Summary

A potential deal for Russian defense technology could further advance South Korea's technological base, which already is undergoing a dramatic indigenous military modernization. Such a boost to its military-industrial base could have profound regional repercussions.

Analysis

Seoul is in the process of negotiating a deal with Moscow to offset Russian debt with Russian defense expertise. South Korea already has a strong military-industrial base, which it is moving to expand. But Russian technology could prove a significant boon.

South Korea only joined the United Nations in 1991, which it achieved only by overcoming the Soviet bloc with a bribe. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev needed money, and Seoul wanted U.N. membership. Some of that bribe was made in the form of loans; loans South Korea would be perfectly happy to have repaid in defense technology. It remains to be seen just what terms (e.g., what sectors of technology) are struck, but this has the potential to be a good deal for both Moscow and Seoul. Moscow is interested in paying this debt back eventually, since Seoul never has raised ideological issues with either the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation.

The scale and pace of South Korean innovation repeatedly has surprised outside observers: ask any American automaker what they thought of Hyundai ten years ago. South Korean megafirms like Samsung, Daewoo and Kia have made huge advances in the North American marketplace. LG is now the premier white goods company in the United States. Every third ship manufactured in 2006 was made in South Korea; Hyundai Heavy Industries alone is the largest shipbuilder on the planet. Such an industrial base has profound implications for South Korea's domestic defense sector; it has the kind of strong civilian-industrial base that makes for a strong military-industrial base. Foreign military cooperation and acquisition of key U.S. weapon systems already is propelling the South Korean military forward.

Next year, the South Korean navy will commission its first Aegis-equipped warship, known as the KDX III, which relies heavily on the Arleigh Burke Flight IIA design. South Korea's air force is taking delivery of U.S.-built F-15K fighter jets.



More interesting will be what South Korea does with the successor generation. The K-1 main battle tank (MBT), which dates back to the early 1980s, borrowed so heavily from the U.S. M1 Abrams design that it was dubbed by some the ÒKabrams.Ó The new XK-2 Black Panther MBT is the first truly new MBT design to emerge since the Cold War (its autoloader may have significant roots in Russian MBT autoloaders), and though it has yet to be tested or proven in combat, by all measures it appears to be a significant achievement. Between work on the KDX-III and on successive generations of German submarine designs (the Type 209 and now the Type 214), the South Koreans are in a strong position to pull off similar indigenous design leaps in the follow-on generation.

The synthesis of different design heritages may be where South Korea's defense industry could truly shine. The South Koreans have extensive experience with, and are still learning more about, U.S. defense technology. Combine that with the potential for understanding Russian design experience -- which in many cases will be the late Soviet-era work -- and Seoul has the basic ingredients for merging the two principal competing design paths of the 20th century: those of the United States and the Soviet Union.

This potential is not limited to U.S. and Russian technology. When Washington stonewalled Seoul and refused to let up on defense agreements prohibiting a South Korean missile program, Seoul turned to the French for help with their space program. South Korea's experience building licensed copies of German Type 214 submarines (Germany has a deep and profound understanding of submarine engineering) has already given the South Koreans a German-influenced perspective of their own. Additional Russian design only will refine their work.

Submarine batteries are one area that looks likely to be included in any Russian-South Korean deal. Probably more interesting to Seoul is rocketry, missile guidance, aircraft engineering, avionics and radar, all areas in which the South Koreans are looking to expand their knowledge base. Some of these appear to be on the table.

In the long run, South Korea is moving inexorably towards those technologies, specifically ones that reduce manpower needs. These include robotics, increased-range and standoff systems, and spaced-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. Like the United States facing down the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, South Korea stands at a demographic disadvantage to both China and North Korea. Deal or no deal, in a decade South Korea will be a defense exporter to reckon with. This new deal raises the prospect that the pace could be accelerated, giving South Korea a better understanding of a broader range of hard-to-master technologies.

http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/r...e.php?id=300448



On top of all the technology Russia is assisting in Korea's space program here's a little blurb about the recent technology transfer deal

Russia to offset debts to S. Korea by transferring weapons technology

Date: December 21, 2007

South Korea will receive advanced weapon technology from Russia as part of Moscow’s repayment of its debts to Seoul, defense officials here said Friday (Dec. 21).

