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"While North Korea's capability has limitations, they can still cause enormous damage on South Korea with little or no warning," Army Gen. Walter Sharp, the chief of U.S. Forces Korea, said at a defense seminar in Seoul. "Threats in Northeast Asia remain very real," said Sharp, who also heads the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command.
He noted that North Korea deploys over 70 percent of its military assets along the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas. The communist country has more than 10,000 artillery pieces, 1,000 of which are concealed in mountain tunnels near the DMZ, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry.
In the first hour of a war, North Korea could rain 25,000 artillery shells on Seoul, destroying the metropolitan city and neighboring cities, which have a combined population of 20 million, just 50 kilometers away from the heavily fortified border.
In an additional threat, North Korea is expected to deploy modified KN-O2 short-range missiles that can carry high explosives and chemical bombs and can reach Seoul, according to a report by the South Korean Parliament. The model is a solid-fuel missile with a range of 120-160 kilometers.
The North has also launched several special warfare forces close to the border with the South to boost its ability to launch guerrilla-style attacks, according to military sources. The mission of the division armed with lighter weapons systems is to penetrate the South quickly in case of war, for guerrilla-style attacks or to pave the way for regular troops' full-scale operations.
South Korea believes the North maintains a total of 120,000 well-trained commandos with expertise in special warfare.
Sharp said the North's 1.2-million-strong armed forces are the world's fourth largest, and are armed with nuclear weapons, various ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction. But he said the South Korea-U.S. alliance is successfully deterring any aggression from the North.
"The United States will continue to provide steadfast support. U.S. forces will still be in Korea, plan, train and exercise together with ROK (South Korea) counterparts and support this strong alliance," said the head of the military contingent in the South.
The United States has recently reduced its troops in South Korea to some 28,000 from 37,000, and the number is to be downsized again to 25,000 by the end of this year as part of Washington's global troop realignment plan.
Backed by American troops, the South's 670,000 troops are facing off against the North's armed forces. The two Koreas remain technically in a state of war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty. Their border is the world's last Cold War flashpoint.
Military tensions have been mounting across the border since the inauguration of South Korea's conservative President Lee Myung-bak in February, who has adopted a hard-line stance against his communist neighbor and suspended economic aid.
Late last month the North's military threatened to turn everything in the South into "debris” and “ashes" if Seoul continues what it says are confrontational activities against Pyongyang.
The North's Navy has also warned of military clashes in the disputed inter-Korean maritime border, where the two Koreas exchanged naval gunfire in 1999 and 2002, leaving dozens dead or wounded on both sides. Another skirmish could lead to a catastrophe, analysts warn.
"North Korea may stage a military provocation against the South if Seoul's conservative government does not comply with its demands," said Hong Gwan-hui, a North Korea expert at the Seoul-based Security Strategy Institute.
To cope with the threats, the South's military has been developing a mobile truck-mounted laser weapon that could destroy missiles and artillery shells from North Korea. The high-energy laser weapons can be deployed as early as 2010 to counter North Korean missiles and long-range artillery shells deployed along the border.
Laser is widely used in the medical and industrial sectors, but is rarely used for military purposes. The United States and Israel have jointly developed similar laser weapons, according to defense officials.
