The transition of wartime operational control (OPCON) from the United States to the South Korea (formally the Republic of Korea, or ROK) once again is a widespread topic of discussion and debate in Washington and Seoul. Although OPCON transition, in one form or another, has been an official alliance policy for two decades if not longer, its implementation has been fitful. A constellation of cross-cutting variables has shaped the policy process, at times propelling it forward and at others obstructing it. Successive U.S. and South Korean administrations have been inconsistent in how and to what extent they have prioritized OPCON transition, largely because of the cacophonous operation of the different variables.?
Recent political transitions in Washington and Seoul brought into office policymakers eager to prioritize once more the policy of wartime OPCON transition, if driven by distinct and potentially clashing motivations. That U.S. and South Korean officials appear to have linked OPCON transition with a broader modernization of the alliance could be a positive development, especially considering that changes to the alliance’s military command architecture reflect – and will affect – core aspects of the relationship. Nonetheless, analysts and policymakers must consider the array of variables surrounding OPCON transition and the complex ways they have interacted in the past and very likely will in the future. Otherwise, they will produce poor analysis and potentially counterproductive or even destabilizing policy.?
This series of articles explores each of the key variables that have shaped the policy process around OPCON transition and how they have aligned or clashed with one another to either advance or complicate – if not outright delay – the policy. The first two articles in the series will explore one of the more consequential if difficult to measure variables, namely the “control rod” logic. Subsequent articles will explore the South Korean “sovereignty narrative,” variations in alliance command concepts and structures, the conditions of the Condition-based Operational Control Transition Plan (COTP), how wartime OPCON transition relates to the regional role of U.S. forces and the alliance, and the role on the U.S.-led United Nations Command in a post-OPCON transition environment.?
The “Control Rod” Logic
Put simply, the “control rod” logic holds that by having a U.S. commander in the lead role (i.e. the control rod), the United States can maintain control or, more accurately, a degree of relative if still considerable influence over the security environment on the peninsula. The thinking is that this helps to credibly deter North Korean aggression and, importantly, mitigate crisis escalation in the event of such aggression, particularly by restraining South Korea from adopting a disproportionate retaliatory response. At different points in time, the control rod logic has either overtly or subtly hindered South Korea from taking the lead role in the alliance’s command architecture.?
The control rod logic also applies, if in a less tangible manner, to the U.S. view that its? presence in and commitment to South Korea – as well as South Korea’s role as a key U.S. ally – is about more than just the Korean Peninsula. Therefore, too fast or precipitous a shift in the command hierarchy or command relations risks the untethering of the U.S. presence and commitment, which helps underpin larger U.S. strategic imperatives and perceptions of U.S. leadership in the region.?
The Korean War (and Before)
Like OPCON, the control rod logic preceded – and was embedded in – the establishment of the alliance.?
After the end of the United States Army Military Government in Korea (1945-1948) and alongside the establishment of the Republic of Korea as a sovereign state, the U.S. Army Force in Korea commander retained OPCON of the newly established South Korean security forces from August 1948 until the final withdrawal of U.S. occupation forces in June 1949. The arrangement was driven, partly, by a U.S. desire to oversee a stable transition in authority and prevent the already regular fighting between South Korean and North Korean units along the Demilitarized Zone from sparking a larger conflict. If given full control, U.S. commanders and officials worried President Syngman Rhee might order South Korean military commanders to fulfill his oft-repeated promise to “March North.”
A similar sentiment prevailed following the withdrawal of the final increment of the 5th Regimental Combat Team from South Korea on June 29, 1949 – the last U.S. Army forces from the occupation period to depart – and the transfer of OPCON to South Korea. Despite concerns of potential North Korean aggression following the final U.S. withdrawal, the Truman administration withheld tanks, planes, and artillery from Rhee, based upon the concern that with such offensive capabilities – and without the same U.S. presence and OPCON mechanism in place – the South Korean leader might initiate a major armed conflict with the North.?
During the Korean War, Rhee granted the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) OPCON of South Korean forces for the duration of the conflict. The Truman administration, as well as? General Douglas MacArthur and Pentagon officials, insisted upon U.S.-led command of theater operations. Once U.S. forces were committed to the fight, U.S. officials and officers – who took a dim view of the South Korean military’s performance in the early stages of the war and had severe doubts about its organizational and operational capabilities – were loath to accept any other arrangement with Seoul.?
Moreover, before the UNC’s creation, U.S. defense officials objected to U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie’s proposal to create a committee to stimulate and coordinate aid for the war and to supervise military operations. While seeking multinational support to uphold the principle of collective security in the context of the early Cold War, Pentagon officials insisted on leaving military plans and their execution in U.S. hands to meet the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s goal of battlefield effectiveness. To justify U.S. control, defense officials also stressed that the United States provided the vast majority of the weapons, equipment, and logistical support to save South Korea from certain defeat in 1950 and sustained Seoul after that.
