South Korean Army to Be Streamlined

Korea Overseas Information Service, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung on Thursday (July 7) reaffirmed his commitment to reform the Army-dominated military to achieve a better balance between the Army, Navy and Air Force.  
 
Attending a forum on security affairs at a hotel in Seoul, Yoon said the ministry will implement its three-point reform measures by 2020, including streamlining the Army and reorganizing military setups.  
 
South Korea has 690,000 troops, the sixth largest military in the world, including 550,000 Army troops, which account for 81 percent of the nation's military. The Navy has 67,000 troops and the Air Force, 64,000, according to the 2004 Defense White Paper published last March.  
 
“We have failed to build future-oriented armed forces by maintaining large-scale troops and instead caused many scandals, losing the public's trust in the military,” the minister said, adding that the selfishness of the each military branch has been a stumbling bloc in establishing a “flexible” military structure.  
 
The ministry will upgrade its manpower-intensive force into a structure suitable for future welfare by adjusting the size of its forces on a gradual basis in accordance with the security conditions surrounding the Korean Peninsula, he said.  
 
Based on public consensus, the ministry will push for military reform on a coherent basis by legalizing reform methods, modeled after France's military reform program.  
 
Yoon also stressed the need to build a “cooperative self-reliant” defense posture, in which the country retains the ability to deter any potential aggression by North Korea, while further promoting military cooperation with neighboring countries to ensure peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia.  
 
To that end, maintenance and development of the alliance with the U.S. is a prerequisite to establishing a lasting peace on the peninsula, as well as to achieving the reunification of the peninsula, Yoon stressed.  
 
“South Korea's boosted defense capability will serve as a positive factor to develop the alliance between the two countries into a 'future-oriented' one,” he said.  
 
To achieve the five-year plan to enhance cooperative self-reliant defense capability, the ministry will secure a total of 99.4 trillion won ($94 billion), a 2.7 percent budget increase of GDP, by 2008, Yoon added. The defense budget for this year was set at some 20 trillion won.  
 
On Tuesday, the ministry requested 23.3 trillion won for next year's budget, up 12 percent from this year.