In Korea, a quiet US weapons buildup

"They [North Korea] thinks everything is provocative, when it suits their purpose," says a US military official in Seoul. "Last winter, we quietly held military-training exercises, which they sought to interpret as a prelude to war. We train every year. But this time they used it as an excuse to call off talks. We can't make decisions based on what Kim may or may not think."

The breakdown of the $11 billion is not yet clear, and US military officials say it is too early to reveal where the weapons will go. The package includes 16 new Pac-3 Patriot antimissile systems, at least two squadrons of Longbow AH-64D Apache helicopters, refitted "smart" bombs, and several hundred new tanks and fighting vehicles for a "striker force" that would rotate in and out of Korea. Costs may also include landing strips and "Korean contingency" forces based elsewhere.

Despite recent anti-American sentiments and protests in Seoul against US forces, most Koreans regard GIs as an essential "tripwire" along the DMZ. Liberals and even conservatives, like the new ambassador to the US, Han Sung Joo, argue troops should be redeployed, and the status quo changed, only after settlement of the nuclear crisis.

Under the Pentagon plan, US troops will move from some two dozen bases along the DMZ to two main "hubs" south of the Han River. Forces can move rapidly up and down the DMZ, and are further removed from the local population.

Yet what seems a mere tactical change in the US resonates deeper in the Korean context. "To take that tripwire away without resolving the conflict between North Korea and the US is, in the minds of South Koreans, an abrogation of responsibility taken by the US in 1953 to terminate the conflict without reunifying the Peninsula," says Lt. Col. Carl Baker of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.

Defense Department plans for a tactical nuclear deterrent have been in the air for more than a year. In spring 2002, a Department of Defense "Nuclear Posture Review" was leaked - a report that contemplated use of small nuclear weapons for penetrating into deep bunkers or tunnels. The review named North Korea as a prime target. The North Army has tunneled prolifically for years; four tunnels from the North under the DMZ have been found. South Korean intelligence suspects an entire mountain in the North may be hollowed out.

A US nuclear deterrent would be sold as a way to "preempt" the huge array of artillery tubes now aimed at Seoul. The capital of the South is regarded as a "hostage" of these weapons, and estimates range from 60,000 to 500,000 casualties in the first hours of any all-out war between the Koreas.

At a recent panel at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, a military analyst just back from Iraq said "the lesson" of that war is that conventional artillery such as Kim's is no longer effective. The ability of US forces to target artillery has changed tactics. "It's easy to take artillery tubes off the table. One of the most lethal places to be is in an artillery position. You may live for one shot; you may not live for two," said David Kay of the Potomac Institute.

Other analysts feel there are no such guarantees in the messy exercise of war.

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