The ROK Air Force plans to begin work on a 12 trillion won (roughly US$12 billion) project to independently develop and deploy 40 next-generation fighter aircraft by 2018.
The problem is, the nation learned about this when the newly launched Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) mistakenly leaked the information on the Internet.
The DAPA, dispensing with any troublesome screening, decided to post on its homepage a copy of the Defense Ministry’s strategic upgrade plan–a second-class military secret.
Should the plan be carried out as intended, the ROKAF will be the proud owner of some 400 fighter jets by the late 2020s, including F-16s, F-15Ks and a next-generation fighter currently referred to as the KF-X project.
Among the other 250 goodies leaked on the Internet was the Navy’s plan to acquire 3,000-ton submarines (see here) and next-generation patrol boats, as well as the Army’s plans to acquire Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS).
The National Intelligence Service is looking into whether the DAPA broke national security laws. The DAPA, which was launched at the beginning of the year to ensure transparency in the nation’s weapon acquisition process, is now coming into fire for ensuring just a tad too much transparency.
5 Comments
It would be good if Korea stopped to like to showing off.
Dream sheets with no funding.
They have a secret weapon;
http://www.dprkstudies.org/200.....equipment/
MND did not get the word obviously. The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is the last manned fighter aircraft that’s gonna be built. They’re wasting their money if their gonna develop (from scratch) a new manned fighter.
Upcoming program information like this has been considered “secret” for years, but any guy worth his salt selling to the military market here has this kind of information already included in his five-year orders plan. In fact, it does them a service to be as open as possible about what they want to procure in the future so contractors can be ready. Branding it “secret” and threatening leakers is a counterproductive hindrance.
Separately, I had understood the 40 “next-generation” aircraft to be a follow-on buy of F-15Ks. Just how “indigenous” the KF-X will be remains to be seen. Even with technology already transferred in no way could KAI et al. go about developing their own state-of-the-art fighter.
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