Ahn Gyu-back
안규백
Ahn in 2025
Minister of National Defense
Incumbent
Assumed office25 July 2025
President	Lee Jae Myung
Prime Minister	Kim Min-seok
Preceded by	Kim Yong-hyunLee Doo-hee (acting)
Member of the National Assembly
Incumbent
Assumed office30 May 2012
Preceded by	Chang Kwang-keun
Constituency	SeoulDongdaemun A
In office30 May 2008 –29 May 2012
Constituency	Proportional representation
Personal details
Born	(1961-04-29) 29 April 1961 Gochang, South Korea
Citizenship	South Korean
Party	Democratic
Alma mater	Sungkyunkwan University
Website	safe100.or.kr
Korean name
Hangul	안규백
Hanja	安圭伯
RR	An Gyubaek
MR	An Kyubaek

Ahn Gyu-back (Korean: 안규백; born 29 April 1961) is a South Korean politician who has served as the minister of national defense since 2025. A member of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), he has been a member of the National Assembly for Dongdaemun, Seoul, since 2012, and previously served as a party list member from 2008 to 2012. Ahn is the first civilian defense minister in 64 years and the fifth civilian defense minister since 1948.^[1]

Born in Gochang County in North Jeolla, He graduated from elementary and middle school in Gochang, and attended high school in Gwangju, and studied Eastern philosophy at Sungkyunkwan University as an undergraduate before earning a master's degree at the university's Department of Commerce and Trade.^[2][3]

Ahn was appointed deputy floor leader of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, the Minjoo Party's predecessor, on 12 October 2014,^[4] and remained in that position for seven months.^[5] He was praised by his Saenuri Party counterpart, Cho Hae-jin, who described him as having an "honest and upright" character and "always thinking of his country first".^[a] He subsequently became head of strategy and public relations for the NPAD on 23 June 2015.^[6]

A ranking member of the Assembly's National Defense Committee,^[7] Ahn has been a critic of South Korea's defense policy. In 2011 he stated that draft-dodging had doubled under the Lee Myung-bak administration,^[8] and at the end of 2015 he attacked Park Geun-hye's government for signing an intelligence cooperation agreement with Japan and the United States, stating that "it is against all reason to give [Korea's] advanced information" to Japan given its colonial history in the peninsula and continuing territorial claims over the Liancourt Rocks.^[9] In June 2015, he introduced a bill to honor the veterans of the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong, an armed confrontation with North Korea that had taken place in 2002.^[10]

On 23 June 2025, President Lee Jae Myung nominated Ahn as defense minister, making him the first person not to have previously served as a general to be chosen for the position since 1961, and the fifth person not to have previously served as a general to be chosen for the position since 1948.^[11] Ahn's scrutiny hearing in the South Korean National Assembly was held on 15 July 2025.^[12][13]