[T]he ROK military has provided regular political instruction to compete with the DPRK in the ideological space, combat DPRK psychological warfare, and teach servicemembers Korean history and democratic values.
Unusual for a democracy, the Republic of Korea (ROK) offers regular political training to its largely conscript armed forces. In part, this is because the Korean War never officially ended, and with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) strong conventional and nuclear forces—as well as growing irregular warfare capabilities, including psychological and information operations—South Koreans live in the fear of a Second Korean War. In addition, the military largely comprises young conscripts, not volunteers, which suggests that not every new servicemember’s mindset is ready for the fight. As a result, the ROK military has provided regular political instruction to compete with the DPRK in the ideological space, combat DPRK psychological warfare, and teach servicemembers Korean history and democratic values.
Jeong-Hoon is the Korean name for this ROK military political instruction and training. It somewhat resembles political training conducted in the old Soviet bloc, yet the ROK has developed its own style of politically training servicemembers. Due to the training’s political nature, however, and because the ROK requires military service from all males, Jeong-Hoon has also been criticized as improper ideological indoctrination and domestic propaganda. This article will explore the development and current state of Jeong-Hoon, and the criticisms leveled against the training and suggest ways to modernize it for new generations of servicemembers.
The Meaning of Jeong-Hoon
First, some semantics. Jeong-Hoon combines Jeong (정/政), a Sino-Korean word which means ‘political,’ and Hoon (훈/訓), which means “instruction” or “training.” In 2018, the left-leaning Moon Jae-In administration (2017-2022)—attempting to distance itself from the negative connotations of the term “political” training—changed the Sino-Korean meaning behind the word Jeong to 正, which means “straight, proper, right, correct” but has the same pronunciation in Korean (정) as the word “political.” The administration’s official English translation for Jeong-Hoon therefore became ‘proper training.’
However, the current right-leaning Yoon administration—which came into office in May 2022—changed the meaning behind the word Jeong to another heteronym Jeong (정/精), meaning “mental,” to underline the importance of training the mental strength of the servicemembers to counter ongoing DPRK psychological and information warfare. Yoon also re-separated the “Gong-Bo” Public Affairs Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) and the “Jeong-Hoon” Political Training MOS, which the Moon administration had combined in an attempt to erase the negative connotation associated with political training due to the country’s military rule in the 1970s and 80s.
The Roots and Evolution of Jeong-Hoon
The Soviet Union implemented propaganda and political education in the Red Army in the 1920s, and in the next decade the armed forces of both the Leninist, Mao Zedong-led Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chiang Kai-Shek-led Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) adopted some form of political indoctrination. Jeong-Hoon’s roots stretch to political indoctrination and training conducted by groups fighting against Imperial Japan’s colonization of Korea, when Korean independence fighters operating in China and Japan-backed Manchuria—trying to promote morale and a sense of duty among fighters as well as counter Japan’s policy to erode Korean culture and national identity—adopted a KMT-style political instruction.
After Korea’s independence in 1945, the nation experienced a period of political and ideological turmoil. Independence fighters returned home with different backgrounds, experiences, and ideologies and tried to steer the new country toward their favored ideologies. Therefore, before the armed forces of the South could establish a clear identity, various conflicts arose and—fed by the sharp, burgeoning ROK-DPRK ideological rivalry—incidents such as the 1948 pro-Communist Yeosu 14th Regiment Rebellion occurred. Amidst this turmoil, in 1948 the ROK government launched the Bureau of Political Training within the Ministry of National Defense (MND) to fight the ideological battle against Communism.
With the onset of the Korean War—launched on June 25, 1950, by the Kim Il-Sung-led DPRK against the ROK—the ROK expanded political training. The first ROK president, Rhee Seung-Man (1948-1960), added more content emphasizing anti-Communism, the illegitimacy and roguery of the DPRK, and—despite Rhee’s dictatorial rule over the only nominally democratic ROK—the virtues of democracy, themes that dominated Jeong-Hoon until the ROK democratization in the 1980s. The regime also used political training to idolize Rhee as a great and mighty founding father.
