For all of Seoul’s public praise of the U.S.-led U.N. Command’s (UNC) role in defending South Korea, successive governments have remained deeply uneasy about how much authority the command should wield today. 

The latest dispute over what was essentially an internal administrative reshuffle shows why that tension keeps resurfacing: behind seemingly technical disagreements lie unresolved questions over control of the Demilitarized Zone, implementation of the armistice and, above all, what role UNC would play after wartime operational control transfers to Seoul.

Recently, the South Korean government found itself at odds