Posted on 08/29/2005 5:59:39 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
U.S. Banks on Technology in Revised Military Plan for a Possible North Korea Conflict
By THOM SHANKER
Published: August 29, 2005
CAMP CASEY, South Korea - American commanders are making significant changes in their plans in the event of a military conflict with North Korea, to rely in large measure on a new generation of sensors, smart bombs and high-speed transport ships to deter and, if necessary, counter that unpredictable dictatorship, the senior United States commander in South Korea says.
The shift in strategy is being undertaken even as the United States cuts the number of troops here by one-third and begins moving the remaining soldiers farther from the demilitarized zone, to improve their chances of surviving any North Korean offensive.
Army headquarters in Washington has made a formal announcement that a brigade of Second Infantry Division soldiers sent urgently from South Korea to Iraq last year will not return to South Korea, but will instead return to a base in the United States. That puts the American troop commitment to South Korea on track to drop from 37,500 - a figure maintained since the early 1990's - to 25,000 by 2008.
In a recent interview that provided a detailed public description of the highly classified war-planning process, Gen. Leon J. LaPorte, the commander, described how American contingency plans are being reshaped by new theories of war-fighting and by new military technology.
"We have better intelligence," he said, so the American and South Korean militaries will have more advance warning if North Korea mobilizes for war, providing the opportunity to locate and attack its vast arsenal of artillery and rockets.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping!
Would somebody please explain what we're protecting ?
A democratic nation from THE most oppressive government on earth.
Any more questions?
"Would somebody please explain what we're protecting?"
Japan.
so how far from the DMZ are they going? if the North Koreans capture Seoul won't our leftist friends demand an end to hostilities. Though i do understand the fear of the artillery barrage.
No.
Not to mention 30,000 Americans living or working in South Korea.
25,000 still too many and too expensive. Leave a couple of brigades and pull the rest. S. Korea can pick up the slack.
Yes. If the North and South were ever reunited under Northern rule, Japan would be next.
More than 50 miles. They would be redeployed south of Suwon, around Pyongtaek.
Sure, a bunch of ungrateful South Koreans.
Bingo.
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