South Korea To Procure Radars, Artillery and Drones Worth $ 25 Billion To Counter North

South Korea will set aside part of 38.95 trillion won ($32.7 billion) of its next year’s defense budget to spend on bolstering artillery detection radars, drone-based surveillance capabilities and striking assets such as K-9 self-propelled howitzers and multiple rocket launchers.

Seoul seeks to beef up defense capabilities to better counter North Korea’s evolving military threats. More than 3 trillion won will be set aside to strengthen frontline defense around the Demilitarized Zone, marking an increase of 40.6 percent from the previous year.

“We will be addressing the security situations including the North’s recent provocations in our budget planning for the next year. We will be increasing the defense spending by 4 per cent for the next year, higher than the 3 per cent increase of total government spending for next year,” Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo was quoted as saying by Korea Herald news daily during a press briefing on the budget plan to be submitted to the National Assembly on Friday.

The defense budget proposal will focus on strengthening deterrence against the North after it conducted an ejection test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile in May last year. Seoul has seen provocations along the border last month.

The government set aside 11.68 trillion won (US $9.7 billion) for its budget to improve overall defense capabilities, an increase of 6.1 percent from a year ago. 

The government hopes to spend 1.67 trillion won, an increase of 5.4 percent from a year ago, on antisubmarine capabilities. Last month, the North, in a “quasi-state of war,” mobilized a massive fleet of submarines, showing off its underwater warfare capabilities.

Also noteworthy in the budget plan is a spike in the expenditure for constructing the Korea Air and Missile Defense system and the Kill Chain preemptive strike architecture that will form the basis of Seoul’s capabilities to counter Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear threats.

For the KAMD and Kill Chain programs, Seoul set aside 1.5 trillion won, an increase of 64.5 percent from the previous year. 

“We increased the budget to speed up the construction of the Kill Chain and KAMD to respond to North Korea’s asymmetric military threats and to bolster our defense of frontline outposts through enhancing key assets such as mid-range guided weapons,” Baek said.