RAND has produced a report analyzing South Korea’s Defense Reform Plan:
At the request of Republic of Korea (ROK) Assemblyman Jin-Ha Hwang, a member of the National Assembly’s National Defense Committee, this analysis was performed of the ROK Defense Reform Plan (DRP). It examines the overall nature of the DRP, identifies major risks in the plan, and discusses how those risks can be managed. It concludes that the DRP is a good approach to potential ROK security dilemmas, but the plan faces major risks, especially in meeting potential ROK security requirements. The DRP could be strengthened by adding concepts for managing its major risks. This paper discusses the background of the DRP and the manpower problem it needs to address. It then presents the author’s estimates of the force changes that would occur and how those forces appear to fit the force requirements the ROK will likely face in the coming years. It examines the budget requested for the DRP and whether it will cover the necessary costs, addresses the effects that the DRP could have on ROK military morale and how the United States may view the DRP, and concludes by recommending steps the ROK could take to manage the key risks identified throughout this analysis.
You can learn useful stuff like what the U.S. contributes to the Korea-U.S. alliance:
To evaluate the U.S. military contribution to the ROK-U.S. alliance, it is useful to estimate what it would cost the ROK to develop a comparable force on its own. In a conflict, “U.S. augmentation forces, including the army, navy, air force, and marine corps, are composed of approximately 690,000 troops.” The ROK cannot match this force with purely an increase in its active-duty personnel because of its manpower limitations, and so it is useful to consider what it would cost to create an enhanced ROK reserve force to replace the U.S. forces. In terms of equipment alone, it would likely cost the ROK more than 600 trillion won to acquire much of what the United States would bring to the ROK if the need arose. Assuming a roughly 30-year life cycle, at least 20 trillion won per year would have to be invested inacquiring and then replacing this equipment. In addition, the maintenance cost of this equipment would likely be at least 20 trillion won per year. The force would likely require about 70,000 full-time reserve professionals, and it would have a personnel and operations cost of about half of what is planned for the ROK military from 2006 to 2020 (350 trillion won), or about 20 trillion won per year. Nevertheless, such a reserve force, lacking the experience and training of U.S. active-duty personnel, would likely have no more than half the capability of acomparable U.S. active-duty force. It would also require far more basing and training area in the ROK than is currently used by U.S. Forces Korea. In short, it would likely cost the ROK about 60 trillion won or more per year to generate a reserve force that is “comparable” to the U.S. commitment without some of the unique U.S.-force qualities and with perhaps only half of the overall U.S. capabilities.
Come on now, you know you want to read it.
(HT to reader)
One Comment
I wish this kind of info was widely known in Korea. Maybe it would dampen anti-US sentiment if most people knew how much they were benefitting. Hopefully, this kind of info will become more common knowledge with a new government in power, but I wouldn’t count on it. After all, the 3 main newspapers are all ‘conservative’ and yet do they print such information about the financial benefits to Korea of having the US troops here? It seems that the so-called ‘conservatives’ have often taken advantage of anti-US sentiment for their own ends (eg. Chun claiming he had the full support of the US in quelling the uprising in Kwangju).
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[...] A few days ago, the Marmot linked this RAND report on South Korea’s Defense Reform Plan (DRP). The report starts with some alarming disclaimers: it could not access much of the ROK MND’s classified information on strength levels or weapons systems, and the author has no experience (!) analyzing defense budget requests. Nonetheless, the author was able to pull together enough knowable facts and to convince me that the DRP will come unglued. How fast? Without a national emergency, I give it five years; with one, I give it five hours. Although I encourage you to read the whole thing, here’s my executive summary: [...]