Recent patterns of warfare show that battles are no longer decided by fighter jets and missiles alone. Rather, drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) are playing a decisive role in determining the outcome of wars. Drones can be mass-produced at low cost and can reduce loss of life on the battlefield. Furthermore, they have emerged as a representative asymmetric force in that they can be combined with artificial intelligence (AI) to improve precision. What is notable is that the drone threat is expanding beyond the military domain to all critical infrastructure, including airports and power plants. Drones are now becoming not simply unmanned aerial vehicles, but a "game changer" that fundamentally transforms the methods of war, terrorism, and crime.
As a result, the overall national security and social safety systems must be redesigned to respond to the drone threat. This redesign has two main directions: fostering drone-related industries and building an integrated civilian-government-military response system to counter drone threats. The problem is that the domestic industrial base for drones is considerably weak. There are about 600 drone manufacturing companies, but most are small businesses with annual revenue of 170 million won or less, and they lack technological capabilities, remaining at the level of assembling Chinese-made parts.
The government recently finalized the "National Drone and Counter-Drone Transformation Strategy," with the goal of creating 2 trillion won in public demand over the next five years. The specific tasks are as follows. First, public demand volumes will be divided into three stages—pilot, initial, and follow-up—to improve predictability, and an integrated acquisition system spanning from demand aggregation to contracting and quality assurance will be activated. Second, a certification system for public demand will be established through standardization, and national-level performance standards for counter-drone equipment will be swiftly prepared. Third, research and development (R&D) functions currently scattered across ministries will be reorganized around three pillars—demonstration support, supply chain stabilization, and future technology acquisition—and a "K-Drone Civilian-Military Integrated Cluster" will be newly designated. Fourth, education and qualification systems will be newly created to train experts, and regulations such as the Radio Waves Act and no-fly zones will be improved. This strategy involves forming a strong governance structure centered on the Prime Minister's Office to unify drone and counter-drone policy, which is divided among various ministries including the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the National Intelligence Service. Along with this, it will also pursue the establishment of a drone and counter-drone ecosystem based on domestically produced equipment.
However, there is still insufficient discussion on building a counter-drone defense system to confront North Korea's drone offensive using unmanned aircraft and low-cost small drones. In particular, in terms of legislation, there is currently the "Act on the Promotion of Drone Use and Foundation Building," which falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, but there is no overarching law that includes counter-drone provisions. As a result, overlapping duties or blind spots are occurring among related agencies. In addition, it is difficult not only to establish command structures for peacetime and wartime to respond to drone threats, but also to pursue various policies. Therefore, the existing law needs to be fully revised into a Drone and Counter-Drone Act that also includes content related to counter-drone measures and responses to drone threats.
There are also concerns regarding the policy push to foster the drone industry. First, this strategy centers on large-scale budget investment and public procurement. This raises concerns about mass-producing small businesses that seek only to secure government subsidies and public procurement volumes without owning original technology. Also, if domestic standards alone are insisted upon for security reasons, it could create a structure in which domestic companies can only survive within the narrow well of the Korean public market. Furthermore, with the core competitiveness of the drone market shifting away from hardware toward data analysis platforms and global standard operating systems (OS), a hardware-centered strategy has limitations. A consensus-style committee within the Prime Minister's Office could potentially undermine ministerial expertise, possibly leading to difficulties in efficient policy implementation.
Therefore, the government's drone policy must be formulated with the global market in mind, including platform promotion. The Prime Minister's Office needs to consider a structure in which it exercises only minimal coordination functions while each ministry autonomously takes responsibility and carries out implementation. As the convergence of drones with AI, space, robotics, and autonomous driving accelerates, drones are expected to evolve into a core platform connecting national security and the digital economy. Ultimately, the future of the K-Drone depends on whether the country can leap forward as an intelligent drone powerhouse combining AI, semiconductors, telecommunications, and security—rather than remaining a hardware manufacturing nation.
