How South Korea’s Weapons Industry Began
In 1968, the Republic of Korea was totally dependent on firearm and ammunition imports from the United States. South Korean firms only produced uniforms and related goods, not rifles, mortars, grenades or ammunition. The South Korean army still used vintage American M-1 rifles left over from World War II. Their total stock of ammunition was estimated to last just three days.
So when the United States announced a plan to maybe withdraw all of its troops from the Korean peninsula by 1975, the South Koreans went on high alert. In just a few years, they needed to build a domestic defense and military arms industry. Starting from almost literally nothing. They did it. In this video, we look at how South Korea founded what is today one of the world's biggest military arms industries. ## Beginnings Basically since its creation, South Korea relied upon the United States for its defense. The United Nations - led by the United States - went to war for South Korea in the early 1950s. After the war, American troops stationed on South
Korean soil deterred the North Korean authorities from resuming hostilities. South Korea's first president - serving through the war and into the 1950s - was Syngman Rhee. Elected in 1948, Rhee was a reliable anti-communist, but also a corrupt and strong-willed nationalist whose refusal to bend in certain things frustrated the Americans. In 1960, a then-84 year old Rhee won a fourth term as President. But election irregularities led
to a popular uprising, forcing Rhee to flee the country to the US where he later died in Hawaii. A year of instability and political squabbling followed. Amidst the chaos, military general Park Chung-hee seized power in the May 16 coup. He cracked
down on the protests and began implementing the economic reforms that he would be so famous for. Park Chung-hee came to power as a bit of an enigma. The Americans had some concerns based on his past associations with Communism. Ex-president Rhee had earlier arrested him and sentenced him to death for supposedly leading a Communist cell.
But the Americans came around on Park especially after he dispatched South Korean troops to Vietnam in 1965. That same year, he also resumed relations with Japan - another major American ally. ## Rising North Korean Aggression Early on, the North Koreans thought Park Chung-hee would crumble from domestic instability. Which considering how he came to power, was not unreasonable. But that failed to happen. And by 1966, it was clear that the successes of Park's first Five-Year Economic Plan quieted opposition to his authority.
Such success also drew unfavorable comparisons to the DPRK's own Seven-Year Plan, which was then falling far short of goal. The North Korean government decided to go on the offense to stir up domestic unrest, disrupt South Korea's ongoing economic reforms, and give the Americans - then embroiled in the Vietnam War - new headaches. In 1966, there were 13 recorded North Korean armed infiltrations into South Korea. The year after that, 1967, that leapt to 121. The year after that was even worse. Very famously, in January 1968, the DPRK sent 31 commandos to the Blue House - home of the South Korean President - in an attempted assassination. It resulted in the loss of 26 South Koreans and 4 Americans. Two days later, the North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo, an American intelligence ship, and its crew. This was a major Cold War incident that threatened to drag the Americans into another war in Asia.
Then in late October, the North Koreans sent 120 armed commandos to set up guerrilla camps in the sparsely populated Gangwon Province. They had thought the farmers there would be amenable to uniting with North Korea to topple Park. It took 70,000 counter-guerrillas two months to root them out. 1968 saw 217 armed infiltrations into the South, bringing the two Koreas to the brink of war once again. But the Americans insisted on
diplomacy to solve the Pueblo crisis and refused forceful retaliation for the Blue House crisis. This restraint continued even after April 15th 1969, when a North Korean airplane shot down an American reconnaissance plane - killing all 31 onboard. To Park and his team, the Americans' commitment to their defense no longer seemed as surefire. ## Nixon's Remarks During a thirteen-day long trip around the world in July 1969, Nixon stopped at the American territory of Guam.
