ABSTRACT
Once a ground-centric military whose strength resided in the relatively cheap manpower of draftees and technological power of their US allies, the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army dominated the defense structure and was solely focused on the potential threat of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Korean People’s Army invading across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that demarcated the Korean Peninsula roughly in half. Since the turn of the century and even before, the ROK national security establishment has been dealing with a complex challenge: how to ensure national security in an environment of changing threats, shifting resource priorities, and increasingly negative demographics. Rather than just the threat across the DMZ—which still remains the primary but not all-encompassing focus— ROK security planners must concern themselves with perceived potential threats from the People’s Republic of China, Russia, and Japan while also sustaining capacity to contribute to international security efforts it deems worthwhile.
