보건안보 위협에 대한 한국군의 역할과 대응에 관한 고찰: COVID-19를 중심으로 = A Study on the Role and Response System of the Korean Army to Health Security Threats: Focusing on the COVID-19

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

After the post-Cold War, health security became an important element of national security due to non-traditional security threats, and the COVID-19 Pandemic became a case that showed that health security is a key element directly connected to international security. In particular, non-traditional threats such as infectious diseases, natural disasters, and climate change are difficult to predict and are an important key element of national security in that they can seriously affect national infrastructure and public safety. COVID-19 emphasized the need for an integrated response system between the public, government, military, and police, and was recognized as a situation requiring a state mobilization order at the wartime level. Accordingly, the Korean Army served as an opportunity to strengthen the quarantine system to protect the lives and safety of the people through the opening of military hospitals, dispatch of military medical staff, and quarantine support. However, research on specific response policies and strategies that the military should carry out in the face of unexpected health security threats is still insufficient. Existing studies have emphasized the importance of health security and the supporting role of the military, but there was a limit to suggesting practical countermeasures. Therefore, this article systematically is to analyze the role of the Korean Army in the face of health security threats in the wake of COVID-19 and suggest effective countermeasures for the military in the event of a similar health security crisis. Considering the characteristics of these studies, it were analyzed the Korean Amry’s response cases in the COVID-19 situation based on literature studies, and derived ways to utilize military resources and capabilities based on government documents, Ministry of National Defense data, related laws and prior studies. In addition, it was appropriately utilized for the Korean Army’s response and direction, focusing on the analysis and implications of COVID-19 response cases in major countries such as Europe, U.S., Japan and China. As a result, although limited under the non-traditional security situation of new infectious diseases such as COVID-19, measures to maintain the combat power of the Korean Army, strengthening the civil-military cooperation system, expanding education and training to respond to infectious diseases, and strengthening the capacity to respond to disasters, and converting military hospitals to hospitals exclusively to infectious disease were derived. In addition, through international cooperation and cooperation, the necessity of a continuous infectious disease response system was confirmed, and in particular, at the level of the Korea-U.S. alliance, it emphasized the establishment of an early detection system and the establishment of a foundation to jointly respond to similar crisis situations.