By Lee Tae-hoon
Pyongyang’s military provocations have always been a great concern for Seoul as seen from North Korea’s torpedoing of a South Korean warship and its artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010.
As the poverty-stricken regime’s ambition to unify the Korean Peninsula through an armed conflict is a no secret, it is natural for the affluent South to think of the worst-case scenario: a full-scale war.
In this regard, Lee Choon-kun, a senior security expert at the Korea Economic Research Institute said Tuesday that the North will most likely carry out guerrilla warfare before launching a full invasion.
“Guerrilla tactics would be the best choice for the North to throw South Korea into chaos and make it collapse,” he said in a forum hosted by the Army.
“Once the South plunges into chaos due to guerrilla raids in the southern part of the county, the North will be able to launch a full-scale invasion.”
He said dozens to hundreds of North Korean special forces troops would infiltrate the South and wage guerrilla offensives in southern areas where reserve troops are chiefly responsible for rounding up the enemy.
“It will be difficult to distinguish them as they would wear South Korean military uniforms,” Lee argued.
“The U.S. forces will also find it helpless to assist the South in mopping up the highly skilled and camouflaged North Korean guerrilla fighters. Moreover, Korea’s superior weapons systems will be of no use in guerrilla warfare.”
He pointed out that the South had to mobilize a whole corps for a two-month long manhunt of 10 North Korean soldiers in 2006 after finding a North Korean spy submarine had infiltrated the East Coast.
Lee predicted that the North would threaten to use a nuclear bomb if it finds the situation unfavorable and the South would have to prepare for a counterattack
“Ironically, the North’s possession of nuclear weapons will prevent its territory from becoming a battle ground,” he said.
He emphasized that Seoul should reconsider the country’s plan to reduce the Army to 387,000 soldiers by 2030, saying the ground troops should be maintained at 420,000.
Lee also called for beefing up military training for reserves and maintaining their number at 2.2 million.