South Korea has become a major player in the defense industry, with exports of artillery, tanks, surface-to-air missiles, jet fighters, and other military hardware potentially surging to over $21 billion this year.
South Korea cracked the top ten list of military exporters in 2022 with a landmark sale to Poland after Russia invaded Ukraine, and is projected to reach Number Three in the coming year.
One of South Korea’s hottest products is the K9 “Thunder” self-propelled 155mm howitzer, which Poland became very interested in acquiring after Russia rolled into Ukraine. Other countries menaced by Russia quickly followed Poland’s lead, while India decided those howitzers might come in handy against China someday.
A deal currently in the works with Vietnam could make it the eleventh country to embrace the K9 as its workhorse artillery piece. Canada is also reportedly considering a major purchase of K9s, along with other South Korean hardware, which would mark a dramatic shift away from Canada’s longtime reliance upon American arms during a time of tense relations between Ottawa and Washington.
Other popular South Korean exports include: the Cheongung medium-range surface-to-air missile (SAM), which has been adopted by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and is under consideration by Iraq and Malaysia; the K2 “Black Panther” main battle tank, which appeals to the same clients who purchase the K9 howitzer; and the FA-50 jet fighter.
South Korean arms have several advantages, chief among them being low cost. The K9, K2, and FA-50 offer performance very close to their top-shelf American-made counterparts at considerably lower prices.
When Poland evaluated the K2 tank, it found the South Korean model could shoot faster and with greater accuracy than any other tank in the world while on the move. The K2’s weapons were so accurate that it is considered a threat to low-flying enemy aircraft. The Polish military was so happy with the K2’s performance that it ordered a thousand of them.
The Cheongung missile’s high performance and low price make it one of the few practical defenses against mass drone attacks. Drones are normally so much cheaper than missiles that the cost of shooting the drones down is prohibitive, but the South Korean SAM changes that equation.
South Korean military equipment is also highly interoperable with U.S. and NATO systems, in part because South Korean designers used many existing components to build their vehicles. South Korea’s engineers also benefited from decades of close cooperation and joint training with U.S. forces.
The FA-50 fighter shares about 70 percent of its components with the U.S. F-16, a plane it closely resembles. This makes it easy to introduce the South Korean jet into an air force that relies heavily upon F-16s.
South Korea’s big arms manufacturers, including Hanwha Aerospace and Hyundai Rotem, have good reputations for supporting their products. One reason India began turning away from decades of reliance upon Russian hardware was that Russian companies could not provide spare parts or maintenance training. South Korean companies quickly stepped in to fill that gap.
Russian gear is also notoriously finicky and prone to breakdowns, while South Korean equipment has proven robust and reliable — a natural consequence of South Koreans living next door to a psychotic military dictatorship that could attack at any time.
South Korea is generous in working out local co-production deals with client nations, as in the case of India which made a deal to domestically produce K9 howitzers under the Indian brand name K9 Vajra-T. South Korean banks have further boosted arms sales by offering attractive financing packages to foreign buyers.
