{"id":48615,"date":"2026-06-10T19:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T19:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/48615\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T19:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T19:53:14","slug":"s-korea-to-disband-military-anti-espionage-command","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/48615\/","title":{"rendered":"S. Korea to Disband Military Anti-Espionage Command"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n \"The
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South Korea has announced the dismantling of its Defense Counterintelligence Command following the segment\u2019s role in former President Yoon Suk Yeol\u2019s failed martial law<\/a> <\/a>attempt<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

The move ends the Ministry of Defense unit\u2019s 49-year run and redistributes its core functions across new and existing bodies to distribute concentrated authority within military intelligence, according<\/a> to local media.<\/p>\n

The reform follows recommendations issued in January 2026<\/a> by a civilian-military advisory panel, which called for splitting the command\u2019s \u201cexcessive powers\u201d and ending its controversial monitoring role.<\/p>\n

Scrutiny intensified after the unit deployed troops to the National Assembly and National Election Commission and helped organize teams tasked with detaining politicians during the martial law attempt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reshuffling<\/p>\n

Under the strategy<\/a>, a newly-created Defense Counterintelligence Headquarters will take over anti-espionage, defense industry intelligence, and cybersecurity tasks.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, security audits and investigations into breaches at major units will shift to a new Defense Security Support Group, while national security investigations, such as joint probes under martial law scenarios, will transfer to the ministry\u2019s investigation headquarters.<\/p>\n

The overhaul also strips the command of authority long tied to its influence, including military personnel monitoring, personal information collection, or other operations unrelated to counterintelligence, such as corruption cases.<\/p>\n

Completion by July<\/p>\n

Officials said new oversight measures will include an external inspector general, a civilian compliance committee, and regular reporting to the National Assembly.<\/p>\n

The defense agency also plans legislation to define the scope of counterintelligence work and penalties for abuses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seoul aims to complete the transition by the end of next month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis reorganization of the [Defense Counterintelligence Command] goes beyond a simple organizational or functional adjustment,\u201d The Asia Business Daily quoted<\/a> Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back as saying.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a historic turning point for building a \u2018military for the people\u2019 by restructuring both the organization and its missions so that our military intelligence agencies can never again intervene in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Korea has announced the dismantling of its Defense Counterintelligence Command following the segment\u2019s role in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12249,7041,31,33],"class_list":["post-48615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-espionage","tag-intelligence","tag-korea","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}