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The Uri Party and Defense Ministry on Wednesday said Korea will get U.S. guarantees on four matters as a means of filling any security vacuum feared when we exercise sole wartime operational control of our troops. They are adherence to the Korea-U.S. mutual defense treaty; continued stationing of U.S. Forces Korea here and the dispatch of U.S. reinforcements in case of war; continued support where Korean forces are deficient in capacity like military intelligence; and war deterrence and joint preparedness.
That takes a laid-back view of the world. If war breaks out on the peninsula under the current Combined Forces Command, the CFC commander exercises wartime operational command of our forces. In addition, the U.S. is capable of dispatching 3,000 Air Force planes, five fleets of aircraft carriers and 660,000 infantry and marines. "The U.S. is capable of dispatching additional troops that would cost some W1,300 trillion (US$1=W961) during a war,¡± former defense minister Chun Yong-taek said in a recent interview. The ruling party and the administration want us to exercise sole operational control of our troops for the sake of national pride but are still bent on getting U.S. guarantees for the dispatch of U.S. reinforcements costing that much money.
Under the CFC, U.S. reinforcements come automatically in accordance with operation plan 5027. If we exercise sole wartime operational control, however, the CFC will be dissolved and OPLAN 5027 ditched. Even if the U.S. administration promises to guarantee the dispatch of reinforcements as before, that step would require approval by the U.S. Congress.
Korea got a U.S. request to dispatch additional troops to the Iraq War in September 2003, but it took until February 2004 for the National Assembly to agree. Although the troops requested were non-combatants for peace reconstruction after President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat, approval took five months in the face of public opposition. "Why do we have to send our children on some one else¡¯s battleground?" many here asked. By the same token, there is little reason why U.S. congressmen should send 660,000 of their children into real warfare on the Korean Peninsulas, where the human toll would if anything be greater than in the deserts of the Middle East.
The Cold War, when the U.S. evaluated the geographic value of South Korea as a Northeast Asian bulkhead to contain the Soviet Union, is over. The alliance is maintained only if give and take are delicately balanced. There are many examples in history where powers have readily discarded alliances with countries to whom they gave too much and got too little in return.
This government holds that "strategic flexibility" for the U.S. forces worldwide to operate in areas other than where they are stationed should not apply to the USFK. Nor is it willing to take up additional upkeep costs for the USFK, as Japan is. It says we will exercise sole wartime operational command of our forces, but demands that, if war breaks out, the U.S. puts W1,300 trillion worth of men and materiel at our disposal and dispatches 660,000 reinforcements to shed their blood for us. In short, it has no idea of the basic operational principle of an alliance.
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