[EDITORIAL] Contingency plan

Though the Joint Chiefs of Staff refuse to confirm it, military sources reported that Korean and U.S. defense authorities have worked out a detailed operational plan to respond to a collapse of the North Korean regime. The clandestine nature of such a plan would not warrant any official acknowledgment of its establishment, but the top U.S. military commander in Korea provided significant clues a few days ago.

Gen. Walter Sharp said in a lecture in Seoul Friday that the two allies agreed that the U.S. forces would be responsible for eliminating weapons of mass destruction in North Korea and amphibious landing operations on the territory even after the wartime operational control was handed over to South Korea in 2012. He was obviously referring to a contingency in which Kim Jong-il was toppled and its nuclear arsenal in danger of being grabbed by external elements.



As we understand, Seoul and Washington in 2008 started working on transforming a concept plan into a realistic operational plan on how the two allies should cope with a sudden end to the North Korean regime as a result of a coup, a revolt, mass defections or other internal instability. The reopening of the joint study meant the removal of the strain that had developed between the two allies during the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration.

The United States had proposed in 2004 that concept plan (CONPLAN) 5029 be transformed into an operational plan (OPLAN) to provide specific military actions under U.S. command in the event of a regime collapse in the North. In April 2005, Seoul officially rejected the U.S. proposal and the Roh administration accelerated its drive to regain wartime operational control from the United States. Eventually, the two governments reached an agreement in February 2007 on returning the "OPCON" to Korea as of April 17, 2012.

Over the years when the two allies were discussing which side should hold control over military operations in the event of renewed war on the Korean Peninsula or how they should share responsibilities for keeping North Korea in order if there were a regime collapse there, Pyongyang has continued to build up its WMD capabilities with two nuclear tests and numerous missile launches. If factors of internal instability have grown in the North, we still see no clear signs of it.

Of the changes on and around the peninsula in the intervening years, most conspicuous is the rapid growth of China in economic, political and of course military power. No contingency plans, whatever they are called and however detailed the contemplated military course of action may be, will have much significance without considering how China will respond when a chaotic situation prevails in North Korea.

Half a century ago, China intervened in the Korean War when the North Korean People`s Army was nearly annihilated and the U.N. Forces reached the Chinese border. The territory south of the Yalu River now has stores of nuclear bombs and missiles that Beijing would not want to be acquired by anybody else in a time of great turmoil.

Mapping out a scenario to prepare for a dramatic change in North Korea is necessary. The focus of any such plan should be on how the allies can prevent China`s military intervention in the event of a North Korean collapse. Most important is assuring Beijing that a unified Korea would pose no threat to China, possibly with a practical proposal about what to do with the North`s nuclear arsenal.