Unified commissioning ceremony of Army, Navy, and Air Force academies held at Gyeryongdae Grand Parade Ground in Chungnam on February 20th. [Photo=Yonhap News]

A national system is like a colossal immune network that protects a community and its people from external aggression and internal turmoil, and a finely-tuned mechanical device.

Forces seeking to shake the system and dismantle its foundations do not opt for a frontal assault to breach this massive fortress. Instead, they choose covert flanking tactics, severing the organization's deepest capillaries or twisting the core gears in reverse to create an "empty shell" filled with non-experts. This is known as meticulously planned "organizational destruction."

Such organizational destruction is not a temporary administrative oversight or a common personnel disruption. It is a sophisticated deception tactic that slowly withers a nation, a vast organism, from within, and a meticulously calculated "intentional brain death process."

The all-encompassing dissection of defense, judicial, and security organizations has reached a devastating level. They always appear under the sacred guise of "reform," "jointness," or "efficiency," but peeling back just one layer of that veneer reveals a sinister and peculiar blueprint aimed at ripping out the heart of professionalism, breaking the spine of the rule of law, and severing the nervous system of national defense.

To speak of "organizational flexibility" by appointing non-experts to areas requiring high levels of confidentiality and expertise is fundamentally akin to a "cuckoo's nest takeover," where a cuckoo lays its eggs in another bird's nest and pushes out the original eggs.

When the capillaries of the system become blocked and the blood vessels are contaminated, the national organism collapses under its own internal contradictions, even without external physical attacks. The hands of destruction that shake the judiciary and security are precisely and accurately targeting even the frontline security organizations of defense.

1. Promotion of Academy Integration and Restructuring of the Defense Counterintelligence Command are Representative Dismantling of the Security Network

The attempt to consolidate the diversity and autonomy of the Army, Navy, and Air Force academies under the pretexts of "strengthening jointness" and "fiscal efficiency" is a fatal misstep that shakes the roots of national security. It will only lead to the equalization of high-level expertise tailored to each military branch, turning the military's talent base into a disorderly mob. This is akin to an intentional operation to emasculate the military's martial prowess and reduce it to a subordinate tool of politics.

Simultaneously, the restructuring of the military's security frontline, the Defense Counterintelligence Command, is being urgently pursued. Measures to split the authority, which was concentrated in a single agency for counterintelligence, investigation, security, and personnel vetting, and to distribute it among three organizations directly under the Ministry of National Defense, with civilian oversight, are underway, aiming for completion within the year.

Tearing apart the shield of security that monitors espionage, technology leakage, and security breaches within the military under the pretext of "democratic reform" is a self-destructive measure that opens the defenses from within, an auto-annihilation of security immune cells.

2. Appointment of Non-Experts in Military Personnel, Defense Industry, and Advanced Weaponry Departments Destroys the Security Immune Network

The appointment of non-experts in personnel vetting, defense industry procurement, and advanced weapon departments is a process of personnel control to fill the military leadership with individuals suited to the administration's preferences, and it is a shortcut to demoralizing field soldiers and inducing brain death in the command structure.

Ultimately, this will lead to allied nations hesitating to share advanced military intelligence and technology with us, sowing distrust in the alliance and leading to a security catastrophe.

* Civilianization of General Officer Personnel Managers

An unprecedented reform is underway to appoint general administrative civil servants, who have no understanding of military operations or the military's nature, to key positions responsible for general officer personnel management (e.g., Head of Personnel Division, Director of Personnel Planning). This is an idea to evaluate the blood, sweat, and leadership qualities of those in the field solely by documents and administrative metrics.

* Deformed Personnel Appointments in Defense Industry and Advanced Departments

The practice of placing political figures, civic group members, or labor union representatives, who have no connection to military technology, into key senior positions at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, which manages trillions of won in defense budget, is occurring. Furthermore, non-expert generals who do not understand the technical mechanisms are being appointed to command positions requiring advanced scientific and technological expertise, such as the Submarine Command or the Cyber and Drone Operations Command, which are crucial for deterring North Korea's nuclear capabilities.

The collapse of national systems does not happen by chance; it begins with meticulously calculated "intentional personnel appointments." Planners of organizational destruction induce internal discord and bureaucratization by placing unqualified and non-expert individuals in key security and law enforcement posts.

This leads to cognitive brain death in the command structure, eroding external trust and security alliances, and ultimately follows an inevitable path of destruction that permanently eliminates national defense capabilities. This method of replacing the internal substance with foreign material while maintaining only the external shell is the most brutal "sandwich panel" style security destruction tactic, designed to collapse under load when faced with a decisive external shock.

3. Abolition of the Prosecutor's Office and Parachute Special Appointments in the Police Simultaneously Neutralize the Judicial and Security Systems

The judicial and security systems of the Republic of Korea are the intellectual products accumulated over the past 70 years to uphold the rule of law. This domain, where high professionalism and political neutrality are paramount, is now facing a severe crisis of artificial collapse.

The attempt to "abolish the Prosecutor's Office," the linchpin of the national criminal justice system, is an act of judicial annihilation aimed at fundamentally breaking the sword that prosecutes corruption by those in power and dismantles subversive forces. It intends to grant immunity to crimes committed by those in power by fragmenting the organic combination of investigative and prosecutorial powers.

Furthermore, the "parachute special appointments of high-ranking police officials," who are responsible for public safety and order, are the crowning blow to the neutralization of the judicial system. The practice of bypassing field experts and entrenching non-experts favored by the administration in leadership positions paralyzes the security command structure. This is a typical cognitive manipulation tactic that demolishes the nation's internal defense network, disguised under the superficial label of "personnel innovation."

The only way to prevent national brain death is to remove the mask of fake reform, restore the true meaning of words (正名), and establish institutional safeguards to allow professionals to work effectively. To this end, "strengthening organizational law" is urgently needed to curb the abuse of appointment power for political gain by those in power. National core institution laws, such as the Government Organization Act, the Prosecutor's Office Act, the Police Act, and the National Defense Forces Organization Act, must be meticulously amended.

Specifically, "legal eligibility criteria" must be legally codified to ensure that only individuals with proven field experience and military expertise can be appointed to key positions within the Ministry of National Defense that handle core personnel for security, justice, and law enforcement, as well as general officers.

Through this, politically motivated "parachute appointments" and special hires that lead to organizational disintegration must be fundamentally blocked. By firmly establishing the bulwark of the rule of law in the form of organizational law and breaking the chain of destruction, the security, judicial, and law enforcement immune networks of the Republic of Korea will finally be normalized.

◆ Park Pil-kyu, Commissioner

Editorial Committee Member, Hankook Ilbo

40th graduating class, Korea Military Academy