South Korea plans to train all soldiers to operate military drones

In short: South Korea says it will train every member of its military to operate drones, aiming to make drones as common as personal firearms.

What happened

South Korea’s defense minister, Ahn Gyu-back, said the country plans to train all troops to use drones as a “universal combat tool.” The goal is for soldiers to treat a drone like a second personal weapon.

The plan comes as South Korea faces a long-running military standoff with North Korea, which has a much larger active-duty force. Reuters has previously reported South Korea has about 450,000 active-duty personnel, compared with more than 1.2 million in North Korea.

Officials said this does not mean every soldier will get a drone right away. The defense ministry plans to provide 11,000 training drones this year, and it aims to deploy 60,000 drones across the military by 2029.

South Korea is also planning more tools to stop hostile drones, including lasers and microwave weapons (devices that can disable electronics, like trying to “switch off” a drone from a distance). Separately, a drone command unit is expected to shift toward working with local companies to develop and buy commercial drone technology.

Why it matters

Drones are now a normal part of modern warfare, used for scouting and sometimes for attacks. Training many soldiers to use them could help South Korea respond faster in a crisis, especially when it has fewer troops than its neighbor. But there are practical challenges, like finding enough drones for training and meeting a goal of using parts made domestically, not components from China, which dominates the commercial drone market.

Source: Arstechnica