North Korea’s Grey Huddle: A Reverse Perspective of its Analog Military
Dong Yon Kim
Defense reform has been the keyword for South Korea’s military strategy for over 20 years and recently the country upgraded its strategic defense plan with the new name ‘Defense Innovation 4.0’ under the Yoon Suk-yeol administration. The core logic behind the reform is smaller but stronger manpower through technical advancement. However, there have been unprecedented drawbacks of fully automated weapon systems revealed in public recently and the fathers of Artificial Intelligence have warned about their errors against mankind. On the other hand, technically disadvantaged adversaries, especially North Korea, have honed their defense strategy with their old-fashioned analog military for decades. This issue brief analyzes the gap between the two sides—technically advanced and technically disadvantaged—in order to refine our technical prowess in the right direction with minimal reform.
Related Publications
-
South Korea as a Nuclear State: Trade-Offs and Choices
South Korea’s launch of its own Indo-Pacific strategy in December 2022 started the country’s ascent into “strategic clarity” for the US-led Indo-Pacific construct, winning favor with Washington for this policy […]
-
South Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and the IPEF: Convergence and Commonality
For some time now, the existing multilateral networks such as those of the United Nations (UN) system have been largely ineffective in providing good global governance and helping create resilience, […]
-
Washington Declaration: Beyond Korea, What it Means for India?
In April 2023, South Korea and the United States released the Washington Declaration to reiterate and upgrade their treaty alliance. In outlining a joint nuclear deterrence strategy, the Declaration reaffirmed […]
-
Seoul in India’s (new) middle order convergence
As both India and South Korea build their ties on the basis of democratic partnership and ASEAN centrality, the need for Seoul to emerge as a strong partner in India’s […]
-
Not Drawing a Parallel. Ukraine and Taiwan: An Indian Perspective
Russia’s war against Ukraine has not only had economic, diplomatic, and geopolitical repercussions, but also exaggerated the fear of accelerated conflicts in the Indo-Pacific, a region with several unresolved conflicts […]