Between Seoul and Washington, under the administration of Lee Jae-myung, there remain a considerable number of sensitive questions and contentious issues. One of them concerns the complex subject of transferring wartime operational control of the armed forces (OPCON) to South Korea.
Historical background
In 1994, peacetime control over the forces was returned to Seoul. However, operational control in wartime has remained with the United States to this day. Negotiations had long been underway, and under the previous plan the transfer was supposed to take place on December 1, 2015. Yet Seoul repeatedly asked Washington to postpone the handover to a later date.
The Ahn Gyu-baek incident
The issue resurfaced after, during parliamentary hearings, the nominee for Minister of National Defense, Ahn Gyu-baek — notably, the first civilian to hold this post since the Park Chung-hee coup — stated that his aim was to secure the transfer of OPCON from the United States to Korea during the Lee Jae-myung administration. This sounded very much in line with the campaign promises of the Democratic Party leader, especially since the OPCON transfer had been included in the agenda of the State Affairs Planning Committee — the body shaping the future government.
However, shortly after his remarks became public, presidential spokesperson Kang Yoo-jung stated: “Although the government has mentioned the OPCON transfer as part of its policy program, no specific timetable, such as within five years, has been considered.” In other words, this was not the administration’s policy, but Ahn’s personal view. National Security Advisor Wi Sung-lac likewise sought to clarify the government’s stance, stating that “no new negotiations on OPCON have been initiated under the Lee administration.”
Other experts have also noted that implementing such a measure might take longer than expected and is, overall, a far more complex process. That is why the issue warrants closer examination — particularly since critics of the U.S.–South Korea alliance frequently use this topic to point out that, in the current situation, the supreme command of the South Korean military is de facto in American hands.
The transfer is more complicated than it seems
South Korea clearly aspires to strategic autonomy in the military sphere and to the ability to make independent decisions. Moreover, the days of Syngman Rhee — when the South Korean army was scarcely capable of anything beyond suppressing civilian unrest, and the leadership of the Republic of Korea was seen as a “dangerous old man” who might start a war and only then inform Washington — are long gone.
The South Korean army is now a serious regional force.
However, the transfer of command creates two sets of problems. First, the question arises of whether South Korean generals are truly qualified to take on this level of responsibility. The Combined Forces Command faces not only North Korea but other potential adversaries of the alliance, including China and Russia. This requires the ability to manage complex, multidimensional challenges. Historically, South Korean military officers have occupied subordinate positions — and many were quite comfortable with that. For this reason, in earlier periods, it was often the South Korean general staff that opposed the transfer of command, citing the complexity of the international environment and its own lack of readiness.
The second related problem is that even if readiness can be improved, this would require a large-scale program of regular, complex, and integrated joint exercises. In these drills, South Korean generals would not only participate, but also set and solve the tasks themselves — tasks that had previously been formulated and executed by the U.S. side. There would need to be enough such exercises for Washington to conclude that the South Korean military is capable of carrying out strategic missions independently.
However, such exercises do not go unnoticed and inevitably provoke negative reactions from Pyongyang, Beijing, and Moscow. There are also criticisms “from within,” since the Democrats’ foreign policy is positioned as a move away from the hardline pro-American course of Yoon Suk-yeol, toward a more multivector approach aligned with South Korea’s own national interests. Under this approach, in order not to provoke retaliatory measures from China, Russia, and the DPRK, the intensity, scale, and nature of military drills should theoretically be reduced.
This creates a contradiction: on the one hand, the United States will not transfer control to a country it considers insufficiently prepared. On the other, reducing the intensity of exercises lowers readiness and delays the handover.
Another important aspect must also be considered: even after the functions are transferred, the Combined Forces Command will still include both South Korean and U.S. forces. This raises the question of how willing American military personnel — especially those in the Air Force and Navy — will be to take orders from a South Korean general. This has never happened before: in every joint mission involving U.S. troops, the final word has always been theirs. Therefore, a situation in which “a Yankee takes orders from a ROK general” could become a serious source of internal friction.
In fact, all these risks were understood as early as the beginning of the 2010s and remain among the reasons why the actual transfer of command has not yet occurred.
A pessimistic conclusion
Thus, Ahn Gyu-baek’s statements have highlighted the dual nature of President Lee Jae-myung’s policy — or at the very least, the fact that understanding a problem is one thing, while making decisions and implementing them is quite another. As a result, since public opinion in the Republic of Korea is keeping the issue under scrutiny, the government faces a choice. On the one hand, it proclaims South Korea’s desire for greater independence, including in the military sphere, and the transfer of wartime operational control to the South Korean side would significantly increase the country’s strategic autonomy. Key decisions, at least at the local level, would no longer be made in Washington but in Seoul. If the administration fails to show determination, its approval rating could drop.
On the other hand, steps in this direction require, at a minimum, maintaining the current level of intensity in joint exercises, which could complicate relations with the DPRK, China, and Russia. The arms race would enter a new phase, and drills clearly directed against Pyongyang and Beijing would encourage deeper cooperation within the Moscow–Beijing–Pyongyang triangle. This would also mean the failure of another important pledge — that of pursuing a multivector policy. Russia and China have repeatedly expressed to Seoul their concern over the trajectory of South Korea–U.S. cooperation, and for Lee’s own electorate, it would be unpleasant to see a president who, in his opposition days, liked to call U.S. forces “occupying troops” shifting so visibly to the right.
It remains to be seen how the new president will address this issue. Perhaps the skillful populist Lee Jae-myung will simply choose the path of doing nothing while loudly proclaiming his intentions, shifting the blame for setbacks onto external forces. Perhaps, by following one course or another, Seoul will face a crisis. Or perhaps this heated topic will simply be left to fade into obscurity.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Centre for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences
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