The Korean Military Balance - Main Report

February 1, 2011

Taking a New Look at the Military Balance in the Koreas and Northeast Asia

Anthony H. Cordesman

The security situation in northeast Asia is driven by the military balance between North and South Korea, and the role that Chinese, Japanese, and US forces play in deterring or fighting a conflict in the Korean Peninsula. The Burke Chair has developed an experimental look at the broader balance of security and military trends that affect all of these countries and their full range of forces from covert operations to nuclear and long-range missile.

The first rough draft of this briefing is entitled “The Korean Military Balance:
Comparative Korean Forces and the Forces of Key Neighboring States” and is available on the CSIS web site at https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/110201_KoreaMilitaryBalanceMainRpt.pdf.

• The Executive summary can be downloaded here: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/110201_KoreaMilitaryBalanceExecSuml.pdf
• Main report can be downloaded here: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/110201_KoreaMilitaryBalanceMainRpt.pdf

The executive summary provides an overview of the balance, drawing on the quantitative comparisons and maps in main report. These include material drawn from a wide range of other research centers including the IISS, Nuclear Threat Initiative, ISIS, Jane’s, Global Security, and the Federation of American Scientists. It also draws on official material from Japan, China, South Korea, and the US.

The main report is 160 pages and includes a much more extensive quantitative examination with the full range of graphical analyses for all of the major weapons systems .

This draft is being circulated for comment and correction. It does not attempt resolve major differences in the data from given sources, but rather to compare them and identify key issues and areas of uncertainty. It also attempts to address key warfighting and arms control issues.

We would greatly appreciate any additional input, stressing that this is not an exercise in trying to reconcile different national positions or avoid portraying the range of uncertainty and different estimates where the data are lacking to do so.

I would also be highly desirable to include more material from China and to present estimates and data from North Korea.

Comments and corrections should be address to Anthony H. Cordesman at acordesman@gmail.com.