The United States was then bedeviled by the seemingly never-ending Vietnam War. This two decade long, deeply divisive saga that eventually cost the lives of 30,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. During his presidential campaign in 1968, Nixon pledged "an honorable end to the war in Vietnam". A year later in 1969, that honorable end still seemed far away. Asia's various leaders wanted to know Nixon's thoughts on American future involvement in Asia, considering the Vietnam War's then-deep unpopularity with the voting public. So Dick gave some prepared remarks. Those remarks were not all that unconventional. China, North Korea, and North Vietnam remained long-term threats to peace. The United States will stand by
its treaty commitments, but will also try to avoid another conflict like Vietnam. Reporters pressed him on that last bit. Asked what might happen if another situation like Vietnam came up, he said that it would be handled case-by-case. Then he added: > I recall in 1964 some advice that I got from Ayub Khan ... of Pakistan ... He said:
"The role of the United States in ... any of those countries which have internal subversion is to help them fight the war but not fight the war for them." > Now, that, of course, is a good general principle, one which we would hope would be our policy generally throughout the world. It was clear that Nixon was speaking off the cuff, but the press saw his remarks as a policy, calling it the "Guam Doctrine" at first.
Later in November 1969, Nixon made a speech re-emphasizing this direction, turning the "Guam Doctrine" into the "Nixon Doctrine". ## The Nixon Doctrine The Nixon Doctrine told the world that the United States will continue to fulfill its existing treaty obligations in Asia. Yet it also acknowledged that America cannot police the world. The growing
anti-war movement caused policymakers to rethink the costs of anti-communism even when hit with provocations like the Pueblo incident. In March 1969, the Soviets and Chinese fought a undeclared battle at Zhenbao Island. Nixon thought that the growing Sino-Soviet Split presented an opportunity to warm relations with the Chinese and de-escalate American commitments in Asia.
So the idea came down to this: Asian countries should be able to defend themselves on their own, without as much intervention from the United States. Asia for Asian hands, so it went. The Nixon Doctrine did not all that differ from previous administrations. But Park and his administration had long suspected that the Americans might pull their troops from Korean soil. They hoped that sending their own military forces to Vietnam alongside the Americans would help stave that off. But a withdrawal seemed imminent. And indeed in November 1969, Nixon asked National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger for a plan to halve the troop numbers in Korea.
By now, Park Chung-hee had soured on wagering his administration's security on the outcome of big-power diplomacy games. At his New Year's Message on January 1, 1970, he began stressing the importance of self-reliance. ## Withdrawal In March 1970, the US Ambassador in Seoul announced a plan to withdraw 20,000 American troops from Korea. This came as a major shock to Park Chung-hee, who had hoped for more time to build up the economy first - a task judged to be done by 1975.
August 1970, Vice President Spiro Agnew went to Korea and told Park about the necessity of reducing American defense spending. Park agreed to the withdrawal, but wanted aid to modernize his army. After a heated debate, the US agreed to $1.5 billion. Agnew also apparently assured Park that the US would not withdraw any more troops than the 20,000. But then a few weeks later during a trip to Taiwan, he told the press that a total withdrawal was possible within five years. A complete contradiction of what he told Park earlier.
## Behind Internally, the Americans believed that Park Chung-hee was exaggerating his weakness. The Nixon administration estimated that Park's military already could repel an unilateral North Korean attack - assuming the North Koreans were not supported by either the Chinese or Soviets. Yet there were things to be concerned about. The DPRK had a massive head start on their own domestic capacity build up - having started years earlier after the Soviets withdrew military aid when the DPRK choose to side with the Chinese during the Sino-Soviet Split. At the start of the 1970s, the North Koreans' military strength outclassed the South Koreans - with twice as many ground vehicles, aircraft, and four times the maritime boats. They also spent
about 14 to 30% of their GNP on defense, while South Korea only 4.3% and 4.4% in 1970 and 1971. ## Homeland Reserve Efforts to start closing the gap got off to a slow start. Back in 1968, just a few weeks after the Pueblo incident, Park created the Homeland Reserve Forces or today, the Republic of Korea Reserve Forces (향토 예비군).
