January 9, 2026
SEOUL – A special committee under the Ministry of Defense on Thursday laid out plans to dismantle the military’s Defense Counterintelligence Command, a unit believed to have been deeply involved in supporting former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s aborted martial law scheme in 2024.
The civilian-military task force launched in September 2025 to examine military units linked to the Dec. 3, 2024, martial law declaration and propose measures to prevent a recurrence.
Hong Hyun-ik, chair of the committee on counterintelligence and security reform and former head of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, said the panel had formally submitted its recommendations to the defense minister.
“The committee advised the defense minister to dismantle the Defense Counterintelligence Command in a forward-looking manner,” Hong said, adding that its functions be transferred or abolished.
The command, which wielded sweeping authority ranging from counterespionage and investigations to background checks, would be dismantled after 49 years.
Under the proposal, the command’s investigation authority would be transferred to the Criminal Investigation Command under the Defense Ministry, while counterintelligence and intelligence-gathering roles would be assigned to a newly established body tentatively named the Defense Security Intelligence Agency. The head of the new agency would be drawn from civilian personnel, with staffing levels for counterintelligence functions reduced.
The plan also calls for abolishing the command’s authority to conduct personnel background checks across the military — a function that has long drawn criticism for political abuse in the monitoring and screening of service members.
Instead, routine security audits will be delegated to individual service branches, while background checks of general-level officers would be limited to basic data collection under the supervision of the Defense Ministry’s inspector general, Hong said.
The Lee Jae Myung administration has been moving to dissolve the command since its inauguration in June.
The command has been at the center of criticism over the military’s alleged role in supporting Yoon’s martial law declaration, following revelations that its former commander, Lt. Gen. Yeo In-hyung, was deeply involved in the plan.
Yeo was formally dismissed in December, having been suspended a year earlier.
Rep. Park Sun-won of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, who serves as secretary of the party’s fact-finding team on the martial law episode also accused the unit of reviving civilian surveillance and political intervention practices that had been abolished.
“Under the Yoon administration, the unit reinstated 12 out of 47 previously scrapped functions, including intelligence collection for planned internal investigations,” Park said in a July press briefing. “The military intelligence agency was reverting to the model of the Defense Security Command.”
The reference refers to the era of President Chun Doo-hwan, who served as commander of the Defense Security Command before seizing power through a military coup in 1979 and becoming president the following year. Under Chun’s rule, the organization wielded extensive influence within and beyond the armed forces and played a central role in his rise to the presidency — a post he held until 1988.
The Defense Counterintelligence Command traces its institutional roots to the Defense Security Command, established in 1977. After a civilian surveillance scandal in the early 1990s, the organization faced reforms under liberal administrations and was renamed in Korean, though the English name was unchanged. It was downgraded to the Defense Security Support Command under the liberal Moon Jae-in administration in 2018, before having its powers restored and being renamed again as the Defense Counterintelligence Command under the conservative Yoon administration in 2022.
The committee also recommended enhancing transparency by mandating regular reporting to the National Assembly and appointing additional inspectors under the defense minister to oversee counterintelligence-related bodies.
Experts cautioned that dismantling the command outright could weaken core counterintelligence capabilities at a time when South Korea remains confrontation with the North and faces ongoing intelligence and cyber threats.
“Counterintelligence functions — security, counterespionage and investigation — are designed to operate as a single system,” one security expert said on condition of anonymity. “If they are split across multiple agencies, cases must be handed off repeatedly, increasing the risk of missing critical response windows.”
The expert added that while abolishing centralized personnel background checks across the entire military may be justified given increased transparency within the public sector, counterintelligence and security functions themselves should be preserved.
“North Korea continues to engage in intelligence operations on multiple fronts,” the expert said. “The issue is not whether counterintelligence is needed, but how to prevent it from being misused politically.”
Some military officials also questioned whether the restructuring meets its stated objective.
“According to the scheme, all redistributed authorities would still ultimately report to a single official under the defense minister, raising questions about what practical difference the dismantling would make,” a military official said.
Hong said the committee aims to finalize the restructuring plan within this year.
Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry has launched an internal probe into personnel allegedly linked to the martial law preparations. In December, 181 personnel were removed from the command and returned to their original service branches.
Another military official said uncertainty over downsizing and dismantlement has unsettled field officers who have built long-term expertise within the unit.