South Korea says to train 500,000 ‘drone warriors’ to counter North Korea
By Kyu-seok Shim and Heejin Kim
SEOUL, June 26 (Reuters) – South Korea will rapidly expand anti-drone and counter-drone capabilities against North Korea, including training 500,000 “drone warriors” and deploying tens of thousands of unmanned systems to front-line units, the Defense Ministry said on Friday.
The Army also plans to produce 110,000 drones for deployment across the army, navy, air force and marines by 2029, aiming to make drones a standard item for individual soldiers.
“Drones should no longer be equipment used by a limited number of units, but a universal combat tool,” Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said at a briefing, adding that they should be used by troops as a “second personal weapon.”
In response to security concerns, Ahn said Seoul will rely on 100% domestically produced components rather than Chinese parts to build the systems.
The announcement comes as both Koreas are stepping up efforts to develop drone capabilities, shaped by lessons learned from conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, where unmanned systems changed the rules of the game on the battlefield.
“Low-cost drones operated in large numbers are fundamentally changing the nature of warfare,” Ahn said, warning that North Korea was also developing unmanned systems, increasing threats to military and civilian facilities in the South.
South Korea’s plan includes expanding counter-drone systems such as laser and high-power microwave weapons and modifying operations so that each service can conduct surveillance and strike missions using drones rather than relying on a central command.
The military will move quickly to purchase more than 20,000 low-cost, expendable drones and deliver AI-based swarm systems and stray munitions, a senior defense official said.
The ministry said it would revamp its procurement rules to accelerate civilian technology adoption and position the military as a major buyer to help create a domestic drone ecosystem.
The expansion comes amid political sensitivity regarding drone operations under the previous administration. A South Korean court this month sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison for a military drone attack on North Korea that prosecutors said was intended to justify a 2024 martial law bid.
Current President Lee Jae Myung’s government abolished the drone operations command over the fallout from those allegations, and plans on Friday aimed to replace it with a new organization focused on policy, capability development and support, while leaving operations to individual military units.
South Korea also faces pressures from demographic decline, forcing the military to rely more on automation and unmanned systems to maintain combat capabilities.
(Reporting by Kyu-seok Shim and Heejin Kim, Editing by Ed Davies)
