South Korean President Park Geun-Hye’s “trustpolitik” proposal seeks to combine renewed dialogue and outreach to North Korea with a clear commitment to robust deterrence. Although commendable, South Korea will have difficulty trying to build trust given the nature of U.S. and South Korean military strategy for a war with North Korea. Simply put, the way that the Combined Forces Command (CFC) intends to fight a Korean war is highly escalatory; it exacerbates the incentives that North Korea already faces to resort to nuclear use in a conventional war. This paper describes how the modern “way of war” –which is heavily dependent on using airstrikes to rapidly destroy enemy leadership sites, degrade enemy command and control, and deny enemy situational awareness –ould greatly increase the likelihoodof North Korean nuclear escalation. The paper concludes with a discussion of important policy and force structure implications for U.S. and South Korean leaders.
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