The transition of wartime operational control (OPCON) from the United States to the South Korea (formally the Republic of Korea, or ROK) once again is a widespread topic of discussion and debate in Washington and Seoul. Although OPCON transition, in one form or another, has been an official alliance policy for two decades if not longer, its implementation has been fitful. A constellation of cross-cutting variables has shaped the policy process, at times propelling it forward and at others obstructing it. Successive U.S. and South Korean administrations have been inconsistent in how and to what extent they have prioritized OPCON transition, largely because of the cacophonous operation of the different variables.
Recent political transitions in Washington and Seoul brought into office policymakers eager to prioritize once more the policy of wartime OPCON transition, if driven by distinct and potentially clashing motivations. That U.S. and South Korean officials appear to have linked OPCON transition with a broader modernization of the alliance could be a positive development, especially considering that changes to the alliance’s military command architecture reflect – and will affect – core aspects of the relationship. Nonetheless, analysts and policymakers must consider the array of variables surrounding OPCON transition and the complex ways they have interacted in the past and very likely will in the future. Otherwise, they will produce poor analysis and potentially counterproductive or even destabilizing policy.
This series of articles explores each of the key variables that have shaped the policy process around OPCON transition and how they have aligned or clashed with one another to either advance or complicate – if not outright delay – the policy. After exploring the “control rod” logic in the first two articles, this third article explores the “sovereignty narrative.” While the sovereignty narrative drives OPCON transition (sometimes in direct opposition to the “control rod” logic), it also obfuscates people’s understanding of alliance command relations, and the complexities involved.
Subsequent articles will explore variations in alliance command concepts and structures, the conditions of the Condition-based Operational Control (OPCON) Transition Plan (COTP), how wartime OPCON transition relates to the regional role of U.S. forces and the alliance, and the role on the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) in a post-OPCON transition environment.
The Sovereignty Narrative
The “sovereignty narrative” is most prominent on the South Korean side of the equation. If the modern nation-state is defined, in part, by a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within its territory, then control over the military – the primary instrument for upholding national security – is a fundamental sovereign authority of the state.
Having a U.S. four-star commander of the Combined Forces Command maintain wartime OPCON over alliance forces appears to violate that sovereign authority. The sovereignty narrative is driven by a basic nationalistic impulse to control the country’s military instrument and not be (or seem to be) subordinate to a foreign military commander. South Korean voices often describe this in straightforward terms as “military sovereignty.”
However, beyond such Weberian logic, the sovereignty narrative in South Korea is rooted in and shaped by historical grievances and internal political contestation over the United States, the alliance, and polarized progressive and conservative conceptions of Korean sovereignty itself. For progressives, taking back or “reclaiming” wartime OPCON is linked to historical arguments about Korea’s truncated sovereignty – and the U.S. role therein – and thus has deep psychological and emotional resonance.
Yet the power and resonance of such sentiments tends to obfuscate other critical operational, strategic, and procedural components of wartime OPCON transition. These components are often emphasized by other groups within South Korea and the ROK interagency process, and by U.S. officials, which tends to introduce caution and delays in the transition process. Such countervailing forces clash with the insistent policy thrust of the progressives’ sovereignty narrative, frustrating its proponents.
Moreover, tied as it is to domestic contestation within South Korea, the progressive’s sovereignty narrative often galvanizes highly politicized, partisan reactions from South Korean conservatives, further complicating an already complex policy process.
Assuaging Some Sensitivities, Catalyzing Others
Progressives in a democratized South Korea were not the first ones to bristle against the real and perceived sovereignty-constraining components of the alliance’s command structure. Such tensions go back to the beginning of the South Korea-U.S. relationship. Although President Rhee Syngman and other South Korean officials accepted placing OPCON of ROK forces under the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) was the price of maintaining an international military presence in Korea, they “were sensitive about their subordinate status in it.” After all, for more than two decades after the Korean War, the U.S.-led UNC possessed mostly unilateral and rather expansive OPCON over the ROK military, both during armistice (i.e. peacetime) and wartime conditions.
South Korean sensitivities to this arrangement manifested in multiple ways throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Presidents Rhee and Park Chung-hee deliberately challenged UNC OPCON by creating units outside of the UNC’s jurisdiction and not responsive to its control. Additionally, at times they openly contravened the U.S.-led UNC by unilaterally removing ROK forces from under its OPCON for repressive internal political purposes. Sometimes, U.S. officials approved Seoul’s requests to remove forces from UNC OPCON, which invariably entangled the United States in internal contestation within South Korea.
