The ROK Defense Manpower Policy: Problems and Perspectives

Abstract

The Korean military has gone through rapid changes in civilian- military relationships over the past three decades. As society had greater opportunities for education and has become more industrialized and urbanized through successful economic development, the civilian sector has been enhanced with a higher technological and administrative level than the military. The military is no longer a sacred political power; it has become instead a social institution and an occupation. This paper examines how military manpower policy can meet these challenges. The ROK military needs first, to build an integrated man- agement system for active, reserve and civilian working personnel as a total force, and second, to establish a technology-intensive structure, switching from the current manpower-intensive structure. To shift now to one in which the professional soldiers and civilian working force perform a greater role than do the draftees: military personnel who are working at the manpower Policy Division at the Ministry of National Defense and Headquarters of the army, navy, and air force should stay at least five years; the proportion of mid- and long-term officers and sergeants to the total active manpower should be enlarged from the current 25% to 40%, and the civilian working force should be increased from the current 30,000 perhaps to as much as 100,000; the composition ratio of the three branches of the armed forces (army, navy, air force) should be changed from a proportion of 83:9:8 to 65:15:20, which means expanding the technology-intensive navy and air force; more incentive systems such as scholarships and bonuses should be intro- duced to gain the best quality of mid- and long-term commissioned and non-commissioned officers from the ROTC and OCS; the best qualified NCOs should be given an opportunity to be promoted to officer rank; the education and training system for commissioned officers should be renovated into a technology- and academic-oriented system; to establish job stability, the retirement age of professional soldiers needs to be extended to the same level as that of government officials; and for a high-quality civilian force the current dual procurement system needs to be integrated into one system such as that in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ROK military will need to reform its current manpower policy organization so as to perform a manpower planning function rather than just to continue in its crisis management mode.