Seriously, though, the ROK Government would like to see its military products be as globally competitive as its commercial products in the international market. So, I’m sure the MALE/FEMALE may be part of a longer-term export drive orchestrated by the Blue House and/or the MND.

I don’t have anything against the domestic military industry, but one wonders if this should be done while sacrificing military readiness. I once remember a former commander of the Israeli Air Force saying that the objective of the Air Force was to defend Israel, not prop up the local aerospace industry.

In Korea, the military is being asked to wait several years for locally made equipment, which are in some cases, rehashes of existing foreign equipment, when it is possible to buy proven off-the-shelf equipment cheaply and quickly.

IMO, military readiness should come first, not the creation of an export based defense industry.

Seriously, though, the ROK Government would like to see its military products be as globally competitive as its commercial products in the international market. So, I’m sure the MALE/FEMALE may be part of a longer-term export drive orchestrated by the Blue House and/or the MND.

That is a good idea. There is another big potential selling point **maybe** in buying Korean gear — only if it uses Korean chips and chipsets that are guaranteed free of kill switches and other nasties, thus insuring that the gear can not be compromised. (see The Hunt for the Kill Switch):

Last September, Israeli jets bombed a suspected nuclear installation in northeastern Syria. Among the many mysteries still surrounding that strike was the failure of a Syrian radar—supposedly state-of-the-art—to warn the Syrian military of the incoming assault. It wasn’t long before military and technology bloggers concluded that this was an incident of electronic warfare—and not just any kind. (there was guessing). . . that the commercial off-the-shelf microprocessors in the Syrian radar might have been purposely fabricated with a hidden “backdoor” inside. By sending a (special) code to those chips, an unknown antagonist had disrupted the chips’ function and temporarily blocked the radar.

I suspect that Korea has some very serious security housecleaning in regards to protecting its technology; there seem to be quite a few problems, judging from the last decade of news.

#5, “Wah, Wah, Insult, Insult”

I get the impression you spend more time trying to be offensive than you do making your point. But that’s just me.

To return to the topic at hand, I don’t deny that a UAV can save lives. The question is - how much use will the ROK get out of them in the present situation? Are satellite images that poor for the needs of the ROK army? Is the ROK air force losing that many pilots to recon sorties over the border?

Of course, I guess China isn’t that far away either …

Good observation. Exactly what I was trying to say in the earlier post about the Apache.

Buying the Global Hawk would be very expensive as it is the state of the art platform among UAVs. With S Korea using the same money to develop the MALE, it could in effect also be developing the FEMALE (”For Export MALE”)

Hmmm…perhaps I should see if I can register that moniker before anyone else does…

Seriously, though, the ROK Government would like to see its military products be as globally competitive as its commercial products in the international market. So, I’m sure the MALE/FEMALE may be part of a longer-term export drive orchestrated by the Blue House and/or the MND.