At the recent ADEX defense expo in Seoul, South Korea was showing off its KF-X next-generation fighter jet. Although just a large plastic model for now, a lot is riding on this program. The KF-X embodies the future of South Korean aerospace, and if it succeeds, it will cement the country’s place as a frontrunner in the global aviation industry.
The KF-X is expected to achieve first flight by 2022, with deliveries to the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) starting in 2024. But even if the KF-X flies, will it ever get off the ground?
The ambitious KF-X program
The KF-X fighter is a twin-engine stealthy fighter jet, and it will feature an AESA (active electronically scanned array) radar and other advanced avionics. Consequently, it has been deemed a “4.5-generation” combat aircraft, ostensibly an improvement over standard 4th-generation fighters like the F-16, but not as advanced as the F-22 or F-35 (so-called 5th-generation fighters). This puts the KF-X in roughly the same class as the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Swedish Gripen, or the Russian Su-35.
The KF-X is being jointly developed by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) and US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, as part of a deal in which the ROKAF purchased 40 F-35 fighters from the United States. The South Korean government is investing more than US$7 billion in the KF-X, and the ROKAF expects to buy 120 of these fighters to replace its aging fleet of F-4 Phantoms and F-5s. In addition, Seoul has succeeded in signing up Indonesia as a partner in the program, and Jakarta could acquire as many as 80 fighters to meet its own “IF-X” requirements.
Under the terms of the project contract, the KAI-Lockheed team will underwrite 20% of incurred development costs, with the ROKAF and Indonesia will cover 60% and 20% of the costs, respectively.
The technonationalist driver
All this, however, begs the question: if the ROKAF is already getting the F-35, why build something that is less capable? The answer lies mainly in something called military technonationalism.
MIT professor Richard Samuels has argued that technonationalism is nothing less than the ‘struggle for independence and autonomy through the indigenization of technology’
Military technonationalism (a word first coined by Robert Reich in the 1980s) is about becoming more self-reliant in armaments, but it is also much more than that. It is as much about geopolitics as it is about economic independence or technological self-sufficiency. MIT professor Richard Samuels has argued that technonationalism is nothing less than the “struggle for independence and autonomy through the indigenization of technology,” and the “embrace of technology for national security.” As such, technonationalism serves broad, bold national strategic ambitions, particularly the emergence of a country as a modern, independent, even powerful, nation-state.
Of course, technonationalism is not limited just to armaments production or just to South Korea. For instance, countries like Brazil and South Africa have also pursued technonationalist “security and development” strategies when it came to arms manufacturing.
Few countries, however, have raised technonationalism to a fine art as much as South Korea. This driver can be found in nearly every aspect of the economy: iron and steel industries, automobiles, shipbuilding, electronics, and so on. These same strategies are now being applied to aerospace and defense.
One of the best examples is KAI. This company, the product of a forced merger between three money-losing smaller aviation firms, is the personification of Korea’s hopes and dreams for its defense industry. The ROK has the ambition of becoming a world-class airframe designer and manufacturer, and it expects KAI to eventually be among the world’s leading aerospace-producing companies. In turn, KAI’s current vision is to be a “Total Solution Provider” and to rank among the world’s top 15 aerospace companies by 2020.
Arms exports and the sad case of the T-50
Technonationalism alone, however, cannot build a sustainable, economically viable defense industry. The cold, hard truth is, Korea’s own defense market is too small to support a national fighter jet program. To be profitable, a company must sell hundreds of combat aircraft; even with Indonesia chipping in and buying – perhaps – 80 KF-Xs, Korea and KAI have to find other customers for the bulk of its fighter jet production.
In fact, Korea expects to export up to 600 KF-X fighters to other countries. However, this is likely to be way over-optimistic, and perhaps dangerously so.
Take the case of the T-50 Golden Eagle, Korea’s first indigenous jet aircraft program. Launched in in the mid-1990s, the T-50 was an ambitious program to design and manufacture an advanced trainer/light attack jet capable of supersonic speeds and equipped with a sophisticated avionics package. In addition to being a trainer jet, this aircraft was adapted in other versions, including the TA-50 lead-in fighter/light attack plane, and the FA-50, a fighter aircraft outfitted with a radar and capable of firing a broader suite of weapons. It was intended to replace T-38, A-37, and F-5 fighters in the ROKAF.
Export sales, however, were to account for most of the program. At one time, KAI expected to export up 1,000 T-50s and capture one-quarter of the world’s market. In fact, over the past decade, Korea has sold just 64 T-50s to just four countries: Indonesia, Iraq, the Philippines, and Thailand.
