[기획연구] 군사전략관점의 한미안보동맹 현안분석

CFC OPLAN 5029 and the future of the ROK-US security alliance

The US-ROK alliance is at crossroad. The strategic premise and political assumption have waned primarily because of South Korea's sunshine policy towards North Korea and its assertive independency from the US umbrella. The North Korea's nuclear threat has even become more of American issue and less that of South Korea. Controversies and confusion over the CFC OPLAN 5029 illustrate starkly all of this. OPLAN 5029 is designed to cope with contingencies in case of North Korea's sudden collapse. The plan focuses on when and how to intervene in the fog of collapsing the North's C3&I system, and who should take the intiative. South Korean government insists its has the sovereign right to take the initiative while the US as the commanding authority of the alliance holds the other way around. Although the two sides temporarily 'agreed to disagree' on the details of the plan, the issue would likely to along with the question of 'strategic flexibility' shake fundamentally the politico-military basis of the aging cold war alliance in the future.