COVER STORY Wider Cheonghae mission may suck Korea into US war on Iran: expert
The 4,400-ton destroyer ROKS Wang Geon (DDH-II), carrying the 48th contingent of the Cheonghae Unit, departs the Navy's Busan Naval Base, May 15, as fellow service members bid farewell. Courtesy of the Navy
Expert warns of indirect military involvement as Seoul mulls broader naval mission
The possible expansion of the Cheonghae Unit’s operations toward the Strait of Hormuz could draw Korea into the Middle East conflict, even without direct combat involvement, a naval security expert warned.
The government is reportedly considering extending the Navy unit’s operating area — from the Gulf of Aden to the Gulf of Oman — and adding maritime patrol aircraft.
The proposal comes as President Lee Jae Myung has ruled out sending Korean forces to fight in the U.S.-Iran war while leaving open a greater role for the unit in protecting Korean ships.
Yu Ji-hoon, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said the distinction between protecting commercial vessels and supporting military operations would depend less on where the unit operates than on what it does.
“Formally, this would be an expansion of an existing deployment, but in practice, it would also amount to an indirect military contribution to security around the Strait of Hormuz,” Yu said.
He said maritime patrol aircraft could broaden the unit’s work beyond counterpiracy patrols and merchant ship escorts to monitoring shipping lanes and gathering information about potential threats.
“The move could, to some extent, be interpreted as a form of indirect deployment to Hormuz,” he said.
But operating near the strait would not necessarily mean joining U.S. military operations against Iran, Yu added. An independent mission to protect Korean vessels would differ from one providing intelligence or operational support to U.S. forces.
“The key is not simply the expansion of the operating area, but the missions actually carried out, command and control arrangements, the scope of intelligence sharing and rules of engagement,” he said.
Information collected by Korean patrol aircraft could amount to indirect military support if shared with U.S. forces for use in operations against Iran, he said.
Reports have also raised the possibility of limiting any expanded operations to the period after the U.S.-Iran war ends. Yu cautioned that such a condition would leave questions unresolved.
“An end to the war could mean a ceasefire, a halt to hostilities or a formal conclusion of the conflict,” he said, calling for clear conditions governing when operations could begin.
Mines, drones and missiles could remain as threats even after fighting formally ends, he added.
Graphic by Bae So-young
Whether lawmakers would approve an expanded mission remains unclear.
Rep. Lim Jong-deuk of the main opposition People Power Party, a former second deputy national security adviser, said he had received no official briefing or documents on the reported proposal. He declined to say whether he would support an expansion or expects it to pass the National Assembly.
“Looking at the situation surrounding Hormuz, I suspect the defense ministry and the government are considering their options in connection with it,” Lim said. “But I haven’t received a briefing or any documents, so it’s difficult to say what their intentions are.”
He said lawmakers would examine the details once a proposal was submitted, raising objections where warranted while acknowledging any reasonable measures.
The Jinbo Party argued that despite the defense ministry’s insistence that any expansion would be unrelated to the Hormuz situation, the Gulf of Oman borders the conflict zone directly.
“Sending a destroyer and patrol aircraft configured for anti-piracy duties into the area would be placing our troops defenselessly on the edge of a battlefield,” Rep. Son Sol of the Jinbo Party said Friday, adding that changing the unit’s purpose and area under the guise of a routine extension would undermine the National Assembly’s constitutional right to consent to overseas troop deployments.
The Ministry of National Defense has not confirmed plans to extend the unit’s operations to the Gulf of Oman.
“Pirate activity in the waters off Somalia, including the Gulf of Aden, has increased sharply compared with previous years, and security conditions there have deteriorated,” the ministry said.
It added that the unit’s current mandate expires Dec. 31 and that the government is considering submitting a motion to extend the deployment before then, but “no details have been decided.”
A ministry spokesperson distinguished the annual renewal process from the 2020 decision to temporarily expand the unit’s operations toward Hormuz without fresh parliamentary approval. That earlier move relied on a provision allowing operations outside the designated area to protect Korean nationals in emergencies.