By Van Jackson
Why the U.S.-ROK alliance should plan for a limited war on the Korean Peninsula.
How do you fight and win with one hand tied behind your back? U.S. and South Korean officials would do well to figure out, quickly. A dark cloud descended over the Korean Peninsula last week as a series of North Korean actions along the DMZ escalated tensions to the highest level since 2010. Despite ongoing talks between the two sides, tensions remain high. The prospect of limited war on the Korean Peninsula is all too real, and the alliance must reorient its preparations accordingly.
I’ve spent most of my tenure since leaving government warning about limited war in Korea—a conflict in which both sides avoid nuclear exchanges, no invasion of Pyongyang occurs, and both sides limit their objectives and the means of attaining them to eschew conquest. In limited war, a return to the status quo may count as a victory. If that sounds perverse, it’s because we’ve become accustomed to an image of war as an all-or-nothing affair; no goal short of total enemy surrender will do. Not so in a world of limited wars.
I raised this issue in congressional testimony earlier this year. I noted it in subsequent op-eds, and in a Center for a New American Security report for Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. I’ve discussed it before the media, and at conferences. And in a forthcoming report for the U.S.-Korea Institute, I attempt to sketch how the alliance might adjust to a future of limited wars. The most recent mini-crisis brings the point home in disturbingly clear fashion: the risk of limited war on the Korean Peninsula is increasing with time.
I’ve identified a number of mutually reinforcing reasons why this is so, and why the reality of limited war actually gets more likely with time.
Read the full story at The Diplomat