Pyongyang:
Massive joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises are a spring ritual
on the Korean Peninsula guaranteed to draw a lot of threat-laced venom
from Pyongyang. This time, not only are the war games the biggest ever,
but the troops now massed south of the Demilitarized Zone have
reportedly incorporated a new hypothetical into their training: a
“beheading mission” against Kim Jong-un himself.
It’s the kind of option military
planners tend to consider but almost never use. Neither the U.S.
military nor South Korea’s defense ministry has actually said it is part
of the Key Resolve-Foal Eagle exercises that began this week and will
go on for about two months.
But Pyongyang, already feeling the
squeeze of new sanctions over its recent nuclear test and rocket launch,
is taking a plethora of “beheading mission” reports from the South
Korean media very seriously. That goes a long way toward explaining why
its own rhetoric has ratcheted up a decibel – even by its own standards
of bellicosity. It could also explain some subtle rejiggering afoot in
the North’s military strategy.
What is a beheading operation?
That’s what the North and South Korean
media have been calling it. The military prefers to call them
decapitation strikes. But, by whatever name, it’s hardly a new concept.
They are targeted attacks to eliminate
an adversary’s leader, or leaders, in an attempt to disrupt or destroy
its command chain as soon as a crisis breaks out or appears imminent.
They are seen as particularly effective against enemies with a highly
centralized command focused on a small group, or one leader. With the
leader out of the way, the thinking goes, it’s a lot easier to take the
rest of the enemy’s forces down – or at least keep them from maintaining
a coordinated and sustained offensive.
North Korea is a prime example of such an adversary.
The U.S. has used such strikes, often
employing drones, to take out key figures in terrorist groups. Pyongyang
tried one on South Korean President Park Chung-hee, current President
Park Geun-hye’s father, at his residence in 1968. So it’s no surprise to
anyone – especially Pyongyang – that Washington and Seoul would
consider such an option if a war were to break out in Korea. That they
wouldn’t publicly trumpet training for it is also par for the course.
And, officially, they haven’t.
All we really know is Washington and
Seoul agreed last summer on a new plan for how to train for and deal
with a major North-South crisis. It’s called OPLAN 5015. The “O” stands
for operation. Officials have not announced details of how the new OPLAN
– which, like all OPLANs, is classified – differs from the previous
one.
What have reports been saying?
Since about June, when the new plan was
signed, South Korean media have been reporting the new operation plan
includes pre-emptive and decapitation strikes. More has come out since
the North’s nuclear test in January and rocket launch last month, as
Seoul’s government has tried to underscore its tough stance vis-a-vis
Pyongyang.
According to South Korea’s Yonhap news
agency, the Key Resolve-Foal Eagle exercises will include training and
simulations of surgical, pre-emptive strikes on nuclear and missile
sites, along with training for a “beheading operation” aimed at removing
Kim Jong-un and toppling his government in the event of a war. It has
also reported that another set of exercises, now being held by U.S. and
South Korean marines, features training for amphibious landings on North
Korean shores and, again, attacks on North Korea’s leadership.
The reports have generally been thinly
sourced or anonymously reported. They have not given any details about
how the troops would train for such attacks, though the presence of U.S.
special operations units has been noted as ominous.
North Korea, meanwhile, has been almost
theatrically apoplectic over the ink being spilt that its leader has a
target on his back.
The Supreme Command of the Korean
People’s Army issued a statement late last month calling a decapitation
plan the “height of hostile acts.” Warning the doom of the U.S. has been
sealed, it said the North’s weaponry is “ready to open fire.” The day
the exercises began, the North’s Minju Joson daily said “a historical
moment has just come” and its enemies “will sustain the bitterest
defeat” from the North’s “ground, naval, underwater, air and cyber
warfare means, including nuclear strike means.”
What is behind the bluster?
Potentially, quite a lot.
North Korea has increasingly shifted its
military toward “asymmetrical” warfare tactics that involve surprise,
stealth or other means to gain an outsized advantage against a bigger,
better-equipped enemy. Its focus on cyber, special forces and nuclear
weapons are classic examples.
A decapitation strike could potentially neutralize all of that. Somebody needs to call the shots.
Its long-held ace in the hole, the
threat of a massive artillery attack that would devastate Seoul, has
also lost some of its credibility. Some experts believe its weaponry has
grown older and less reliable. Seoul, meanwhile, has been testing new
missiles with precision-strike and bunker-buster capabilities – exactly
the kind of weapons that could figure into a decapitation strike.
Never one to roll over under pressure,
the North last week made quite of a show of its latest answer to that
problem: a large-caliber, multiple-launch rocket system with a range
some experts believe could allow it to be positioned out of reach of
U.S. or South Korean counterattacks and fire projectiles hard to
intercept with missile defense systems.
It is conceivable the North could design nuclear-armed shells for such a weapon.
Even before the current media barrages,
experts have been seeing an “action-reaction” cycle fanned by the
North’s fears of a decapitation strike and signs Seoul and Washington
are at least considering the option, according to Jeffrey Lewis,
director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Middlebury Institute of
International Studies at Monterey, in California.
“The appearance of a new long-range
artillery system that is specifically linked to North Korean fears about
decapitation strikes deserves our attention, even if the possibility of
nuclear armament is only hinted at,” he wrote in a recent analysis for
the influential 38 North website. “Far more attention needs to be paid
to North Korea’s evolving nuclear doctrine, on the one hand, and South
Korea’s development of conventional doctrines that involve pre-emption
and decapitation on the other.”
The Independent
