Is the reason for abandoning 'Taereung' for 'Jangseong' integration, or a real estate scheme? We must be wary of wasting national budget for the privatization of security assets. 

Discussions regarding the relocation and closure of the Korea Military Academy (KMA) are targeting the heart of South Korea’s national security under the guise of "integration" and "efficiency." 

The reason this plan has not stopped, despite the concerns and opposition of numerous organizations, including former Army Chiefs of Staff and KMA superintendents, appears to be that the forces hidden behind it have too much to lose if the academy integration plan is scrapped.

We must now move beyond this debate as a mere principled war of attrition over opposition to military academy integration and uncover the reality of this massive real estate scheme—a plan to dismantle the foundation of South Korea's 80-year security posture and convert national strategic assets into private interests for a small group of planners.

1. Is the reason for abandoning 'Taereung' for 'Jangseong' integration, or a real estate scheme? 

If the true goal of academy integration is the efficiency of training for the three branches of the military, then maintaining Taereung, which already possesses optimized conditions for military education, is the most rational choice. 

Nevertheless, what is the motive behind pouring in massive amounts of taxpayer money to dismantle the KMA to the point of closure and push it to a rural region?

This is a deliberate act of security sabotage intended to castrate the military's identity and sever the core link in both our capital defense system during wartime and military diplomacy during peacetime.

Dismantling the sacred site of Taereung is not simply moving a place of education; it is an anti-military and treasonous act that throws away the historical heritage and strategic strongholds shared by officers of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces as prey for real estate developers.

This treasonous scheme has been gestating since the Lee Myung-bak administration, changing its skin with every regime change to erode the physical and spiritual assets of our national security.

2. Is the agenda of closing the KMA a strategic idea or the baseness of a diversion?

The inability to discard the agenda of academy integration and KMA closure despite extreme opposition is suspected to be a high-level "diversion" meant to cover up the current administration's failures. 

Between economic crises, the collapse of public livelihoods, conflicts with the U.S., diplomatic incompetence, and the threat of Chinese encroachment on the Korean Peninsula—did they dig this massive black hole called "KMA relocation" to hide the substantive crises facing the regime? If this question is groundless, they can simply scrap the academy integration plan immediately.

While the public is buried in an ideological and regional war of attrition over the pros and cons of relocating the KMA, the privatization of national security assets and the neutralization of the security system are proceeding silently behind closed doors. 

This appears to be an anti-national act where the regime sacrifices our most precious value—security—to disperse public anger. The moment security organizations bite the bait they have thrown and fall into regional conflict, we end up surrendering even the sovereignty of our security, exactly as they intended.

3. We must expand this into a 'national security sovereignty struggle' to protect our security assets

It has been revealed that the integration of military academies was built on pretenses of jointness and efficiency, but was actually rooted in disingenuous "overcoming internal strife" and emotional "KMA-bashing." Any injection of political self-interest into security policy, which should be treated with the utmost seriousness, is grounds for impeachment and punishment. 

By now, the opposition from security-focused groups against "hasty integration and KMA relocation" is dismissed as mere group egoism. We must expand the scope and framing of this issue from a struggle against real estate planners trying to privatize security assets into a "national security sovereignty struggle to protect strategic state assets" to block these abnormal decision-making processes regarding the KMA relocation. 

① The reality of the real estate planning forces hiding behind the pretext of integration must be exposed to the public. 

We must propose a proactive alternative—reorganizing the Taereung area into a future-oriented security and cultural space where the military and citizens coexist—to neutralize the justifications used by real estate developers like those in the "Daejang-dong" scandal. 

If dishonest and ruthless satanic forces persist in destroying sacred security sites for the sake of real estate speculation, awake citizens and security organizations must step up as "patriotic exorcists" to melt away their injustice.

② We must highlight the astronomical waste of the national budget caused by academy integration. 

We must demand that the Ministry of National Defense disclose the concrete roadmap and required budget information for the academy integration. We must objectively research and publish the astronomical waste of the national budget, sunk costs, opportunity costs, and the national psychological damage arising from security instability caused by those who lack a sense of national ownership and national interest.

If those who advocate for the return of wartime operational control in the name of self-reliant defense are actually trying to tear down the firm walls of our security to build apartments on holy ground, it is no longer policy—it is treason and treachery.

③ KMA relocation is not mere defense administration, but a fatal prelude that will lead to security collapse. 

If our security is shaken, we cannot guarantee the freedom and prosperity of our descendants. If this massive scheme to sell off sacred security sites for private real estate profit is not stopped, the sturdy shield of the Republic of Korea will disappear, leaving behind only the record of a ruined nation.

The KMA relocation plan is a nation-ruining act of seeking real estate interests through security destruction—a case of "trading a live chicken for a dead one"—and the outcome is the dissolution of national security. Crushing this treasonous "security-peddling" real estate scheme in advance and reclaiming our security sovereignty is true patriotism. 

“We inform the public that protecting the sacred security site of Taereung is the last bastion that we, who long for the overcoming of security instability and free unification, must defend at all costs.”

◆ Commissioner Park Pil-gyu

Editorial Writer, Hanmi Ilbo

Korea Military Academy, 40th Class