Time for South Korea to regain wartime operational control of its military?

(President Moon Jae-in inspects troops and weapons during a ceremony in advance of Armed Forces Day with Defense Minister Song Young-moo at the South Korean Navy’s 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. This was the first time that the event was held at a naval base. Behind them are displayed key weapons that can be used against a North Korean attack. (Blue House Photo Pool))

Time for South Korea to regain wartime operational control of its military?

By The Hankyoreh Editorial, Sept. 29, 2017

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has once again expressed his resolve to speed up the handover of wartime operational control (OPCON) of the South Korean military from the US to South Korea. “The goal of this administration is to accelerate the transfer of wartime operational control,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in said during a speech at an event commemorating Armed Forces Day on Sept. 28. “It’s only when we regain wartime operational control of our military that North Korea will fear us more and the South Korean public will trust the military more.” Wartime operational control is one of the supreme issues of a country’s sovereignty, and it’s abnormal that South Korea cannot exercise sovereignty over such an important matter. The OPCON transfer should take place as soon as possible.

The administration of former president Roh Moo-hyun initially reached an agreement with the US to complete the OPCON transfer by 2012, but during the presidency of Lee Myung-bak, this agreement was postponed, with the timeline moved back to 2015. The next president, Park Geun-hye, altered the agreement once again by basically postponing the handover indefinitely. Essentially, these conservative administrations gave up sovereignty of their own accord. Moon pledged while running for president that OPCON would be returned to South Korea before the end of his term. During Moon’s summit with US President Donald Trump in June, the two leaders agreed to work together to speed up the OPCON transfer.

The reasons given by the conservative establishment for opposing the accelerated transfer of OPCON are North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles and the South Korean military’s inadequate preparedness, but these reasons don’t make sense. There is nothing new about North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development, and the claim that the South Korean military is inadequately prepared isn’t persuasive either, since it constitutes self-deprecation of our national defense capabilities. If the US military is in control of wartime operations, the priority of those operations will be tied to US interests, and South Korea’s viewpoint will inevitably be sidelined. And with the emergence of Donald Trump as US President, it’s conceivable that the US could go to war with North Korea against South Korea’s wishes. The worsening security crisis on the Korean Peninsula makes it even more necessary for South Korea to possess the authority to control the wartime operations of its military.

“The peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula is the supreme duty that the Constitution confers upon the president, and this is a duty from which the president cannot be exempted,” Moon said during his address, reconfirming that a determination to preserve peace on the Korean Peninsula as his overriding priority. The OPCON transfer is connected to keeping the peace on the Korean Peninsula. The discussion of accelerating the OPCON transfer could begin during the South Korea-US Security Consultative Meeting, which is expected to be held at the end of October. We hope the OPCON transfer will take place during Moon’s presidency, just as he pledged. The wartime operational control of a sovereign state cannot be left in the care of a foreign military forever.

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