Russia still owes $1.3 billion from the time the former Soviet Union borrowed bilions of dollars from Korea ahead of the normalization of relations in 1990 between the two former Cold War foes.

The former Soviet Union sided with its communist ally North Korea in the three-year Korean War launched by the North in 1950.

However, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reforms and openness in the late 1980s, paving the way for Moscow’s normalization of ties with South Korea and other Western countries.

"We signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia on the method of repaying the debts," a spokesman at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said.

The deal resulted from three years of negotiations after South Korea proposed the technology transfer at its summit with Russia in 2004.

If the agreement is confirmed, South Korea will likely receive technology on submarine batteries, aircraft engines, and cutting-edge radar, according to the official.

Russia provided South Korea with tanks, armored vehicles, helicopters, naval vessels, and other weapons to repay its debts under the so-called Bulgom (brown bear) project.

We were the only country who let the Soviets borrow billions of money?

Talk about a huge risk...

Yeah, but Soviet tech is incompatible with the western standards. If Korea provide those gadgets base on the Soviet then most western oriented countries will shun away from them due incompatibility.. I guess Korea try to make those stuffs just try to make a buck or two, right. Country like Vietnam will buy, I guess.. haha.

having a mixture of both western and russian military hardwares is a good thing, I guess.

it's a good thing for defence exporters to understand the types of technologies out there.

korea will no doubt become a big player in the arms exporting industry in the near future.

And along came the Chinese to steal all the designs. In an hour, all those 'cutting edge' designs became obsolete.

korean weapon skill+western skill+russian skill
good

Soviet tech is not incompatible with Western tech by nature Their basis is on the same principle--I mean it has to be, not like Soviet stuff works on the different natural physics--and Korea has successfully incooperated Russian technology into their own product, which is derived from products of Russian origin. It's all about whether South Korea has the capability to understand the principle technology behind the products. If you can understand it, then the question is whether we can interpret it to our own standards. We can, and we have.

I see, so the Chinese copying current design few years behind the others will make it somehow obsolete? You're still playing technological catch-up.

Russian mil-technology is old school, but still give some kick, they are good at some conventional weapons, particularly long range weapons not always under perform when it comes to real war. Countries with Russian mil-tech is still no match for American-British mil-techs.

Russian always over charge for spare parts & options, and not trustworthy people.

South Korea may need some Russian mil-tech since Americans won't share with SK, but SK mil-tech isn't far behind, our weapons are highly valued in many 3rd world countries.

Countries with Russian military technology usually do not have the money to fight counties equipped with Western weapons. Recent outflow of information from US, UK, Singapore exercises with the Indian Air Force seems to suggest that with proper training and upgrades, Russian weapons can still be dangerous.

It's nothing more than American propaganda. I hate seeing the media like it's fact. Korea works for America. That is about it.

You really shouldn't speak about matters you don't know much about....

The Russians are giving away technology, as in designs, and not the completed weapons systems. If you don't understand what this means, let me clear it up for you; You are not going to see the ROK trying to jam RD-33 into KF-16s. Instead, it will be Koreans taking the Russian technology and learn from it, and apply the useful and improved designs to the future weapons system while retaining capabilities to interoperate with existing set of systems. ROK has done this before.

As for making "a buck or two", what's China doing nowadays? The only country in the world who's actually buying the "latest" heavy Chinese hardwares like tanks and aircraft is Pakistan. Most others simply settle with Chinese copies of Soviet-era weapons and tanks because they can't even afford anything else. ROK, you ask? Well, lets see here... Oh, yeah, there was that destroyer design that the Aussies were really interested in that was called KDX-III. Oh, and there's also the T-50 that UAE and the Saudis are trying to grab. Did I mention the Turks taking the K2 over M1A2, Leo 2A6 and LeClerc? Oh, yeah, and there's the thing with KSAM being evaluated for export... I'm just laughing at your post here.