Under Park Chung-hee, who came to power after the May 16, 1961 coup and ruled until his assassination in 1979, the political content of Jeong-Hoon intensified; Park included propaganda to justify the coup, highlight his charisma and leadership, and praise his vision to strengthen the economy and national security. Although anti-Communism was still the underlying theme, Park introduced new subjects such as national economic development, Self-Reliant Defense, the propriety of fighting Communism in the Vietnam War, and the regime’s effort to normalize diplomatic ties with Japan, a process that set off controversies that live on to this day. After a 1972 Constitutional amendment opened the door for Park to rule with no term limits, the ROK military started to use Jeong-Hoon to highlight the legitimacy of this change (and Park’s leadership) through special sessions targeting not only ordinary soldiers but also senior officers and military families.
In addition to expanding content, the Park regime also systematized the training. Park concluded that the strong mental strength and firm will to fight of the materially inferior North Vietnamese soldiers led them to victory in the Vietnam War. He was also discontented with the ROK military’s political training, which was de-centralized and conducted by each service branch. In response, in 1975 ROK military officials visited Taiwan to study its system of political training and plan how to apply aspects of it in the ROK. In 1976, the ROK military established a Jeong-Hoon institute—the Defense Mental Force Enhancement School (국방정신전력학교)—and began publishing Jeong-Hoon textbooks. Starting the same year, soldiers had to participate in regular Wednesday political training sessions, which is still the standard day for Jeong-Hoon classes.
Taking advantage of the power vacuum created by Park’s assassination in October 1979, ROK Army Major General Chun Doo-Hwan—assisted by members of Hanahoe, a secret society of military officers—took power in a coup on December 12 of the same year. Chun, following the precedent of Park, had himself promoted to four-star general and then discharged from the military. Forcing incumbent President Choi Kyu-Hah to resign, Chun ran in the 1980 election as a nominal civilian and won an electoral college vote. Like his undemocratic predecessors, Chun also used Jeong-Hoon to bolster his regime, justify the 1979 coup, and defend the legitimacy of the new (fifth) republic. In addition, and despite Chun’s initial efforts to improve inter-Korean relations, the 1983 Soviet downing of Korean Air Flight 007 and two major DPRK terrorist attacks in 1983 and 1987 aggravated Seoul’s relations with the Communist world, and Jeong-hoon under Chun therefore continued using strong anti-Communist themes.
In part to address the spread of left-wing and labor movements caused by rapid industrialization, Chun also ordered an intense special political training regimen for ROK military officers to prepare them to match the high ideological level of their DPRK peers. The military under Chun also used Jeong-Hoon, at least in classes aimed at officers, to correct what it thought of as errors in Communist, Neo-Marxist, and Eurocommunist theories, introducing the special “Ideological Armament Education” for officers in 1985 that emphasized officers’ role in combating leftist ideologies among the military. As North Korea resumed loudspeaker operations along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in September 1980, the military held special education for soldiers to prevent them from being swayed by North Korean propaganda. In taking up these themes, Chun-era political training was divided into three main sections: Our Nation, Our Enemy, and Our Military, systematically addressing issues like “How to view our nation,” “How to view Communism and North Korea,” “What is military culture and morale?”, and “What are values and expectations in the military?”
Under its current format, the military offers twelve basic political training courses during new recruits’ six weeks of basic military training.
Jeong-Hoon Today
As South Korea transitioned to democracy, solidified by a peaceful transition of power in 1993, Jeong-Hoon training became less of a direct propaganda tool for each administration. Under its current format, the military offers twelve basic political training courses during new recruits’ six weeks of basic military training. After being assigned to a unit, regulations require one day of Jeong-Hoon training per week, which typically includes reading articles from the military newspaper, watching political training content, or listening to lectures by, inter alia, senior officers, security experts, and North Korean defectors. Soldiers also take field trips to historically significant sites such as the National Cemetery or the National War Museum.
At the unit level, company commanders or public affairs/political training officers lead Jeong-Hoon training. In addition, servicemembers have an intensive Jeong-Hoon training week every six months to learn about ideologies, North Korea, and Korean history in greater depth. At military academies for officers and non-commissioned officers, political training comprises more than 5% of total training hours, largely using a centralized, Ministry of National Defense-mandated Jeong-Hoon syllabus. The training also has practical benefits for service members, who must get certain scores on Jeong-Hoon exams to be promoted. In addition, political training exam scores of a company or battalion will affect the promotion of its commander.
