The Pentagon is making significant changes in strategy and would rely largely on sensors, smart bombs, high-speed transport ships and other hi-tech assets in any conflict with North Korea.The shift is being undertaken as the U.S. cuts the number of troops in South Korea by one-third and begins moving the remaining soldiers farther from the demilitarized zone to improve their chances of surviving a North Korean attack.
Discussing the new military technology available to the U.S., Gen. Leon J. LaPorte, the senior American commander in South Korea, told the New York Times: "We have better intelligence. We have precision-guided munitions. We have better weapons systems. We have better communications.
"So we are able to not only accomplish our current mission, but increase our capabilities – at the same time reducing the number of personnel it takes to do this."
The shift in war plans incorporates advances in technology and combat skills that were utilized during the U.S. rush to Baghdad in 2003, according to Michael E. O'Hanlon, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and an author of Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: How to Deal With a Nuclear North Korea. Satellite-targeting of bombs allowed U.S. forces to attack Iraqi Republican Guards units even when ground forces were slowed by sandstorms.
In Korea, "there are a large number of targets that we have a chance of taking out in the opening days of a battle, but not the opening minutes, because of our precision-strike capabilities and I.S.R. (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance)," O'Hanlon said.
"Even if artillery is pulled back inside caves, we have a pretty potent capability."
The new plans would include moving Army units and the new Stryker infantry fighting vehicles on C-17 cargo jets from Washington state to reinforce South Korea in just 11 hours, the Times reports.
High-speed troop transports can bring marines from Okinawa in less than a day, Gen. LaPorte said. Heavy equipment for the troops is already positioned in South Korea. Gen. LaPorte could also call on fighter aircraft and bombers based in Japan, Guam, Alaska, Hawaii and the continental U.S.
As for the Pentagon's decision to move ground troops farther from the border of North Korea – which has an estimated 12,000 artillery pieces and rocket tubes close to the demilitarized zone - Gen. LaPorte stated: "Why would we want to have our valuable resources underneath the artillery of North Korea? Our high-value assets are now disposed where they would not be under immediate fire."