If Vietnam is a guide, then Korean combat operations overseas tend to be very careful and methodical. I’d imagine that any combat assets sent to Afganistan would have started out doing something relatively easy first, then would have been a little more careful and detailed then they needed to be.

Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Danegeld” is spot-on here:

—-

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: –

“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that pays it is lost!”

—-

South Korea’s response should have been to offer the Afghan government an additional _company_ of soldiers for each Korean Hostage plus an additional _battalion_ for each hostage killed. With the additional 3-5000 Korean troops on the way, the Taliban would have wisely released the hostages, unharmed, already…

Instead, the Korean Government has chosen to “show the white feather”. It is a sad day, indeed. And since the Korean government has chosen to remove any value from the hostages being alive, we can expect others to follow as hostages or into dhimmitude.

The most effective “rescue mission” would have been to send Korean troops into Afghanistan as garrison troops, in effect a “Surge”, freeing up the NATO troops to pursue the Taliban.

But the Koreans are rapidly losing respect around the world. Even D-Wars isn’t working…

5. Lack of coordination between the two ministries responsible for overseas counterterrorism, the MOFAT and the MND.

6. Enabling circumstances and sheer dumb luck.

Which was what enabled the Israelis to rescue over a 100 hostages being held by Palestinian militants. This was perhaps the most successful commando-raid rescue operation in history and it is a great credit to the Tsa’hal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5101412.stm

The militants had hijacked an Air France plane and landed in Entebbe Airport in Uganda, where they held the hostages with the cooperation of Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin.

Advantage #1:
The militants had released 47 non-Israeli passengers three days into the crisis. Mossad agents were dispatched to interrogate them, and obtained vital info, such as the internal layout of the terminal building.

In comparison, when the two Korean female hostages were released, it is likely they had little or no useful info.

Advantage #2 (which is related to #1):
All hostages were being kept in one location, the terminal building at Entebbe Airport and that the Ugandan soldiers were cooperating (which also meant that Idi Amin was cooperating).

The Taliban likely held the hostages in many separate locations, in secret caves that existed since the days of the Soviet invasion.

Advantage #3 (which is related to #2):

The hostages were being held at an airport.

Advantage #4:

Entebbe Airport is only an 8.5 hour flight from Israel on a C130 transport.

Operation Thunderball (later renamed to Operation Yonatan) called for the 29 commandos to land on the airport and move rapidly to the terminal building. They utilized an ingenious ploy: they rolled out of the C130s in Mercedes and Land Rovers, dressed in Ugandan uniforms to make it appear as if Idi Amin was coming for a visit.

Results:
- 7 hijackers and 2 Ugandan soldiers killed

- 3 hostages killed

- Col Yonatan Netenyahu KIA

- 106 passengers and crew rescued.

CNN just reported that the Taliban leader who organized the kidnappings was killed in a firefight.

May he NOT R.I.P.

Regarding reason #4, though, South Korea does have a fair amount of experience in overseas military operations, working with many different militaries. Seoul, however, has sought to limit the scope of those operations so the ROK military has not been able to make the most of those operations. The Special Warfare Command spent more than a year in East Timor, elements of the Army were in Western Sahara for more than a decade, and the military’s been in Afghanistan since 2001 and Iraq since 2002 (engineers and medics were operating in Iraq long before the ROK military took over Irbil). There are also many other overseas deployments that the military has been involved in for years.

South Korean political leadership, though, has done its best to squander the ROK military’s chances to benefit from these deployments. The SWC in East Timor was forced to accept responsibility for a relatively quiet sector and despite being a SOF unit, was forced to conduct operations from APCs like a mech infantry unit. The problems with the very limited objectives of the Iraq deployment are probably well enough known here that I don’t need to waste space detailing them. South Korean military medical and engineering personnel are very well integrated into foreign military operations, but the rest of the ROK military lacks this experience.

I’m not sure what the Seoul Kyongjae’s point was with reason number 5. I believe the NIS is primarily responsible for overseas counterterrorism, or at least, I would expect it to be as the nation’s intelligence agency. I’m not sure how MOFAT is included in a counterterrorism ministry. It is a foreign ministry and it has lots of experience doing what it needs to do to assist South Korean counterterrorism efforts overseas–if South Korea was actually interested in counterterrorist operations off the Korean Peninsula. The MND has a role, in that the Defense Security Command is responsible for protecting the ROK military, but again, this is secondary to the NIS’ role. South Korea’s problem is not coordinating CT efforts between the MOFAT and MND, it is getting interested in fighting terrorism from sources other than North Korea.

There is no reason to expect the ROK military to operate entirely on its own. That is one of the things that an alliance partnership gets you.

Yes, any operation in Afghanistan and Iraq for that matter should be coordinated with the U.S. But this does not mean that the ROK should depend on the U.S. for everything. For example, when the Zaytun unit deployed to Iraq, they planned to take ROKA helos with them to provide air support. But someone in the MND got the idea that since the U.S. had helos on the ground in Iraq, it would be better and cheaper (for Korea) to ask for helo support from the U.S. instead. And the thing is, S. Korea was the only country with large ground forces in Iraq, that didn’t have its own helo unit.

Now, I don’t expect the ROK to address all of the 5 issues listed above. But at the least, it should address issues 2 ~ 5.