KDX, haha, you using uncle-sam's aegis weapon system. they charge very high price, and your profit margin is only from building the plain ship. If uncle Sam doesn't like your exporting countries, he could boycott the aegis system you need for the ship, then your KDX-III no more, haha.

I bet you can't sell that to Vietnam because Uncle Sam will not like it.

Well done, dumbass. You've just proven the fact that you didn't even read through my entire post and process the information. Here's a step-by-step explanation of my phrase, considering your sheer amount of ego and lack of comprehension;



Keywords: "design" and "Aussies", meaning, Australians. There's no Vietnam anywhere but in your own deluded little mind. Considering the fact that Australians were interested in looking at how the KDX-III was built, and not purchasing the entire ship outright from a Korean shipyard, as well as the fact that U.S. Congress only allows the contractors to offer their systems, in this case the Aegis combat system, only after a thorough evaluation of their customers, meaning having to be a key and reliable ally, which both ROK and Australia are, renders your pathetic little comeback useless.

Again, what's China doing nowadays? I don't see any of its high-tech heavy duty hardwares being purchased by anyone other than Pakistan, the only country in the world who are insane enough to try them out.

FMS co-purchase with USN, Japan as set. If you don't understand what that means, shut up.

Your buddies like santa, the wonder girl are promoting Vietnam and South Korea strategic alliance to counter China. I guess Vietnam would be banking on getting some serious weapons from South Korea, now, it's just a hoax, South Korea's weapons are controlled by uncle Sam. I think you going to disappointed your Vietnamese comrades very much...... haha.

ROFL. Even if ROK's weapons are somehow "controlled" by the U.S., I would rather take them over Made in China pieces of crap that fall apart within ten days of purchase, especially when it comes to multi-million dollar military equipment.

Haha, your info is outdated. CHina now has "customer satisfaction guarantee" and "best price" deal, Improvement is the name of game, just like hyundai was considered a piece of crap awhile ago.. I guess they have came a long way and improved, didn't they? Haha.

Bad analogy. Do you see anyone jumping at Chinese hardwares, other than Pakistan, despite China's efforts to export its hardwares? At least Hyundai has the production capability, quality and worldwide customer ratings to back their position up. Chinese military hardware? Yeah, right.

It really remained to be be seen if China, let along Vietnam, can afford an AEGIS integrated warship.

On the other hand, we have many great systems up for sale. Say a number of anti-ship missiles, torpedoes and cruise missiles to offset Chinese naval superiority against Vietnam. We also have very handy frigates and fast-attack boats that we would gladly sell armed with those missiles to Vietnam. PLAN does not need much more than that to cripple.

Chinese hardware.... what? I thought they only made toys.

They are toys *ahem*

to be successful in weapon exports doesnt always mean the better quality and price win, it comes with political will and influence!
taiwan for example is importing bulk of american equipments while they could get much better ones from germany and Sweden (or maybe korea and japan), no doubt they want the americans to make tat money hoping for their aid when china attacks.
same goes to pakistan and North korea, they just buying weapons to plz the chinese so they will come for their aid.

For korean weapon customers, i think are mostly pure customers for their quality and pricing nothing else.

Thailand bought a few chinese frigates. Despite all these, PLA market alone is already enough to sustain these companies.

u wish.
first they cant afford for all tat.
even if they had tat money, 1000+ ballistic missiles would sink them all before they leave their homeport as well under complete chinese air dominance.
assume vietnam managed to destroyed PLAN and PLAAF but PLA the good old groundhog will come crashing over their cities like they did in 1979.

Before Thailand buys Chinese warship, Korean kdx1 destroyer purchase want

But ,South Korea refused

Because, Thailand wanted payment to Thailand's article of food that payment price about kdx1 destroyer is not money

End, so Thailand is that buy Chinese warship

this is true story

but tats all china need, food for 1.3billion chinese in exchange for a faw pieces of metal!!!

