Even the hawks say there’s not much America can do, in response to North Korea’s nuclear test. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. military isn’t prepping for a war with the Kim Jong-Il regime, just in case.
In March, American and South Korean forces teamed up for the “Key Resolve/Foal Eagle” war game. 13,100 troops from outside Korea — and tens of thousands more, already stationed in the country — participated in the massive exercise, which focused on “deploying troops and equipment to Korea in the event of an attack,” according to a military press release.
Some U.S. and South Korean commandos made airborne jumps together from a helium blimp; others, from helicopters hovering above the Korea Strait. A third group ran a mock “operation to secure a suspected chemical weapons lab.” Unconventional weapons experts drilled in responding to a simulated strike involving “hundreds of WMD.” Navy helicopter pilots swept for mines, while Marine fighter pilots flew with their South Korean counterparts to “wipe out” simulated enemy aircraft.
The Americans and their allies kicked all kinds of butt in the exercise, of course. Other war games, testing out the North Korean scenario, didn’t end quite as cleanly. One ran by The Atlantic in 2005 forecast 100,000 or more dead civilians in the first few days. And that was if the U.S. could assemble the half-million to million troops needed for such an assault; none of the participants thought such a staggering number of troops could be gathered together, given all of America’s military commitments around the world.
Two years earlier, the Pentagon put together a very different kind of war plan for North Korea — one that didn’t involve ground troops at all. Instead, U.S. forces would lob bombs and missiles and electronic attacks in an instant “global strike.” Even nuclear weapons were considered, as part of the plan.
A similar “bolt from the blue” was proposed in a 2005 article for the Washington Post, by former Defense Secretary William Perry and Ashton Carter, who today serves as the Pentagon’s weapons-buyer-in-chief. They proposed taking out a North Korean long-range missile on the launchpad, to prevent the nuclear Kim Jong-Il from test-firing an ICBM. The surgical strike was, of course, never ordered. And the missile itself was kind of a dud.
In 2003, retired Colonel John Collins ran through the possible moves and countermoves in a military standoff on the Korean peninsula — from blockades to full-out nuclear strikes. His conclusion: “Any of the U.S. options described above could trigger uncontrollable escalation that would create appalling casualties on both sides of the DMZ and promise a Pyrrhic victory at best. Unilateral actions by the United States without unqualified ROK [Republic of Korea] agreement and willing participation every step of the way would be immoral as well as ill- advised. Inaction while Kim Jong Il develops a robust nuclear arsenal and perhaps supplies nuclear weapons to U.S. enemies, unfortunately, would worsen any future confrontation.”
