Recently, there have been incidents in the army such as the case of Private Yoon. The army announced that Private Yoon died because of suffocation. However, after an investigation, the truth of his death was revealed. His seniors hit him, made him eat sputum, and forced him not to sleep. Moreover, they threatened him not to speak about their abuse to his family. After these events, he killed himself. Because of this, various alternatives have been suggested to change the army culture. Among these alternatives, the strongest suggestion is a volunteer military system. A volunteer military system is a system that recruits people who want to participate in the army. These soldiers become professional soldiers. However, there are two main reasons that Korea should not implement a volunteer military system.

First of all, a volunteer military system cannot solve the harmful actions in the army. People say that we need to change the army to reduce harmful acts. However, we can see problems even in the USA, which has operated a volunteer military system for a long time. Examples of the problems are Harry Lou and Danny Chen. Harry Lou slept when he was on duty. Then, he got the punishment of wearing an assault jacket and sand bags when he did exercise. He got abuse for a long time, too. After this, he chose suicide. Private Danny Chen was beaten by multiple people because of his race. Like this, army problems are not solved even in volunteer military systems like the USA.

Secondly, the Republic of Korea is still a divided country. The plan to reduce the army and change from a conscription system to a volunteer military system might be dangerous. The number of soldiers in a volunteer military system will be far less than the current system. If we reduce our army, North Korea might become a threat to us. Its army is around 1.2 million and our army is around 650,000. Moreover, North Korea spends the most on the army compared to its GDP. This means if our army reduces its size and changes into a volunteer military, our country might be attacked by North Korea. This would be dangerous to our national security.

There are several reasons that a volunteer military system should not be implemented. It is hard to change to a volunteer military system because of the problems in the army and the fact that we are a divided country. Therefore, the conscription system is a much better system currently. The wiser choice is to choose an army system that fits the country’s national security situation.