Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0325/03254.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 27KB | 435 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03254}
$Pretitle{241}
$Title{South Korea
Chapter 5B.   Military Structure and Training}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Melinda W. Cooke}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{forces
south
united
army
states
training
command
korea
military
air}
$Date{1981}
$Log{Infantry Exercise*0325404.scf
Infantry Troops on Parade*0325406.scf
}
Country:     South Korea
Book:        South Korea, A Country Study
Author:      Melinda W. Cooke
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 5B.   Military Structure and Training

     According to the 1980 Constitution the president is the commander and
chief of the armed forces. He is to be advised on military policies by the
National Security Council whose members included, in addition to the
president, the prime minister, the deputy prime minister, the ministers of
national defense, foreign affairs, home affairs, and finance, and the director
of the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP) and others designated by
the president.

     The president's executive agent in the management of the military was the
minister of national defense (see fig. 18). Under the minister's control were
the armed forces-army, navy, air force, and Homeland Reserve Forces. In
addition the Ministry of National Defense was responsible for military
registration and recruit training. The Defense Security Command, the National
Defense College, and the Joint Staff College were also under the direct
supervision of the minister. The ministry's functions included planning,
budget, personnel, reserve forces, logistics, installations, medical affairs,
defense industry, and information and education.

     The minister of national defense was advised by the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, whose chairman was appointed by the president and became the highest
ranking active duty officer in the nation. The Joint Chiefs of Staff was made
up of the chairman, the army and air force chiefs of staff, and the chief of
naval operations. Responsible to the minister, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
coordinated and controlled the combined services. Authority for administrative
and logistical support was vested in the office of the chief of staff for each
branch of service. Except for small units such as the army's Capital Garrison
Command, Special Forces Command, Logistics Base Command, and the skeletal
Second Army, operational control of the armed forces was not exercised by the
chiefs of staff.

     In 1978 operational command of the armed forces was transferred from the
United Nations Command in Korea (headed by a United States general officer) to
a newly established joint United States-Korean command structure, the Combined
Forces Command (CFC). The decision to establish the new entity, in which South
Korean officers were assigned key responsibilities, was linked to the
prospective withdrawal of United States ground forces. The only troops left
directly under the United Nations Command were those charged with upholding
the armistice agreements (see fig. 19).

     Receiving strategic guidance through a military committee composed of
national command and military authorities of both nations, the CFC was placed
in command over virtually all of the armed forces, exercising operational
control over more than 500,000 personnel of all services. South Koreans
comprised slightly over 50 percent of the headquarters staff of the combined
command, which received administrative and logistical support from the defense
establishments of both the United States and South Korea. The forces under its
control were organized into ground, naval, and air components; only the last
included any United States forces. In mid-1981 the commander in chief of the
CFC, a United States army general, served concurrently as the head of the
ground component command of the CFC. His deputy was a South Korean of
general-officer rank. The naval component command was headed by a South Korean
admiral whose deputy was a United States admiral. The chief of staff of the
CFC, a United States Air Force lieutenant general, was air component commander
and had a South Korean Air Force general as his deputy.

     The integrated command was intended to develop mutual balanced security
cooperation between the United States and South Korean forces. Though the
United States relinquished some of the unilateral control it had held over the
South Korean armed forces to the unified command, it retained total control
over all but a small portion of its own forces. Moreover the United States
general officer who commanded the CFC also headed the chain of command for
almost all South Korean ground forces and served as UN commander, commander
of United States Forces-Korea, commander of the United States Eighth Army, and
the head of the ground component command of the CFC.

     The United Nations Command retained its responsibility for maintaining
the armistice agreements through the Military Armistice Commission, which
included high-ranking officers from South Korea, the United States, North
Korea, Britain, and China. The Commission met at the Joint Security Area of
P'anmunjom for liaison and exchange of documents. Truce violations were
investigated by five joint-observers teams. The Neutral Nations Supervisory
Commission composed of delegates from Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, and
Czechoslovakia helped supervise the cease-fire.

     The United States expressed great displeasure during the December 1979
military coup when then Major General Chun, without authorization of the CFC
Commander, moved combat troops from their positions north of Seoul into the
capital. Chun's act and the response by Washington indicated perhaps how
seriously both sides viewed the combined command. One justification seen by
the United States for continuing to exercise operational control over South
Korean forces was the possibility of tempering responses to North Korean
provocations, as it had done after the 1976 tree-cutting incident in the DMZ
involving the ax-murders of two United States officers. The CFC appeared to be
one way to improve South Korean command abilities while satisfying both
Washington's desire to retain ultimate control and Seoul's desire to ensure
the maintenance of a United States presence.

Army

     The army was by far the largest branch of service, having a strength in
mid-1981 of 520,000 and including twenty infantry divisions and one mechanized
infantry division (see table 7, Appendix). Army headquarters was in Seoul;
there were five corps headquarters. Divisions having 18,000-19,000 men each
were organized into regiments, battalions, and smaller units in the manner of
the United States army. Some battalions and brigades were independently
organized for antiaircraft, tank warfare, missile operations, and aviation
duty. Still other forces were trained and equipped for special airborne or
commando operations. In 1981 there were seven such special units trained in
airborne operations, but airlift capacity was inadequate. Main service arms
included infantry, artillery, armor, engineers, signal corps, ordnance corps,
and quartermaster corps. Some observers questioned whether the South Korean
Army needed to follow so closely the United States model, especially when
doing so created extensive lines of logistical support perhaps not necessary
in a small country.

     Operationally the army was organized into the First, Second,and Third
armies. The combat-ready armies-the First and Third-were deployed primarily to
the north of Seoul. The Third Army guarded the western sector above Seoul; the
First Army guarded the eastern sector. Together they provided the main combat
elements. The two manned the belt of fixed defenses which ran south of the
cease-fire line; their primary mission was to halt an invasion before it
reached Seoul.

[See Infantry Exercise: An infantry mobile training exercise Courtesy Republic
of Korea Ministry of National Defense]

     The Second Army was primarily a training unit, deployed throughout the
remainder of the national