Korea to Cut Mandatory Military Service by Six Months

, Korea on Monday (Feb. 5) announced a plan to gradually shorten the current two-year term of compulsory military service by six months by 2014, as part of its defense reform drive. 
 
The government also said it will phase out various forms of alternative service for draftees who are deemed not physically fit for the military, such as working at district offices and defense companies, by 2012. 
 
The new conscription system will eventually reduce the Army's two-year service to 18 months, with the length for the Navy and the Air Force to be cut by a quarter to 20 months and 21 months, respectively. 
 
The reduction will begin next year, allowing some current soldiers to benefit from it, defense officials said. “The planned shortening of the military service period is in line with the government's Vision 2030 campaign to make people start working two years earlier and retire five years later,” Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook said in a nationally-televised press conference, announcing a package of steps to boost the economically active population. 
 
The measures, which cover a wide range of social and economic fields from education to national pension funds, are designed to counter falling birth rates and the rapid aging of society, she added. 
 
The initiative is expected to help the military operate more efficiently and give young people more time to study and work, Han said. 
 
All physically and mentally fit men here are obliged to serve in the military to maintain 680,000 troops in the nation. 
 
Nonprofessional soldiers, mostly in their 20s, get paid a monthly average of about 100,000 won ($94) in a largely symbolic payment. 
 
In the German-style initiative, all men will be required to undergo either military service or hospice care and other designated social services, with only those who have serious mental and physical problems to be excluded. 
 
Korea is planning to cut the number of its troops to 500,000 by 2020, while upgrading its weapons.