South Korean Defense Industry

In the 1970s, the Park Chung Hee administration (1961-79) leveraged all defense-related civilian industries to build an independent system of weapons production. In keeping with Park's advancement of military modernization driven by strong private-sector growth, an agenda that he promoted with his banner slogan “rich nation, strong military,” large Korean companies known as chaebŏl (재벌) were transformed to serve as government contractors that drove both national economic development and military modernization. A case study of one such company, Hanwha, illustrates how the state's hyper-militarization of Korean industries determined the distinct course and character of South Korea's national development. The study highlights the dynamic interplay that occurred between state actors and private-sector CEOs, managers, and laborers in shaping the chaebŏl-centered economic and defense industrialization.

This paper examines the origins of South Korea's industrial economy in the Park Chung Hee regime's program for building a " self-reliant national defense " (jaju gukbang). Through independent arms development in the 1970s, Park's technocrats engineered and launched the modernizing forces that propelled South Korea's rapid economic growth, referred to as the " Miracle on the Hangang River. " From 1973 to 1979, the regime's Heavy and Chemical Industrialization Plan (HCIP) systematically merged civilian industries with a state-controlled system of indigenous weapons production built from the ground up. Drawing strength from a defense-related infrastructure, HCIP rapidly advanced civilian technology and developed a highly skilled labor force, while simultaneously promoting private sector growth and exportation. As select civilian industries produced weapons, military technologies were diffused through " spin-off " effects that built and expanded private-sector, export-based heavy and chemical industries. Deeply intertwined with economic development and export trade, South Korea's burgeoning defense industry aggressively supported Park's dual pursuits of " self-reliance " (jaju) in both national security and the economy. The legacy of South Korea's independent military modernization is seen in the state's enduring deep ties with what today represent the most technologically advanced and lucrative commercial industries in the Korean economy.

Based on empirical study of newly declassified sources from South Korea, the dissertation examines the Park Chung Hee regime’s (1961-1979) policies related to chaju kukpang, or “self-reliant national defense,” from the late-1960s through the 1970s. In response to North Korea’s provocations in 1968 and the US reduction of troops stationed in South Korea in 1971, the Park regime masterminded an independent military modernization program in which citizens and civilian industries, functioning as the de facto engine of domestic arms production, propelled the emergence of a military-industrial complex. The study examines how regime policies mobilized Korean citizens for the effort and how civilian actors eventually responded by personally investing to fulfill this national project. The author observes that the state transformed civilians through both super-structural and infrastructural processes, as Park’s policies steered both the industrial capacities and the consciousness of the Korean populace along a path toward security independence. The total mobilization effort proceeded through complex mergers, tensions, and negotiations of state goals with civilian ideological and material interests, ultimately forging chaju kukpang as a bona fide national movement. The story of ROK defense industry development offers a prism through which the interplay of polity and society in the course of Korea’s modernization can be reexamined, with an eye to refining prevalent theories and suggesting implications for future research on the Park era.

The 60th Anniversary of the Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy deserves special recognition for several reasons. Among them is that it was the first Navy to engage hostile naval forces of North Korean on the first night of the Korean War. Throughout the war, it performed critical services in clearing coastal mines, from the earliest Allied amphibious landings at Inchon and Wonsan to the final days of the war.

As the most industrialized nation in SE Asia, it is not surprising Singapore should have developed a defense industry capable of meeting Singaporean needs.
South Korea has undergone Industrialization to the point where it is now a major competitor for export markets in Asia, and is largely meeting its own requirements on the peninsula.

The relative strengths of both North and South Korea are compared, when in this year the following statement typified many views: "While we believe that South Korean ground forces are now adequate in defense against North Korea, we are not so confident of South Korean air defences and tactical air forces."

The article compares both North and South Korean military forces, including issues of air, ground and naval aspects of any conflict on the peninsula, in the early-1980s.