Ministry of National Defense Republic of Korea

“Let's work together to make our people notice defense reform going right.”

Defense Minister Song, Young-moo reaffirmed the will to push forward "Defense Reform 2.0" at the New Year's greeting with one hundred department managers from the Ministry of Defense on January 2. With the department managers performing actual tasks, Minister Song shared the direction of defense reform and checked what to do in detail.

Minister Song said, “The Republic of Korea has started unprecedented and great democracy by unifying power from the people,” and explained the will to push forward defense reform, “Our military should be reformed into an organization equipped with a greater concept of democracy and humanist idea in order to keep pace with the changes in this age."

In addition, Minister Song said, “We cannot fulfill ourselves properly in a coercive military system, one of the vestiges of Japanese imperialism,” and requested, “Defense reform now is our last chance not to leave the manneristic military system to our next generation, so we need to cooperate having historical consciousness and sense of responsibility deeply in our mind."

Minister Song also explained about the modern battlefield from the universe to cyber space, and emphasized that the construction of far-sighted military power is a part of defense reform in this situation where war paradigm has changed.

Minister Song said, “We should protect and maintain peace by strengthening our power in accordance with a new war paradigm,” and added, “Once it is clear that we have a powerful ability, we can deter a war and maintain peace without nuclear weapons.”

Emphasizing the importance of defense reform as a historic calling demanded by the people, Minister Song said, “From commanders to privates, they should be aware that they are all soldiers and are doing important work for their country and organization,” and then asked Defense Ministry officials to protect and support soldiers so that they can do their job in battlefield. 

By Chul-Hwan, Kim < droid001@dema.mil.kr >

<Copyright ⓒ The Korea Defense Daily, All rights reserved>