By I support the reduction in the mandatory service time as long as it is tied to increasing the number of professional soldiers and the technology they are using to defend the country, which it appears the Korean government is moving forward with:
President Lee Myung-bak rejected a proposal from the military to drop the ongoing plan to reduce the mandatory military service period to 18 months by 2014 and instead return it to 24 months, Friday, reasoning that the matter of curtailing the service period should be reviewed carefully.
The country has been gradually reducing the service period under the “Military Reform Plan 2020,” mapped out in 2005 under the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration.
The program calls for the military to cut the service period to 18 months by 2014, from the current average of 21 months. [Korea Times]
You can read more from the prior discussions we have had here on the ROK Drop about South Korea’s mandatory service obligation at this link. Like I have always said if the 18 month service obligation reduces the amount of manpower for the ROK Army too much, they can always begin conscripting females.
12:08 pm on September 6th, 2010 1
You really need to find another photo other then the old photo of Sung Yuri that you keep on using. It's getting old.
Here she is, maybe you'll like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU0bSatFDaY
These girls ruined their appeal by speaking like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrwjLBHWALw&fe…
1:53 pm on September 6th, 2010 2
That lady's name doesn't seem to begin with 'Sung' and 'ri' in the name tag.
ROK military cannot effectively augment conscripted women to their full Required Operational Capability. The military will face a lot of problems associated with personnel integration and logistics. Korea can effective utilize only the women who are prepared and willing to serve the country.
A sizable force of infantry will remain essential to maintaining the required force level of the ROK military for years we can foresee. Conscription is necessitated through the sheer burden of manpower and firepower that expected wars involving Korea will demand in the future. Today, half of the ROK military is composed of conscripts. Korea already employs a higher number professional soldiers than France, UK, or Germany, as well as arguably a stronger technologically advanced military force. I think the balance is fine as it is now.
1:54 pm on September 6th, 2010 3
Edit, that lady's name doesn’t seem to begin with ‘Sung’ and end with‘ri’ in the name tag.
3:01 pm on September 6th, 2010 4
In case of war, would ROK females square off against DPRK females? You know, like in sports?
3:34 pm on September 6th, 2010 5
"if the 18 month service obligation reduces the amount of manpower for the ROK Army too much, they can always begin conscripting females."
I don't know if Korea is socially open-minded enough to do the Israel thing.
3:51 pm on September 6th, 2010 6
Honey, I surrender! May I suggest a strip search.
4:14 pm on September 6th, 2010 7
Koreapull,
Israel is using 7% of its GDP for military budget, plus the $3 billion aid that it receives from America, annually. Korea is spending 2.6% of its GDP for military budget, and contributes a separate $1.5 billion budget to share the cost of accommodating 28,500 US troops on its soil, annually. Israel's military is wealthier and less susceptible to logistics and integration problems, and its list of potential threats doesn't include potential superpowers like China. Israel has so many advantages over Korea in terms of US/European intelligence sharing, US/European technology transfers, permission to build and possess nuclear weapons, indigenous long-range ballistic missiles and SLVs, less powerful enemies, etc and can better afford to be luxurious in spending its disposable military budget.
4:55 pm on September 6th, 2010 8
um, actually i was referring the social aspect, as per my original comment.
you know…the "female" part?
6:27 pm on September 6th, 2010 9
There are many more factors affecting a society's acceptance of female conscription than the society's 'open-mindedness'. You are talking about the lack of open-mindedness as the primary reason why female conscription would be infeasible in Korea. I think you are slightly misguided. The reason for lack of female conscription in Korea, first and foremost, is of a resources issue.
