Considering the future defense environment, marked by increased interest in reserve forces due to the Russia-Ukraine war and an anticipated sharp decline in military personnel resources, there are many predictions that reserve forces, alongside advanced science and technology-applied manned-unmanned teaming systems, will be a core alternative for maintaining future defense capabilities. Unfortunately, however, South Korea's reserve forces still face doubts regarding their combat readiness. While continuous defense reform and innovation efforts have aimed at professionalizing the reserve forces, it's true that they haven't achieved satisfactory innovation due to the legal and structural limitations of the reserve system and the constraints on full operational capability imposed by its vast scale. The purpose of this study is to propose a redesign direction for South Korea's reserve forces to dispel persistent doubts about their combat readiness, despite their excellent “K-” characteristics such as originality, usability, and efficiency, and to truly be reborn as a formidable component of the Republic of Korea's defense. To this end, the study adopted the Joint Combat Development subjects(DOTMLPF-P) as an analytical framework to identify problems within the current reserve system. Based on this, a redesign model for the reserve system was conceptualized, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to analyze the priorities of key elements within each combat development area. Subsequently, redesign directions for the key elements in each area were presented, considering the analyzed priorities. To achieve the goal of a highly capable South Korean reserve force-a “K-Reserve Force”-that can effectively conduct combat operations, a sophisticated redesign is necessary, taking into account the priorities of each combat development area and the composite priorities of the key elements within each area. Through this, the reserve forces can be reborn as a robust pillar, alongside combined forces and standing forces, in safeguarding the Republic of Korea.
Hun-Young Jung (Thu,) studied this question.