Is the goal of merging military academies to punish the Army?

President Lee Jae Myung remarked during a Defense Ministry briefing on Wednesday, “How many military coups has Korea experienced? Weren’t they all carried out by the Army?” He went on to argue that “raising each service separately, allowing one branch to dominate the military for a long time, and then seeing it occasionally stage coups without bearing responsibility cannot be acceptable,” adding that “wouldn’t integrating the three service academies reduce such risks?”

Referring to the May 16 military coup of 1961, the Dec. 12 coup of 1979 and, more recently, the Dec. 3, 2024, martial law declaration, the president suggested that preventing future incidents requires weakening the dominance of a single service branch — namely, the Army — and that merging the three military academies should be part of that effort. His remarks strongly reinforce suspicions that the real motivation behind the controversial academy integration plan is to penalize the Korea Military Academy and, more broadly, diminish the Army’s influence. This stands in stark contrast to the Defense Ministry’s previous explanation that the merger is intended to strengthen jointness by breaking down barriers among the Army, Navy and Air Force and producing officers capable of operating across services.

The claim that integrating the academies would reduce the likelihood of military coups is difficult to reconcile with reality. Thailand, one of the very few countries where cadets from all three services are educated together, has experienced more military coups than almost any other nation. In Thailand, close personal networks and class-based loyalties formed during academy years have often strengthened military cohesion, contributing to repeated coups rather than preventing them. The Thai case illustrates that merging military academies is no cure-all against military intervention in politics.

Moreover, with political considerations and a punitive rationale appearing to drive the proposal, the plan itself has become increasingly inconsistent. One version even envisioned creating a single National Military Academy at Daejeon’s Jaundae military complex — a “Naval Academy without the sea” and an “Air Force Academy without a runway.”

Military coups must never happen again. The same holds true for the use of martial law for political purposes. The military’s unwavering political neutrality and commitment to defending the constitutional order cannot be emphasized enough. But it is neither appropriate nor prudent to fundamentally overhaul the nation’s military officer education system — a cornerstone of long-term national security — based on political interpretations of historical events. The sole objective of military reform should be to build a stronger armed forces and enhance national security.