The idea was to arm civilians in the villages, towns and cities to defend themselves against North Korean infiltration. The arms would be produced domestically. With over 2.5 million enrolled in the reserve forces, such production was necessary. But it was taking forever to get those arms made. Three years earlier in 1965,
when negotiating the deployment of Korean troops to Vietnam, the Americans initially agreed to help the Koreans produce the M-16 rifle domestically. But the US Congress undercut this commitment by imposing restrictions on arms technology exports. They thought that the South Koreans having M16s would cause them to unilaterally trigger another war. Only after Park announced that it would "bid in the world market" that an agreement finally came together for a plant for the M-16 rifle. I suppose Americans arms dealers realized they might actually lose those sales. This was built as a joint venture between the Koreans and Colt Industries, the rifle's patent-holder.
You can sense the Koreans' frustration. The United States wanted them to shoulder more of the defense burden. Yet the Americans were also actively impeding the Koreans from acquiring the weapons needed for said shouldering. ## Failure of the Four Core Projects Park Chung-hee had spent time in Japan, and was a student of Meiji Japan's modernization. His experiences there taught him that the strengthening of the military was tied to that of the economy. A powerful military cannot be achieved without a powerful industrial base behind it. That base began with steel.
In 1968, Park Chung-hee secured reparation funds from Japan to found a steel-making company called Pohang Iron & Steel Company, better known today as POSCO. In early 1970, Park Chung-hee ordered his economic planners to build up what he believed to be other major foundations for an indigenous defense industry - the Four Core Factories. So in addition to POSCO, factories for heavy machinery, steel, shipbuilding, and pig iron. Park also issued Order 5267 to set up a new, independent agency for domestic weapons R&D: the Agency of Defense Development or ADD (국방과학연구소). The ADD and its
169 personnel would do the R&D to create new weapons. Unfortunately, several problems came up. the Korean government could not get the foreign loans to fund the Four Core Factories. Japanese investors suspected the project's potential military applications and did not want to irk their American patrons. Same with the Europeans and others. Time was running short. In March 1971, 20,000 troops left Korea. Critically,
the American 7th Division withdrew from the Korean Demilitarized Zone or DMZ. For the first time since the end of the Korean War, the ROK was guarding the 155-mile line on their own. In November 1971, the Economic Planning Bureau briefed President Park that the four factories could not be completed. With four years left, Park Chung-hee found himself at a bit of odds. And then something unexpected happened.
## Oh Won-chol Following the depressing November 1971 briefing, a guy named Oh Won-chol, then the Assistant Deputy Minister of Commerce and Industry, approached Park's chief of staff to share a plan. If everything goes well, Oh claimed, then all the necessary rifles, grenades, mortars and mines would be produced in six months without needing any foreign loans. This led to an intense four-hour presentation to the President himself. The key point was the elegant weaving together of the military with other civilian industries like iron, steel, or heavy chemicals.
The Koreans' thinking at the time was to build separate, specialized military factories - owned by the state - for each military item. Just like the M-16 rifle factory Korea and the US were then in the process of building. It was also akin to the approach of the DPRK or the Soviets. Oh saw this as wasteful and expensive, and thus proposed that desired military weapons be broken down into individual parts and reverse-engineered. Those parts would then be reproduced by civilian factories, and then assembled under the purview of the ADD. Simply speaking, Oh advocated to lean on the civilian industry to rapidly build up South Korean indigenous defense capacity. Turn the whole economy into a dual-use system. Oh also pointed out that the civilian industry can benefit from the military's stringent requirements. For instance, the need for higher precision steel tools - as tight as 10
micrometers - will upscale the steel industry's precision skills and train more workers. As I mentioned earlier, Park Chung-hee long believed that the strengthening of the military and economy had to happen side by side. So it is no surprise that he bought in. Thusly, Park promoted Oh to be directly under his purview as the Second Senior Economic Secretary - an unprecedented promotion - and then gave the ADD its first major task.
