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Critics are calling for reassurance of an anxious public after South Korea and the U.S. agreed that sole operational control of South Korean forces will be handed over to Seoul between October 2009 and March 2012. The agreement, reached in the annual Security Consultative Meeting between the allies on Friday, comes hard on the heels of North Korea¡¯s nuclear test earlier this month amid a climate of growing tensions on the peninsula.
The Military Committee Meeting, a working meeting of the two countries¡¯ Joint Chiefs of Staff last Wednesday, asked the commander of the U.S. Forces Korea to draw up military plans in response to Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear weapons. But once Korea has sole control of its troops, Combined Forces Command would be dismantled, so the plans would be useless, experts say. The military plans in question were initially thought to involve the use of nuclear weapons in times of war, but this turned out to have been a mistake by the Korean JCS.
Experts say the fact that the U.S. agreed hand over wartime operational control could send the wrong signal to North Korea and weaken the effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. ¡°The agreement forced the CFC to live on borrowed time and it will greatly weaken the joint defense preparedness of the two allies,¡± says former presidential adviser for national defense Kim Hee-sang. ¡°It could send the wrong message and make North Korea more confident after it went ahead with its nuclear test in defiance of warnings from the international community.¡±
Some pundits say that when the combined command is dismantled, plans to integrate massive U.S. reinforcements in wartime also disappear. Song Dae-sung, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, says dismantling the CFC will also weaken the nuclear umbrella. If Washington¡¯s promise to keep providing them is to be truly effective, the CFC should continue to exist, he adds.
Last week¡¯s decision mandates the USFK commander to complement South Korea-U.S. Operation Plan 5027 for a war on the peninsula, strengthen surveillance in response to the North Korean nuclear threat and minimize damage from Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear weapons. The focus is on neutralizing a North Korean attack with cutting-edge conventional weapons before the North can use its nukes. But when the CFC is gone, and OPLAN 5027 with it, the strategy would have to be reviewed from scratch.
Another issue of concern is reinforcements. The Defense Ministry promised the U.S. would guarantee overwhelming wartime reinforcements, but neither the SCM joint communiqué not the working meeting made any mention of the issue. ¡°The debate when to exercise sole wartime operational control and North Korea¡¯s nuclear test will aggravate security fears among the public here amid increasing security instability on the Korean Peninsula after Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear test,¡± former vice defense minister Park Yong-ok said. ¡°The government must offer a clear vision about the nation¡¯s security to dispel such anxiety.¡±
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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