Post-Korean War Undulations
Following the signing of the 1953 Korean War Armistice Agreement and in the context of negotiating and drafting a mutual defense treaty with Seoul, officials in the Eisenhower administration insisted on the U.S.-led UNC’s retention of OPCON over the South Korean military as a condition for ratifying the treaty. This arrangement was codified in the Agreed Minute of Understanding that accompanied the treaty when it entered into force on November 17, 1954.?
Rhee’s various challenges to UNC OPCON during the war – his removal of South Korean forces from under the UNC OPCON during the political crisis in the summer of 1952, creation of special security units outside UNC jurisdiction, release of more than 25,000 anti-communist POWs to disrupt armistice talks, and constant threats to take unilateral military action – informed the U.S. position. If the United States was to remain treaty bound to South Korea’s defense, it preferred such an arrangement, not only to maintain U.S. leadership and capabilities for the purposes of deterrence and defense but also to exert maximum control over Rhee’s freedom of action before and during any crisis.
The control rod logic reemerged in the late 1970s in the context of what were then the most notable changes in alliance command relations since the Korean War: the establishment of Combined Forces Command (CFC) in November 1978. The CFC represented a significant change in the alliance’s command relations, wherein the allies more jointly guided OPCON through an array of more cooperative and integrated bilateral structures and processes. Yet as commander-in-chief of the CFC (CINCCFC), the U.S. four-star general remained first among not-so-equals based upon the same logic embedded in the mostly unilaterally U.S.-led UNC.?
U.S. officials were eager to have South Korea take on a greater burden given its economic growth and defense modernization. The idea was to evolve the command structure to reflect Seoul’s improved capabilities and facilitate yet further maturation. Nevertheless, throughout the process, while facilitating (if not prodding) South Korea to take on a more elevated role, U.S. officials grappled with how to mitigate the risks of relinquishing relative U.S. leadership within a potentially combustible security environment to which they remained treaty bound.?
Moreover, the CFC was to be a transitional structure and intertwined with President Jimmy Carter’s then-controversial troop withdrawal policy. Following further troop withdrawals, the CFC was to evolve into a third-generation command arrangement, characterized by a more overt lead role for South Korea Yet U.S. officials still aimed to retain “the built-in restraint of the current arrangements.” Additionally, they were concerned about the possible future incongruity between the still U.S.-led UNC’s armistice-keeping responsibilities and any third-generation arrangement that allowed for greater South Korean autonomy, particularly as more U.S. troops were withdrawn.?
The potential operational and political mismatch between a U.S. commander – atop a relatively small U.S. forward deployment – retaining OPCON and armistice responsibilities over the large military establishment of a deeply nationalistic ally in its own sovereign territory was hardly lost on U.S. planners. Nonetheless, President Ronald Reagan’s rejection of Carter’s Korea troop withdrawal policy and increased U.S. deployments under his administration put any such changes on ice for the next decade. The CFC became a more institutionalized arrangement.
Post-Cold War Openings and Closures
The end of the Cold War along with demands to cash in on the peace dividend provided both strategic and budgetary rationales to reassess and reduce U.S. foreign deployments and pass more burden to increasingly capable allies like Seoul. Simultaneously, amid South Korea’s own political liberalization a diverse array of voices – some staunchly anti-American – demanded a more equal security relationship with the United States and greater control of the South Korean military.?
Against this backdrop, the U.S. Department of Defense released its 1990 East Asian Strategic Initiative (EASI), the first in a series of reports detailing its three-phase post-Cold War military force reductions across the Asia-Pacific region. The EASI aimed to move the United States from a “leading to a supporting role” in the South Korea-U.S. alliance, with plans to ultimately dissolve CFC if the North Korean threat were reduced. Consistent with the effort, Washington transferred peacetime or Armistice OPCON to Seoul in 1994. This resulted in the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff taking over day-to-day security on the Korean Peninsula, with wartime OPCON remaining under the four-star U.S. CINCCFC.?
Despite this notable change in the alliance command relationship and South Korea taking on yet more command and operational responsibilities, the creation of peacetime or Armistice OPCON was propelled more by political rather than military imperatives. The creation of peacetime OPCON was a sort of artful, middle-of-the-road solution, nodding toward ROK sovereignty and offering some noteworthy changes in the alliance’s division of labor while maintaining a U.S.-led combined security system.?
South Korean military leaders told their U.S. counterparts that they did not want wartime OPCON until “the threat of North Korea has disappeared.” Among officials in Seoul, there was a deeply embedded desire to maintain U.S. wartime leadership, not only due to North Korea’s advancing nuclear threat but also out of South Korean concern that were it no longer in a leadership role, the United States might choose to reduce or even withdraw its commitment. Alongside the control rod logic, South Korean abandonment concerns incentivized keeping the basic structure intact.?
