coreano

미 7함대사령관의 중대 발언


성조지 태평양판, 4/17 일요일자

미 7함대사령관 조너던 그리너트 중장은 함대의 관심사항에 대해서 최근 말했다. 대화의 내용은 다음과 같다.

분쟁과 쌍무관계

밤에도 깨어있게 만드는 우리의 현 작전 촛점: 아침에 기상할 때 참모들과 함께 집중하는 문제 제1번이 북한에서 진행중인 상황이다.

우리는 태평양사령관과 한미연합사령관 르포르트 대장에게 7함대가 어떤 한국방위 작전에도 해군력으로 (동원될) 책임이 있다는 시각에서 북한을 본다.

북한은 세계 최강의 군대를 갖고 있으며 충돌 위협은 상대적으로 낮으나 그 결과가 너무 엄청나서 결과에 바탕을 두고 생각을 하자면 거기에 집중하게 된다.

북한은 큰 육군을 갖고 있다, 약 100만명의 병력으로 그들 주장으론 핵무기도 갖고 있으므로 이들 사항들을 종합하면 북한상황이 우리의 최대관심사가 된다.

북한 상황에 대한 두번째 관심사는 정권의 안정이다. 이런 문제로 전쟁을 붙거나 충돌을 벌이지는 않을지라도 정권이 몰락하면 대혼란이 우리 손에 떨어지게 된다. 이와 관련된 어떤 작전에도 해군력이 동원될 것이며, 불안정하거나 정권붕괴시에는 북한에 들어가서 질서회복을 도울 것이다. 일본에 몰려오거나 바다로 탈출하려고 애쓰는 피난민들을 우리가 관리해야 할 것이다. 그것이 한국과의 두번째 문제이다.

Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, April 17, 2005

Vice Adm. Jonathan Greenert, commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet, spoke to Stars and Stripes recently about the subjects and issues in the fleet that concern him. Here is a transcript of that talk.

Conflict and bilateral relations

What keeps me awake at night and what is the focus of our current operations: When I get up in the morning, the things that I focus on with my staff, No. 1 is what’s going on with North Korea.

We look at North Korea from the perspective that we are responsible, to the Pacific Commander and the Combined Forces Korea Commander, Gen. LePorte, we are the naval component for any operation for the defense of Korea.

North Korea has one of the largest armies in the world and though the threat of conflict is relatively low, the consequences are so high that that consequence-based thought process has us focused there.

They have a large Army, about a million people and allegedly have nuclear weapons and so the confluence of those items and our responsibility and the potential size of such an operation puts that in the top of our focus.


A second order in the effect of North Korea is the stability of the regime. Although we may not go to war over something like this or be in conflict, if the regime were to fail, we would have quite a mess on our hands. We would be the naval component for any subsequent operations, we would go in and help restore order in North Korea if there were an instability or a regime failure. We would probably have refugees and displaced people trying to get to Japan or otherwise going to sea to try to get out. So that’s a second order problem with Korea.

No. 2 is a China-Taiwan situation. Our country supports peaceful settlement and we are an instrument of that. Our biggest concern and what we try to preclude is a miscalculation between China and Taiwan or any of the other second order parties. And I would say that our mission out here as we enhance stability is to dissuade any military actions by China or Taiwan; to help dissuade China from taking any kind of military action but at the same time to preclude Taiwan from provoking such an action and we try to balance that here.

Thirdly, what we look at is the Global War on Terrorists, particularly in Southeast Asia. We currently have an operation at the request of the Government of the Philippines to help them deter, dissuade and disrupt any terrorist actions in the Southern Philippines. There’s a firm belief that the Southern Philippines are a source of terrorist camps and that al-Qaida and JI work together and use that area [the islands from southern Philippines down into Indonesia, linked by ferries and believed to support terror camps].

That’s a concern of ours, the continued operation and expansion of terrorist operations down and around that area.