South Korea revives radical force restructuring strategy

The Republic of Korea has revived plans to radically transform its armed forces by 2020, including major cuts in personnel and a reorganization of the command structure. The proposed plan includes a 27 percent reduction in regular forces from 681,000 in 2005 to 500,000 in 2020. The number of reservists would be slashed from 3.04 million to 1.5 million over the same period, which is a reduction of 51 percent. The army would see its current organization of 10 corps reduced to six and its 47 divisions reduced to 24.