Are you seriously think that you can conquer the nation of 85 millions people of Vietnam. In order to conquer VN, you need an airforce like the U.S and China airforce is nowhere even near the U.S yet. The combined U.S and South Vietnamese ground forces barely won the two battles of Khe Sanh and Quang Tri against the NVA despite dropping an equivalent of several atom bombs on them and the NVA at that time did not even have air forces or air defenses in those battles. LOL, if you think China can conquer VN then in 1979 when China occupied Lang Son, VN announced that it was going to send 3 divisions to take back the city, all of the sudden China just declared "victory" and withdrew LOL. I still remember in 1979 some Chinese general said that China would march to Hanoi in 1 day LOL

Force integration. Buying hardwares from all over the place isn't going to be good for logistical support, as well as keeping the units integrated, as aircraft parts made in Russia can't fit on U.S. aircraft. The best way to avoid this problem is to purchase as many hardwares from the fewest of the most reliable contractors, or simply come up with your own military industry. The U.S. is ahead of anyone else in terms of force integration.



The conversation is about whether or not if the Chinese hardwares are at least competent enough to be marketed as high-priority military investment for other nations, which was spun off from some retard trying to throw down a gauntlet but failed anyways. Besides, Thailand hasn't said anything flattering about the Jianghu-class that they purchased, which are, despite being China's most successful warship in terms of export sales, completely obsolete.



They can afford them if they have to. Even if Vietnam's navy can't afford big, sexy frigates, they can always arm their patrol boats with anti-ship missiles and have them ambush and devastate any PLAN ships that get too close to the shorelines. And stop exaggerating, will you? A realistic scenario would be more like PLA launching several dozens of IRBMs at key Vietnamese targets, not rain down with 1000+. Attempts to do so will require the PLA to draw out their inventory of obsolete missiles, which will mostly function as psychological weapon but deal little to no physical damage on their actual targets. Another thing worthy of mentioning is that it's a lot harder to fly sorties in the opposition's air space than your own, and trying to gain air superiority over the enemy's turf will require tremendous support, including FABs, tankers, AWACS, of which PLAAF does not have enough in supply of. On the other hand, Vietnamese aircraft flying CAPs will have all the support that they need, including ground-based controllers, RADAR installations, AA batteries, etc. A realistic scenario would be PLAAF sending out sorties for deep-strike missions, but little else. PLA, on the other hand, will have a hard time trying to navigate through the jungles. Combat engineers will have to be brought in to clear out the forests and make rough roads for the heavy equipment to get through, which takes time. Vietnam can easily exploit that and sortie some fighter-bombers to slow or prevent the engineers from getting the job done. If anything, most of the ground fighting will be done by infantry and artillery, with PLA's AFVs being nothing more than support units for key points. No fancy tank battles or anything. Just hardcore mud-hoofing.

Your comment reflects a lack of knowledge and research. Have you even kept up on recent chinese military developments, the military industry, infrastructure and advancements at all? Or you think china would remain a backward military and never makes any advancements? There are certain specialized areas china is far ahead of everyone else in the asian continent.

Once China makes enough J-10s and FC-1s and start production of its powerful WS-10A engine, a lot of third world countries will buy them.

The Thais bought Chinese hulls, then extensively modified them to fit western electronics and weapon systems. To that end, we've probably built more ships for the Indians and the Bangladesh.

It's actually your comment that reflects your lack of reading comprehension and wild imaginations. Nowhere I have mentioned that the Chinese military hasn't achieved any advancements, although it's hilarious to note how you came to that sort of conclusion. Let me say it, again, for you to understand: Chinese military hardwares are still not recognized and widely exported around the world, despite China's best efforts to market them. Can you actually name at least five countries that are purchasing heavy-duty Chinese hardwares as if on a shopping spree? Nope. This doesn't even include Pakistan, either, as they aren't making a lot of large volume purchases.

