The Marmot’s Hole

Anyone wanting to get a somewhat limited look at North Korea’s battle plans might wish to check out the Korea Times, Chosun Ilbo, Joongang Ilbo (English) or the Kyunghyang Shinmun (Korean), all of which ran stories on what is reportedly a North Korean contingency plan signed by the Fat Man himself. Just to give you the intro to the Korea Times piece:

North Korea enhanced its war readiness in April last year, putting emphasis on self-defense, according to top-secret documents signed by Kim Jong-il, the Stalinist country’s leader.

The North’s move came one year after the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003.

Kim issued a two-page directive and a 31-page bylaw on April 7, demanding the Workers’ Party, the military and all people assume wartime readiness, the Seoul government confirmed Wednesday.

The Dear Leader ordered people to be ready to mobilize all possible resources within 24 hours following the outbreak of war, increasing the number of available troops through recruiters in each province, city and county.

The Seoul government said it was scrutinizing the documents, which were recently obtained by a local daily, the Kyunghyang Shinmun.

“The North might have released the directive after updating some parts of it to reflect developing situations such as the war in Iraq,” a government official in Seoul said. “But every country has emergency plans for war situations.”

The official, who asked not to be named, added that Pyongyang must have been very concerned about the possibility of a pre-emptive strike by the U.S.

“The U.S. is trying to suffocate us by fanning nuclear suspicions,” the introduction of the bylaw said. “The U.S. will take advantage of the nuclear issue as a reason to invade us.”

From the Joongang version:

According to the documents, Mr. Kim ordered the mobilization of all civilians, party and military officials within 24 hours of the outbreak of hostilities. The documents said reserve troops in the North should be mobilized and South Korean “revolutionary organizations” would recommend volunteers.

The intelligence service said it is paying attention to the North’s belief that it can recruit in the South in time of war.

The documents also said military and all government facilities should be equipped with underground facilities.

The plans also said unmanned surveillance planes and satellites should be used to gather information, indicating that the North Korean military is equipped with such capabilities, though such a claim is suspect.

The documents also said missile units should take offensive action in case of war, but ordered biochemical warfare units to remain on the defensive. The war plans also detailed the actions that would be taken by the North Korean military to decontaminate areas hit by nuclear and biochemical attacks. The plans stressed that the United States was planning a pre-emptive strike.

As for the UAVs, the Kyunghyang Shinmun pointed out that military experts think the North Koreans are capable of equipping its AN-2 Colt biplanes with remote controls, although they point out that such aircraft could be shot down within 2~3 minutes — the world’s largest single-engine biplane, I can’t image the AN-2 is known for its stealth. They also pointed out, however, that North Korea did acquire from Russia an unknown number of UAV of equally unknown kind in 2002, and one couldn’t rule out the possibility that North Korea developed its own UAV technology. As for the satellite information, the Kyunghyang said the generally held opinion was that the North Korean plan takes it for granted that the Chinese or Russians would provide intelligence, which would seem to suggest some degree of military cooperation is still going on between Pyongyang and at least one of its former allies.

The Kyunghyang Shinmun, being the happy recipient of the leaked document, has a ton of stuff on it over at their webpage for those who read Korean.

One of the more interesting things pointed out was that the very first task assigned to the good citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was to move portraits, statues and other works of art depicting Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il or other members of the revolutionary family to secure locations underground. One would assume this includes the gigantic bronze Kim Il-sung statue atop Mansudae Hill, Pyongyang. One might also assume that after watching U.S. soldiers pull down statues of another former dictator last year, the North Korean leadership has made it a priority to ensure that likenesses of the dearly departed Great Leader don’t get the Saddam treatment. Some may also recall how the North Korean press eulogized those who supposedly lost their lives trying to rescue portraits of the North Korean royal family from the flames following the Ryongchon Station disaster in April.

The Chosun Ilbo, of course, thinks something is amiss with the document:

Some intelligence officials, however, are raising suspicions about the content of the document. One official said the bylaws only contained information that had been collected through various sources at a previous time. He explained that in a document such as this, the means by which the intelligence was collected and the process of adopting the document were usually included, but in this case, they were absent. He said it was possible that information concerning resident spies and intelligence gathering activities conducted within South Korea had been omitted.

Another intelligence official said that from North Korea’s position, it was suspicious that the bylaws focused on defensive concepts and double-checking contingency plans premised on coming under attack from biological weapons. He said if this were a war contingency plan, North Korea would have also considered pre-emptive strikes, which it is capable of carrying out, but no such plans appeared in the document.

Choi Ju-hwal, a North Korean colonel who defected to the South in 1995, said that since the Korean War, North Korea has outlined bylaws that are primarily defensive in the case of civilians, but offensive regarding the Northern forces dotted along the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which are given invasion objectives south of the border.

He said that given the consideration that such content may have been intentionally omitted, the document may have been manufactured for propaganda purposes to demonstrate that Pyongyang could withstand U.S.-applied pressure.

I might also suggest that in addition to possibly being North Korean disinformation, one shouldn’t rule out the possibility that South Korean intelligence played around with the document to impress onto Washington North Korea’s “defensive” intentions. Who the hell knows with stuff like this. Surely not I.