Troubled military

Reform and morale-boosting necessary

The sacking of Defense Minister Kim Tae-young should be the start of the wholesale revamping of the troubled military. His successor should be soul-searching for identifying what went wrong in the military. A fundamental reform of the military will mitigate public uneasiness over the military preparedness.

The military has repeatedly vowed to reform itself since the North’s torpedoing of South Korean warship Cheonan in March. The military again failed to grasp beforehand the North’s unusual military movement before its Tuesday shelling on the inhabited island off the West Coast.

Before the provocation, the North readied its artilleries for firing at its coastal tunnels. Kim Jong-il and his heir Kim Jong-un reportedly visited the military facilities off the West Coast. Pyongyang has already protested the South’s routine military drill. The military leadership failed to read these unusual movements. In addition, the military was slow in beefing up its preparedness.

When the North’s shelling started, the South’s radar malfunctioned. Three of the six cannons had initial trouble in firing back. The military changed words on the initial malfunctioning of the artilleries. In a nutshell, nothing has changed since the Cheonan sinking.

What is lamentable is a series of accidents in and out of the barracks. In April, a Navy antisubmarine helicopter crashed. Military family members privately used a military boat to cruise along a sea during vacation. This illustrates serious moral hazard in the barracks. A soldier was killed during a trial operation of the K-21 amphibious armored vehicles. A Navy patrol boat collided with a fishing boat off the Jeju Island in October. RF-4C surveillance plane went down. An Army boat capsized during training this month. Military supplies were also faulty. Boots were recalled for water leaks. Gun barrels of K1 tanks were deformed during testing.

Just sacking the minister will not solve all the problems the military faces. The new minister must review the preparedness of the military from scratch, go to basics before taking decisive reform. It must admit that it has exposed limits in tactics and strategies as well as leadership during crisis. The military should refrain from making excuses and lies. The commanding system should be thorough enough to meet any contingencies in an impeccable way. Their disorientation wreck havoc on soldiers in the field. The people’s distrust of the military chain of command is of grave threat to national security.

It may be inappropriate to pin fingers only on the military. The government and the National Assembly should also check whether they are partly responsible for the current hiccup. A wholesale reform of the military should be made in parallel with implementing measures to boost morale of the rank and file in the military.

Merit-based promotion and personnel reshuffle is key to upgrading their morale. The most demoralizing factor is the sidelining of the talented manpower for regional and political reasons. Only when personnel management is fair and free from outside meddling, will the career soldiers be ready to risk their lives for the defense of the fatherland. The military reform should start from fair personnel management.

Without cheering soldiers amid reform, the nation will face the repetition of humiliation in the face of North Korea’s military adventurism.