To some degree, South Korean leaders’ sensitivities about their subordination were assuaged as ROK officers took on an increased role alongside their U.S. counterparts, most notably with the 1978 creation of the U.S.-ROK Combined Forces Command (CFC). The CFC’s creation shifted South Korea’s defense from the U.S.-led UNC to the alliance itself. The CFC commander was still a four-star U.S. general, but his deputy commander was a four-star South Korean general, and the command consisted of a roughly equal number of U.S. and Korean officers., with OPCON being a much more jointly guided within alliance consultative mechanisms.
Nonetheless, despite addressing some South Korean sensitivities, these changes did not alter the fact that the United States remained atop the CFC, nor that the alliance’s command structure was often embroiled in South Korea’s highly contentious and dictatorial domestic politics. Following Park Chung-hee’s assassination, General Chun Do-hwan challenged CFC OPCON in the early stages of his rolling military coup of 1979-1980, a move President Jimmy Carter later warned Chun against repeating. Yet, U.S. officials also continued to approve (or not object to) Seoul’s requests to remove their forces from under CFC OPCON – often with tragic consequences, none more so than in the Gwangju Uprising and Massacre in May 1980.
There have been intense debates about the exact degree of U.S. knowledge of or involvement in events in Gwangju. But what matters is the galvanizing effect the events had within South Korea, based upon the belief among many that the United States was complicit. As Lee Namhee wrote, for political dissidents and activists, the Gwangju Uprising “proved decisively that the United States had not only been deeply involved in Korea but also had shared responsibility for the ugliness of Korean history.”
This critical turn in perception of the United States catalyzed several interconnected strands of thought among leftists. The U.S. was blamed for its role in dividing the Korean Peninsula, sundering the sovereignty of the Korean nation. Progressive also believed that Washington, driven by Cold War strategic dictates, supported South Korean dictators’ repressive rule. Leftists increasingly resented their country’s dependence upon the United States, which forced South Korea to choose between Cold War blocs. They also began advocacy for peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula, framing North Koreans as compatriots.
These narratives were antithetical to the conservative establishment’s own deeply held beliefs: namely, the imperative of anti-communism, the necessity of South Korea’s dependence on the United States for its security and survival, unequivocal support for the “free world,” and profound opposition to accommodation with North Korea.
These leftist beliefs had existed within South Korea for decades. Yet in a post-Gwangju and democratizing South Korea, they took on newfound political salience. U.S. OPCON within CFC became a target of this vehemently critical attitude, since it symbolized the historically unequal relationship between South Korea and the United States and was the basis for many democracy activists’ claims of U.S. complicity in the Gwangju Massacre. Driven, in part, by the innate nationalism surrounding the issue and by vehement anti-American sentiment, Roh Tae-woo made a campaign promise in 1987 to explore OPCON transfer.
At the 1988 Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), South Korean and U.S. defense officials agreed to study possible revision of the arrangement. These efforts produced a 1992 agreement to transfer peacetime or armistice OPCON to South Korea in 1994.
As noted elsewhere, peacetime OPCON was a political construct, which nodded toward South Korean sovereignty and had important operational implications – particularly in the crisis space between armistice and conflict – yet maintained a U.S.-led combined structure. Alongside the U.S. “control rod” logic and increased concerns about North Korea’s emerging nuclear program, Seoul’s still predominant conservative establishment prevented more radical change. South Korean progressives, however, viewed the 1994 transfer as an incomplete step, reinforcing critiques about U.S.-imposed constraints on Korean sovereignty and a quiescent conservative establishment overly dependent upon the United States.
Although suppressed by South Korea’s deeply anti-communist and conservative political and military establishment during the Cold War, the country’s democratization provided new opportunities to express such sentiments and shape public debate around the issue of wartime OPCON. Moreover, with democratization, former progressive political dissidents and activists entered South Korea’s governing institutions as policymakers and lawmakers and thus effectuated their views on OPCON.
President Roh Moo-hyun’s unlikely 2002 election victory offered the chance to complete an incomplete process and reclaim wartime OPCON. The clashing progressive and conservative narratives around South Korean sovereignty and the policy of wartime OPCON transition in the mid-2000s have shaped the OPCON debate ever since.
