued to dominate KPA strategy and doctrine development, especially the nature of modern warfare. This new concept adopted a three-dimensional aspect, with no distinction between front and rear, highly mobile, and increasingly dependent upon mechanization, task organization, and improved engineer capabilities.
During 1972, doctrine and strategy were refined further as “enabling North Korean forces to smash the enemy strategically and tactically by either integrating or combining the following: large unit and small unit operations; the experiences of the guerrilla units and modern military technology; guerrilla and modern war tactics; strong guerrilla activities and national popular resistance.” Kim Il Sung understood the power of insurgency as a lesson learned from the Vietnam war, and this probably has been reinforced by Kim Jong Il per observations of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Although the U.S. Intelligence Community has been concentrating on its analysis of SOF in recent years, often the enormity of the conventional KPA receives the emphasis of operational planning while the guerrilla or unconventional warfare aspect of North Korean military doctrine is overlooked.
Beginning in the early 1980s, North Korea began execution of its force expansion and reorganization plan. 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.
Eventually, the primacy of conventional warfare again became doctrine which conceptualized and influenced North Korean operational art in the early 1990s; particularly influential are the concepts that emphasize the importance of operational and tactical mobility through the employment of mechanized forces, of firepower throughout the depth of the battlefield (North Korea designed and produced the 170mm gun, battle tested in the Iran/Iraq war, and the 240mm multiple rocket launcher to provide the KPA with a deep strike capability, which the North Korean Air Force does not provide), of deep strikes, and of command and control. Kim also stressed that each operational plan and campaign should aim at a lightning war for a quick decision.
Fall of the Soviet Union. The end of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union left Pyongyang without any significant ideological allies save China but also without essential economic and military assistance. Beginning in 1990, North Korea embarked on a comprehensive 5-year program to prepare the nation for war without outside assistance. This war preparation campaign was much broader and more rigorous than any previous effort. Improvement of the KPA’s capabilities was an important element of this campaign, which included reorganization, redeployment, and reinforcement, as well as quantitative and qualitative increases in training at all echelons.
After analyzing the 1991 Gulf War, North Korea increased its construction of underground facilities (command and control sites, logistics to include POL storage, military housing, and equipment such as artillery) to protect against the precision of U.S. weaponry allowing for the assembly of KPA military equipment and personnel in protected, underground facilities. Today, North Korea possesses as many as 10,000 such facilities.
North Korea has understood the importance of hardening its facilities from the Korean experience in World War II when Korean slave workers constructed underground bunkers for the Japanese military, including the Imperial Navy’s headquarters in Naha, Okinawa. However, from the end of the Korean War through Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, North Korea has understood the operational and tactical implications that its underground facilities provide from countering adversarial intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) to minimizing the impact of precision munitions.
The 1999 Kosovo War provided North Korea with another opportunity to evaluate U.S. military operations in an area with terrain and weather similar to that of the Korean Peninsula, which included studying the adverse effects that this terrain and weather had upon the U.S. high-tech arsenal. Today, these doctrines and strategies continue to be recalibrated to reflect changing capabilities and weapon acquisition. While ROK and U.S. analysts describe the KPA’s offensive strategy for a war of reunification as “blitzkrieg (lightning war),” the KPA represents its “two-front war” and “combined operations” strategies somewhat differently. North Korea will use a massive attack across the DMZ, utilizing overwhelming firepower and violence known as a “One Blow Non-stop Attack.” Concurrent with this will be limited use of chemical weapons against targets within the forward area; ballistic missile strikes (some armed with chemical warheads) against ROK and U.S. airbases, ports, and C3I assets throughout the ROK; operations by hundreds of SOF units; offensive naval mine employment and intelligence agents throughout the ROK creating a “second front;” and special operations forces and intelligence agent attacks against U.S. bases in Japan and Okinawa.
This military strategy also relies heavily on a surprise attack strategy which is very reminiscent of Sun Tzu: attacking the enemy at an unexpected time and place and by employing unexpected means, it can maximize time, speed, and secrecy. This strategy, coupled with an effective deception plan, is believed to yield maximum effects with minimum efforts. North Korean elements of its surprise attack include: (1) utilizing inclement weather, hours of darkness, and rugged terrain; (2) developing clever deception plans; (3) employing skilled infiltration teams (or resident sleeper agents); (4) conducting seaborne, air assault and parachute operations; (5) setting mass fires (this element of surprise allows for mine fields to be cleared quickly in the DMZ area as well as creating a diversion in an urban setting); (6) quickly concentrating the effects of combat power at a decisive area; and (7) employing large-scale mechanized units.
Occupying South Korea, All the Way to Pusan. The goals of this strategy are to move southward as quickly as possible, surround Seoul, gaining control of the ROK strategic rear area (especially airbases and ports), preventing reinforcement of the peninsula by U.S. and other allied forces, and inflicting as much damage as possible upon U.S. forces. In 1992, Kim Jong Il reportedly authored the plan as “Occupying South Korea, All the Way to Pusan in Three Days.”
The KPA
