Always There: Civil Affairs in Korea
In Korea, as elsewhere, the primary objective of civil affairs has been the support of military operations. This objective included both the prevention of conditions that would prejudice military operations as well as constructive efforts to obtain maximum utilization of indigenous resources. - C. Darwin Stolzenbach and Henry A. Kissinger
It has been over fifty years since the United States, North Korea and China signed the armistice treaty in Panmunjon. Prior to the cessation of hostilities on July 27, 1953, United States forces were involved in substantial civil military operations (CMO) in the Republic of Korea (ROK) that far exceed any we have seen to date in Afghanistan and Iraq.
According to Stolzenbach and Kissenger, “. . . the first civil affairs efforts were in the fields of public health, welfare and sanitation, for the purpose of preventing disease, starvation, and unrest. In the winter of 1950-51 the movement of several million refugees threatened interference with the use of vital communication lines. Later still, removal of civilians from combat areas and their subsequent care and disposition were deemed necessary, not only for humanitarian reasons, but as a security measure as well.”
Among the more dramatic events was the evacuation of over 90,000 North Korean Christians and anti-communists from Hamhung province to Busan and Koje in December of 1950 using ships of the ROK and U.S. Navy and Merchant Marine.
Kissinger viewed U.S. CMO efforts in Korea with a critical eye, “. . . U.S. civil affairs effort in Korea can be judged a qualified success. Epidemics were prevented; no significant unrest on the part of the civilian population occurred. It must be emphasized, however, that the prevention of disease and unrest represents a minimum objective and essentially a negative one. Large scale riots or epidemics would conclusively prove the complete failure of civil affairs policies; their absence does not, however, indicate more than a minimum effectiveness.”
Throughout 1950-1953, the ROK Army and government did the heavy lifting involved in CMO, though much of it was directed by UN commanders. “. . .the doctrine of ‘military necessity’ was also invoked by tactical commanders in assuming directive powers over civil affairs functions from corps areas forward. The evacuation of refugees, the distribution of relief supplies, and various security measures were carried out by ROK authorities, wherever possible, but at the direction of the tactical commander. Finally, the ROK authorities were responsible for the distribution of relief supplies and other measures to prevent disease and unrest, subject only to the ‘advice and assistance’ of U.S. or UN agencies, particularly the United Nations Civil Assistance Command Korea, the Korean Military Advisory Group, and UNKRA. In practice the distinction between direction and advice proved very tenuous. . .”
During the height of the Korean conflict, U.S. civil affairs staff grew to approximately 400 officers and men who administered approximately $150 million in humanitarian and economic assistance. Today, U.S. civil affairs presence in the Republic of Korea is far less, only a handful of planners and staff that prepare for contingencies on the Korean peninsula. A key tenant of U.S. CMO planning is ensuring coalition unity of effort and respecting the sovereignty of the Republic of Korea. As a result, contingency planning revolves around delivering U.S. humanitarian assistance and support for reconstruction through ROK government and military channels and encouraging non-governmental organizations and international organizations to do likewise. U.S. civil affairs staff in Korea, aside from CMO planning previously mentioned, also oversee peacetime engagement with ROK military and civilians in order to foster good relations between the two countries.
The ROK Army, however, has developed an extensive civil affairs structure, with trained active-duty CMO staff officers down to the division level and many thousands of reserve component civil affairs officers and soldiers that train annually to respond to humanitarian disasters at home and abroad. Tens of thousands of ROK government employees participate in annual CMO training as well.
The ROK Army has a long and proud history of CMO to draw upon, beginning with successful evacuation of noncombatants in 1950 and defeating communist insurgents in 1951. Two ROK Army divisions and one ROK Marine regiment practiced counterinsurgency operations for eight years in South Vietnam. The ROK Army currently has hundreds of soldiers assisting with CMO in Afghanistan and over 3,000 soldiers conducting CMO in northern Iraq.
When it comes to actual nation-building, senior ROK military officers were a driving force in the industrialization of the economy of the Republic of Korea during the 1960s and 1970s. Due to this economic transformation, the Republic of Korea has the tenth largest economy in the world.
With the Republic of Korea and North Korea technically still at war, and with hundreds of North Korean guns trained on Seoul, the ROK Army has an extensive CMO mission to prepare for. Senior ROK Army leaders take this mission seriously and are conducting extensive training in CMO, drawing upon lessons learned from their own operations during the Korean conflict and in Vietnam and our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. They attend CMO seminars sponsored by U.S. Special Operations Command Korea and taught by U.S. Joint Special Operations University. Recently, they have begun reaching out to UN organizations such as UNHCR and key international organizations such as the ICRC. If war comes again to the Korean peninsula, the ROK Army will be prepared to conduct CMO and possess the home court advantage of a common language and culture that the U.S. Army has never enjoyed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
In short, the ROK-U.S. alliance conducted CMO together in 1950-1953 on the Korean peninsula and together again for eight years in Vietnam is still present today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both U.S. and ROK professional are trained and ready to conduct CMO on the Korean peninsula if forced to do so. ♦