U.S.‘to Cut Back Wartime Reinforcements’
The U.S. military has recently notified South Korean military authorities that it plans to cut back wartime reinforcements specified in a strategic master plan by the two allies, sources said Monday.
Military sources said Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command and Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff are revising and supplementing the strategy known as OPLAN 5027, and in the process the U.S. told Korea of “plans to reduce the scale” of reinforcements. A South Korean officer declined to say how big the cutbacks will be but added they were “not very big." The reinforcements specified in OPLAN 5027, which is renewed every two years, was about 480,000 troops in the early 1990s. This gradually increased to about 630,000 in the mid-1990s and to 690,000 in the late 1990s, backed by 160 warships, including five aircraft carriers, and about 2,500 aircraft, to be dispatched within the first 90 days of a war.
Other sources said the scheduled reduction comes due to a pragmatic assessment that the U.S. simply does not have the numbers to dispatch to the Korean Peninsula because of its “war on terror”, including operations in Iraq.
The decision indicates how Washington can at any time change its position depending on its priorities and prevailing circumstances, and there is little Korea can do about it. It remains to be seen how the South Korean military will formulate a new master plan on its own initiative, planning for the time when the CFC is dismantled because wartime control of Korean forces is handed back to Seoul.
In case of war, the U.S. reinforcements would play a key role in overthrowing the North Korean regime and occupying North Korean territory. According to experts, if the U.S. dispatches a smaller contingent, South Korean forces would most likely merely recover territory lost in any North Korean invasion, for example. But South Korea would find it impossible to occupy the whole of North Korea. Once wartime operational control is handed over, South Korean forces will carry out ground operations, with the U.S. mainly providing naval and air support. Some predict that the U.S. cutbacks will be drastic: the legally binding force of the master plan concerning U.S. reinforcements is weak enough. If the joint command ceases exist, it will be even weaker.
However, Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo in a press conference on the day said the new operational plan will be “based on the existing OPLAN 5027. At the moment, the U.S. president can dispatch reinforcements without congressional approval within 90 days after a war breaks out. I believe that even after wartime operational control is handed over to us, this basic principle will be maintained."
Meanwhile, Kim ruled out a renegotiation of Friday’s agreement to effect the troop control transition by 2012. "Whether or not to re-negotiate is a matter of trust between countries. It is an agreement signed by the ministers of the two countries. Is [renegotiation] necessary to further improve the alliance? I don't think so."
