SEOUL, South Korea — Special forces, the elite of modern armies, master diverse skill sets from parachuting and close-quarters combat to foreign languages and emergency medicine. But South Korea’s crack 1st Airborne Brigade is pioneering an especially novel tactic.
The South Korean public has been stunned to see film of their fearsome “black berets” flouncing down catwalks under the careful instruction of female fashion models, halting dramatically, pirouetting and striking poses.
Footage that has leaked online covered the “K-Walking Performance Military Festival,” staged Oct. 29 at a gym on the base of the 1st Airborne Special Forces Brigade.
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It depicts camo-clad commandos being put through their catwalk paces by models, decked out in high heels, miniskirts and military headgear.
The clip was leaked by a unit veteran to conservative broadcaster TV Chosun this week.
1st Airborne’s wartime mission is to parachute into, or otherwise infiltrate, North Korea, causing havoc and assassinating or destroying high-value targets.
Most training develops those goals, but the Oct. 29 module was a “personal development training aimed at helping soldiers develop proper posture and walking techniques,” a brigade spokesman told TV Chosun.
As the incredulity spread, a military spokesperson admitted to domestic media, “The program content was inappropriate because it did not suit the characteristics of the unit or the needs and expectations of its soldiers.”
Opposition politicians have opened fire.
“North Korea is carrying out land mine provocations and firing combinations of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and multiple rocket launchers,” said conservative lawmaker Park Choong-kwon in a widely reported social media post. “Yet the Ministry of National Defense under the [liberal] Lee Jae-myung administration is bringing in fashion models to teach special forces soldiers how to walk.”
Military pundits turned red.
“I’d shoot the commander who ordered that, if I had the chance,” said Yang Uk, a security expert with the Asan Institute, a Seoul think tank.
Has the military lost its edge?
More broadly, experts fear that South Korea, one of America’s leading Asian allies, is losing both the Spartan spirit that still exists north of the Demilitarized Zone and specialized military skills.
The 1st Airborne’s most recent operation, in combination with Seoul’s Tier-1 unit, 707 Battalion, was to seize control of the National Assembly building on Dec. 3, 2024, the night then-President Yoon Suk Yeol announced martial law.
The mission was weakly prosecuted and botched in execution.
The commandos’ movement was delayed as their helicopters lacked permission from Seoul flight control to move. Once on the ground, they failed to secure a perimeter. Politicians infiltrated or broke into the building. Others forced their way past the troops, while furious demonstrators outside diverted their attention.
Inside the chamber, politicians formed a quorum and voted down martial law. The commandos departed.
Their northern counterparts have had stronger recent experiences.
Some 13,000 members of North Korea’s crack “Storm Corps” light infantry and its Tier-1 espionage command, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, gained up-to-the-minute battlefield experience in Russia’s war against Ukraine, fighting alongside Russian forces in Kursk in 2024-2025.
Some South Koreans fear their once-vaunted military has lost its edge.
Having been bloodied in the 1950-53 Korean War, Seoul sent the largest ex-U.S. foreign military contingent to the 1965-1975 Vietnam War.
There, Koreans gained a reputation for effectiveness and brutality. A U.S. Special Forces officer dubbed them “The Prussians of Asia.”
Post-Vietnam, they deployed at home. In 1980, black berets were sent by the then-military regime to suppress pro-democracy demonstrations in the city of Gwangju.
The troops overreacted. More than 200 civilians were killed, in modern Korea’s most traumatic recent memory.
Political change — full democracy — arrived in 1989. Military change followed.
“The military used to be a law unto itself and was contemptuous of civil authority, but over time, the right people and politicians back-footed the military,” said Mike Breen, Seoul-based author of “The New Koreans.” “Now, they are much more human-rights oriented.” These are positive developments for society, but the military has, arguably, degraded in effectiveness.
The conscription term has fallen from 33 months in 1977 to 18 months. During the liberal Moon Jae-in administration of 2017-2022, recruits were allowed mobile phones, enabling them to complain to their parents. That created problems for commanders who conducted tough training.
“We have a lot of political pressure, especially from progressive politicians, who want to make it a bad thing to have a warrior culture,” Mr. Yang said. “We are losing our warrior spirit due to people who do not understand the reality of war and the threats we are dealing with.”
Foreign soldiers and marines who have exercised in South Korea in recent years have welcomed the friendliness of local troops, but have been unimpressed with noncommissioned officers’ lack of experience, as well as low-grade physical fitness and difficulties operating in cold weather.
In fast-moving South Korea, change has been social, as well as political-military.
In the last quarter century, a kinder, gentler generation has replaced the macho warriors and economic warriors of yore. This generation has shifted the economy beyond metal bashing toward K-pop, K-film, K-cuisine and K-beauty, now all global phenomena.
“A Korean friend was saying, recently, that on the walls of his company are all these posters saying things like, ‘It is rude to text colleagues after 5:30,’ and, ‘You should not invite female colleagues out to drinks’ — these messages were all aimed at males over 50,” said Mr. Breen, who arrived in Seoul in the 1980s. “He said, ‘In the old days the things on the wall were, ‘Work hard, for company and country!’ So yeah, there has been a kind of emasculating of the Korean male as he used to be — which is not totally a bad thing.”
The remedy? Mr. Breen suggests South Korea may need to follow the example of democracies such as France, the United Kingdom and the U.S.
“All this argues for a professional military,” he said.
However, with North Korea fielding 1.2 million troops — more than double Seoul’s number — whether a dramatically reduced, but more capable, South Korean force can defend the nation remains uncertain.
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