Are South Korea’s Special Forces Really That “Special”? UDT/SEAL

There is a sentence that almost always comes up
when you watch interviews with special forces operators.

Are South Korea’s Special Forces really that “special”?
UDT/SEAL, Special Forces

When they are asked about their training,
their abilities, and what makes them so exceptional,

they often answer like this.

Our individual physical abilities and capabilities
are certainly not inferior to those of the Americans.

And then they stop talking.

Why?

What does that mean?

It is simple.

Because they are the ones on the front lines
who know what the real problem is.

Then, if we want to know what the problem is,
we need something to compare them with, right?

As painful as it may be,
let’s compare them with the special forces of the United States,
the country with the strongest military in the world.

Military forces are broadly divided into the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

And each of these three services has its own highest headquarters.

Army Headquarters, Navy Headquarters, and Air Force Headquarters.

Naturally, each service also has its own highest-ranking commander.

They are the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

Separate from these, there is also the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff oversees the military services in matters related to joint operations.

Up to this point, the United States is not all that different.

The United States also has separate military services,
with separate chains of command for each service.

But when it comes to special forces, the story changes.

In South Korea, special operations forces are managed separately by each service,
so there is no single command headquarters dedicated to commanding all special operations forces.

The United States has one.

Special forces are, by definition, units that carry out missions different from conventional military operations.

Many missions must be conducted in secrecy,
and these units require different equipment, training, intelligence, and communications systems from conventional forces.

So is it really the best approach
to keep these units separately within each military service?

The Army, Navy, and Air Force are different,
and special operations may involve highly classified missions and specialized units,

but in the end, they are all part of the military of the same country.

Let’s look at the United States.

This is where the United States created an additional organization.

It is

USSOCOM
United States Special Operations Command
U.S. Special Operations Command

.

Put simply,

Army special operations forces
Navy SEALs
Air Force special operations forces
Marine Corps special operations forces

are not simply left under their respective military services.

Instead, the United States created
a unified command that manages them together as one field: “special operations.”

In other words,

in addition to the conventional military command structure,

the United States has another massive command structure dedicated specifically to special operations.

And it does not end there.

SOCOM is not simply

a headquarters

that says,

“Go conduct this operation.”

It is involved not only in the training and combat readiness of special operations forces,

but also in special operations doctrine,
equipment requirements,
interoperability,
intelligence support requirements,
and the development and acquisition of specialized equipment.

In particular, the United States has given SOCOM
the authority to directly develop and acquire specialized equipment for special operations,
along with a separate budgetary structure to support it.

!?!?!?!?!?!

This is a really significant difference.

There is a command specifically for special operations forces,
and that command has its own authorities and budgetary structure
to develop and support the field of special operations itself.

So what about South Korea?

As I mentioned,

each military service maintains its own special operations forces.

That may be understandable.

But

here is the problem.

Each service has an overwhelming number of
conventional troops.

How much attention can really be left for special operations forces?

Ultimately,
even if resources are divided and divided again within those organizations,
and they do their best to pay attention to special operations forces,

it will still be different from

the U.S. SOCOM structure, where one organization is dedicated to special operations across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps,
and manages the entire field with dedicated authorities and a dedicated budgetary structure.

Let’s wrap this up.

I think we have moved beyond simply asking
which special forces unit is the strongest
and how we compare to them.

They are strong.
But the system behind them is not.

What we should be looking at now is

not just the capabilities of the individual operators,
but what kind of system exists behind those operators.

That, I believe, is what really matters.