An uphill road for South Korea’s aerospace business
The South Koreans are finding that breaking into the international fighter jet business is incredibly difficult. The barriers to entry are high. The market is already saturated with a number of highly capable competing products, such as the F-35 and the Su-30. Moreover, American, Russian, and European aerospace companies have spent decades cultivating their customer base, and it is hard to win them away.
South Korea’s strength has always been in its optimism, its ability to believe that if it perseveres and just tries harder, it can overcome any barrier or setback. This positivity has worked before, and ultimately South Korea’s aerospace and defense sector expects to grow out of its problems. Optimism alone, however, is not going to sell fighter jets, and technonationalism may be leading South Korea toward a rude awakening.
The opinions expressed here are the author’s own.
they will make fighter jets as good as anyone else and create a new export industry
The South Koreans are smart, and hard working———-if they so desire they could build a fighter jet in there sleep———-look what the country has done from the ashes of the Korean War———-and with no HELP———–other then there smarts, guts and hard work!!!
Mr. Bitzinger, "build their own" is relative. A lot of the technologies are core pieces are coming from others. The engines will be from GE, the landing gear is from a Canadian company, the AESA radar is being made with Israeli technology, the IRST sensor is being provided by a European company, the avionics is probably being built with help from Lockheed, etc. Korea is essentially acting as a systems integrator rather than building completely from scratch. That’s something you should at least acknowledge in your article.
I think they make the subs still paying the German companies royalties.
"Korea has sold just 64 T-50s to just four countries: Indonesia, Iraq, the Philippines, and Thailand."
This still has to be considered a success. No other country has been this successful other than America, Russia and some European countries. Sweden’s Gripen was not even this successful, nor is Pakistan’s JF-17 or India’s Tejas.
Additionally, there should be further sales of T-50 (and variants) to Thailand, the Philippines, Iraq and perhaps Indonesia again. The verdict you dish out is too soon as the story has just begun to write itself.
"The South Koreans are finding that breaking into the international fighter jet business is incredibly difficult. The barriers to entry are high."
So? The barriers to entry in consumer electronics, cars, ships and steel were high too, but the Koreans penetrated and excelled in all of them. If anybody can do it the Koreans can. They have an undeniabily successful history of being able to penentrated saturated markets through the following general rubric:
1. Find deals to acquire technologies cheaply (Samsung w/Sanyo technology and Hyundai with rejected Mitsubishi technology)
2. Use an underserved niche as the entry point.
3. Come in at a competitive price advantage.
4. Dominate the niche, then expand into other larger niches in the same market. Still retain your price advantage.
5. Improve quality and capabilities of your products, raise your prices accordingly.
6. Use profits to massively fund R&D. Come out with products better than your competitions’.
The Koreans did this in consumer electronics, technology components (particularly with Apple, where many of Apple’s most reliable component manufacturers are Korean), white goods and cars.
They know how to do this and are great executioners because it’s a smart and disciplined workforce and highly educated and competitive society. I know. I had Korean parents.
"Optimism alone, however, is not going to sell fighter jets, and technonationalism may be leading South Korea toward a rude awakening."
Replace "… sell fighter jets…" with "ships" in the 70’s, "cars" in the 80’s, "consumer electronics" in the 90’s, "technological components" in the 00’s, etc. Everybody doubts the Koreans, but few of those doubts ever materialize. Everybody underestimates Korean resolve, persistance, determination and talent. So, when Koreans do in fact become au fait in things the "experts" were pretty sure they couldn’t do they exclaim "surprise." They are not a people you want to bet against once they put their national energies behind something. Some people on earth can only try hard at one thing and as soon as they hit a difficulty they surcome. Not the Koreans. They built up dominance in key industries because they kept trying and trying again and again, not being discouraged by initial and mid-term failures. Look at how Samsung dominated first Nokia, then Sony, then Motorola and is head-to-head with Apple in phones? You don’t understand the Korean psychology. You are interpreting them within the construct of your own cultural lens. Because of that, your analysis of them will be wrong, just as analysis by other so-called "experts" in the past were wrong about them too.
Everything Edward Kim said about the Koreans is "TRUE". I spent more then 30 years working with Koreans in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC ———and had Korean contacts in LA and Chicago———–and all I will say is WOW.There was a lot of discrimination against Korean merchants by salesman, danger lurked around every corner in the HOOD, they had to learn a new language and adjust to a new culture————and boy did they succeed. Koreans are also the bravest people I have ever met———–and many were killed in the hood by criminals———-now just look at the children of these BRAVE Korean merchants——-98% of them highly educated and they are the educated, upper class in America. I would never bet against the Koreans———–there SPIRIT is like no other in this Global world——-and yes China is a huge market for South Korea BUT the Koreans know the only way to stay a head of the Middle Kingdom is to out smart, out tech and out work the Chinese.
Fake news from China!!!!