South Korea will speed up development of stealth drones this year, according to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s team, in response to North Korea's threats.
“[Yoon] called for accelerating the development of stealthy drones this year and quickly establishing a drone killer system," press secretary Kim Eun-hye said Wednesday.The new emphasis comes in the wake of an incursion of several North Korean drones into South Korean airspace last week, drawing a presidential reprimand for South Korean military officials who struggled to down them.
“I think he was quite perturbed that South Korean military couldn’t shoot all these [North Korean drones] down,” Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Bruce Klingner, a former CIA deputy division chief for Korea, told the Washington Examiner."I think Yoon was both angry that the North Korean drones penetrated South Korean airspace, probably also [angry] that it got so much media attention, seeming to call into question South Korea’s military capabilities.
“These kinds of comments are meant to be domestically reassuring,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow David Maxwell told the Washington Examiner. “They're already developing these capabilities ... you want to make a prediction that’s something that you know is probably going to come true. So I don’t think they’re starting from ground zero.”
“Their defense industry certainly has been really capable, and recently we've really seen them step up their game,” Klingner said. “So clearly they have an intention of expanding their defense industry and their exports. So drones would be a logical step for them to incorporate into that overall plan.”
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