January 15, 2009: South Korea is making a big push to become a major exporter of low cost/high quality armored fighting vehicles. Over the last two decades, South Korea has developed, and produced in large numbers, their own versions of the U.S. M-1 tank (the South Korean K-1 and K-2), the U.S. M-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicle (the South Korean K-21) and the U.S. M-109 self-propelled 155mm howitzer (the South Korean K-9).

South Korea also manufactures an Aegis destroyer (the KDX III class), a new class of frigate (FFK)  and a light fighter/trainer jet (the T-50). South Korea will sell all of these systems at a substantial discount to what their U.S. equivalents would cost, and back them up with the South Korean reputation of producing sturdy and reliable industrial goods (everything from large ships to tiny micro chips).

South Korea is finding more and more interest in the international arms market. This includes a technology transfer deal with Turkey, who will build the South Korean designs themselves, with some modifications. In effect, South Korea did the same thing with many of its own weapons, buying technology (from the United States, and other Western nations) when that was cheaper than developing it themselves. South Korea has built large quantities of these weapons for themselves, as they upgraded their army in the 1990s. This provided South Korea with a decisive military edge over its aggressive northern neighbor, North Korea.