The Future Is Now for ROK Army
by James Na ~ December 1st, 2009. Filed under: Afghanistan, ROK Miltary.The Firearms Blog reports that the ROK Army unit being deployed to Afghanistan will be armed with the K11 airburst assault rifle (follow the link for more information including picture and video of the rifle).
This rifle is derived from an American experimental project that was abandoned for good reasons.
While I applaud South Korea’s effort to modernize its armed forces, I find that its endeavors are often fixated on shiny, gold-plated hardware like this rifle. The prophet of military transformation and the author of the now much discussed and misunderstood OODA loop, John Boyd, once said that the priority of America’s military should be “people first, ideas second, hardware third” but that the Pentagon worked in reverse.
Instead of spending money on F-15K’s or airburst rifles, South Korea ought to spend more money on improving the professional quality of its military personnel, abandoning the conscript system in favor of a long-service professional force of a smaller size, improved readiness and training and etc.
If the conflict in Aghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated anything about infantry combat, it is that well-trained riflemen with “outdated” rifles, including M14’s (provided they have good quality optics), perform magnificently against poorly trained fighters no matter what types of weapons the latter possess.
The Israelis have long demonstrated a well-trained, highly motivated force operating with a superior doctrine can work wonders even with obsolescent weaponry (on the other hand, despite the vast improvements in technology, the IDF has done relatively poorly of late in conflicts due to decline in morale and motivation of its fighting personnel as well as poor higher-level leadership).
It is about time that both the political and military leadership of South Korea understand that operational readiness and combat power are not derived primarily from sexy weaponry. Next time North Koreans insert their vaunted special operations force on South Korea’s soil, the best counter would be a superbly trained force of South Korean riflemen with high readiness, motivation and tactical proficiency, not panicky conscripts armed with futuristic weapons.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Interesting. I generally agree that the money could have been used on better things but a real life combat demonstration could be good for this as an export item. However I don’t think they’ll ever need to use it as they’ll most likely be helping the reconstruction and protection rather than in combat roles.
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 am
Not on “things,” but on people — high quality personnel.
I do not think the export value as a justification makes sense. Indigenous development of weapons, particularly for a small country like ROK, rarely if ever makes financial sense.
Technology development, autarky and national pride are variously cited as justifications often for expensive weapons developments, but these arguments tend to fall apart too when examined closely.
It just comes down to the fact that there is a great convergence among generals who like shiny new weapons, industrialists who like the government funding and policymakers who like to provide local jobs.
I am not suggesting, by the way, that high tech weapons are useless. They can be potent force multipliers in the right hands — those being the hands of highly trained and motivated people. So I view the latter as a priority and the technology as a luxury.
As gun aficionados often say in another context, which could be equally applicable in this context as well, “guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:15 pm
I’m heavily involved in Korea’s defense industry and while you say that “Indigenous development of weapons, particularly for a small country like ROK, rarely if ever makes financial sense.”, I disagree. The ROK exported $1.17 billion in defense products in 2009. Not nearly as much as their commercial product exports, but also a good sized number for such a relatively small country. I do agree with you that they sometimes tend to focus on products that are “too hi-tech” and/or futuristic.