[Reporter’s Notebook]The Big Picture Is Drawn... Military Reform Hinges on the Details

'Abolition of the Defense Security Command, establishment of the National Defense Security Intelligence Service and the Central Security Audit Corps (tentative names), abolition of the Drone Operations Command, creation of the Joint Operations Command, shift to a hub-based mobile response for frontline security operations, establishment of the National Military Academy and conversion of the Army, Navy, and Air Force academies into single-discipline colleges, and codification of the right to refuse illegal orders.'

These are the recommendations presented by the Civil-Military Joint Special Advisory Committee for Overcoming Insurrection and Designing Future Defense (the Advisory Committee) to the Ministry of National Defense on January 22. The Ministry of National Defense must institutionalize these recommendations. None of these tasks can be taken lightly. There are both expectations and concerns about implementing these systems. The key issue the Ministry must address to overcome these challenges is attention to detail. Without meticulous and thorough preparation, these reforms could remain little more than rhetoric.

In particular, the counterintelligence and security sectors are facing the most significant changes. The Defense Security Command, which led the 12·3 Martial Law, is set to be abolished after 60 years. The security investigation function will be transferred to the Ministry of National Defense Investigation Headquarters. Counterintelligence information and security audit functions will be handed over to the National Defense Security Intelligence Service and the Central Security Audit Corps, respectively. It is noteworthy that there are concerns about potential gaps in roles due to this functional dispersion. Only by designing a sophisticated inter-agency cooperation system can these concerns be alleviated. Robust internal control mechanisms must also be put in place to prevent the Investigation Headquarters, which inherits the investigative function, from becoming a 'second Defense Security Command' and growing excessively powerful.

The recommendation to abolish the Drone Operations Command, which is connected to the 'Pyongyang UAV Incident,' also requires careful consideration. As seen in the Russia-Ukraine war, drone warfare is central to future conflicts. Abolishing the Drone Operations Command contradicts the Ministry of National Defense's recent policy of fostering '500,000 drone warriors.' The plan to establish a National Military Academy is also a subject of debate. Some fear it could lead to the expansion of the Army Academy. Measures intended to address the insularity of the academies could, in fact, have the opposite effect. The proposed relocation of the integrated academy to a provincial area is also raising ongoing concerns about weakening the academies' competitiveness in admissions.

The recommendations regarding measures for military deaths also face the challenge of a gap with on-the-ground realities. Proposals such as introducing an RFID-based system for firearms and expanding psychiatric care have prompted questions from the field: 'Will simply knowing the location of a firearm prevent accidents?' and 'How can soldiers access psychiatric care as easily as internal medicine when there are no doctors at the front lines?'

These recommendations have emerged at a time when the military has lost public trust due to martial law. The military is currently facing structural difficulties such as a rapid decline in available manpower and uncertainty in the international situation. The direction for change has been set. What remains is how thoroughly and in detail the military can implement this direction. The success or failure of reform will be determined not by the design, but by its execution.