Por KJ Noh
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| Photograph Source: U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class John Bellino – Public Domain |
Over seventy years ago, the US took control of South Korea’s military. To this day, it still controls it.
Why?
This confounds every notion of state sovereignty: a supposedly sovereign entity–South Korea–has its own military subjugated under US control.
Transfer of OpCon (operational control) of one nation’s army to another is usually temporary, most often during wartime.
In Korea, it has lasted over 76 years.
South Korea has asked for OPCON back, repeatedly. It has been three decades since South Korea first made the demand.
The US has always delayed, filibustered, waffled, and moved the goalposts.
More recently, the US has signaled more delay on OPCON transfer, despite current president Lee Jae Myung’s demand that it be transferred before the end of his term in 2030.
The allies are currently assessing the “full operational capability” (FOC) after validating the “initial operational capability” (IOC).
Seoul aims to wrap up the FOC certification and announce a target year for the Opcon transition at the upcoming SCM, before moving on to the remaining assessment of the “full mission capability,” which it expects to take about a year or so.
….[However] Washington remains firm in its position that Seoul is not ready for FOC certification, weighing on Seoul’s push to accelerate the Opcon transition.
This follows on US Forces Korea Commander Xavier Brunson’s repeated declarations of his opposition to OPCON transfer: only conditions matter, not timelines. According to Brunson, there can be no timeline to return control of South Korea’s troops to South Korea. Seventy-six years is not enough.
South Korea had originally set deadlines for the return of OPCON. The US delayed, and delayed, and denied. It finally agreed–but only if certain conditions were met. These were agreed to in 2014, and reaffirmed them in 2017. Yet another decade has passed since those agreements.
Cutting through the fog, there are essentially three conditions that the US has set as preconditions for South Korea to regain control over its own troops:
1. Can South Korea defend itself? (Can it operate its own military effectively? Does it have capacity, materiel, systems, and institutions?)
2. Are US and South Korea forces interoperable? (Can they coordinate in war?)
3. Are the conditions stable enough for OPCON transfer?
The answer to the first is, of course. South Korea has one of the most powerful and well-equipped militaries in the world.
The second is, of course, the US and South Korea have been rehearsing interoperability for over seventy years.
The third is key: it is a catch-22 designed to undermine the entire process.
Conditions-based OPCON Transfer (COPT) sets specific benchmarks and tests for OPCON transfer. These are the goalposts that are being constantly shifted.
However, the third condition is critical. It requires the de-escalation of tensions between North and South:
“Conducive Security Environment: The security environment on the Korean Peninsula and in the broader region must be stable and conducive to a safe, uninterrupted transfer”
This is the catch-22:
If there is de-escalation of tensions, the required “tests” are not conducted and the benchmarks and certifications are not achieved–they are tied to field-condition wargames. Doing these wargames and tests escalates tensions with North Korea.
If there are tensions, then condition 3 is not met, and OPCON cannot be transferred.
It’s a formula for ensuring OPCON is never transferred.
The simple fact is, it does not take 20+years to transfer OPCON. “Wartime” OPCON is transferred very rapidly. Armies coalesce, and OPCON is transferred. Syngman Rhee turned over OPCON in July of 1950 and the US was immediately in charge. It doesn’t take years and decades to transfer opcon. It takes hours or days. Returning it should be even faster. But that would require political will.
Here are some other important things to remember:
Opcon transfer conditions are actually classified
The US keeps these conditions under wraps, and therefore the South Korean public or its representatives cannot challenge them publicly because they are not known. We only know the general outlines. The South Korean side can only hope the US will agree they have been met. This is yet another abrogation of sovereignty and democracy in addition to the original breach: “We will keep your military, unless you meet our secret conditions, which you cannot discuss, debate or challenge, because they are secret”.
Condition 3, “Conducive security environment” has always been a kill switch
We know that security conditions have always been a tacit condition because, in the past, whenever an Opcon transfer looked justified and imminent, the security environment would suddenly degrade, scuttling the whole project. For example, just as the deadline for Roh Moo-hyun-negotiated OPCON transfer was approaching, the sudden sinking of the ROK military ship Cheonan-Ho derailed OPCON transfer. Recent North-Korea attributed mine explosions near the DMZ fit this pattern, as have other numerous, suspicious incidents.
The concoction of “peacetime OPCON” is nonsense
The US transferred “peacetime” OPCON to South Korea in 1994. However, this very concept is nonsense:
1) Opcon means control of operations. Operations mean warfighting. “Wartime opcon”, ie. “wartime warfighting control” is a pleonasm. The only time operational control of a military is important is during fighting, just as the only time steering a car matters is when it’s moving.
The invention and transfer of “peacetime” opcon to Korea was a booby prize created to give the appearance that something had changed. Think of those Fisher-Price toy steering wheels you stick on the dashboard while someone else steers the car–it’s a political toy. It gives the illusion of control but it means nothing. The fact is, the US would never allow its military to be subjugated to a foreign command, even a shared command. The simple fact is, the US never shares control.
2) Immediately after “peacetime” OPCON transfer in 1994, the US instituted CODA (Combined Delegated Authority), which continues US control of planning and execution of war. As Clint Work observes correctly, “The ROK JCS was granted the term OPCON for political purposes, and the US CFC was given the term CODA for accomplishing missions”. So much for peacetime “control”.
3) Last but not least, the US gets to unilaterally decide what constitutes peacetime and what constitutes wartime. When the US declares Defcon III, it’s wartime. Korean troops must fall in line under US OPCON. If you get to slice the cake and then decide which portion you take, it’s your bloody cake. If one party unilaterally decides when it gets control, it has control, regardless of any protestations to the contrary.
But why does the US need to keep Opcon?
The US needs control over ROK troops because it is planning for war with China in the Pacific. It needs SK as a military proxy: it needs the cannon fodder. South Korea has 3.6 million combat-ready troops: 500,000 regular and 3.1 million reserve. It has one of the most powerful and advanced militaries in the world, as well as the defense industrial base to sustain it. Furthermore, SK troops have always fought in US wars. More military-aged men in South Korea saw combat in Vietnam than Americans as a proportion of population–325,000 were deployed–the largest foreign deployment after the US. It was also the third largest deployment to Iraq. The US can avoid a draft because SK has one.
This fiction of pretending it doesn’t control South Korea’s troops became necessary when US-OPCONned SK troops massacred civilians in Gwangju. The need to avoid accountability created the legal fiction of peacetime OPCON, but that doesn’t obviate the US need for control.
The real reason why OPCON transfer is taking so long is the US is trying to create a structure that maintains control of the SK army while pretending that it doesn’t. This involves a crazy-quilt of parallel & unified command structures, multiplying command authorities, phased operating assessments, Frankenstein-cobbled-leadership structure, Rube Goldberg carve-outs, and a general have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too mindset. This is assisted by extreme factions of the quisling South Korea right, who have lashed themselves to the sinking US Empire and see any reclamation of genuine South Korean sovereignty as abandonment–they fear that a South Korean military–the real nexus of power in Korean politics, accountable only to Koreans, would result in a loss of status and power as US quisling collaborators and subcontractors.
With war with China on the horizon, South Korea needs to reclaim OPCON rapidly. The consequences of not doing so will be catastrophic.
K J Noh is a journalist, political analyst, writer, and teacher specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.
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