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- Hacker News
- Gross incompetent Western elites, shoved full of garbage ideology, go and outsource all manufacturing and are astounded, astounded! that countries and peoples that dare to resist their tyranny can build cheaper than their corrupt, criminal networks of nepotism.by paradoxyl
- Sounds good, but they won’t be able to sell them to anyone without the United States giving permission and butting in at every potential sale.by Danox
- That's not true, they even sell in direct competition with the US (MLRS systems or tanks to Poland)by sofixa
- I wonder what people actually expect the result of a "multipolar" world is going to be? Of course, this will mean a great many more conflicts.by spwa4
- Other countries with rising weapons businesses are Ukraine and Iran.
The best endorsement for a weapons manufacturer is winning a war against a tough opponent.
by Animats - That's one of the problems with the lack of diplomacy in the US's position for the past 40 years. We have pushed the envelope beyond our own control:
"The U.S. military reverse-engineered Iran’s Shahed-136 loitering munition to create a low-cost, one-way attack drone squadron in the Middle East called LUCAS (Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System)."
Necessity is the mother of invention. We spent billions in exchange for making our "enemies" stronger. We really are a ridiculous nation.
by themafia - It’s just Russia using Iranian drones, but that was already happening.
This war with Iran is not really an endorsement of Iranian weapons. The US didn’t stop its offensive because of Iranian weapons. We already knew the effectiveness of one way attack drones just from looking at their employment in Ukraine.
The US counter-UAV industry might start seeing some exponential growth. There’s a lot of lessons learned for the US and we’ll probably start seeing a lot more money thrown around by the US military.
by jonnybgood - The US, Russia and China all took turns losing wars to Afghanistan and Vietnam but nobody lines up to buy weapons from them because strategic victory (denying the enemy their war objectives) due to a lack of political will in the opponent or superior geography isn't the same thing as tactical victory due to better weapons.by energy123
- Due to the geopolitical situation, South Korean military has invested a crazy amount of resources on firepower. It has 2,780 self-propelled artillery vehicles, which is number #3 in the world (after Russia and China). The US (#4) has 1,521.
For a random comparison, Poland has 593 and Germany has 134.
(source: https://www.globalfirepower.com/armor-self-propelled-guns-to... )
...that is, (depending on what you want) South Korea has proven experience in building a ton of military equipment on time. Also, due to the dreadful climate of Korean peninsula, if something works in Korea, it will work pretty much everywhere except for desert (and maybe the arctic).
by yongjik - This trend has been obvious since at least the Poland deal. Korea gets much more return on its defense dollar manufacturing exportable weapons systems than relying on imports or domestic-only programs.by kwillets
- The speed at which Korea has supplied tanks, artillery, munitions, and even set up local production faster than traditional arms procurement.by jessinra98
- Poland I imagine is a tremendous exponent of South Korea’s arms industry.
I always thought of arms procurement as a tedious and slow process but the Polish/Korean agreements have turned that on its head in my eyes.
Simultaneously supplying new tanks, artillery, and munitions, while quickly standing up local factories to build them in Poland too is impressive, undoubtedly giving the Polish government some well needed breathing room.
Given that the technical package is included here, there must be some form of non-competition clause
by Tsiklon - "South Koreans are hoping to change that with a $60 billion submarine deal Hanwha Ocean is trying to sign with Canada; it would be the largest military procurement deal in Ottawa’s history. But the peninsula faces a formidable opponent in Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, which has a long track record of producing submarines for NATO countries. Canada is expected to announce the winning company later in June — which means the South Korean government and Hanwha still have a little time to lobby Ottawa — but the odds look increasingly slim, according to Kim, the president of SMI."
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What's interesting about the German/Korean bids to build subs for Canada is that both countries are offering package deals that include building other military vehicles and parts in Canada. This isn't just going to be a one-time purchase of military goods. The deal, whichever country gets it, will, ideally, kick-start long-term cooperation. The Canadian government seems to want what they used to have with the U.S., only with more reliable partners that won't regularly threaten their sovereignty.
This isn't so much a rise of SK's weapons business as it is the rise of a new, integrated military supply chain centred around NATO and close allies, but with a deliberate move away from U.S. suppliers.
by beloch - The Dutch/German submarine isn't even in production and unproven. Meanwhile the KSS are in service and production is guaranteed. I think the risk profiles are completely different between these two and that more or less seems to be the edge that Korea uses as leverage ex) Polandby zuzululu
- South Korea's self-reliance on weapons came straight out of vietnam war, where they were initially sending soldiers with WW2 weapons and became frustrated with the fragile American rifle that were provided, President Park directly launched Korea's own DOD (Agency for Defense Development aka ADD) which has been successful at repurposing soviet and american designs at a time where both countries were unsupportive. The K2 rifle in particular follows the same philosophy of essentially taking the grunty but reliable/rugged simplicity and then adding very economical/cost effective capacity advancements. The collapse of soviet union directly contributed to South Korea's rocket program and ballistic missile design advancement which at the time was embarassing and behind north korea ( The original hyunmoo was a repurposed american nike missile meant for air defence) You will notice the cold start process of Hyunmoo series and Russian designs are identical. Instead of repaying debt Russia sent tanks T80Us for example in return for Korean cup ramen. Lots of learning going on and South Korea ha been exceptional in particular Germany's submarine program and their unwillingness to distribute/share tech lead to Koreans adapting and successfully competing for Canada's submarine program.