And U.S. officials, based on the same control rod logic embedded in the structure from its origins, were neither willing to relinquish key elements of wartime preparation nor wartime OPCON. Moreover, following the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis, which came dangerously close to a conflict, and amid burgeoning concerns in Washington that it should halt its broader regional and Korean force posture adjustments in favor of allied reassurance and strategic stability, further changes were put on hold. Yet the U.S. maintained the leading-to-supporting policy language in successive regional policy frameworks throughout the 1990s.?
Alliance Growing Pains in the 2000s
By the early 2000s, U.S. and South Korean administration again picked up on that early 1990s framework and pushed for wartime OPCON transition – but for different reasons. The administration of Roh Moo-hyun called for wartime OPCON based on an assortment of arguments, chief among them that OPCON was a sovereign national authority that Seoul must possess. Taking it on would create a more equal alliance relationship. Additionally, South Korean officials argued that their defense capabilities were advancing to the point that Seoul could take on a more self-reliant posture. They also had reservations about the Bush administration’s unilateralism, and concerns about being entrapped in U.S. initiated conflicts, and felt taking OPCON would create less impeded inter-Korean relations.?
The Bush administration, particularly Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was receptive to Seoul’s desire for change. In the context of the Global Posture Review, critical of static forward deployments, and eager to create a more flexible and responsive force posture, Rumsfeld disapproved of the multiple, seemingly discordant theater commands in South Korea and sought a simplified arrangement. The control rod logic, which long held back or delayed previous efforts to change command relations, was no longer a guiding priority. The shift was the result of various factors.?
For one, the alliance had navigated multiple “peacetime” crises over the years, including inter-Korean clashes that did not metastasize into a larger conflict. The lessons from such events and increased confidence in South Korean decision-makers’ ability to navigate them, tempered – but did not end – the longstanding U.S. impulse to exert restraining influence. The Roh administration’s engagement-oriented approach toward North Korea also reduced the risk of precipitous or disproportionate South Korean retaliatory actions.?
Finally, Rumsfeld prioritized force posture adjustments and greater strategic flexibility over allied control. Here he found in the Roh administration a strange bedfellow, eager to embrace changes in the alliance command structure that more orthodox South Korean presidents and the country’s conservative establishment often avoided or opposed.?
Nonetheless, the control rod logic still shaped the process. Despite moving forward with force reductions and realignment and promoting accelerated discussions on OPCON transition, Rumsfeld reportedly faced skepticism from within the White House and U.S. interagency for moving too fast. Former defense secretaries and prominent U.S. lawmakers, who doubted the wisdom of the untethering a longstanding alliance command structure, levelled public critiques against Rumsfeld. While the allies agreed to a Strategic Transition Plan (STP) in 2007 it was not as complete a wartime OPCON transition plan as it first appeared.?
If implemented, the STP would have resulted in the disestablishment of the CFC, as envisioned in the early 1990s. In place of the CFC, the alliance would then stand up two independent, parallel national commands: a leading command operating under the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff and a supporting U.S. command, called Korea Command. While the shift from a combined to a parallel structure ostensibly would have resulted in transition of wartime OPCON of South Korean forces back to Seoul and U.S. retention of full wartime OPCON over its own forces, the STP retained notable combined elements. These included combined air, amphibious, and combat weapons of mass destruction operations, and these combined operations would have remained under the wartime OPCON of U.S. officers.?
Moreover, the Military Committee structure was to be retained to provide unified higher-level operational and strategic guidance and direction to the national commands, and a new military coordination center would provide synchronization at the tactical and operational levels.
Furthermore, given intense reticence within the South Korean security establishment, the allies agreed to transition OPCON in 2012 rather than 2009. Both Rumsfeld and Roh had favored the earlier date, but other constituencies influenced the process, opening time and space for countercurrents.?
As a presidential candidate, Lee Myung-bak opposed OPCON transition. Once in office, his administration sought its delay. In June 2010, two months after North Korea’s sinking of the ROKN Cheonan and several months before its artillery bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island, Lee and then-U.S. President Barack Obama announced the delay of the 2012 transition date to 2015 under what soon became the new Strategic Alliance 2015 Plan (SA-2015 Plan). The experience surrounding North Korea’s 2010 acts of aggression informed U.S. thinking. Alongside worries about South Korea’s crisis communications and response capabilities witnessed in the 2010 crises, U.S. officials were concerned about – and opposed – very forceful retaliation by South Korea.?
In the post-2010 context, U.S. officials certainly tracked high-level South Korean defense officials’ and conservative policymakers’ public grumbling about the U.S.-led UNC’s constraints on Seoul’s self-defense measures, the need to adopt a more robust South Korean counter-provocation doctrine, and the early conceptualization what would later become Seoul’s 3K Defense System, including a range of advanced preemptive and retaliatory military plans and systems. Additionally, amid its broader Asia-Pacific rebalance and effort at allied reassurance, not to mention the emergence of a new and untested North Korean leader who wasted little time advancing Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile capabilities, Obama administration officials were disinclined to rejigger longstanding command arrangements on the peninsula.??
The control rod logic, while not outwardly promoted by U.S. officials, had reemerged to shape the process around the status of wartime OPCON.?