Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

On 25 May 2022, he was named as the next chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Kim was replaced by General Ahn Byung-Seok in Kim's role as the Deputy Commander of ROK/US Combined Forces Command.^[6] On 5 July 2022, Kim became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing Air Force General Won In-choul.^[7]

On 2 March 2023, South Korean top military general Kim Seung-kyum vowed to establish a wartime combined operations posture against rising threats from North Korea, local media reported on Thursday. Inspecting the combined special operations drills between the US and South Korean militaries, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman Gen. Kim called on the troops to maintain their capabilities to "strike the enemy's critical facilities without fail," Yonhap News Agency reported, quoting a statement from his office. “Kim stressed the importance of harnessing the capability to strike the enemy's critical facilities without fail, and establishing a wartime combined operations posture by enhancing interoperability between the allies through realistic combined special operations training,” the agency quoted JCS as saying. Kim also spoke about rising threats from North Korea and called on his troops to always prepare to inflict critical damage on the enemy, it said. Kim on Monday inspected joint military drills by South Korea and US special commandos involving AC-130J and MC-130J warplanes. The US had also deployed AC-130J, a heavily armed, long-endurance, ground-attack plane for the first time to Korea. Tensions on Korean Peninsula escalated late last year when North Korea launched at least 60 missiles while South Korea and the US held joint military exercises.