South Korea plans to train entire military as “drone warriors”

韩国计划将全军训练为“无人机战士”

South Korea plans to train every single member of its nearly half-million-strong military to operate drones as easily as they handle personal firearms. That ambitious goal was announced as the South Korean military seeks to maintain a technological edge in its 70-year border standoff with the larger military of a hostile North Korea. 韩国计划对其近50万人的军队进行全面训练，使每位士兵都能像操作个人枪械一样熟练地操控无人机。这一雄心勃勃的目标是在韩国寻求保持技术优势的背景下提出的，旨在应对其与敌对的朝鲜之间长达70年的边境对峙，以及朝鲜规模更为庞大的军队。

The goal is to make drones a “universal combat tool” for all troops by training them to use drones like a “second personal weapon,” said Ahn Gyu-back, South Korea’s Minister of National Defense, in a June 26 briefing reported by Reuters and other media outlets. The announcement coincides with broader plans to equip individual military units with more cheap and expendable drones for surveillance and strike missions, along with deploying more counter-drone lasers and microwave weapons. 据路透社及其他媒体报道，韩国国防部长安圭伯（Ahn Gyu-back）在6月26日的简报会上表示，该目标旨在通过将无人机训练为士兵的“第二个人武器”，使其成为全军的“通用作战工具”。此项宣布与更广泛的计划相吻合，即为各军事单位配备更多廉价且可消耗的无人机用于监视和打击任务，同时部署更多的反无人机激光和微波武器。

Meanwhile, South Korea’s former drone operations command headquarters that used to have direct command authority over combat units will be reorganized to focus on collaborating with South Korean industry on developing and procuring commercial drone technology, according to The Korea Times. The South Korean defense minister specifically cited the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East as inspiring such military reforms with a focus on drone technologies. 据《韩国时报》报道，韩国此前对作战单位拥有直接指挥权的无人机作战司令部总部将进行重组，重点转向与韩国本土工业合作，共同开发和采购商用无人机技术。韩国国防部长特别提到，乌克兰和中东地区的冲突激发了此类以无人机技术为核心的军事改革。

South Korea is hardly alone among the many countries looking to Ukraine’s example in training and equipping their militaries with more drones. But Ukraine’s use of drones and military robots as a force multiplier to offset its numerical disadvantage on the battlefield versus Russia’s larger military may carry special resonance for South Korea, given that the South Korean military’s current active-duty strength of 450,000 personnel faces a numerical disadvantage against North Korea’s active-duty military consisting of more than 1.2 million soldiers. 在效仿乌克兰经验、为军队配备更多无人机并进行相关训练的国家中，韩国并非个例。然而，乌克兰利用无人机和军用机器人作为“力量倍增器”，以抵消其在战场上相对于俄罗斯庞大军队的人数劣势，这对韩国而言可能具有特殊的共鸣——毕竟韩国目前45万人的现役部队，在面对朝鲜超过120万人的现役军队时，在人数上处于劣势。

Limits of the drone warrior plan

“无人机战士”计划的局限性

South Korea must overcome significant hurdles along the way toward fielding 500,000 “drone warriors.” The first challenge is that South Korea’s conscripted military has been shrinking in recent years due to the country’s declining birthrate, according to The Korea Times. So the South Korean military may struggle to merely achieve and maintain an active-duty force of at least 500,000 troops, and especially as long as the country’s mandatory military service excludes women. 韩国在实现部署50万名“无人机战士”的道路上必须克服重大障碍。据《韩国时报》报道，首要挑战在于，由于出生率下降，韩国的征兵制军队近年来规模不断萎缩。因此，韩国军队可能连维持至少50万人的现役部队都感到吃力，尤其是在该国义务兵役制仍将女性排除在外的情况下。

Another practical constraint is that the South Korean military is not planning to equip everyone with drones even for training purposes, ministry officials clarified to The Korea Times. The defense ministry is starting out by providing 11,000 “training drones” to military personnel this year, with the goal of eventually deploying 60,000 drones across the military by 2029. 国防部官员向《韩国时报》澄清，另一个现实制约因素是，韩国军方并不打算为所有人配备无人机，即使是出于训练目的。国防部今年将首先向军事人员提供1.1万架“训练无人机”，目标是在2029年前最终在全军部署6万架无人机。