Of late the Iran war showed that South Korea's anti-air as well as Biho class armor vehicles engaged drones well in UAE leading them to "we'll send you all we have now and you can pay us later" have won major trust from the region
Unlike China and Russias own weaponry which have largely been proven as duds, Korean weapons are giving American manufacturers a run for their money and if Korea can pull off the middle east region, it would not only secure oil directly while bypassing US dollar settlement, it could establish a sort of oil-for-korean-weapons and perhaps even soldiers in the near future, I think that this is the particular threat that America sees from its own ally and there will likely be some efforts to curb or limit South Korea as this article I think is starting to set the tone for.
by zuzululu - > I think that this is the particular threat that America sees from its own ally and there will likely be some efforts to curb or limit South Korea
I disagree with that. The Korean defense manufacturers like Hanwha work hard to also build production capacity within the US and share or license IP from American firms (eg. Boramae and GE Aviation plus Lockheed Martin).
SK's industry will continue to coexist and thrive with a US partnership similar to how the Israeli defense industry built linkages with the American ecosystem (eg. Elbit).
It also helps that Korean defense companies being part of larger chaebols like Hanwha are able to link defense production contracts with other industrial deals (eg. battery and renewable tech in Hanwha's case).
by alephnerd - The Australian Military Aviation History channel on YouTube has a series of two fantastic videos on South Korea's KF-21 "Borame" program, and it also touches quite a bit on South Korean defense industrial base as a whole. [0][1]
As a military aviation enthusiast , I couldn't be happier that there seems to be a lot more diversity in military hardware developments, especially in close to state-of-the-art fighter jets, such as China's J-20/J-35, Turkey's KAAN, the GCAP/FCAS program, etc, with Dassault working on critical upgrades to current Rafales as well.
Global South countries have a lot more options for close to cutting edge military hardware than they had even a decade or two ago to close the gap with the West.
by abixb - This article uses so many words to focus on the political reasons, but completely ignores the primary driver: Cost.
Korean weapons systems are 40-60% cheaper than their American counterparts.
The Korean K9 Thunder 155mm self-propelled howitzer costs $3.5 to $4 million per unit. For comparison, the American M109A7 Paladin costs around $8 million. The German PzH 2000 runs approximately $7 to $8 million.
The K239 Chunmoo Rocket Artillery (MLRS) system runs $2.0M/unit; M142 HIMARS runs $4.5M/unit. 155mm artillery shells are $2k/shell from Korea vs $3.5k/shell from the United States. Korean Cheongung II SAM interceptors cost ~$1.1M/unit, US Patriot missiles cost $4.0M/unit.
Buying South Korean weapons systems means you can procure twice as much at the same cost. It's a no brainer why Korea is winning military contracts.
[0] https://militarymachine.com/k9-thunder-howitzer-most-exporte...
by tristanj - The majority of military hardware costs are bribes, kickbacks and margins. Nobody thinks that they will fight a real war in which they will need a lot of hardware.
If the US or Germany get in situation they need thousands of those - I guess their cost will fall to under 1M.
by ReptileMan - They also tend to license IP or subsystems to and from the US as well, similar to Israeli firms like Elbit so there is an incentive for the US to continue supporting Korean sales as they have a downstream positive impact on American suppliers (eg. Borame and GE Aviation as well as Lockheed Martin).by alephnerd
- This is also the case for things like nuclear reactor construction, except South Korea is cheaper by a far higher margin there.
Add in the US's latest antics about controlling the use of they weapons they sell, and in addition trying to bully and demean allies, and it's a mystery as to why anybody would ever use US suppliers these days.
by epistasis - Cost is a factor, and a significant factor, but not the only one.
Flip-side of cost is effectiveness, and it would be interesting to see real-world data on the accuracy, reliability, and longevity of Korean weapons systems in active combat. I suspect the Koreans are also anxious to see this given their own geopolitical situation and northern neighbour. The article doesn't go here either.
It does, correctly IMO, focus on the reliability of the US as arms supplier, given the increasing control over access as a political weapon of retribution and reward, potential "kill switches" in US arms, the limited total production capacity of the US, and particularly in light of the latter, stocks depletion and unavailability on the basis of capricious gallivanting into ill-conceived conflicts with little gain if not actually worsening its subsequent position, strength, and status.
The Koreas both have an extensive reliance on artillery. Seoul is within range of PRK batteries, Pyonyang not so much from ROK, but any invading forces would be. I suspect ROK counterartillery systems are well developed, and that given the effectiveness of drones in recent years and the likelihood PRK might rely on these that there are, or soon will be, effective countermeasures against them.
Antiballistic missile systems would also be useful for ROK. I know nothing of this, but find that there is a Wikipedia article on the topic: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_and_Missile_Defense>.
by dredmorbius