If Korean women will be expected to have their military service as comfortably as Israeli women would, as represented by higher welfare expenditure in per capita basis, then public support for female conscription in Korea would also have been a lot higher. If female soldiers in Israel were treated and accommodated for like dirts as Korean men often are in the Korean military, social unrest in Israel due to poorly administered female conscription policy and infrastructure would have been more prevalent too. If female conscription was enacted in America, social unrest in America would be unavoidable also, UNLESS the women conscripts were well take cared for during their military service by utilizing more welfare funds and facilities for them, which goes back to my original point – utilization of such welfare funds and facilities to accommodate female troopers may inefficiently drain resources, with insufficient net improvement in combat capability of the Korean military, which is facing a different budget forecast and a lot different foes against whom it should be prepared to fight from what some countries like Israel is facing. Therefore, ROK military does not use females as conscript soldiers. It is deemed as uneconomical and inefficient under the current circumstances that Korea is in.
7:19 pm on September 6th, 2010 10
I think you are still missing my subtle suggestion: not whether ROK is capable resource-wise, but whether Korea's rather patriarchal attitude to conscription gels well to a higher portion of female soldiers.
but I appreciate your comment, and certainly don't disagree with you per se.
7:27 pm on September 6th, 2010 11
"If female soldiers in Israel were treated and accommodated for like dirts as Korean men often are in the Korean military"
I think that's exactly my point. Just as schoolkids are roughed up into obedience, so are the conscripts – except that for the conscripts, the military process is seen as the epitome of Korean rite-of-passage where a boy becomes MAN, so to speak. That is certainly not what the American military entails. And that is what I mean by social attitudes to military service in Korea, and whether it gels with female conscripts. Heck, I haven't even mentioned how women are portrayed in Korean TV (cute, soft, delicate, that annoying "kiddie" voice, etc etc) that would make American feminists broil in blind rage. I guess I am having trouble reconciling THAT media image with a strong female soldier.
Just my 2 cents
8:14 pm on September 6th, 2010 12
"whether it gels with female conscripts."
The 'rite of passage' kind of perspective that the Korean society has of military service today would gel with female conscripts, but likely only many years after the policy was put in effect, if conscripting women into the military was deemed as the right thing to do by the government, and the government promulgated its intent and reasons for doing so to the public successfully (such as, to more adequately prepare against [newly emergent threat] that was well demonstrated beforehand). The women will prepare themselves to fight if they don't want to, say, see a tank battle happening in their front yard. I don't think that modern day men of Korea in their TWENTIES will refuse to egg the women to do the same duty as them, when something like a large scale war on the Korean peninsula was imminent within a perceivable time frame, and when Korea finally began mobilizing the price resources needed to support and survive it. At the core, the Korean patriarchal society will ultimately not detract from effectively conscripting females into the military, IF it was economically and logistically viable, and IF it was militarily the right strategy to utilize.
Did I still miss your points?
11:33 pm on September 6th, 2010 13
A Conversation I Have Had MANY Times With Korean Women
"Are men and women equal?"
"Yes."
"Should they be treated equally?"
"Yes."
"Should women have the same opportunities as men?"
"Yes."
"Should women be required to serve in the military?"
"Oh, no!"
"I see."
11:59 pm on September 6th, 2010 14
What's Korea really gonna do if a war ever happens… what are the WOMEN gonna do?
2:20 am on September 7th, 2010 15
The ROK as we all know is right next door to a country that tried to take it over once and is prepared to do so again at any moment. Most of NK troops are either right on or very close to the DMZ. The ROK Army can't afford to play any BS PC social engineering games like the US Army is forced too. The ROK Army as anyone knows who has served in Korea is tough & brutal, they have to be considering the threat that they are facing. I didn't serve in Vietnam but I knew plenty of soldiers who did and everyone of them said that the ROK Army did not F around, there was no such thing as the Geneva Convention. Conscripting a bunch of female soldiers will just ratchet down the power of the ROK Army making war much more likely to happen. Just think how many female troops that you know can carry a M60 machine gun? It normally takes two males to carry a big soldiers on a litter but it will normally take four females. The US Army can afford some of this crap but the ROK's cannot & it will never happen. This PC crap is destroying America.
3:53 am on September 7th, 2010 16
K:
fair enough.
Tom:
3:58 am on September 7th, 2010 17
Women can serve in non combat support roles. But it should be strictly voluntary.