## Lightning Project The ADD and its scientists were to lead the emergency nationalization of the production of several "basic weapons" like rifles, machine guns, grenades, and landmines. The President wanted to see prototypes for all those by the end of December 1971, so 40 days. For this reason, the project was named the "Lightning Project", or Beongae. Interviewed later, the 10 lead members of the team remember nearly being in despair at the task. But then they decided to just get started. Even if they
don't succeed in everything, they can get something done. So they worked around the clock on old American weapons like the M15 anti-tank mine, M1919 Browning machine gun, 3.5 inch bazooka or M1 carbine. Each weapon was taken apart, with every component measured and copied to assemble a blueprint.
Impressively, the team finished ahead of the deadline and the first prototypes were fired. Some items like the bazookas fired fine. However, the barrels of the rifles and machine guns exploded - an indication of their poor quality and lack of precision.
The ADD team went back to the drawing board, while simultaneously adding several products like personal firearms and communications devices. Meanwhile, mass production was scheduled and set up - with military factories only doing final assembly and qualification. As this was happening, Park Chung-hee was gathering force for an all out push. After winning a close election against democracy advocate Kim Dae-jung, Park in December 1971 declared a state of emergency - suspending the Constitution and dissolving the legislature. These powers helped
him mobilize the nation's resources like as if it it were in war, but received great criticism. Kim was one such critic. Two years later, the Korean CIA kidnapped Kim from a Tokyo hotel and put him on a boat with weights on his legs - apparently to be dumped out at sea. Only stern intervention by US ambassador Philip Habib kept Kim alive. Wow, that really happened. Anyway. Park Chung-hee himself attended the second test firing in April 1972. The
progress was sufficiently alarming to the Americans that they sent over a technical team to Korea - both to provide "guidance" and also to keep low-key tabs on their progress. ## Polar Bear The success that the ADD had with basic weapons inspired Park Chung-hee to push them further. He had seen the effectiveness of next-generation, more precision-guided products like ballistic missiles during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. Park soon grew concerned about his military's ability to hit Pyongyang - some 160 kilometers away from the DMZ - using only aerial bombers. With Seoul so close to the DMZ, Seoul can be destroyed with Pyongyang untouched before the Americans can arrive. A lightning victory just like the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, which ended in less than 2 weeks.
After murmuring about how South Korea should have moved its capital down to Daejeon after the Korean War, he ordered Oh and the ADD to make a ballistic missile with 200 kilometers of range by 1975. The team - led by ADD researcher and MIT grad Lee Kyung-seo - worked under heavy secrecy, knowing that the US would not approve. His boss, Oh Won-chol, thought that they should first build an intermediate-range rocket to build competence. Lee disagreed. He wanted to right away start on the longer range rocket by first reverse-engineering a few Nike Hercules surface-to-air missiles they had access to. Park ended up siding with Lee's plan.
The ADD contracted the Nike-Hercules' maker McDonnell Douglas to develop an improved missile. Ten ADD people were assigned to work alongside the McDonnell Douglas people during the planning stage. They took detailed notes which they shared with their cohorts. The inadvertent technology transfer was so successful the ADD canceled the rest of the contract.
At some point, 1976 or so, the Americans again got wind of their progress and again offered technical assistance if the Koreans promised to limit their missiles' range to only Pyongyang. And of course, the assistance team kept covert tabs on what the Koreans were doing. The Korea-1 or NHK-1 Polar Bear (Baekgom, 백곰) missile first fired in 1978. The accomplishment of such a complex weapon in less than a decade was an astounding national achievement. As a reward, Park personally donated 60 million won to build a swimming pool for the ADD staff. The South Koreans also initiated their nuclear weapons program in the early 1970s. In this,
they were ultimately unsuccessful - the US nixed an attempt to import dual-use technologies from Canada or France - but it is not too much to think that the Polar Bear would have been helpful for that. ## HCIP One of Oh's key points had been that a domestic military cannot be achieved without a powerful industrial base. In October 1972, Park deepened his personal powers, which gave him the presidency for life plus the power to mobilize the economy like the Japanese war economy during the 1930s - merging the public and private together. A few months later, Park announced the Heavy Chemical and Industry Plan or HCIP. Prior to the HCIP, so during the 1960s, the Korean economy relied on exports, but across a broad range of industries. Up to 38 different incentive structures were available.
