"The Future Is a War of Advanced Strategic Weapons... Science and Defense Are Inseparable"

<기사> Ministry of Science and ICT and Agency for Defense Development Hold Morning Meeting on the 20th to Discuss Strengthening Cooperation System

Reference photo.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] Future wars are expected to undergo unimaginable changes compared to conventional wars due to the full-scale emergence of advanced technologies. A representative example is last February when Turkey, with just a few unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the Korean-made K9 Thunder self-propelled howitzer upgraded version T-155 battery, dealt a devastating blow to about 100 conventional forces such as Syrian tanks that were advancing fearlessly. The September 2019 bombing incident at Saudi Arabia's oil facilities is another example. Despite boasting the strongest military power in the Middle East with U.S. military support, Saudi Arabia was unable to prevent the intrusion and bombing by drones equipped with small launch devices. These cases showed the outline of future battlefields where strategic weapons using advanced technology, rather than overwhelming firepower, will lead the course of war.

Future wars are becoming arenas for cutting-edge weapons such as high-power lasers, drones and robots, unmanned vessels and fighter jets, stealth fighters, tanks, and submarines. Accordingly, the government has decided to strengthen the cooperation system between national research and development (R&D) and defense R&D, while doubling efforts to secure advanced strategic technologies through challenging research. Referring to the U.S. investment in disruptive innovation technologies, Korea plans to boldly invest in highly difficult but innovative technologies to develop advanced strategic weapons.

In this regard, on the morning of the 20th, Lee Kyung-soo, Director of the Science and Technology Innovation Headquarters at the Ministry of Science and ICT, visited the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) in Daejeon and held a meeting with ADD experts under the theme of "Introducing a Korean-style DARPA to Secure Advanced Strategic Technologies in the Era of Global Technology Hegemony Competition."

DARPA is a specialized R&D management agency under the U.S. Department of Defense that boldly invests in disruptive innovation technologies for national security. It is famous for playing a decisive role in the development of the Internet (ARPAnet) and voice recognition (Siri), among others.

At this meeting, participants unanimously agreed on the need to remove barriers between science and technology R&D led by 25 government-funded research institutes under the Ministry of Science and ICT and defense R&D handled by ADD to actively cooperate in securing advanced strategic technologies directly linked to national security and defense capability enhancement. They also emphasized the need to encourage challenges to innovative research projects that do not fear failure. They urged for exploring civilian-military cooperation plans and measures to revitalize challenging research and development.

ADD presented the current status of the Future Challenging Defense Technology Development Project aimed at securing innovative new technologies to be utilized in future battlefields. The Ministry of Science and ICT analyzed the U.S. DARPA and Korea’s current status of challenging research and development, announced necessary institutional improvement plans for introducing the DARPA operation method in Korea, and discussed ways to revitalize challenging research and development.

Lee Kyung-soo, Director of the Science and Technology Innovation Headquarters, said, "Considering that most of the research necessary to secure advanced strategic technologies are highly difficult and challenging with a high possibility of failure, it is necessary to apply a differentiated approach from the existing research and development planning, evaluation, and management system centered on stable support." He added, "In the increasingly intense technology hegemony competition, we will establish a pan-governmental challenging research and development operation system through the establishment of a Korean-style DARPA to concentrate Korea’s technological innovation capabilities."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.