Some risks might be mitigated, for example, by conducting heliborne assault opera-tions against a site only when heavier ground maneuver forces are closing on that site so that assaulting forces can be quickly reinforced.
Question 2
2. Intelligence Requirements.
The quality and reliability of U.S. intelligence will be critical in winnowing the number of sites to be initially assaulted, seized, and secured down to those that will best reduce the risk of WMD being leaked or employed.
For example, poorintelligence can result in forces being sent to seize and secure sites bereft of WMD
Very good intelligence could, in theory, reduce the number of sites requiring coverage, support the efficient allocation of limited resources, and reduce risk. (In practice, however, North Korean efforts to hide weapons and disguise sites may significantly diminish the effectiveness of U.S. and allied intelligence.)
Twointelligence issues complicate planning for the WMD-E mission.
– First, intelligence gaps will likely mean that critical facilities rumored or reported to exist cannot be located.
– Second, as previously noted, many weapons – particularly CWs – are likely to have been dispersed tonumerous tacticaloperationalsites that cannot be identified in advance and are not included in estimates of a country’s WMD infrastructure.
Answer
For the WMD-E mission in North Korea, even in a DPRK collapse scenario, forces searching for WMD will not know what type of resistance they might encounter. TFs should consist, therefore, of both WMD specialists and general-purpose forces that are adequate for the potential threat and tactical situation. This could be a significant consideration given the nature of North Korea’s armed forces and the degree to which its population is armed and indoctrinated to fear and distrust U.S. and RoK forces.
Figure 1.1
Question 3
3. Parametric Analyses of WMD-E Force Requirements
We estimated WMD-E forces under different scenario assumptions that varied the following parameters:
1 • the number and sizes of WMD sites for WMD-E operations
2• force requirements dictated by the operational environment
3• the ratio of supporting forces to mission forces.
Answer
1.The number and sizes of WMD sites for WMD-E operations.
For WMD- E operations, we assess that the nuclear sites associated with fuel enriching and processing would be the next priorities, along with nuclear weapon manufacturing, testing, and storage sites. For our base case, we selected 12 battalion TFs as the minimum force that a commander should be allocated to seize, secure, search, and eliminate the priority nuclear sites. We note that 12 WMD-E TFs is a planning factor only.
For example, if intelligence suggests that the highest-priority nuclear activities should be conducted at nine sites, as shown in Table 1.1,
Table 1.1
then a minimum of ten battalion-sized TFs should be assigned to these nine sites. In the course of an operation, the U.S. commander might use these 12 WMD-E TFs
differently. For example, recall that in Figure 4.1 four of the priority nuclear sites and two of
the priority missile sites were located approximately 50 km from the Chinese border.
2. Operational environment and force requirements.
– WMD-E (Uncertain): This environment features a low threat level – consistent with the collapse of the DPRK regime and complete disintegration of the military. This might occur if a power struggle within the Kim regime resulted in open fighting that pushes an already dangerously unstable economy and society into chaos and collapse.
– WMD-E (Uncertain/High Threat)
This environment features a greater threat level – consistent with the collapse of the DPRK regime and the higher echelons of its military. As in the Uncertain case above, this environment might arise from a violent conflict within the DPRK’s leadership.
– WMD-E (Hostile):the basis of the Hostile environment is that U.S. entry into North Korea would be met with hostility by former regime and military members and perhaps many in the general public. In the internal collapse case, entering North Korea might be predicated on relieving a massive humanitarian catastrophe and controlling refugee flows – with securing WMD being necessary to prevent their transfer.
– WMD-E (Hostile/High Threat): This environment features the collapse of the DPRK regime but with the military remaining intact to a large extent. This environment might result from an internal regime struggle and collapse as before. But, in this case, the military manages to hold itself together.
We used these four environment descriptions to calculate the forces required for the missions shown in Table 1.2.
In each case, we assessed that a battalion-sized WMD-E TF was the minimum size needed to provide sufficient organic security at each site and that – at a minimum—12 such TFs would be provided (ten for priority nuclear sites, with two in reserve for pop-up targets).
3. Ratio of supporting forces to mission forces.
For operations in the DPRK, such support would most likely be provided by military units:
– 1.5:1: This represents the lower-end bound of OIF and OEF support for Army operations.
– 2.5:1: We use this ratio for our baseline. It represents the midlevel support ratios experienced in OIF and OEF.
– 3.5:1: This represents the high-end bound of OIF and OEF support.
We chose the 2.5:1 support ratio for our baseline estimate to support WMD-E operations in the DPRK, and show the parametric variants of ratios higher or lower than this number.
Question 4
– Sensitivity of Force Requirements to Operational Environments and Support Ratios
The ground force requirements are presented as a function of the operating environment (Uncertain or Hostile, and level of threat) and the assumed support ratio (low, midlevel, or high), broken out by the different elements of the WMD-E mission force.
Ground force requirements for WMD-E operations in our illustrative DPRK case are presented