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SBS has secured the details of the plan for restructuring our military reported to the Ministry of Defense.

It included a plan to reduce the Marine Corps 2nd Division, which is the core defense unit in the forefront of the West Sea, to a brigade and pull it out to the rear.



Defense reporter Kim Tae-hoon reports exclusively.



<Reporter> This



is the contents of the'Long-term Military Rescue Development Initiative' report prepared by KIDA of the Korea Institute of Defense as a research service for two years at the request of the Ministry of National Defense.



Until the mid-to-late 2020s, the Army had a plan to scale from 420,000 to 300,000, the Navy from 70,000 to 61,000, and the Air Force from 65,000 to 66,000. .



What stands out is the Marines, which account for the majority of the Navy's 9,000 cuts.



The reduction is from 29,000 to 7,000, reducing the Marine Corps 2nd Division to a brigade, subtracting it to the rear, and reducing the Pohang 1st Division and Northwest Island troops.



The Marine Corps 2nd Division is a strategic tactical unit that reinforces as much as the 4 divisions of the Army, defends the 100km front line of Gimpo, and lands and attacks the west coast of North Korea in case of emergency.



In November 2010, the Yeonpyeong unit in the northwestern islands prevented a surprise attack by North Korea.



Experts point out that it is impossible to uniformly reduce the number of Marines to the ground because they are ground troops centered on the same soldier, even if the number of soldiers is reduced by 120,000 due to the decrease in the youth population and the shortened service period.



[Kim Ki-ho/Professor of the Graduate School of Political Science, Gyeonggi University: (The 2nd Marine Corps) sticks and checks one of the reinforced corps of the North Korean army, and in case of emergency, it is a unit that performs strategic landing operations.

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KIDA collected the opinions of each military and reported the final research results to the Ministry of National Defense, which will be used as a manual for future military restructuring.



(Video coverage: Han Il-sang, video editing: Jeong Seong-hun)