(News Focus) U.S. call for S. Korea's 'primary' defense role fuels expectations for OPCON transfer

▲ This photo, taken on July 6, 2023, shows U.S. troops attending a ceremony in a U.S. base in Dongducheon, 40 kilometers north of Seoul. (Yonhap)

▲ South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back (R) and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shake hands before the two countries' annual Security Consultative Meeting in Seoul on Nov. 4, 2025. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

▲ This photo, taken on Nov. 20, 2025, shows South Korean and U.S. troops engaging in a river-crossing exercise in Yeoju, 64 kilometers southeast of Seoul. (Yonhap)

(News Focus) S Korea-US-OPCON

(News Focus) U.S. call for S. Korea's 'primary' defense role fuels expectations for OPCON transfer

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (Yonhap) -- With a new U.S. defense strategy calling for South Korea to take "primary" responsibility to deter North Korea, expectations are growing that the allies' joint efforts toward the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) could gain momentum.

Released last month, the Pentagon's National Defense Strategy underscored South Korea's capability to undertake the primary defense role with "critical, but more limited" U.S. support, at a time when President Lee Jae Myung's administration seeks to retake the OPCON within its five-year term ending in 2030.

Observers said that the general tenor of the strategy has created a favorable climate for Seoul's pursuit of the OPCON transfer given that the transition would mean the Asian ally reducing its reliance on America's security protection when Washington seeks to focus on deterring its top geopolitical rival, China.

In an apparent sign of progress, Seoul and Washington are said to be considering presenting a target year for the transition when they hold their annual defense ministerial talks, called the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), in Washington this fall.

The year 2028 -- before U.S. President Donald Trump's four-year term ends in January 2029 -- is seen as a likely target year.

Asked to comment on the potential timeline for the transfer, a Pentagon official said that the OPCON transition remains "conditions-based" and guided by "mutual agreement" between the two governments.

"There is no change to our approach, and U.S. forces continue to support a strong combined defense and deterrence posture on the Peninsula," the official told Yonhap News Agency.

The allies have been working on the conditions-based OPCON transition since they agreed on it in October 2014. The conditions include South Korea's capabilities to lead combined Korea-U.S. forces, its strike and air defense capabilities, and a regional security environment conducive to such a handover.

In a positive development for the transition, Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth agreed to develop a roadmap designed to "expedite" the implementation of conditions for the transfer during their SCM talks in November.

The two sides also agreed to seek the certification of "full operational capability (FOC)" this year -- the second part of a three-phase program aimed at vetting Seoul's capabilities to lead the allies' combined forces.

The program consists of three stages of assessment for the initial operational capability (IOC), the FOC and full mission capability. The IOC phase was completed in 2019.

After FOC verification, the two countries' defense chiefs are expected to put forward a target timeline for OPCON transition, while the specific timing of the transition will be determined during the FMC verification process.

The Lee administration's pursuit of OPCON transition comes as Lee has stressed the importance of South Korea's independent military capabilities in the face of North Korea's advancing military threats and growing uncertainties in the security and geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

"Self-reliant national defense is the most basic of basics amid the unstable international situation," Lee said in a social media post following the release of the Pentagon's defense strategy. "South Korea, with the world's fifth-strongest military, cannot be unable to defend itself."

In South Korea, political circles are still divided over the timing of OPCON transition.

Supporters argue the transfer would bolster efforts to enhance the Asian country's independent military capabilities and increase autonomy in the security alliance with the U.S., and address the issue of restoring the country's "military sovereignty."

Opponents have raised concerns that the transfer could lead to a weakening of America's security commitment on the Korean Peninsula at a time of deepening North Korean threats.

Should the transfer occur, a four-star South Korean general will lead the allies' combined forces in wartime with a four-star U.S. general playing a supporting role.

But questions still linger over whether the U.S. military, the strongest in the world, would allow its forces to serve under a South Korean general for wartime operations, and accept a loosening of its contingency control over South Korean forces.

Amid these questions, the defense chiefs of the two countries signed a document in 2018, which entails the agreement that a South Korean four-star general will lead the combined forces with a U.S. four-star general being its deputy after the OPCON transition.

OPCON fell into U.S. hands when then South Korean President Syngman Rhee wrote a letter to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander of the U.S.-led U.N. Command, on July 14, 1950, during the Korean War to relinquish "command authority" over all South Korean troops "as long as the current hostile situation lasts."

Command authority, a term more comprehensive than operational control, was changed to operational control when Seoul and Washington signed the "Agreed Minute Relating to Continued Cooperation in Economic and Military Matters" -- a document meant to cement the alliance treaty and reaffirm U.S. possession of the control.

South Korea retook peacetime OPCON in 1994, but the U.S. still holds wartime OPCON.

In 2007, the two countries first agreed to transfer OPCON to South Korea on April 17, 2012 -- the reverse of July 14, the date when Seoul handed over its "command authority" to U.N. Command.

But the two countries decided in 2010 to postpone the transfer to Dec. 1, 2015 because North Korean threats escalated as seen in its torpedoing of a South Korean warship that year and its continued weapons tests. In 2014, they changed the transfer plan and agreed to a conditions-based transition without setting a specific target date.

The OPCON transition process has gained renewed attention in recent months as it has been proceeding alongside the two countries' efforts to "modernize" their alliance amid the Trump administration's calls for allies to increase "burden sharing" and take greater security responsibilities.

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