Military Is Reluctant to Hire More Civilians
By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
The Defense Ministry is seeking to overhaul a plan to increase the number of civilians in the military and revise the Defense Reform 2020 programs initiated in 2005 to turn the manpower-based military into a slimmer and stronger one.
The Roh Moo-hyun administration planned to fill up to 70 percent of military posts with civilians as part of efforts to create a military equipped with more high-tech weapons. The plan has drawn complaints from military officers.
Sources said Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee recently instructed his staff to separate jobs that should not be allowed to be done by civilians for strategic and security reasons. Some civilians working in some ranking posts may lose their jobs, they said.
The instruction indicates that Lee's attitude is changing about allowing more civilians to fill in non-combatant jobs in the military.
Earlier, he stressed the need for ``civilianizing'' the military to help build an ``advanced elite military'' or ``creative and practical military.''
The minister called for efforts to further streamline the nation's military to make it smaller but stronger, one fit for future warfare, calling the current one ``ineffective.''
An advanced military is the one in which civilians manage non-combatant jobs while the men and women in uniform only devote themselves to fighting, Lee said.
Such measure may affect the Defense Reform 2020 initiative, a 15-year military modernization program calls for advancing the manpower-based military. Under the plan, the country's troop strength is to be reduced from the current 680,000 to 500,000 by 2020 in stages. The number of Army divisions is also to be slashed to 20 from 47.
The ministry plans to purchase or build state-of-the-art weapons systems such as F-15K fighters, Aegis-equipped destroyers and sophisticated tanks and armored vehicles.
Some military officials raised the need to revise the related laws to limit the number of civilians at military posts.