Over 200 High-ranking Officers at MND to Return to Field Operations

On August 31, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced that in accordance with plans to increase civilian control of the MND by the end of 2006, 206 out of 421 high-level officers working at the MND—officers above the rank of major, including active duty generals and field grade generals—will be dispatched to the field, with the vacuum to be filled by civilians.

In addition, the MND declared beforehand that until the end of next year, five out of 10 active generals working as bureau directors would be replaced with civilians. In all, about 110 high-ranking field grade officers will be returning to field operations.

The Renovation Team under the MND Planning and Management Department recently drew up these projects in its “Plan to Pursue the Civilianization of the Ministry of National Defense,” and submitted it to National Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-woong.

According to the plans, the current ratio of civilian officials and field grade officers at the MND of 51 percent (439 officials) to 49 percent (421 officials) will be shifted until the end of next year to 64 percent (549 officials) to 36 percent (311 officials), and to 75 percent (645 officials) to 25 percent (215 officials) by the end of 2006.

The civilian and military ratio of bureau directors, posts which are currently held by officers above the rank of brigadier general, will changed from the present 8:10 ratio to 13:5 (by the end of 2005), and 18:0 by the end of 2006. Hence, two years afterwards, no bureau director or section chief posts will be held by active duty generals.

The Renovation Team, which prepared such plans, proposed to fill the empty slots with retired officers, outside experts, or government officials from other ministries.

The head of the MND’s Office of Planning and Coordination, Kim Hong-sik, said, “The office of planning and coordination will collect each department and bureau’s plans to reduce active officers until September 10. Then the Ministry of National Defense will take into consideration the opinion of the other concerned ministries until the end of October, and after amending the Ministry of National Defense Post Limitation Bill, we will start the ‘civilianization’ plan starting from January of next year.”

He emphasized furthermore, “We plan on not setting back the promotion and posting of officers returning to the field due to the civilianization plans of the ministry.”

Yong-Gwan Jung yongari@donga.com