Seoul Pushes for More Control of Its Forces as U.S. Priorities Shift

WASHINGTON•SEOUL, Dec. 24 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea is pressing ahead with a bid for greater military autonomy within its alliance with the United States, a shift that reflects both Seoul’s growing confidence and Washington’s evolving strategic priorities as rivalry with China intensifies.

From efforts to reclaim wartime operational control of its forces from the United States to expanding indigenous defense capabilities, Seoul is seeking to recalibrate what has long been an asymmetric partnership. While such moves might once have stirred friction, they have drawn little overt resistance from Washington.

Instead, the administration of Donald Trump has encouraged South Korea to increase defense spending, assume primary responsibility for conventional deterrence against North Korea and play a larger role in regional security.

Analysts say the United States increasingly sees value in allies with greater military capacity and decision-making authority. As Washington looks to counter what it calls China’s “pacing threat,” stronger partners in Asia are viewed less as risks to alliance cohesion and more as force multipliers.

“The U.S. appears to believe that the benefits of bolstering South Korea’s capabilities to help keep China in check outweigh the risks that could come with Korea’s greater autonomy,” said Nam Chang-hee, a professor of international politics at Inha University.

That calculation rests on confidence that Seoul will not drift toward Beijing, analysts say, but will remain firmly aligned with Washington. South Korea fields about 450,000 active-duty troops that operate closely with U.S. forces under a combined command structure, giving it significant strategic weight.

Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corp., noted that while Washington has traditionally preferred tight control over allied forces in wartime, it is increasingly recognizing that both the economic burden and command responsibilities must be shared.

South Korea’s push for autonomy has been gradual but persistent. As its economic and military power has grown, Seoul has sought a larger security role, particularly in deterring North Korea.

That ambition has sometimes required difficult negotiations with Washington, including talks that led to the lifting in 2021 of bilateral missile guidelines that had capped the range of South Korean ballistic missiles. Seoul framed the change as a restoration of “missile sovereignty,” while U.S. officials quietly acknowledged the value of longer-range Korean capabilities in a broader regional context.

The latest and most consequential step is the administration of President Lee Jae-myung, which is seeking to regain wartime operational control, known as OPCON, within its five-year term ending in 2030. If the transfer proceeds, a South Korean four-star general would command the allies’ combined forces in wartime, with a U.S. general serving as deputy — a fundamental change to the alliance’s command structure.

During talks in Seoul last month, Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth agreed to develop a roadmap to expedite the conditions required for the transfer, signaling momentum. Still, senior U.S. commanders have urged caution.

Gen. Xavier Brunson, head of U.S. Forces Korea, emphasized that meeting agreed conditions — including South Korea’s command capabilities, missile defense readiness and the regional security environment — matters more than adhering to a fixed timeline.

South Korea’s autonomy drive extends beyond OPCON. Seoul is also pursuing nuclear-powered submarines, a project Trump has publicly supported. U.S. officials have suggested such capabilities could strengthen deterrence against China, though some observers see Trump’s backing as part of broader dealmaking rather than a carefully calibrated geopolitical strategy.

Indeed, South Korea’s pledge to raise defense spending to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product and Trump’s support for advanced military projects followed tough trade negotiations in which Seoul agreed to invest $350 billion in the United States in exchange for reduced tariffs.

Underlying Seoul’s push is a lingering anxiety about the reliability of American security guarantees. Those concerns have been sharpened by speculation that Washington could eventually reduce the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed on the peninsula as it reorients its global posture toward China and the Western Hemisphere.

“South Korea’s proximity to North Korea and its experience of U.S. troop withdrawal before the Korean War have produced questions about American reliability,” two scholars wrote recently in an academic study on alliance pressures in East Asia.

Some former officials caution that greater autonomy could, over time, loosen alliance bonds. Philip Goldberg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, warned at a recent forum that as U.S. strategic attention shifts elsewhere, the two allies could gradually grow more separate in their security priorities.

For now, however, both sides appear to see Seoul’s bid for autonomy not as a rupture, but as a recalibration — one shaped by a changing balance of power in Asia and a shared desire to adapt an alliance forged in the Cold War to the demands of a new era. 

M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)