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South Korea’s supersized aircraft carrier folly

South Korea has just upsized its aircraft carrier ambitions from a 30,000 to a 50,000-ton vessel, a plan critics say makes little economic or strategic sense in sight of adversaries’ hypersonic and other carrier-killer missile capabilities.

Naval News reported that South Korea’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) will begin preliminary policy research on building the CVX carrier following other research that showed the feasibility of developing a naval version of its indigenous KF-21 4.5 generation fighter, known as the KF-21N.

The fighter jet, projected to cost US$1.3 billion per aircraft, would conceivably be launched from the CVX’s decks.

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