As for being "ahead" of everyone else in Asia, PLA is lacking in true combat experience like South Korea, while Japan is far more ahead in terms of unit integration. Do they have the number game going for them, as well as the raw output capability? Yes. Otherwise, not really. Don't let the 2007 ASAT test get your hopes too high, since China is ahead of everyone in Asia since no one else was even in the game to begin with, thus making China the sole winner of a single person marathon.

Also, I'd gladly take F-16 B60s with a full load of AMRAAMs over J-10s on any given day. J-10 is comparable to earlier blocks of F-16s, but little else.

i never said we gona conquer vietnam but burn down a few of their village and cities to warn them.

obsolete missiles? i dont see the warheads being any obsolete? not necessary ballistic missiles but mixed with long range rockets yes, the biggest in its kind u can ask turkey for its efficiency.
wtf? y tankers? vietnam is rite beside china. LOL
China has 3 different types of AWACS, press the factory button and there will be plenty of AWACS waiting to enter service.
http://www.sinodefence.com/airforce/specia...aft/default.asp

vietnam is like Nkorea most of their airdefence and tactic are helped by the chinese and soviet advisers to defend against USA even now china still has their blue print and guess wat? 40% of their AK-47 are made in china during sino-vietnam war they are using our weapons against us.

The size of warheads don't necessarily mean anything. Even if the warhead is massive, it's still useless when it can't hit the intended target. What makes modern weaponry much more devastating than free-fall bombs from not even two decades ago is how the guidance system has evolved, as well as the design of the warheads themselves. Take the SDB, for example. It's accurate as JDAM. It's deadly as JDAM. And, best of all, it weighs four times less and takes up four times less size than JDAM. Same thing with the ATACMS. Not only it's even deadlier than the previous MLRS rockets, it has such high precision that it can annihilate a single target and leave everything else standing five feet around the target still intact. Unless the Chinese rockets have high-degree of accuracy, no matter how big the warhead is, they are going to end up doing more collateral damage than actually accomplishing their goals.



The enemy territory being close doesn't negate the importance of airborne tankers, especially when it comes to aircraft flying patrols overhead. Without tankers, aircraft out on CAPs will have to come all the way back to the suitable base, land, refuel, take off and go back out to the area. This can take from half an hour to few hours depending on the situation. This can be remedied by having tanker assets that can be brought to the proximity of the CAP areas, where aircraft will simply refuel and be ready for action within minutes, with the only times that the aircraft will have to be brought back to the base being for re-arm and/or crew rest. And don't forget the extended missions, including multiple deep-strike missions that require aircraft to go on search and destroy, CAS and SEAD missions, where they will be required to loiter around for quite a while to find their targets and neutralize them. This is not mentioning that aircraft do not fly in a straight line, of course, as they can be used to fly around the hostile zones, which takes up more time and, thus, fuel, to strike from almost any direction desired.



AWACS and AEW are not the same. AWACS, Airborne Warning And Control System, can detect and coordinate friendly aircraft in the area to become more combat effective, such as giving them target information and tactics to deal with them. AEW, on the other hand, has limited control capability and serves mainly as picket system to detect and identify targets, unless you are talking about AEW&C, which can provide tactical coordination and battle management, but not as effectively as a more powerful AWACS. And, again, I'm curious about what you mean by this "factory button" exaggeration part. We are not talking about Made in China toys that come out in batches here. AWACS are huge investments, and costs tremendously to operate and maintain the equipment and train the proper crews. Even the USAF, despite its efforts, only has 34 E-3s in active service at the moment.



You must be time-warped back in the 70's. What you are saying is that Vietnam wouldn't have changed their doctrine and deployment of anti-aircraft systems for the past thirty years since the Vietnam War ended. And why are you suddenly blaming them for using the Chinese copies of AK-47s? Seriously, it's China's own damned fault that they gave them away to begin with.

