The Kaesong Industrial Zone, a combination of South Korean capital and North Korean labor and land, had been the last remaining symbol of economic and social cooperation between the two Koreas. However, the future prospects of the complex look dim as both sides withdrew all of their workers from the zone on April 9. As the tension is increasing day by day, South Korea is starting to reconsider whether they are truly prepared to get back OPCON.

 

Originally, OPCON was scheduled to be transferred to South Korean control on December 2015. However, a postponement is being suggested within South Korea as situations are now different. North Korea is constantly marking its existence to the world through its incessant nuclear threats and even pulled out 53,000 of its laborers from the Kaesong Industrial Zone in protest over joint military exercises by the U.S. and South Korea, called the Key Resolve. As much as North Korea’s economy is highly dependent on foreign aid, the act of the North withdrawing its people from the Kaesong Industrial Zone indicates the increase of a great tension.

OPCON commonly refers to the right to take command of an army and to control all plans for war when a provocation of war or any other threats occur within the Korean peninsula. Such of right control is divided into two parts including the peacetime operational control and OPCON. The peacetime operational control was taken over by South Korea in 1994 and is currently under the possession of the chairman of the Korea military. On the other hand, OPCON is under the ROK (Republic of Korea)-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) in which the Commander of the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) is the head leader.

 

OPCON’s control by the CFC in which the U.S. Commander is the head authority, has serious implications for Korea. It means that the U.S. has the utmost authority in combat missions with 650,000 South Korean troops and makes the final decision on whether a war will happen or not within the Korean peninsula. However, OPCON has only been under the U.S. control since the regime of President Rhee Syngman. The first president Rhee delegated the operational control to General MacArthur, the Commander of the United Nations Command (UNC) in July 1950 during the Korean War in terms of national defense. Afterwards, President Rhee turned over control authority to the Commander of the United States Forces in Korea (USFK) in 1954 as the two countries signed the Mutual Defense Treaty by the end of the Korean War in 1953. The final transfer took place during the time of President Park Chung-hee as he gave OPCON to the CFC in 1978, and since then the authority has remained in the hands of the U.S.

 

Nonetheless, the 16th President, Roh Moo-hyun, during his regime, attempted to take back charge of OPCON in the name of self-reliance, national pride, and normalization of the bilateral alliance between Korea and the U.S. Thus, during the defense ministerial talks between South Korea and the U.S., which were held in Washington on February 24, 2007, it was made official that Korea would receive back OPCON in 2012. All was about to follow this set plan until North Korea provoked South Korea by the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan. This eventually led the 17th president, Lee Myung-bak, to suggest to the U.S. President Barack Obama a delay in the plan for returning OPCON until December 2015 and such has been set. However, what is coming into question is whether South Korea is ready to fully retake OPCON from Washington even in the originally scheduled year of 2015, as North Korea’s threat is growing even worse on a daily basis.

 

Those who oppose the idea of the South Korean government gaining back OPCON are usually the conservative groups comprised of the Saenuri Party and military officers. Their major stance on why South Korea should delegate its war control authority to the U.S. commanders is to gain military support from the U.S. in a sustainable way as well as to prohibit North Korea from easily threatening South Korea. They believe that the transfer is an improper action that risks national security and other interests under the name of national pride and self-reliance.

 

First, those who oppose the re-transfer of OPCON to South Korean authority are concerned that it will lead to the dissolution of CFC, and the withdrawal of the U.S. forces, and ultimately the dismantlement of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Without the support of the U.S., it will eventually mean that South Korea has no choice but to fight a meaningless war with the North with its relatively weak conventional weapons by its side. Thus, cooperation with the U.S. is “pivotal” when considering that they have the tactical nuclear weapons South Korea does not have.

 

Besides such reasons, they argue that the decision of the transfer is too hasty and risky. Furthermore, the South Korean military is not yet ready to exercise OPCON fully on an independent level. South Korea national defense ability might be sturdy enough, but ROK does not have the full ability to carry out a war in an independent manner. Lastly, the transfer might anger the U.S. and eventually make them dispatch its forces to South Korea in the event of war.

 

However, the experts on North Korean issues did not fully agree with such notions. Professor Lim Jae-Cheon (Department of North Korea) claimed, “The OPCON must be re-transferred to the Korean military according to the original plan since the ROK-U.S. alliance is firm and stable right now. Some people concern that the ROK-U.S. alliance might come to an end once OPCON is handed back over to Korea; however, that is not the case.” He further argued that in the case of re-transfer, it is most crucial for Korea to develop its own military skills and to constantly find ways to increase mutual cooperation with the U.S. in case of war.

 

Meanwhile, Professor Nam Sung-Wook (Department of North Korea), the Secretary General of the National Unification Advisory Council, said that the security situation within the Korean peninsula in the year of 2015, is expected to act as a significant variable on whether OPCON will be re-transferred to South Korea or not. “If North Korea constantly provokes war with its weapons of mass destruction, it is most likely that OPCON transfer will be delayed. However, it is quite premature to discuss this issue right now which both the U.S. and South Korea agree on.”

Recently, South Korean demonstrators rallied in the capital, calling on Washington D.C. to postpone the transfer of OPCON to Seoul. About 500 pro-U.S. army protesters gathered in front of Seoul's train station holding up banners with messages directly speaking to the South Korean government. It read, "We hope President Park Geun-hye achieves putting off the wartime operational control," and, "We are opposed to the dissolution of the ROK-U.S. CFC."

There was a meeting between the incumbent South Korean President Park Geun-hye and the President Obama at the White House on May 7 to discuss economic and security issues, including "countering the North Korean threat". The talk on the controversial issue over the re-transfer of OPCON as much as it was inevitable, has been mentioned as well. The discussions, however, still remained vague as to whether the originally scheduled re-transfer of OPCON in 2015 is really going to be put into practice. Nevertheless, President Park Geun-hye, conscious of the public opinion especially of the conservative parties, seemed to be cautious in referring to an exact date of the enforcement. Thus, being fully aware of the clash of ideas, the U.S. mentioned that it would make its final decision on whether South Korea is fully prepared to take back OPCON through a final check-up on its security situation and the preparation of the ROK armed forces. Only if the U.S. comes to the conclusion that Korea is not yet ready, a postponement is to be taken into account.

 

Regardless of the efficiency of the transfer of OPCON, the debate itself seems to have become overly politicized. Neither the obsession with self-reliance in national defense nor blind trust and reliance on the ROK-U.S. alliance seems to be a solution. South Korea should rather seek a way to balance the strengths of both self-reliance and the U.S. alliance in order to wisely deal with North Korea and its threats.