As the US prepares to reduce and redeploy troops that have long guarded the DMZ in South Korea, it is also sending a huge array of state-of-the-art military equipment onto a peninsula confronting a nuclear crisis.

Along with a new Pentagon study of tactical nuclear weapons that would penetrate the deep tunnels and entrenched artillery positions of North Korea's military, the $11-billion infusion of weaponry has raised concerns in Seoul that Kim Jong Il, the North's isolated leader, will interpret the buildup as a prelude to war or "regime change."

The new materiel includes precision-guided rockets, Patriot missile-defense units, attack helicopters, and a rotating strike force team.

"This is a great deal of new military equipment being sent to South Korea," says Seongho Sheen, a research fellow with the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. "Although the US government has repeatedly said it has no intention of attacking, from the North Korean perspective it looks like the US is preparing for war."

Deploying small nuclear weapons to the South, even if approved, is four years away, experts note. The Pentagon got a congressional nod in May to study the so-called nuclear "bunker busters" - causing a stir in Seoul.

Of more immediate notice is what US officials term an "enhancement" of capability and weaponry now under way in the South. The buildup, first tipped by Gen. Leon LaPorte in a classified talk last month, is part of a restructuring of US forces in Korea. This plan stems from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's push for a more flexible and fast-moving US military. US forces have discussed such changes for 10 years.

The US is known to want a diplomatic answer to the crisis with the North, and is pushing regional allies, especially China, to pressure Kim. Still, the timing and backdrop of this buildup, and its potential for being misread in the North, concerns some South Korean officials and US and Japanese analysts.

"When you are at an impasse, as we are with the North, attempts to break the status quo can look provocative," says Haksoon Paik of the Sejong Institute outside Seoul. "New high-tech weapons massed in the South could be destabilizing."

Enhancement comes at a sensitive moment: Pyongyang is openly declaring nuclear status. The South has a newly elected leader. There are disagreements and some confusion in the public mind over how to conduct relations with both sibling North Korea and ally Uncle Sam.

In the midst of this, the Pentagon said this spring it will redeploy troops that have guarded the DMZ for 50-plus years. The news caused deep jitters in Seoul, partly assuaged by the recent visit of assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Some worry that, despite US assurances, the Americans may either be leaving forward positions to prepare a military option against Kim's nuclear program, or preparing South Korea to fend for itself in a sort of Koreanization program.

US military planners argue that the new weaponry shows a reasonable commitment to defend the South - and is an incentive for Kim to forgo military moves and negotiate.

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