By deploying main forces such as mechanized and self-propelled artillery units, attack weapons and equipment in the forward area, the North has a combat posture that would allow it to launch surprise attacks at any time. Under such circumstances, Pyongyang may launch provocations against the South as a way of resolving the sense of crisis or dissatisfaction within its system, or to gain international attention. Conflicts deriving from food shortages or from decision-making processes could also result in an emergency within the North Korean regime.
Korean participation in the Vietnam War that provided an opportunity for the modernization of ROK armed forces. In 1966 when combat divisions were actively deployed in Vietnam after the initial expedition in 1965, ROK force improvement, though limited, was initiated through the US Brown Memorandum which promised to support a ROK force modernization plan. This memorandum, howevert did not clearly specify any effect, characteristics or time limit. As a result, the memorandum led only to modest improvements such as provision of old-model tanks and M-16 rifles to the ROK forces in Vietnam. In the meantime, a series of North Korean provocations occurred, with a North Korean guerrilla attempt to infiltrate the Blue House on January 21, 1968, and two days later the hijacking of the USS Pueblo, an American reconnaissance ship, on the East Sea. In April 1969, a US EC-121 reconnaissance aircraft was also shot down.
In response to these events and upon ROK request, the US government decided to hold cabinet-level annual conferences on security issues with the ROK government. Korea was promised military assistance of one hundred million dollars as well as the construction of an M-16 manufacturing facility. President Park Chung Hee, however, decided to proceed further to realize the goal of a self-reliant defense posture in preparation for the future possibility of a national crisis. The need for self-reliant defense was all the more strengthened by the international environment at that time. In March 1971, the Seventh Division of the US Forces in Korea (USFK) withdrew from the peninsula following the Nixon Doctrine of July 1969, which champions the importance of the self-reliant defense responsibility for all nations.
The US government declared a $1,596 million aid program during 1971-1975 to support the Five-Year Modernization Plan of ROK forces. This was agreed as compensation for participation in the Vietnam War as well as for the decrease in the size of the USFK. This program, however, did not reach all its initial goals as the aid period was delayed to 1977. Nevertheless, it did result in upgrading a part of ROK forces' equipment for the first time since the truce of the Korean War. The equipment used by ROK troops in Vietnam also contributed to the partial modernization of ROK forces.
On April 19, 1973, President Park Chung Hee gave an instruction during an inspection of the 1973 Ulchi Exercise, to establish independent military strategies for self-reliant defense and to develop a force improvement plan. In response, the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up Joint Basic Military Strategies in July 1973, delivered the Guidelines for Military Equipment Modernization Program to each service and integrated plans of the three services. The result was the Eight-Year National Defense Plan (1974-1981), the first self-reliant force improvement plan for the ROK, which was subsequently approved by the president on February 25, 1974.
In order to respond more quickly to the North's provocations, the ROK military tracks and surveys not only its major military trends, but also its non-military trends. Also, the ROK military is reflecting detailed military countermeasures to be taken immediately in various plans and is developing them against predicted provocations from the North. In order to survey the activities of North Korean aircraft, a monitor control and reporting center (MCRC) operation system is run 24 hours a day. If North Korean military activities seem suspicious, the movement must be thoroughly tracked and surveyed until it becomes clear; if necessary, the ROK military can receive support from US military intelligence satellites.
In case a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula, the first two to three days of combat will play a decisive role in winning or losing the war. One comes to such a conclusion after summarizing and analyzing the following: North Korea's military strategy toward the South and its military capability including preemptive surprise attacks and short-term blitkrieg using WMDs, artillery units and high-speed in-depth task forces; the current level of ROK-US allied force capability; and the deployment plan of the US augmentation forces.
