South Korea is studying ways to dismantle the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) by 2012 as part of efforts to prepare for its planned takeover of wartime operational control of its forces, an informed military source said Monday.
"South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) specified the target year in its Joint Military Strategy document, so we are making changes in our military structure and role in time with the schedule," the source said, asking to remain anonymous.
South Korea is considering establishing a new joint body to coordinate joint military affairs in place of the CFC or reinforcing the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC), the source added.
The JCS, which is in charge of studying a new model for the South Korea-U.S. forces command, plans to draw up a roadmap for the new system and present it at an annual meeting of South Korea and U.S. defense ministers in October, according to South Korean officials.
The reason South Korea is pursuing a new system in place of the CFC is that the current system would not be compatible if South Korea regains wartime operational control of its forces, they said.
South Korea voluntarily put the operational control of its military under the American-led U.N. command shortly after the Korean War broke out in 1950.
It regained the peacetime control of its forces in 1994, but wartime operational control remains in the hands of the commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).
The Seoul-Washington alliance, forged in blood during the Korean War, has faced fundamental changes in recent years, as the South Korean military is moving to reduce its dependence on American forces here. The two sides already agreed to operate a joint panel aimed at analyzing what additional security roles South Korea should take over from the U.S. military.
The United States, for its part, has also begun transforming its fixed military bases in South Korea into more mobile, streamlined forces as part of its global troop realignment plan.
"If South Korea regains wartime operational control, it means the maintenance of the CFC will be impossible and that the status of the U.S. Forces Korea will likely be changed," said Hong Seong-pyo, chief of the military affairs research team at Korea National Defense University.
The two Koreas are still technically in a state of war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Seoul, June 5 (Yonhap News)
S. Korea seeks to dismantle U.S. combined forces command system by 2012 |