An additional complication comes from the South Korean military looking to procure drones with 100 percent domestically produced components and no Chinese components due to security concerns, according to the defense minister’s comments reported by Reuters. China is North Korea’s main economic and security partner. However, China also dominates the world’s commercial drone market through leading drone manufacturers such as DJI. 据路透社报道，国防部长的评论显示，另一个复杂因素是，出于安全考虑，韩国军方寻求采购100%由国内生产且不含中国零部件的无人机。中国是朝鲜主要的经济和安全伙伴，但中国同时也通过大疆（DJI）等领先的无人机制造商主导着全球商用无人机市场。

South Korean companies are building new military attack drones, but the defense ministry may struggle to find enough commercial drones made without Chinese components to train hundreds of thousands of military conscripts, said Min-Cheol Jung, a cofounder of the Team Retriever counter-drone red team based in South Korea, in a War on the Rocks article. Jung also highlighted the South Korean military’s personnel shortage, especially among noncommissioned officers and officers expected to help train new conscripts to use drones. 韩国“Team Retriever”反无人机红队联合创始人郑民哲（Min-Cheol Jung）在《War on the Rocks》的一篇文章中指出，虽然韩国公司正在制造新型军用攻击无人机，但国防部可能难以找到足够的、不含中国零部件的商用无人机来训练数十万名义务兵。郑还强调了韩国军队的人员短缺问题，特别是在负责协助训练新兵使用无人机的士官和军官方面。

Lessons from Ukraine

来自乌克兰的教训

It’s worth noting that Ukraine, the model for so many countries’ military reform efforts, does not field a military where everyone is trained to be a drone pilot—although Ukraine has scaled up training to produce tens of thousands of drone operators. Instead, Ukraine’s effective use of military drones comes from having widely deployed specialized drone operator teams to back up front-line infantry units, standing up the Unmanned Systems Forces branch of the military to develop drone doctrine and coordinate deep strike campaigns, creating a digital battle management system that provides updated battlefield information for rapid decision-making, and developing a homegrown drone industry that can mass produce millions of drones each year while nimbly innovating in response to changing battlefield conditions. 值得注意的是，作为许多国家军事改革蓝本的乌克兰，并没有将全军训练成无人机飞行员——尽管乌克兰确实扩大了培训规模，培养了数以万计的无人机操作员。相反，乌克兰有效利用军用无人机的秘诀在于：广泛部署专业无人机操作团队以支援前线步兵单位；成立无人系统部队以制定无人机作战条令并协调纵深打击行动；建立数字战斗管理系统，为快速决策提供实时战场信息；以及发展本土无人机产业，每年能够大规模生产数百万架无人机，并能根据战场情况的变化灵活创新。

Meanwhile, North Korean soldiers who survived their encounters with Ukrainian drone warfare while fighting on Russia’s side have already been rotating back home to instruct the North Korean military. Though it’s less clear what kind of training lessons they may be imparting to their comrades. At the same time, South Korean troops are not alone in facing off against the North Korean military. There are currently 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the US military intervention in the Korean War, which began with a North Korean invasion. 与此同时，在俄罗斯一方作战时经历过乌克兰无人机战并幸存下来的朝鲜士兵，已经轮换回国并开始指导朝鲜军队。尽管尚不清楚他们向战友传授了何种训练经验，但可以确定的是，韩国军队并非独自面对朝鲜军队。目前有2.85万名美军驻扎在韩国，这是美国在朝鲜战争（始于朝鲜入侵）期间进行军事干预所留下的历史遗留。

Taking its own cue from Ukraine’s drone innovations, the US military has also been integrating drone familiarization and counter-drone measures into basic training for its own new recruits, while the Pentagon has requested $54 billion for new drone and counter-drone systems in its fiscal year 2027 budget. 美军也从乌克兰的无人机创新中汲取经验，已将无人机熟悉训练和反无人机措施纳入新兵的基础训练中。此外，五角大楼在其2027财年预算中申请了540亿美元，用于开发新型无人机和反无人机系统。