Continuing Controversies
ROK democratic oversight and laws, including the Framework Act on Military Status and Service (군인의 지위 및 복무에 관한 기본법), have tried to systematize Jeong-Hoon to prevent the training from being used as a domestic propaganda channel. Servicemembers, for example, no longer study subjects such as an administration’s policy objectives or learn idolized descriptions of the president. However, the tone and content of the political training can change from administration by administration, leading to frequent controversies.
In particular, progressive and conservative administrations each have differing views toward North Korea and Japan that color how Jeong-Hoon describes these relationships, leading to accusations of Jeong-Hoon being used to advance political objectives. For example, critics accused the Moon administration of promoting its achievement of signing the September 19 Comprehensive Military Agreement with North Korea—a symbol of the administration’s key policy objective of improving relations with Pyongyang—and downplaying security threats posed by North Korea during Jeong-Hoon training.
Liberal opposition parties, in turn, criticized the conservative Yoon administration’s 2023 Jeong-Hoon textbook for calling former dictator Rhee “the leader of the free world,” leading the Ministry of National Defense to delete words such as “insight” or “wisdom” to describe Rhee’s leadership. In April 2024, Yoon’s Defense Ministry also confronted criticism for instructing units to teach from President Yoon’s speech about freedom and the market economy during a special Jeong-Hoon training session just before the scheduled parliamentary election in April 2024. Opposition parties perceived it as Yoon’s attempt to use political training to interfere with the election.
Time to Move On?
Outsiders may be surprised that political training with Leninist roots is still in place in one of today’s most vibrant Asian democracies, but the idea of controlling servicemembers’ ways of thinking has long been accepted practice in the ROK, and Jeong-Hoon training has become a central part of the South Korean military’s culture and history. Jeong-Hoon can still play an important role politically and ideologically preparing servicemembers for DPRK psychological and information operations, but the military needs to address the basic criticism that political training—formerly used as domestic propaganda for dictators—may not be proper in its current form for a democracy.
In addition, critics question the effectiveness of current training. Young soldiers’ emphasis on individualism, creativity, free-thinking, and communication also makes one-way political training harder to implement. Compared to ROK soldiers before the mid-2010s, who had limited access to the internet, soldiers today also have more freedom to access information on duty, hampering effort to guide thoughts and minds. Their higher education attainment compared to older generations also makes ideological training more challenging. Furthermore, Jeong-Hoon needs to account for the traditional sense of national identity that has been watered down as the ROK has become a more multiethnic society. Millennial and Gen Z soldiers—a growing number of whom are not fully ethnic Koreans—did not come of age in the more starkly anti-Communist and anti-DPRK education system of their predecessors, making it harder for the military to start the training from the simple bottom line that “the DPRK is bad.” The new, shortened conscript service period also seems to have reduced efficacy. The training is also ill-suited to helping service members navigate the new, AI-powered information warfare environment. To address the above issues, MND should take several concrete steps. First, to prevent training from being used as domestic propaganda, the military should stop using the Defense Daily, which typically hews to an administration’s perspectives, to teach current affairs. In addition, the MND should update the style and content of Jeong-Hoon for Millennial and Gen Z servicemembers, including training on the evolving information warfare space. Finally, the ROK government should study establishing a non-partisan commission, along the lines of its National Election Commission, to review and establish non-partisan content. Such a commission would help improve civil-military relations by making the government’s intermediary training role more transparent and acceptable across the political spectrum. Information warfare is only going to get more intense, and an improved Jeong-Hoon curriculum could give South Korean service a leg up in this fight.
Jinwoo Joshua Jeong, a Seoul native and Dickinson College graduate in International Studies, served in the South Korean military and worked in the Political-Military section of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. With experience in defense policy, diplomacy, and international development, he is passionate about strengthening the U.S.-ROK alliance and is now pursuing a Master of Arts in International Relations (MAIR) at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Photo Description: Korea DMZ – North Korean soldier looking south
Photo Credit: U.S. Army photos by Edward N. Johnson via Morning Calm Weekly Newspaper Installation Management Command, U.S. Army