'Washington is moving the goalposts': South Korea, U.S. clash over tougher wartime command transfer standards

South Korean and U.S. military officials are deadlocked over Seoul’s readiness to assume wartime operational control (Opcon), after Washington deemed several benchmarks unmet this year despite having cleared them a year earlier, according to multiple military sources on Wednesday.

The discord has raised the possibility of high-level top-down negotiations — even involving both presidents.

The full operational capability (FOC) verification, the second of three stages South Korea must pass before taking over Opcon, cannot be completed until the dispute is resolved.

The shifting standards behind Washington's reversal

The United States reportedly believes that certain criteria must be reassessed annually to reflect changes in the battlefield environment.

Seoul, by contrast, insists that last year's agreed-upon criteria remain valid and that the additional benchmarks met this year should allow FOC verification to conclude. It even fast-tracked the deployment of critical weapons systems to accelerate the transfer.

"That's why we keep hearing complaints within the government that Washington is moving the goalposts," a South Korean government source said.

The South Korean government initially appeared intent on pursuing separate channels with the Pentagon and White House on the political side and United States Forces Korea (USFK) on the military side.

While Seoul has made the transfer of wartime operational control a key policy goal for the administration's term, USFK, the gatekeeper of the assessment process, insists that the transfer must be based on military conditions rather than a political timetable.

“Anything that violates my ability to defend the people of the Republic of Korea and the people of the United States of America that falls outside of the conditions that have been established, I can’t support,” USFK Commander Gen. Xavier Brunson said during a dialogue at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic & International Studies on Monday, using South Korea's official name.

“What I can support is a conditions-based Opcon transfer. Time is a condition. That’s not for me to decide.”

Brunson went further at the Indo-Pacific Summit hosted by the Gold Institute for International Strategy in Washington on Wednesday, arguing, “Because the conditions have changed, because we’ve changed our plan, we have new standards which we have to uphold.”

Washington is particularly concerned about command-and-control capabilities, according to military sources. The 2018 combined defense guidelines stipulate that a South Korean four-star general will command the future combined forces command after the transfer, with a U.S. four-star general serving as deputy. U.S. officials maintain that the South Korean commander must be able to operate sophisticated U.S. command-and-control systems directly to lead military units.

Beyond conventional warfare: Integration and emerging technologies

Central to the assessment are the ability to analyze and process targets through AI and the capacity to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations. The U.S. military has already integrated systems such as Project Maven into combat operations.

The U.S. military employed AI systems in its February operation against Iran, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, and integrated AI capabilities into joint exercises with South Korean forces in both the first and second halves of this year.

The United States also envisions a Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) framework that would link its command-and-control systems with those of its allies to coordinate military assets across allied forces.

Given the Korean Peninsula's limited strategic depth and the risk of simultaneous North Korean attacks involving missiles, drones and artillery, the Pentagon considers it essential to detect signs of an attack swiftly through ISR assets and determine which threats to counter first.

That concern also explains why Brunson singled out "sensing, sensing, sensing" as the cornerstone of defense posture and readiness during his discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Washington is also demanding that Seoul upgrade its communications security systems, including data links, to U.S. military standards.

An increasingly insurmountable hurdle for Korea

The two allies are discussing a road map for the transfer, but acquiring and modernizing military assets, along with the time South Korean forces need to master their operation, pose significant hurdles. U.S. military officials believe those requirements make a transfer within the next two years unrealistic.

Some military experts, however, argue that requiring South Korea to match the systems of the world's most technologically advanced military would effectively make the transfer impossible. Others see room for a pragmatic compromise, as the Trump administration has endorsed a leading role for Korean forces in conventional defense against North Korea in its National Defense Strategy.

“With its powerful military, supported by high defense spending, a robust defense industry, and mandatory conscription, South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with critical but more limited U.S. support,” the strategy reads. “South Korea also has the will to do so, given that it faces a direct and clear threat from North Korea. This shift in the balance of responsibility is consistent with America’s interest in updating U.S. force posture on the Korean Peninsula.”

A political breakthrough may ultimately prove decisive. South Korean Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul plans to use his first meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Asean Defence Ministers’ Meeting+ in the Philippines, which opens on Oct. 27. The possibility remains that Korean President Lee could personally appeal to U.S. President Donald Trump before year's end.

Update, Oct. 15: Additional quote by Gen. Brunson from the Indo-Pacific Summit added.

BY LEE YU-JUNG [[email protected]]