South Korea Hormuz Deployment: Cheonghae Unit Heads to Oman

South Korea’s government has approved a plan to extend the Cheonghae Unit’s operating area from the Gulf of Aden to the waters south of Oman as far as the port of Duqm, adding a Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and an unmanned mine clearance team. The revised dispatch motion passed a vice-ministerial meeting chaired by the prime minister on November 5. The Ministry of National Defence stated that the unit’s personnel ceiling will rise from 320 to 395 and its mandate will run until December 31, 2027, subject to Cabinet, presidential and National Assembly approval. The decision is the most significant change to the unit’s role since 2020, and follows eight months of sustained U.S. pressure on Seoul to contribute to security in the Strait of Hormuz.

Of the 75 additional personnel, 45 will operate and support the P-8A, which is expected to fly from Djibouti although its exact base has yet to be agreed. The remaining 30 will form an explosive ordnance disposal team operating unmanned surface vessels, unmanned underwater vehicles and remotely operated underwater robots. The ministry has placed firm limits on the roughly doubled area of operations, with the aircraft barred from surveillance inside the Strait of Hormuz and the unit restricted to self-defence under the sole command of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Officials stated that the unit would not take part in the war under any circumstances, although they acknowledged that a Hormuz mine clearance role has been factored into planning and would require a separate parliamentary vote.

The ministry has justified the expansion on the grounds of piracy, with incidents rising from 11 in 2025 to 36 so far in 2026 as pirate activity has spread from Somalia toward southern Oman. Officials attributed that rise to multinational navies having shifted toward Hormuz and the Red Sea since the war with Iran began in late February. That conflict has seen tankers struck by limpet mines while the U.S. Navy retains only four Avenger class minesweepers. President Donald Trump asked South Korea and four other countries in March to send warships to the strait, and President Lee Jae Myung stated on September 18 that Seoul would not send troops or military assets in a way that would draw it into the war. An earlier option of sending a logistics support ship was set aside, with the ministry having reviewed its choices afresh after Lee proposed strengthening the Cheonghae Unit’s mission in September.

The Cheonghae Unit has escorted shipping off Somalia since 2009, normally with a single Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin class destroyer of around 4,400 tons, and this is far from the first time Seoul has stretched its mission toward the Gulf. On January 21, 2020, the government extended the unit’s area to the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, sending the destroyer ROKS Wang Geon as an independent deployment outside the U.S.-led International Maritime Security Construct. The P-8A is a considerably newer asset, with the Republic of Korea Navy having received all six of the aircraft it ordered from Boeing by July 2024 to replace its ageing P-3C and P-3CK Orions.