Taking Back Korean Sovereignty
The Roh administration, encompassing an array of officials who ascribed to the truncated and aggrieved sovereignty narrative, expressed progressive positions more overtly than any previous South Korean administration. This resulted in charged public debates between political parties and civil society groups and jockeying between “pro-autonomy” and “pro-alliance factions” within Korean policymaking institutions.
Roh was elected amid heightened anti-American sentiment following the acquittal of two U.S. soldiers who had hit and killed two Korean middle school students with an armored vehicle in June 2002. In this context and from early in his term, Roh was outspoken in his desire to foster a more equal relationship with the United States and assert greater South Korean agency in relation to alliance, inter-Korean, and regional affairs (the topic of a later article in this series).
For Roh, executing wartime OPCON transition was critical to achieving Korean agency vis-à-vis the United States, saying it would be like restoring sovereignty to South Korea. Roh castigated Seoul’s military and national security establishment for its lack of initiative in pursuing the transition.
Additionally, Roh and officials in his administration were concerned about potential entrapment in unilateral U.S. moves against North Korea. Reclaiming wartime OPCON, the argument went, would provide Seoul with a more influence over a potential crisis or conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Relatedly, the Roh administration opposed alliance contingency operational plans surrounding potential North Korean regime collapse scenarios, which South Korea officials argued could be “a serious obstacle to exercising Korean sovereignty,” unless U.S. forces’ operational role within North Korea were circumscribed.
Roh administration officials proactively sought to reduce tensions and promote engagement with North Korea. They told the Defense Ministry to remove “main enemy” references to North Korea – despite opposition from within the military – and unsuccessfully requested that their U.S. counterparts remove language on the U.S. nuclear umbrella from the annual SCM’s Joint Communique.
Ironically, while the Roh administration pushed for wartime OPCON expecting opposition from the United States, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was a willing partner. In 2005, when alliance officials first formally initiated discussions on OPCON, Rumsfeld told South Korean defense officials they were pushing on an open door. These Korean officials, pressured to make the case by their political superiors, immediately went on the back foot. The 2005 SCM’s Joint Communique stated both sides “agreed to appropriately accelerate discussions on command relations and wartime operational control.” U.S. officials insisted on the word “accelerate,” while South Korean officials on the word “appropriately.”
In 2006, allied officials reviewed the alliance’s Command Relations Study and roadmap, and “agreed to expeditiously complete the transition of OPCON to the ROK after October 15, 2009, but not later than March 15, 2012.” While Roh and the U.S. side preferred the earlier date, South Korean defense officials jockeyed for the latter.
In 2007, they announced an April 2012 wartime OPCON transition date under the Strategic Transition Plan (STP). The STP, as noted in a previous piece, would have dissolved the decades-old CFC, replacing it with two parallel, independent national commands – the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Korea Command (KORCOM). Yet the future parallel arrangement still would have retained distinct combined elements and consultative mechanism, with U.S. OPCON over important wartime functions.
Interestingly, as strenuously as Roh pushed the sovereignty argument, retention of combined elements within an ostensibly “parallel” structure showed officials on both sides recognized the importance of maintaining cohesion. The political symbolism of the shift sat alongside sticky operational realities that no invocation of sovereignty could overcome, if the alliance were to remain intact. To a degree, it reflected the contradictory balance inherent in the Roh administration’s concept of “cooperative, self-reliant” defense. Even so, for South Korea’s conservative establishment it went way too far.
Conservative Pushback
As soon as Roh began pushing for wartime OPCON transition, conservatives opposed him. Roh’s tendency to characterize wartime OPCON as limiting national sovereignty and his administration’s effort to untether a longstanding military command architecture cut against the very core of the conservative worldview. Driven by a persistent Cold War mentality, conservatives tended to view South Korea’s sovereignty as consonant with and shielded by a U.S.-led command architecture.
Conservative politicians and civic groups – particularly retired military generals and diplomats – systematically opposed the wartime OPCON transition under the STP. Conservative lawmakers visited Washington and lobbied against the change, arguing the CFC was “symbolic of the alliance… like living in one house under one roof, thinking together about threats and fighting together.” Retired generals warned of alliance dissolution and abandonment.
A visitor in Seoul could have encountered protest scenes, wherein hundreds of formerly senior military generals clamored against taking on the wartime OPCON of their own military. These retired generals’ groups – with outsized influence within South Korea’s military and security bureaucracy – successfully organized a 10 million signature campaign opposing the STP.
