Shortening Service

[Anchor Lead]

One of President Moon Jae-in's campaign pledges was shortening the duration of mandatory military service to 18 months, but it’s unclear when or even whether that promise can be honored. KBS found out that the plan to start the shortening process this year has been scrapped.

[Pkg]

President Moon Jae-in had pledged during his campaign that he would cut the duration of mandatory military service from the current 21 months to 18 months during his term. And in actuality, the Ministry of National Defense was planning to gradually shorten the service period, starting this July, and reach the 18-month target by 2020. But KBS found out that the Ministry's conclusion was that it would be hard to even begin the adjustment process before the year is over. A high-ranking defense ministry official said that the reduction of the service duration can only take place when the military organizational reform and new operational plans have begun. That means the tasks of a military unit or individual soldiers must be changed first to suit the shorter service period. Therefore, President Moon's 18-month pledge is likely to be difficult to honor within this administration's term. It would take a few years to complete the military reform and build a kill chain. And it would take another two to three years to reduce the service duration down to 18 months. The Defense Ministry is attempting to shorten the service duration if only to resolve a serious backlog in enlistment, but the plan isn't easy to carry out without reorganizing the military and resolving security uncertainties.