President Lee Jae-myung has made clear he wants South Korea to reclaim wartime command of its own forces before he leaves office, reviving a long-standing goal of the country's liberal governments. Wartime operational control, the authority to direct combined South Korean and US forces in a conflict, has rested with a US-led command since the Korean War, and Lee wants it back in Korean hands.
The push is bound to his calendar. Lee's term ends in 2030, and his government is aiming to complete the transfer in 2028, or possibly as early as 2027. The subject is set to come up in October at the annual Security Consultative Meeting, the defense dialogue where Seoul and Washington manage the alliance.
What OPCON is, and why it matters
Operational control is less about ownership of troops than about who gives the orders when fighting starts. Under the current arrangement, a US general would command the combined forces in wartime, an inheritance of the war that Korea has lived with for more than seven decades. For Lee, taking it back is a matter of sovereignty, the idea that a country should command its own military on its own soil.
He has been careful to frame the change as a complement to the alliance rather than a break from it. A solid Korea-US alliance and stronger independent defense capabilities, Lee said, are necessary and sufficient conditions for each other, an argument that Korea can be both a reliable ally and the master of its own forces.
A goal with a long history
Lee is not the first to chase this. The transfer was pursued by earlier liberal presidents, Roh Moo-hyun from 2003 to 2008 and Moon Jae-in from 2017 to 2022, and it was once scheduled for 2012 before being pushed back to 2015 and then unmoored from any fixed date. Ahn Chan-il, who heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies, noted that taking back wartime operational control has long been a security objective of liberal administrations.
The repeated delays point to the difficulty. Each postponement reflected doubts about whether the Korean military was ready to lead, and the transfer was eventually tied to conditions rather than a calendar, which is precisely the tension Lee is now testing by attaching it to his term.
The Trump opening
The politics in Washington may work in Lee's favor. President Trump's desire to scale back American military commitments abroad could make a handover appealing to the United States, since it would shift more responsibility onto Seoul. Cha Du-hyeogn, a vice president at the Asan Institute, suggested the transfer could be a welcome development from Trump's perspective, as it reduces US responsibilities.
The caveat is that Trump has not explicitly backed an accelerated timeline. An opening is not an agreement, and a president who prizes leverage could just as easily tie a command handover to demands on defense spending or the cost of stationing US troops.
The tests that remain
Ambition still has to clear a process. The transfer requires a three-phase verification, and the crucial Full Operational Capability assessment depends on joint exercises such as Ulchi Freedom Shield, where the Korean-led command structure is put through its paces. Meeting Lee's timeline means passing those tests on schedule, with little room to slip.
That is the gamble at the center of Lee's push. Setting a deadline creates momentum and signals resolve, but it also risks colliding with a conditions-based system built to move only when the military is judged ready. Whether Korea takes back wartime command by 2028 will depend on whether readiness can be made to match a president's clock.