The Korean Military Balance

This report describes the key results of an analysis conducted to assess the overall balance of forces on the Korean Peninsula. Given the complexity of relations between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), such an assessment of the conventional, asymmetric, and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear) capabilities on each side is vital to negotiations between states and efforts at arms control. At the same time, there is no one Korean military balance that can be used for policy planning or arms control negotiations until decisions are made about what forces and issues to address.

The tensions between the Koreas—and the potential involvement of the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the United States at both the political and military level—create a virtually open-ended spectrum of possible conflicts. This is particularly true if one considers the number of times that war has grown out of unpredictable incidents and patterns of escalation, the historical reality that the probability of less likely forms of war actually occurring has been consistently higher than what seem to be the most probable contingencies in peacetime, and the patterns of escalation that seem most likely from the viewpoint of a “rational bargainer.”