The military plans to use about 100,000 reserve troops to stabilize North Korean areas and conduct civil operations in the case of an emergency, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday.

The plan is part of the revised Defense Reform 2020 initiative announced last Friday, he said.   (30 June 2009 Korea Times)

Oh my…

I’m hoping some of the military people here can talk about this issue if you have had experience with the Korean reservists.

I only got a very brief look, and that was 10 years ago, when the factory workers who were in the reserves in Kangwon Province had to hold formations at the factory complex and be sent out in units to scour the forests and mountains looking for the North Korean commando team that had gone to ground when the spy sub they were on got caught on a sandbar or something similar off the east coast and had to sneak and fight their way back North.

I was slightly familiar with the US reserve and National Guard system — and as I stood around looking at the Korean reservists in their uniforms and carrying their weapons as they waited to be called out — I remember thinking, “I truly hope the Korean regular military is a hell of a lot more professional…”   I did actually have a worry or two…

…This was in the late 1990s during my early months in Korea and just before I had left the States, the outgoing USFK commander had said he predicted NK would collapse within three years under three likely scenarios and one of them was going out with a bang by invading the South.

I hope for both South and North Korea’s sakes, the Korean reservist system has become much more professional than what tiny glimpse I got.

But, even there, if this is actually the plan the South Korean government has in mind for a response to a collapse in the North — Oh boy….