Under the terms of the 1954 Republic of Korea-United States of America Mutual Defense Treaty, the United States and South Korea agreed to cooperate in defending the security and strategic interests of both countries. South Korea's deployment of army and marine units to South Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s demonstrated its commitment to meeting its obligations under the treaty. By 1990 the United States had stationed 44,500 military personnel in South Korea--a signal to North Korea and other countries in the region that Washington would meet its security commitments to Seoul under the Mutual Defense Treaty. In the confusion of the early days of the Korean War, Seoul placed its armed forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur as United Nations (UN) commander. This arrangement continued after the armistice. For some twenty-five years, the United Nations Command headquarters, which had no South Korean officers in it, was responsible for the defense of South Korea, with operational control over a majority of the units in the South Korean military. The command was the primary peacetime planning organization for allied response to a North Korean invasion of South Korea and the principal wartime command organization for all South Korean and United States forces involved in defending South Korea. In 1968 the United States and South Korea held their first annual Security Consultative Meeting. This meeting provided highlevel defense experts from the two countries with an official forum for reassessing the nature of the North Korean threat to South Korea, for agreeing on an overall defense strategy for South Korea, and for outlining the roles of both countries in deterring a North Korean invasion. In 1978 a binational headquarters, the South Korea-United States Combined Forces Command (CFC), was created, and the South Korean military units with front-line missions were transferred from the UN Command to the CFC's operational control. The commander in chief of the CFC, a United States military officer, answered ultimately to the national command authorities of the United States and the Republic of Korea. Historically, operational control of South Korea's tactical armed forces has made the United States commander vulnerable to the politics of association. United States commanders have rigidly avoided commentary on South Korean party politics, confining public statements to purely military matters on such issues as arms buildups and threats from North Korea. However, in the complex politics of the Korean Peninsula, the United States commander's military opinions often have been publicly manipulated as support for Seoul's authoritarianism. In May 1961 and December 1979, the command structure was breached by South Korean troops participating in military coups. A more complex set of circumstances occurred in May 1980, when troops were withdrawn from the CFC under existing procedures and dispatched to Kwangju to respond to the student uprising. Confusion in the South Korean public over the particular circumstances of the incident, the United States position, and the limits of the CFC's control led many South Koreans to believe that the United States fully supported the violent suppression of the uprising. The lack of an accurate historical record for nearly ten years generated widespread misunderstanding, and it has been credited with the rise of anti-Americanism in South Korea, a movement which continues. Only after President Chun stepped down at the end of 1987, and the opposition in the National Assembly grew stronger, did the United States begin answering the questions concerning United States involvement in Kwangju. On June 19, 1989, Washington issued the "United States Government Statement on Events in Kwangju, Republic of Korea, in May 1980," in response to formal requests from the National Assembly. The statement addressed a series of questions related to the rise to power of then Lieutenant General Chun Doo Hwan. The statement noted no prior knowledge of the assassination of President Park Chung Hee, nor warning of the December 12, 1979, íncident, in which a group of South Korean army officers led by Major General Chun seized control of the military. It was revealed that Washington repeatedly protested to the government and the military leadership about the misuse of forces under the Combined Forces Command. The report also stated that South Korean authorities gave the United States two hours advanced warning of the extension of martial law on May 18, 1980, and no prior warning of the military's intention to arrest political leaders or to close both the National Assembly and the universities. The statement clearly noted that none of the South Korean forces deployed at Kwangju were, during that time, under either the operational control of the CFC or the control of any United States authorities. Additionally, the United States had neither prior knowledge of the deployment of special forces to Kwangju nor responsibility for their actions there. The report addressed the use of the Twentieth Division, CFC, and clarified that the CFC agreement allowed both the United States and South Korea to assert control over its forces at any time without the consent of the other. According to the statement, the United States was informed in advance of intentions to use elements of the Twentieth Division to reenter Kwangju, that United States officials, after cautioning against the use of military force to solve a political crisis, accepted that it would be preferable to use the Twentieth Division rather than Special Forces units (but the latter were also involved). The report further documented that the United States repeatedly protested public distortions of Washington's actions and policy by Seoul and the South Korean press, namely allegations that the United States knew either of the December 12 incident in advance or of the extension of martial law, or that Washington approved of the Special Forces actions in Kwangju. While the report rebutted most of the myths of American culpability for events in 1979 and 1980, the ten-year delay in issuing the report did little to resolve the misgivings held by many South Koreans, who still persisted in believing that the United States was in some way a party to the military takeover in May 1980, and the harsh suppression of the Kwangju demonstrations that followed. During the 1989 Security Consultative Meeting in Washington (the meetings were held in alternate years in Seoul and Washington), the two nations agreed that the Moscow-assisted modernization of P'yongyang's air force and army indicated that the military situation in Northeast Asia remained tense and unpredictable. