South Korea Weighs Sending Cheonghae Naval Unit Toward Hormuz but Vows No Role in the War

Photo: U.S. Navy/Petty Officer 2nd Class Oscar Diaz, Wikimedia Commons, public domain (file photo, Nov. 2025). ROKS Wang Geon, a destroyer that has served with the Cheonghae Unit, during an exercise with USS Dewey.

South Korea is considering expanding the mission of its Cheonghae naval unit toward the Strait of Hormuz to protect Korean ships and oil routes, National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said on Friday, Oct. 30, while stressing that Seoul will not take part in the war. The Cheonghae Unit Hormuz review “has not yet been finalized,” Wi told a briefing in Seoul, according to The Korea Herald.

“Specifically, we are carefully considering ways to expand and strengthen the Cheonghae Unit, but the review has not yet been finalized,” Wi said, according to the Herald’s translation.

What Seoul is weighing

The Cheonghae Unit has escorted South Korean merchant ships and guarded them against piracy in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia since 2009. Korean media have reported that the government is considering widening its operating area to the Gulf of Oman, near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, as part of a proposal to extend the deployment beyond Dec. 31, when the current mandate expires, the Herald reported.

At a parliamentary audit on Thursday, Oct. 29, Wi said sending a maritime patrol aircraft was “under consideration but not yet decided,” Korea JoongAng Daily reported. A senior official at the presidential office, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that an expanded operating area and an added patrol aircraft were “among the options under consideration,” according to the Herald.

A no-war pledge and a vote in parliament

Wi said Seoul “will strictly adhere to the principle of never participating or intervening in any war,” in line with President Lee Jae Myung’s position, JoongAng Daily reported. He said any mission would be limited to the minimum needed to protect South Korean merchant vessels, secure crude oil shipping routes and keep citizens safe, and that the government would explain any concrete plan transparently to the public and the National Assembly.

Under South Korea’s Constitution, overseas military deployments require the National Assembly’s approval, and the Cheonghae Unit’s mandate must be renewed every year, the Herald noted. That gives lawmakers a vote on any expanded scope. Reports of the plan have raised concerns that a wider mission could amount to an indirect military deployment tied to the conflict, the newspaper said.

By the numbers: why Hormuz matters to Seoul

The anonymous senior official argued that South Korea’s exposure to the strait is unusually high. The official said Korea’s dependence on Hormuz is “60 to 70 percent,” compared with about 20% for European countries, and said U.S. maritime and aerial escorts had helped restore shipping traffic through the strait to roughly 60% to 70% of previous levels, according to the Herald. Those figures are the official’s claims and were not published with supporting data.

The official listed the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia and Germany as countries that have deployed warships, patrol aircraft or other assets to the wider region. “Making no contribution whatsoever to the international community is a rather difficult option. The remaining question is how we do it,” the official said, the Herald reported.

Other issues from the briefing

Wi said he expects defense talks in Washington in December and the Security Consultative Meeting early next year to “yield substantive progress” on transferring wartime operational control of South Korean forces from the United States, JoongAng Daily reported. He noted that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reaffirmed Washington’s commitment on the transfer in talks with Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul in Cebu, the Philippines, on Oct. 28.

On a September mine blast in the Demilitarized Zone that wounded three South Korean soldiers, two of them seriously, Wi said Seoul had demanded an apology from North Korea and would keep responding based on “clear principles,” Yonhap and JoongAng Daily reported. North Korea has denied responsibility.

For background on the Hormuz crisis, see TBR’s report on a tanker bombing in Hormuz and Vance’s offer of talks with Iran, and on South Korea’s new defense ties with Germany.

Sources

• The Korea Herald: Seoul weighs expanding overseas naval unit’s mission toward Hormuz
• Korea JoongAng Daily: Korea weighing naval unit role to protect Hormuz shipping
• Yonhap News Agency: Wi Sung-lac briefing, Oct. 30, 2026

Additional sources

• The Korea Times: Seoul weighs expanding Cheonghae Unit operations toward Strait of Hormuz (Oct. 16)