Soccer is a high-stakes tactical struggle where 11 players compete in a confined space for a single goal, engaging in a relentless offensive battle to seize the ball by the narrowest of margins. Spain's Mikel Merino (left) watches a goal scored by Ferran Torres during the 2026 North and Central America World Cup final between Spain and Argentina on the 20th (Korean time). [AP=Yonhap News]

The 2026 FIFA World Cup in North and Central America concluded with Spain's victory. Featuring 48 nations and totaling 308 goals across 104 matches, this tournament was a "compressed version of modern warfare," showcasing the diversification of tactics and the maximization of players' physical capabilities. 

Originating from ancient hunting exercises, soccer is a brutal war where tactical mastery is tested and only the winner can smile. 

‘Soccer is war’ 

This phrase embodies an immutable law applicable to all competitive endeavors where victory and defeat are at stake. Soccer is indeed a compressed form of modern warfare: 11 players on a confined pitch compete for a single "goal," engaging in intense offensive maneuvers to win the ball; it requires high-level concentration and agility driven by the manager's intelligence and leadership, alongside creative, unpredictable surprises, and fierce physical clashes during both attack and defense. 

Observing the fervor of the World Cup leads one to realize that soccer transcends mere sports tactics; it contains the core philosophy of security studies—maintaining national existence, safety, and continuity—and the "fundamental principles of war." 

Principles of Objective and Offensive

No matter how brilliant the individual skills or precise the passing on the soccer field, if there is no goal and the team fails to outscore the opponent, all that effort is meaningless despite having played well. In soccer, the objective and the offensive are tactical partners. The same applies to national security. A clear security objective—the "survival of the nation and its people"—maintains optimal peace only when combined with an offensive strategy. 

Soccer without a goal-oriented mindset for victory, and national security without a defined goal, are merely administrative wastes of time and resources. A clear perception of the primary enemy is the starting point of an offensive security policy. This perception dictates offensive strategies, optimal military structure, total war human resource planning, and military force development systems. 

Just as a player must have the drive to score a goal, and a military must have an enemy to fight and suppress, all military strategies and tactics must evolve offensively. Obscuring the concept of a primary enemy in the name of peace is like playing a listless game of soccer with no purpose or objective to win. 

Principles of Intelligence and Unity of Command

In both soccer and war, victory depends on the unity of command—the ability to turn real-time battlefield data into rapid decisions and immediate orders. Organic intelligence gathering, combined with consistent and swift command decisions, is the foundation of military principles and the lifeblood of national security.

A manager must discern the opponent's skills and tactics during the match, implement plans, and adjust if they fail. Rapid judgment and determination by the commander are the decisive variables that determine victory or defeat. If a manager’s selections are influenced by external pressure or their own bias, internal morale and unity collapse, rendering even the most powerful team incapable of winning. 

The battlefield is no different. If political interference delays the decision-making of the command during a war, friendly forces on the front lines become isolated and collapse. If intelligence functions are fragmented—like the dissolution of the Defense Security Command—and the processes of surveillance, intelligence gathering, judgment, decision-making, and strike execution are not perfectly synchronized, the battle is lost before it even begins. 

Principles of Mass and Maneuver

Mass is the concentration of power in one place, while maneuver is the movement of forces to positions advantageous for confrontation. In soccer, a team may use the entire width of the pitch during an attack to shake the opponent's formation, but when a defensive gap appears due to the opponent crowding their star players, they concentrate their forces with quick, short passes to score a goal. 

Concentrating forces in an advantageous direction and maneuvering faster than the enemy is the essence of warfare. Once intelligence identifies a weak flank, all forces must be concentrated and maneuvered toward that axis to achieve a breakthrough. 

Similar to how soccer defenders hold a wide formation only to have the entire team transition to attack upon capturing an opponent's mistake, future battlefields require using drones to scout wide areas (dispersion), then instantly concentrating AI-based strike assets on a specific point the moment enemy core forces are identified. "Mass and maneuver" are essential strategies for victory in both soccer and national security. 

Principles of Surprise and Creativity

In soccer, predictable, arithmetic maneuvers are blocked by the opponent's defensive wall. The essence of surprise lies in "creative speed" that the opponent cannot counter even if they discern the tactical intent. Modern warfare, too, makes fixed bases and concentrated troop clusters "deadly targets" for precision strikes. Therefore, security strategy must evolve into "creative surprise" that flexibly shifts between defense and attack, much like soccer tactics.

Soccer defenders must move as one to induce offsides and block passing lanes through tight man-marking, while successfully transitioning to attack by using space creatively to dismantle the opponent's formation.

Surprise in war is achieved when the enemy’s defenses are dispersed through strict operational security, and forces are concentrated at a decisive moment on a specific point to paralyze and extinguish the enemy's will to fight. 

Principles of Security and Morale

In both soccer and war, security and morale are the invisible pillars that determine the outcome. Just as a team loses if it concedes more goals than it scores due to a porous defense, regardless of how many goals it nets, a military cannot protect its strength or sustain operations if it fails in security, even with superior combat power. 

Security is the activity of protecting friendly combat power from enemy infiltration. Morale is the activity of boosting mental energy through mutual recognition and respect among members. Even with cutting-edge weapons and systems, if the tradition and discipline of the military are shaken, morale will plummet and the public will feel insecure. 

Without a unified will between the military and the people to defend the nation, national security is a castle built on sand. Victory in war depends not on machines, but on the will of the soldiers and the people. 

Concentration and integration are not cure-alls in every domain. Especially in terms of "player development," standardized integration can be toxic. If every player is stamped from the same mold, the team cannot respond to an opponent's creative tactics. 

Just as a team becomes powerful when goalkeepers, strikers, midfielders, and defenders each bloom with their own expertise, military academy education should be delegated to match the traditions of each branch to maintain existing military culture and identity. 

Soccer, industrial fronts, and war all share a stubborn adherence to the principles of victory. When policymakers are ignorant of security and war principles, or violate them, it leads to the collapse of national security. For civilian control to be sustainable, it seems necessary to write a "Code of Command for the Three Powers," which applies military and war principles to politics, diplomacy, and the economy. 

In its preface, I would write: "Civilian and military authorities shall not interfere with each other, but rather cultivate their respective expertise in their own domains to foster the foundations for national peace and public well-being, invest all national capabilities in preventing war, and establish the fundamental strategies for certain victory to protect the nation and its people in times of crisis." 

◆ Commissioner Park Pil-gyu

Editorial Writer, Hanmi Ilbo

40th Graduate, Korea Military Academy