[Editorial] A line to defend

An Army division in Gangwon Province reportedly issued, and later hastily withdrew, a baffling guideline instructing guards at guardhouses to carry “three-tiered batons” from Monday instead of firearms while on sentry duty.

Specifically, the directive went further, requiring batons to be affixed to body armor rather than held in the hand.

However, as criticism mounted that three-tiered batons would leave guards ill-equipped to deal with enemy infiltration, the division moved to retract the guideline.

Guardhouses are facilities where guards control entry to and exit from military units, and represent the first line of contact when an enemy attempts to infiltrate.

The arming of guardhouse personnel is the minimum measure for responding to infiltration attempts by unidentified or unauthorized individuals. Accordingly, guards have stood watch around the clock, carrying firearms loaded with blank rounds. Yet under the directive, firearms were to disappear from guardhouses, replaced instead by three-tiered batons.

Soldiers in the division reportedly confided among themselves that, if infiltrators armed with firearms were to breach their positions, those carrying only three-tiered batons would stand little chance of survival. A directive that would effectively disarm guardhouses is tantamount to self-inflicted harm.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a guideline granting general-level commanders discretion to substitute firearms at guardhouses with nonlethal weapons such as three-tiered batons and stun guns, depending on unit-specific characteristics. The division in question followed the guideline.

It undermines the core duty entrusted to guards. Even though the division has pulled back the instructions, the guideline itself must be scrapped at once. Instead, the military should be moving to bolster, not dilute, its security posture.

Yet another Joint Chiefs of Staff guideline laid bare the military’s lax security mindset.

In September last year, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a guideline to front-line units that would effectively shift the Military Demarcation Line to North Korea's advantage.

Until then, South Korea had relied on its own military map in responding to North Korean violations of the Military Demarcation Line. The new Joint Chiefs of Staff guideline, however, instructs front-line units to consider the southernmost line as the MDL whenever discrepancies arise between South Korean and United Nations Command maps.

The guideline would effectively push South Korean territory southward, allowing North Korean territory to expand. In some areas, the Military Demarcation Line reportedly receded by tens of meters.

The Military Demarcation Line was initially marked by boundary posts installed at the time of the July 1953 armistice, but most have since become unidentifiable. In the absence of physical markers, the South Korean military and the United Nations Command independently surveyed and mapped the MDL. The two maps reportedly differ along about 60 percent of the line.

North Korean soldiers crossed the Military Demarcation Line three times between January and September last year. The frequency of incursions then climbed, to three in October and 10 in November, raising questions about the guideline's influence.

The line was the result of brutal battles for high ground during the Korean War. Many South Korean soldiers gave their lives advancing only a few meters before the armistice. Remembering that sacrifice, such guidelines should not be made lightly.

North Korea fired ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast on Sunday. The launch was a show of force that followed the United States’ arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a military operation and coincided with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s China visit, where the North’s nuclear issue was on the agenda. The North is expected to keep escalating its military threats while drawing closer to China and Russia.

Few adversaries would fear a military that is lax in vigilance and treats its territory lightly. Preventing accidental clashes and advancing inter-Korean dialogue are important, but there is a line the military must not cross.