President Lee Jae-myung, on a state visit to France, said in a Le Monde interview on the 7th that "Korea is enhancing its role and burden in the South Korea-U.S. alliance." The "Korea's role and burden" Lee mentioned appears to refer to U.S. President Donald Trump's request, in effect, that Korea dispatch its troops to the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East.
The Blue House has repeatedly said regarding whether to dispatch troops to the Strait of Hormuz that it "will review the matter in accordance with domestic legal procedures." Article 60, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution states that "dispatching the armed forces overseas requires the consent of the National Assembly."
Previously, the Roh Moo-hyun administration obtained the National Assembly's consent for the Iraq deployment. In contrast, the Moon Jae-in administration chose to expand the Cheonghae Unit's area of operations without going through National Assembly consent.
A political source said, "Both the Roh Moo-hyun administration and the Moon Jae-in administration appear to have decided whether to seek National Assembly consent only after deeply considering domestic and international political ramifications," adding, "Attention is on what conclusion the current administration will reach in the 'politics of overseas troop dispatch.'"
The current administration says that regarding the Hormuz deployment issue, it is "reviewing various options, including military contributions," and that "a deployment could take several forms, such as combat, noncombat, and reconnaissance." If an actual deployment is made, there is a strong possibility of fierce controversy over matters such as National Assembly consent.
◇ Roh Moo-hyun administration, National Assembly consent after two failed attempts… engineers and medical units dispatched
On Mar. 21, 2003, the day after U.S. forces began the invasion of Iraq on Mar. 20, the Roh Moo-hyun administration held an ad hoc Cabinet meeting and approved a motion seeking consent for troop dispatch. But the National Assembly consent process was not smooth.
In the first attempt (Mar. 25), after fierce debate between the ruling and opposition parties, the very act of placing the dispatch motion on the plenary agenda was scrapped. In the second attempt (Mar. 28–29), the motion was placed on the plenary agenda, but at the request of 71 lawmakers belonging to an antiwar and peace group, the Committee of the Whole was convened. Lawmakers gathered in the chamber for two days and held a freewheeling debate on the dispatch motion, delaying the vote.
As the handling of the dispatch continued to be delayed, then-President Roh Moo-hyun personally appeared at the National Assembly plenary session on Apr. 2 and delivered a speech appealing for the inevitability of the dispatch as a "strategic choice for the national interest." Immediately after the speech, the motion for dispatch was passed at the plenary session.
Accordingly, the Roh Moo-hyun administration was able to dispatch noncombat engineers and medical units to Iraq.
◇ Moon Jae-in administration chooses a "workaround" that does not seek National Assembly consent
In Jul. 2019, the Moon Jae-in administration received a request from the United States, which was in conflict with Iran, to dispatch troops. On Dec. 10 of the same year, the National Assembly passed a measure at a plenary session to extend by one year the mission period of the Cheonghae Unit, which had been dispatched to the waters of the Gulf of Aden.
Then in Jan. 2020, U.S. forces assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, and tensions between the two countries reached a peak. U.S. demands to our government for a troop deployment also intensified.
The Moon Jae-in administration chose a "workaround" by dispatching troops through a Ministry of National Defense decision rather than National Assembly consent. Through an authoritative interpretation of the motion to extend the dispatch of the armed forces to the waters of the Gulf of Aden off Somalia (hereinafter the motion), it temporarily expanded the Cheonghae Unit's area of operations to the Strait of Hormuz. In doing so, it also took the form of an independent Korean deployment without forming a combined force with the United States.
Even within the progressive camp at the time, criticism emerged that "because a new mission is being assigned, National Assembly consent must be obtained under the Constitution; otherwise it is little different from a 'trick deployment.'"