It bears repeating that South Korea had only once held full OPCON over its own military, namely, from June of 1949 – when the last U.S. combat forces from the occupation period departed – to the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950. The one time in South Korea’s history it went alone, the country would have been swallowed whole but for the return of U.S. forces and military leadership. And, as noted, its later operational and command and control experience was largely (though not entirely) fostered within a U.S.-led bilateral architecture. The organizational inertia and sticky psychologies within South Korea’s military establishment, including generations of officers whose formative years were shaped within the CFC structure, posed obstacles to change.
Yet, Roh’s sovereignty narrative, alongside a receptive partner in Rumsfeld, let the proverbial cat out of the bag when it came to wartime OPCON transition. Once established as an alliance policy, it became politically untenable to openly and in principle oppose OPCON transition. In practice, however, successive conservative administrations maneuvered to scrap the parallel command and return to a combined command concept and later cajoled U.S. counterparts to adopt a more stringent conditions-based approach, which, by design, kicked the can down the road.
When progressives returned to office in 2017 under President Moon Jae-in, they again pushed for OPCON transition within Moon’s term of office, reclaiming the sovereignty narrative Roh had employed. Near the end of Moon’s term, frustrated both with a lack of progress on the transition and stalemated talks with the North, progressives began to question the conditions and argue for a more expedited transition while simultaneously pushing for an end-of-war declaration. This invariably caused pushback from their U.S. counterparts and criticism from conservatives that progressives are wiling to undermine national security.
Moon’s successor was another conservative, Yoon Suk-yeol. While Yoon, prior to his impeachment, ostensibly supported wartime OPCON transition, he warned against taking “perfunctory” steps. He presided over a yet more rigorous evaluation of bilaterally agreed upon standards and criteria.
The More Things Change, The More They Remain The Same?
Some of the hardest edges of the progressives’ sovereignty narrative seem to have been tempered by the learning process born of moving from populist politicization of the issue in the early 2000s to grappling with the hard realities of acquiring capabilities and building operational readiness and command and control acumen. Still, old habits die hard. While balancing its messaging, the current Lee Jae-myung administration has signaled well-worn progressive positions. For instance, the administration continues to use the language of “reclaiming” or “returning” OPCON, consistent with Lee’s policy pledges during the presidential campaign. In 2021, Lee echoed his progressive predecessors, asking: “What sovereign nation entrusts wartime command of its military to another country?”
When asked at his confirmation hearing about the timing for wartime OPCON transition, Lee’s pick for defense minister, Ahn Gyu-baek, said that “the goal is to achieve the transition during the Lee Jae-myung administration.” At the time, the South Korean presidential office distanced itself from Ahn’s statement, saying that OPCON transition is part of its policy agenda but no specific deadline has been considered.
Yet in recent days, the State Affairs Planning Committee, a de facto transition team tasked with drafting the Lee administration’s long-term agenda, stated in its final plan the government aims to establish and implement a road map for the OPCON transfer during Lee’s term. Lee himself stated the plan is a “set of proposals outlining the desirable direction of state affairs,” yet it is not a confirmed plan and may be revised through a consultative and coordinated process.
Simultaneously, the Lee administration has made clear it aims to foster inter-Korean engagement and work toward reestablishing the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement with Pyongyang, including by postponing half of the alliances’ field training exercises and calling off live fire ground and aerial drills near the Demilitarized Zone. Although North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong has openly derided these measures, the Lee administration seems undeterred.
At this stage it remains unclear what course the alliance will set or exactly what the Trump administration’s policy stance will be on OPCON transition. The current policy remains what it was during Trump’s first term. The upcoming summit between Lee and Trump will provide some top-line indications of how the issue is going to be framed moving forward. It seems likely any joint statement produced at the summit may contain language similar to the 2017 Moon-Trump summit about “expeditiously” enabling the conditions-based transfer of wartime OPCON. Nonetheless, defense and military officials will do more detailed work in the lead up to this year’s SCM to be held in Seoul.
However, if the Lee administration operates with a de facto timeline in mind, seeks shortcuts around bilaterally approved conditions, and continually pushes to scale down (and, according to some critics, degrade the standard of) alliance exercises that help assess Seoul’s ability to meet such conditions, it could result in alliance discord. Ultimately, progressives in Seoul will have to carefully balance between a long-sought wish to achieve greater sovereignty and the real-world consequences of getting it.