CFC chief LaCamera hints at possible adjustment in OPCON transfer plan

The top US military commander in South Korea hinted Thursday that the two allies could adjust their plan for a conditions-based transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON).

Speaking at a webinar, Gen. Paul LaCamera, the chief of the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command, touched on the envisioned OPCON transition, saying, "Most plans never survive first contact."

Seoul and Washington have been working on the bilaterally agreed-upon transfer -- a process that has been delayed due in part to a COVID-19-driven scaling-down of an allied program to test South Korea's capabilities to retake the OPCON.

"Just know that there's a plan out there. Most plans never survive first contact," LaCamera said during the webinar hosted by the Korea Defense Veterans Association and the Korea-US Alliance Foundation.

"So as we move forward with our plan, we will adjust," he added without elaborating further.

The commander, who also leads the US Forces Korea and the United Nations Command, stressed that his top priority is to "ensure that we are prepared to defend the Korean Peninsula, enforce the armistice and if required, fight and win."

On the current status of allied efforts for the OPCON transition, the commander refused to go into detail, saying, "Operational security is extremely important to me."

Currently, the US has the wartime operational control over South Korean troops. Under the OPCON transfer plan, a South Korean four-star general is to lead combined forces during wartime with a US general playing a deputy commander role.

The transition plan is based on three conditions -- the South Korean military's capabilities to lead allied forces, its capacities necessary for initial responses to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats and the management of the security environment on the peninsula and in the region.Also during the webinar, the commander noted the new "multi-domain" fighting concept, stressing the importance of joint operations among all armed forces of the allied militaries.

"The new term that we're introducing or that has been introduced is multi domain. This is all fights in the future will be multi domain; space, cyber, air, land, sea, undersea," LaCamera said.

"Don't ever forget the information domain, and more importantly, don't forget the human domain given the density of the populations that are here, the size of the greater Seoul metropolitan area … that we would have to deal with going forward," he added.

LaCamera took office as the head of the three commands in July this year, replacing his predecessor, Robert Abrams. (Yonhap)