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's Korean policy, focused on promoting unofficial contacts with Seoul though Moscow, continued to bolster P'yongyang's military establishment. South Korean and United States leaders who attended the 1989 Security Consultative Meeting considered it unlikely that the Soviet Union would initiate a military conflict targeting South Korea. They believed, however, that increasing Soviet military support for North Korea made it highly probable that the Soviet Union would continue to assist North Korea if war broke out. For this reason, United States secretary of defense Richard B. Cheney and South Korean minister of national defense Yi Sang-hun agreed to strengthen strategic planning through existing organizations, such as the CFC. In 1990 a few hundred United States military personnel were assigned to the United Nations Command headquarters in P'anmunjom, in the DMZ, and were responsible for representing the United States at meetings of the Military Armistice Commission. Because the Seoul and P'yongyang governments had never negotiated a peace agreement after the Korean War, the sometimes shaky 1953 armistice concluded between the United Nations Command, North Korea, and China remained the only formal channel for handling complaints about violations of the truce. There were 32,000 United States Army personnel in South Korea in 1990; most were assigned to the Eighth Army, which included the Second Infantry Division, the Seventeenth Aviation Brigade, and other detachments deployed north of Seoul as part of the joint South Korean-United States forward defense strategy. If a conflict were to occur, the Second Infantry Division would be expected to serve as a reserve force for the South Korean army on one of the main invasion routes between the DMZ and Seoul. United States Army personnel with command or planning responsibilities for combat units also were assigned to the headquarters of the CFC and to the headquarters of the Republic of Korea-United States Combined Field Army, of which the Second Infantry Division was the main American component. The remaining United States Army personnel were assigned to support the missions of selected United States and South Korean combat units, serving primarily in communications, logistics, and training positions. There were 12,000 United States Air Force personnel in South Korea in 1990. They were assigned to units responsible for early warning, air interception, close air support of United States and South Korean ground forces, combat support, aircraft maintenance, and the transportation of personnel and supplies from the United States, Japan, and other United States military installations in the Pacific. The Seventh Air Force, headquartered at Osan Air Base, was the command element for all United States Air Force organizations in South Korea. United States Lockheed U-2 high- altitude reconnaissance and South Korean Grumman E-2C early warning aircraft patrolled the North Korean border and monitored the Soviet Union's air and naval activities in the Sea of Japan area. Advanced F-16 fighter aircraft were used by tactical fighter squadrons based at Osan and Kunsan. These squadrons operated alongside South Korean air force tactical squadrons in both air interception and close air support roles. South Korea and the United States jointly managed the South Korean tactical air control system, which had wartime responsibility for North Korean airspace and the entire South Korean coastline. The United States Military Airlift Command was responsible for transporting United States military personnel, weapons, and supplies from the United States and locations in the Pacific to South Korea. United States Navy and United States Marine Corps personnel in South Korea consisted of about 500 officers and enlisted personnel who occupied critical staff and liaison positions in the CFC. The United States Pacific Command in Hawaii frequently deployed units of the United States Pacific Fleet, based in Japan, and units of the marine corps, based in Okinawa and other locations in the Pacific, to South Korea for joint training exercises, particularly Team Spirit, held every spring to promote South Korean-United States military cooperation and readiness. During the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the United States Seventh Fleet operated in the Sea of Japan and was assigned specific missions to assist units of the CFC in discouraging P'yongyang from attempting to disrupt the Olympic Games.To execute the US "win-win strategy" and support the United Nations Command (UNC) and ROK-US Combined Forces Command (CFC) operation plans, the US augementation forces deployment plan on the Korean peninsula is set at all times. This plan mainly includes in-Korea forces, pre-planned time-phased deployment forces, augmentation forces, and foreign support forces. The plan centers on the forces under the US Pacific Command, and part of the forces from the US and other theaters are included as well. The size of the US augmentation forces, which include ground, naval, air and marine forces, will amount to at least 640 thousand troops, and these forces possess fighters, support aircraft, and aircraft carrier battle groups and amphibious flotillas equipped with the latest fighters. If a crisis does occur on the Korean peninsula, the US augmentation forces units will be deployed after the approval of the National Supreme Command and under the command of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. After deployment, the augmentation forces will go through the process of unit integration, and then be committed to specific operations.