U.S. War Secretary Pete Hegseth met South Korea's Defence Minister Kang Shin-chul face to face for the first time on Wednesday in Cebu, the Philippines, with the two allies still divided over when wartime command of their combined forces should pass from Washington to Seoul. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the 13th ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), and South Korea's defence ministry released photographs of the two men shaking hands in front of their national flags — the first encounter between them since Kang took office on September 22.
The clearest outcome of the talks was about timing of a different kind. Seoul's defence ministry said the two sides agreed to hold their annual Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) — the allies' top defence dialogue, usually held in late October or early November — early next year instead, and to hold another round of ministerial talks in Washington before it. Officials in Seoul said the two ministers also agreed to work closely to ensure a smooth and timely transfer of wartime operational control while maintaining a strong combined defence posture, and that Hegseth reaffirmed Washington's commitment to making the transfer. No joint statement from Washington had been reported by Wednesday evening, and the detailed contents of the Cebu discussion beyond those agreements were not disclosed.
Hegseth set out his own public line on the alliance shortly after the meeting, writing: "Great meeting with ROK Minister of National Defense Kang at ADMM-Plus. The U.S.-ROK Alliance is built on peace through strength — ready forces, decisive capability, and combined lethality that deters aggression. America stands with allies that are serious about their own defense."
At the centre of the talks is a question that has sat between the two capitals for decades: who commands if war comes. Under the current arrangement, if fighting broke out on the Korean Peninsula, the combined South Korean and American forces would fight under the U.S.-led Combined Forces Command — meaning an American general would direct South Korea's own military in wartime. Seoul took back peacetime operational control of its forces in 1994, but wartime operational control, known as OPCON, remains in American hands. Transferring it would put a South Korean commander in charge of the combined war effort, with U.S. forces fighting alongside under that combined structure rather than leading it.
The transfer is not supposed to happen on a date picked in advance. Under a plan the allies agreed in 2015, it is conditions-based and runs through three stages of verification, testing whether South Korea has the core capabilities to lead combined forces. The allies are now in the second stage — verifying the future command's full operational capability, known as FOC — and that is where the disagreement sits. Seoul says the requirements have been met and wants the FOC verification completed this year and a target year for the transfer established. The government of President Lee Jae Myung wants the whole transition finished before his term ends in 2030. Before leaving for Cebu on Tuesday, Kang told reporters: "We will basically discuss alliance issues, and I expect the OPCON transition will naturally come up," adding that he would consult closely with his U.S. counterpart, including on closing the gap over the FOC verification if needed.
Washington's position is that readiness, not the calendar, decides. The Pentagon reaffirmed last week that the transfer remains a conditions-based process and that the agreed requirements must be met first. A U.S. administration official put it this way: "The United States intends to transfer wartime operational control to South Korea when the agreed conditions have been met, which will ensure the safety and security of the people of South Korea and U.S. forces stationed there." U.S. officials maintain that this policy has been consistent for decades. The friction has sharpened because Gen. Xavier Brunson, the U.S. Forces Korea commander, recently said that "conditions have changed" and pointed to "new standards," citing North Korea's missile launches. Seoul's defence ministry responded that the goal of the transfer might never be achieved if the goalposts kept moving — the core of Seoul's concern that fresh requirements could push the handover past the point its president has set.
The Cebu agenda reached beyond the command question. The two were expected to discuss force readiness and wider alliance issues, including Seoul's push to build nuclear-powered submarines with Washington's backing. South Korea launched its Jang Bogo N project in May to build at least three 8,000-ton nuclear-powered vessels by the late 2030s, after the Trump administration gave the programme the green light following a summit between the two countries' leaders in October last year. Cebu was also Kang's first appearance at a major multilateral defence gathering since taking office, and he is holding bilateral talks with other regional counterparts while there. At Thursday's ADMM-Plus plenary, he is expected to outline Seoul's efforts to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula, raise North Korea's recent land mine explosion near the inter-Korean border, and stress the importance of regional security cooperation.
For ordinary people on both sides, this is not an abstract argument about org charts. About 28,500 American troops are stationed in South Korea, serving alongside a South Korean military built around conscription, in the front line of deterring a nuclear-armed North Korea. Who holds wartime command decides who directs those forces in the worst hour either country can imagine. Seoul's case is that a nation fielding one of the world's largest militaries should command its own defence in war, and that doing so strengthens the alliance by making South Korea a fuller partner in it. Washington's case is that the handover must not outrun the capabilities it depends on, because a transfer made before the conditions are real would put South Korean civilians and American troops alike at risk. Both sides insist the argument is over how to complete the transfer, not whether it should happen.
What Wednesday produced, then, was time and a timetable for talking rather than a settlement. The SCM's move into early next year is only the second time since the dialogue began in 1968 that it has slipped into the following year, and it gives working-level meetings — the Permanent Military Committee and the Military Committee Meeting, both also delayed — a window to narrow the FOC dispute before the ministers sit down again in Washington. Whether that Washington round can produce the target year Seoul wants, on terms Washington's conditions allow, is now the test of the alliance's most sensitive file.
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