By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) launched a task force Wednesday to prepare for the transition of wartime operational control of the South Korean military from the United States to Korean commanders, JCS officials said.
The 47-member team, led by Army Brig. Gen. Park Chan-joo, is divided into six groups ― strategy, operations, operational plans, information, personnel affairs/logistics and policy planning, they said.
A separate team will take charge of independent operation and exercise of C4I (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence) systems, they added.
The transfer of operational control (OPCON) of South Korean armed forces during wartime was a main policy goal of the Roh Moo-hyun administration that has pursued building self-reliant defense capabilities.
Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo and his U.S. counterpart Robert Gates agreed early this year on the OPCON transfer and other command rearrangements aimed at giving the Korean military more responsibility.
Under the pact, South Korea is to exercise independent OPCON of its armed forces during wartime beginning April 17, 2012. The U.S. military will shift to a naval- and air-centric supporting role.
The two sides also agreed to run separate military commands after disbanding the Combined Forces Command (CFC).
South Korea voluntarily handed over both peacetime and wartime operational controls to the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) at the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War. The command authority was later transferred to the CFC. Seoul took over peacetime control in 1994.
Currently, the four-star U.S. commander of the CFC has the authority to command both South Korean and American troops in case of an emergency.
The commander concurrently serves as chief of the U.S. Forces Korea and the UNC. About 27,000 U.S. forces are stationed here as a deterrent against nuclear-armed North Korea.
The timing of OPCON transfer emerged as a hot issue after Lee Myung-bak of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) won the Dec. 19 presidential election by landslide.
The President-elect pledged earlier that he would consider renegotiating the timing of OPCON transition unless North Korea's nuclear threat is diminished substantially.
South Korean and U.S. conservatives claim the OPCON transfer is premature given lingering threats from the North's nuclear and missile programs.
Chances for South Korea to secure enough independent capabilities including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets over the next five years are slim, they say.
The U.S. government officially downplayed the possibility of rescheduling the timeline for the command transfer.
``As I said, the strategic transition plan was already agreed upon and it is being implemented,'' U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said in a security forum last week, adding the agreed five year-framework is enough to prepare for new command rearrangements between the two militaries.
But security experts forecast the two allies could open renegotiations of the OPCON transfer in bids to repair damage done to the bilateral alliance during the liberal-minded Roh administration.
``Although it would be counterproductive for President-elect Lee to appeal to Washington to formally reverse the OPCON decision, the negative effects could be mitigated by careful bilateral planning in the coming years,'' Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Asian Studies Center of the U.S. conservative Heritage Foundation, said in his post-South Korean election report Dec. 21.
``The U.S. could announce that the planned 2012 transfer date is contingent on both a sufficient reduction in the North Korean threat and satisfactory progress in improving South Korean military capabilities, and that is open to discussion as to the feasibility of the transfer by the currently agreed upon date,'' he said.