In many ways, now in office, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in is pursuing the more independent stance he promised while on the campaign trail.

With talk of returning wartime operational control (OPCON) from the U.S. and the full deployment of the THAAD missile defense system put on hold – ostensibly for environmental reasons – Moon’s reported belief that South Korea should learn to say “no” to the U.S. does appear, to some extent, to be being reflected in policy.

But one South Korean professor in the field of the U.S. relations with the two Koreas suggests Seoul sees the OPCON