The HCIP harnessed the President's power to funnel all those incentives into what was called the Heavy Industry and Chemical industries. And that comprised of six sectors: Steel, special non-ferrous metals, ships, machinery, electronics, and petrochemicals. On the surface, the HCIP looked like a civilian plan to build the economy. And indeed, Park publicly announced economically beneficial goals of $10 billion in annual exports and raising the per capita GDP to $1,000 by 1980. Beneath the surface however, the HCIP's primary objectives were to build up the country's potential military-industrial capacity. The six sectors were chosen not because they were cool,
but because they had dual-use applications for military production and development. Steel as a basic feedstock for everything; Heavy machinery, for jets, military vehicles, or heavy artillery; Ships, for warships and subs; Petrochemicals, for gunpowder, grenades and bombs; Special non-ferrous metals, for ammo; Electronics for reconnaissance tools and military communications devices; This discretion was chosen so as to not alarm the American investors providing the foreign currency for this investment drive. And the North Koreans too. In May 1972, Park Chung-hee sent a delegation to meet with Kim Il-sung's people. And to the shock of the Americans,
the two made a joint statement in July about Korean reunification. ## Chaebol With the HCIP, Park directed his commercial banks to issue immense amount of credit loans to build factories and capacity. Civilian factories were not allowed to have military be more than 30% of their production during peacetime, giving them ability to scale up to 100% if war broke out. Famously, development drove through a circle of favored conglomerates or chaebol. Park had no particular love for them. Many had been collaborators and opportunists during the
colonial period. However, he realized that their efficiency, huge scale, financial wherewithal, and compliant management made them his best partners to drive the capacity buildup of his military. So he turned the Chaebol into military contractors. The ADD worked with Kia Heavy Industries to produce howitzers and mortars. Hyundai made tanks. Kia
Motors cranked out jeeps in 1977. Daewoo Shipbuilding built ships. And Daewoo Precision took over the old M16 coproduction plant. And so on. Military spending and advancement spilled over into the civilian sector - with Hyundai, Kia, Samsung, and Daewoo benefiting the most. During this decade, the Hyundai chaebol seized the Korean automotive industry and built up the massive Ulsan Shipyard. In 1974, the Americans - again seeing the potential threat to their own arms sales to Korea - allowed for joint ventures and technology transfers between American and Korean defense contractors.
Shortly after, the Koreans began discretely exporting their excess production - starting first with non-lethal items, and later moving into small arms and ammunition. By 1977, South Korea was exporting over $100 million of arms, making them one of the Third World's leading arms exporters. ## Conclusion South Korea's enmeshment of the civilian and military industries hints at one of the key benefits of a massive industrial base - you can turn them into weapons factories if the time ever comes. Korea saw massive economic growth through the 1970s. Exports expanded
at 32% a year between 1972 and 1976. The $10 billion export goal was reached a few years early in 1977. GNP grew at an average of 10%. But Park Chung-hee's successes in the economy and military came with immense controversy. His authoritarian rule and oppression of people's freedoms - which he saw as justified as North Korean aggressions continued throughout the 1970s - made him a difficult partner and tiresome to live under. In 1978, the same year the country first launched its indigenous missiles, the government's elections - though rigged - showed less popular support than ever. Relations with the US were just as toxic. To add to the human rights scandals, we had Koreagate.
In 1976, it came out that a Korean agent had bribed Washington officials to try and reverse continued troop withdrawals. Two years later, there were four Congressional investigations into Korean actions. By the time of his assassination in 1979, Park Chung-hee had built his country into a powerful economic and military force, but was less popular than ever inside and out of it. I wonder what might have happened had he lived.
2024-10-15 12:04
