NORTH KOREA: What If... ...War Breaks Out In

In war scenarios, planners tend to anticipate the worst -- ceding infallibility to the enemy's forces and equipment -- or hope for the best, imagining a near perfect performance by their own troops. But these schemes are only guesses. War games cannot calculate what is in the hearts or minds of an enemy force. Will they fight with conviction and tenacity or surrender easily? Will they have enough food, oil and ammunition or leave troops famished and demoralized in the field? Such imponderables, as much as military blueprints, are the true keys to victory.

As the struggle over North Korea's nuclear capability crept a step closer to confrontation last week, men paid to think about the possibility of a war sketched dramatically different scenarios. In the worst case -- a computerized war game done in 1991 by one Pentagon analyst and never officially accepted -- an unstoppable North Korean force sweeps across the 150-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone, pushes south through disorganized defenders and reaches the southeastern port of Pusan within four weeks, just in time to block the arrival of U.S. reinforcements. The Korean peninsula reunifies -- with the seat of power in the northern capital of Pyongyang.

In current Pentagon analyses, the North Korean incursion across the DMZ is stopped within three weeks by a superior U.S. air campaign. American troops land at the North Korean port of Wonsan, an Allied noose encircles Pyongyang and topples strongman Kim Il Sung within four months. The Koreas reunite -- with the seat of power in Seoul.

The scenarios share this gloomy prediction: high costs for all sides. Both Koreas would suffer deaths and injuries in the hundreds of thousands, while the U.S. force, which could build to 400,000 over a two-month period, might sustain 20,000 casualties. "It's going to be a bloody, bloody mess if it happens," warns a Pentagon official. "A real tragedy."

Based on what the most pessimistic analysts and current Pentagon planners know about the size and deployment of North Korea's forces and arsenals, and the intent and capability of Allied forces, they agree on this:

-- If a war erupts, it would be because North Korea fires the first shot. / Although the Pentagon steadfastly refused last week to rule out a pre-emptive attack, Washington's actions -- or nonactions -- in South Korea supported the Clinton Administration's stated policy of making no move that might be misinterpreted as a provocation. Even as the war of words quickened, top Pentagon officials saw no reason to evacuate either the 11,000 military dependents of the 35,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea or the other 12,000 American civilians residing there.

-- Despite U.S. satellites and other intelligence-gathering assets, the warning time of a North Korean attack will be negligible. A year ago, military officials predicted a weeklong alert. General Gary Luck, the senior U.S. commander in South Korea, cautions that his forces will have as little as 12 hours' warning. A congressional defense expert whittles that still lower, predicting that advance notice "is as long as it takes to load and fire an artillery shell: about 10 seconds."