In the showdown over its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has taken a page from Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. "I'll make it a matter of you having to call it off or kill me, knowing you can't afford to kill me," Spade tells the villain Caspar Gutman.
Pyongyang is betting that the Clinton administration will not risk another Korean war in order to shut down North Korea's nuclear weapons program. President Clinton's decision last week to send Patriot air-defense missiles to South Korea and to revive plans for joint military exercises brought warnings of fire and brimstone from the North. And although they are confident that the United States and South Korea would defeat North Korea, senior U.S. military officers know the price in blood and treasure would be high. An attack from the North "could inflict terrible losses in the South," Gen. Gary Luck, the commander in chief of U.N. forces in South Korea, told senators recently.
Another war in Korea would not be a replay of Operation Desert Storm. Seoul, South Korea's capital, is just 25 miles from the demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea, within range of some of the North's 9,100 artillery pieces and mortars. A massive attack, perhaps using chemical weapons, could come with only 12 to 24 hours' warning. Last week, military officials at the Pentagon said none of the usual warning indicators were lit up: There were no unusual North Korean troop movements; Pyongyang's reserves were not being mobilized; theater-level command-and-control mechanisms were not functioning, and naval forces were steaming normally. "There's no pending attack," said one Pentagon official.
At the front. But some 65 percent of the North's forces are already positioned south of the Pyongyang expressway, within 60 miles of the DMZ, usually in underground sites and in as many as 20 tunnels through the mountains along the border. Pyongyang's Army, modernized for maneuver warfare with some 3,700 armored vehicles and tanks, is supported by artillery; the sheer number of artillery pieces and their long range are General Luck's biggest concerns. Two thirds of the North's 730 mostly obsolete combat aircraft are based near the DMZ.
U.S. military officers say the North Koreans could launch a two- pronged attack. The main assault could come in any or all of seven attack corridors. One thing has not changed since 1950, however: In order to attack Seoul, North Korean troops would have to charge along two routes through the mountains, both of them defended by South Korean ground forces and U.S. air power. U.S. officers believe Seoul could be defended, but they concede that it cannot be spared from artillery and perhaps chemical weapons attack.
Moreover, in an attempt to sow chaos behind U.S. and South Korean lines and to prevent the United States from reinforcing its 37,000 troops in Korea, some of Pyongyang's 88,000 special operations forces would try to disrupt allied air bases, command centers and ports; Scud missile attacks, which the U.S. Patriots are designed to thwart, would supplement the special forces.
"How well we augment forces is going to be a key element," says a Pentagon official. Operations Plan 5027-92, the U.S. plan for defeating a North Korean invasion, calls for South Korean ground forces to blunt the attack with help from 15,000 U.S. troops of the 2nd Infantry Division in reserve. The South's forces, though well trained, have inadequate artillery and counterbattery forces, and they are vulnerable to chemical weapons. U.S. plans call for a final force of about 400,000 troops and their equipment, many to arrive within two weeks of a North Korean attack, most of the rest within 60 days.
Burning junkyard. The South Korean troops that would bear the brunt of a North Korean attack, at least initially, would also be backed by U.S. air power, including 72 F-16s stationed in the South as well as bombers that could arrive within hours to help blunt an armored assault. "It will be a burning junkyard," says one military official. And as in the gulf war, U.S. air forces would carry the attack to Pyongyang's command centers from the first hours of the war.
The North, for all its bluster, has serious military deficiencies. Its troops are reported to be underfed; training is limited; pilots practice takeoffs and landings and little else. Mountains would hamper its radio communications while allied forces, with airborne and satellite command-and-control systems, would be able to talk more effectively.
American military leaders think their counterparts in North Korea understand that another war would be suicidal. But that is no guarantee that Pyongyang will bluff as skillfully as Sam Spade.