10:21 am on September 7th, 2010 18
Korean male expats should be called upon to return to homeland and fight for Korea during wartime. That should be strictly compulsory.
11:14 am on September 7th, 2010 19
"Women can serve in non combat support roles. But it should be strictly voluntary."
There is some debate as to it being voluntary, but wasn't that program already tried in the early part of the last century?
11:19 am on September 7th, 2010 20
"Korean male expats should be called upon to return to homeland and fight for Korea during wartime. That should be strictly compulsory."
I already did my compulsory duty, so you're out of luck there buddy.
11:24 am on September 7th, 2010 21
Let's hope the Koreans have learned a lesson and do not
destroyfeminize their military like we have ours.12:24 pm on September 7th, 2010 22
"I already did my compulsory duty, so you’re out of luck there buddy."
If you think you are already done with ROK military service after just your KATUSA cakewalks, you are gravely mistaken. You are going to further serve in the Mobilized Reserves of the ROK military for 4 years after the end of your active military service, 8 years for Homeland Reserves after the end of your Mobilized Reserves service, and then a flexible number of years more for Civil Defense Corps after the end of your Homeland Reserves service, until your age reaches 45. You are going to return to Korea and fight for the country until you are 45 years old if you are a genuine Korean that you often delude yourself to be.
12:32 pm on September 7th, 2010 23
Ah and, I support expanding the age limit for wartime conscription to above 45. Korean men in their mid 40s and 50s should still call Korea their home and do what is necessary to protect it. Americans in their 40s and 50s will dutifully fight and die for a country that's not theirs, so why should not these Koreans do the same? Most of them seem to be walking and running and driving and talking and shouting and brawling quite fine to me.
1:16 pm on September 7th, 2010 24
You are not even in position to "support" anything, you are not even Korean..
Talk about delusions., 
1:41 pm on September 7th, 2010 25
톰. 당신의 국적은 사기란 말이요. 대한민국을 지킬 의도가 없는자가 한국인이 될수 있겠소? 어디 쓰레기장에 가서 쓰레기들에게 충성을 받치는게 가장 올바른 선택일거요. 어차피 당신 입에서 똑같은 쓰레기 밖에 안나오니깐.
3:32 pm on September 7th, 2010 26
LOL. K is definately not Korean. and # 15, good point Tom Langley.
3:42 pm on September 7th, 2010 27
한 손가락이 당신의 머리 옆에서 궤도를 그리고 있습니다, Orbit님.
9:02 pm on September 7th, 2010 28
K…you're cool
9:10 pm on September 7th, 2010 29
Your word registered as 'invalid' in my sarcasm meter. Say that again?
1:30 pm on September 8th, 2010 30
An alternative solution if there aren't enough bodies in the ROK Army is to hire migrant workers to overcome the shortage. If it's a dirty or dangerous job, it's always best to hire someone from an impoverished country to do it for you.
2:12 pm on September 8th, 2010 31
Better yet, let's also hire all those unemployed Americans who would otherwise become English teachers in Korea. At least they can get productive and useful for a change.
2:36 pm on September 8th, 2010 32
Best yet, just make sure countries abroad kick men like Tom out of the country if a Korean war happens so that they'll have to come back to Korea. We'll have no shortage of men to mobilize in Korea with the extra influx of returning Korean expats. I think we can amass half a million troops more that way.
Maintaining the force level of the active forces is not a problem if ROK equips itself with increasingly more powerful weapons. There are many next-generation weapon platforms that Korea is getting ready to mass-produce soon, and some are already mass-produced (K9 SPH, K21 IFV). Then, the ROK military should spend more money on the troops' education in per capita basis so that they'll be better prepared to utilize these high-tech weapons. Reduced manpower is inversely proportional to logistics per capita, having fewer soldiers, but each soldiers better equipped and more skilled.
4:04 pm on September 8th, 2010 33
#1m why stop using it? I'm not sure Korean men would know what to do with her to be honest.