At this year, shoot satellite by Korean rocket in completed jeonnam province,s oenar island universe installation
korea has discharge plan of lunar probe rocket in 10 years



http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=L...692604&iid=

http://news.naver.com/photo/read.php?mode=...05&view=all

How about a rocket with nukes? Oh wait South Korea aren't allowed to make nukes according to USA.

ok .but korea has all technic of nuke
and enough to make nuke quickly
if some country has Threaten to korea by nuke

Yeah but then Korea aren't allowed to make nukes according to white masters. What good is capability when they aren't allowed. Korea will sink before they can even make nukes.

Personally I think all countries should be allowed to have nukes so no one invade other countries without destroying yourself.

well next time you should choose your word better insteading of saying "chinese military hardware don't make me laugh." when you weren't provoked in the first place.

also the comment that J-10 is comparable to earlier blocks of F-16s is a joke....the aerodynamics of J-10 is better than the F-16s, more in line in looks of a Eurofighter, seems to me you have no clue of the the engines/radars/aviation/missiles advances as well. Seems to be me you are still putting down on chinese military hardwares just because. tell me which other asian country is building and developing the stuff china is doing.

China has sold quality missiles abroad. These include C-802s, deriatives of DF-15s and other sorts of ballistic missile technologies to Iran, Pakistan, Middle East countries. China ranks very highly in the world in all types of cruise missiles, ballistic, long range, antiship, etc......Iran wanted to buy 20 J-10s but beijing denied it because Olympics. The Thai commander probably would buy it as well, but china needs first.

I don't think Japan/South Korea has anymore combat experience......when was the last major fought under high technology conditions?

Gulf war

Sorry (or not) to nail you in the head with this, but have you seen the posts that lilzz made? Too bad you haven't figured that one out.



Being aerodynamically superior doesn't mean anything. There were plenty of instances where Russian and French fighters, including Fulcrums, Flankers and Mirages, have been shot down by less maneuverable Falcons, Eagles and Tornadoes throughout the 80's and 90's, especially in Eastern Europe and Middle East. It gets even more hilarious if you just look at the kills of the F-15s alone -- 105-to-0 aerial battle K/D ratio against many opponents with better maneuverability, even against formidable targets like the Su-27. Most of the experts agree that J-10 is comparable to the earlier generation F-16s in terms of overall performance. Honestly, it's you who has no idea on the advancements made in aircraft technology, seeing how you are pretending as if China is the only one who's been making such progress. And then there's the F-35s coming to service within a few years, which would outclass anything else in its class even further.

And, to answer your question, both South Korea and Japan are developing their own military equipment, in case if you haven't figured out. You just don't know about that yet. (Why is it that a lot of the Chinese think that they are the only ones making advancements in military technology?)



Did you know that China couldn't build effective cruise missiles until the Gulf War, where they've sent technicians to salvage any remains of U.S. cruise missiles that failed in flight to study from them? (And then there's also the fact that Western nations don't rely as heavily as the Russians and Chinese on short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles with conventional warheads, hence less production and export.) Also, a lot of Middle East countries opt for Chinese hardwares due to their pricing, availability and, most importantly, political and diplomatic situations. Countries like Iran can't even buy U.S. and Western European hardwares due to restrictions, and Pakistan can't even afford many of them to begin with, which leaves them little choice but to purchase Russian and Chinese hardwares. Middle East countries with the cash in hand, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, are exceptions, as they have long-term history of purchasing expensive but effective Western equipment.



Ever heard of the Gulf War and the Iraq War? Oh, yeah, and then there was that fiasco called Vietnam that ROK took a huge chunk in. That's not accounting for the fact that ROK has sent out its troops for numerous peace keeping missions, while China was busy killing their own citizens during protests.

Statistically SK have more war experiences than any other Asian countries.
Average SK soldier is said to be more agile and well trained comparing to any other asian countries. Case close.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=3248570&C=navwar



No word on which type of vehicle that Indonesia wants to build with Rotem, although I'm guessing that it's either MBT or IFV judging by the planned number.

China's fu-king around again.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=3284117&C=asiapac

Dont cry to us about your problems with white people.

Don't worship them either dirt bag.

american pig= filthy pig same ip?