South Korea may have serious problems with the United States’ tough stance towards North Korean nuclear and missile antics but balks at any reduction of US troops stationed in this country, or dilution of the 50-year-old military relationship.

The announcement by a US defence official, at the beginning of the week, that as part of an overhaul of military ties, Seoul will be handed back wartime operations command over its own troops by 2009 has triggered a round of harsh criticism of President Roh Moo Hyun’s nationalist policies. Since 1994, Seoul has assumed peacetime command of its 650,000 troops but US-led UN forces retain overall command of wartime operations as part of defence arrangements dating back to the 1950-1953 Korean war. Currently, the US maintains 30,000 troops on the South Korean part of the peninsula but this is due to be whittled down to less than 25,000 by the end of 2008. This move has dismayed several military experts.

But Roh has repeatedly said that it is a matter of national integrity to retain wartime control of its troops. “We are the world’s 11th economic power and the world’s sixth largest military power in military units. Therefore, retaining operational control is a key to keeping our independence and this is something that we must have at any cost.” “My dear Mr President,” asks Koo Sang-Chan, lawmaker and vice-spokesman of the opposition Hanara party in his homepage, “Does it mean that you think that we have handed over our national football team to the Dutch people when we recruited the former Dutch football coach Hiddink to train our football players?” Vice-foreign minister Yu Myung-hwan has sought to allay suggestions that the changes in command structure and troop reduction would lead a pullout of US troops.

Many supported Roh’s position and asserted that the South Korean military was strong enough to take on North Korea. “South Korea is in particular ahead of its ability to collect information. North Korea is almost at the deaf level when it comes to its intelligence. If there is something South Korea’s military power is lacking, it is not its hardware capabilities but its soft areas such as self-confidence or motivation to defend itself,” said an editorial in the country’s liberal online media portal OhmyNews.

What shocked analysts was the US willingness to hand over to South Korea primary responsibility for defence in the event of war. “As the adjustment takes place, there will be a reduction in the number of US forces located in the Republic of Korea beyond the level of 25,000 we’ve currently agreed to,” said the defence official. Such readiness is interpreted by experts as a sign of a weakness in the alliance and a result of differences over how to deal with North Korea.

But Roh’s supporters do not agree. “Washington has no reason to relax its alliance with South Korea, because of the new command arrangement that is something it is also happy with and that fits its strategic need,” said the OhmyNews editorial. Handing over operational control to South Korea is a part of Washington’s strategic scheme to reduce its heavy burden of defending South Korea as a deterrence to the North, and instead it wants to “take a new wing of the strategic fl-exibility that stretches into a broader regional coverage,” OhmyNews added. — IPS