THE RISING EAST

By Richard Halloran

The newly revised United States and South Korean operational plan for war against North Korea has given a much higher priority than earlier versions to defeating North Korea's special operations forces, or commandos.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that the United States was engaged in "prudent planning" for "all sorts of contingencies."

Military officers confirmed that North Korea's commandos were among the targets to which Myers referred.

Intelligence reports say that North Korea has 100,000 to 120,000 of them, up from 70,000 only a few years ago, highly trained special operations forces, or SOF in military lingo. They are organized into 23 brigades and 18 smaller independent battalions.

South Korean soldiers march back to their base camp after a military exercise designed to prepare them for a possible North Korean attack across the demilitarized zone. North Korea recently threatened to abandon the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War if the United States goes ahead with alleged plans to impose a naval blockade. Associated Press

Their operations would include cutting communication lines, attacking command posts, assassinating senior South Korean and American officers, and kidnapping South Korean political leaders.

The SOF troops would infiltrate South Korea by sea, land and air. Since 86 percent of South Korea's border is coastline sprinkled with hundreds of rocky islets, it would be conducive to infiltration by North Korean mini-submarines, high-speed boats and air-cushioned amphibious craft.

They would also try to come through about 20 tunnels dug under the DMZ in the past 30 years and over land through the sparsely populated and mountainous reaches of eastern South Korea.

The North Koreans would parachute into South Korea from old Russian transport planes that fly low and slow to avoid radar detection.

In response, Operations Plan 5027-02 calls for several types of counterstrikes, including attacking North Korean SOF bases before the commandos slip into the South, and sinking North Korean ships as they come down the coast, before the commandos can land. The plan also calls for added steps to protect U.S. and South Korean bases.

Late last year, a team from the U.S. 353rd Special Operations Group left its home base in Okinawa, Japan, to train with its opposite numbers in South Korea's Special Warfare Command. It was the first time such joint training had taken place, according to a 353rd report.

Intelligence officers, operational planners and flight crews went over aircraft configurations, flight routes, refueling methods and ground maneuvers. Maj. Bae Gyung-Guen said: "Korea's Special Warfare Command wants to make sure that there are no misunderstandings between the air crews and jumpers."

The U.S. knows much about operating behind the lines in North Korea because there were extensive, if little known, operations such as the one called White Tiger there during the Korean War of 1950-1953. Volumes of after-action reports and a few memoirs are the basis of this intelligence.

About the same time, senior officers at the U.S. air base in Osan, about 40 miles south of Seoul, worried most "about enemy special forces taking out the base," said the base newspaper.

North Korean soldiers ride in the back of a truck at a village near Mount Kumgang. North Korea said it will win the dispute with the United States over its nuclear development. In the meantime, the nation's leaders are seeking a nonaggression pact with the United States. Associated Press

Operations Plan 5027 is revised every two years and is drawn up jointly by South Korean and U.S. officers. It provides the fundamental strategy for defending South Korea and details the positions of almost all targets in North Korea. It further assigns U.S. and South Korean units and weapons to attack them.

In 5027-98 are provisions for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea in which targets are assigned and forces need only to receive the order to go.

This plan predates President Bush's controversial doctrine governing such strikes. The president's critics contend that pre-emptive strikes have not been part of the American way of war.

That overlooks the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 to dispose of a Cuban-backed junta. In 1986, the United States mounted a punitive air strike against Libya to deter further Libyan terrorism. And the United States invaded Panama in 1989 to unseat dictator Manuel Noriega.

The North Koreans know about those pre-emptive attacks and the general outline of Operations Plan 5027.

Those are among the reasons they have been seeking — some say desperately — a nonaggression agreement with the United States.