There was a striking “absence of discussions” about North Korea at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue, according to the organizer’s Korea Chair, even as South Korean defense discussions featured prominently at the Singapore event.

Dr. Lami Kim of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) observed that Seoul’s defense spending and the proposed transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) were bigger topics at the annual security conference held by IISS, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth again underscoring the importance of military burden sharing.

Speaking on OPCON, Kim suggested a transfer could weaken U.S.-ROK interoperability in the short term and