Although drones have recently emerged on the battlefield as a "game changer," the government's defense drone development and procurement budget for this year was cut by 11.5% from last year.
According to data the Defense Acquisition Program Administration submitted to Rep. Lim Jong-duk of the National Defense Committee on the 5th, of this year's 19.9653 trillion won budget for the Ministry of National Defense's force improvement programs, only 148.4 billion won—just 0.74% of the total—was allocated to drone development and procurement. That is down 19.4 billion won (11.5%) from last year's 167.8 billion won for drone programs.
The drone program budget is funding used by the military, through the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, to develop and introduce drones. Not only is its share of the overall force improvement budget small, but the program mix is also concentrated on reconnaissance and surveillance drones. In fact, funding related to attack drones amounts to only 24.2 billion won out of 148.4 billion won, prompting criticism that it fails to fully reflect the changing battlefield environment.
As seen in recent clashes involving the United States, Israel and Iran, and in the Russia-Ukraine war, attack drones neutralize expensive weapons systems at low cost and have established themselves as a core asset that integrates detection, decision-making and strike. Accordingly, drones are being evaluated as a core asset that goes beyond a simple auxiliary means to transform how wars are fought.
There has also been confusion in the process of advancing defense drone policy after the change of administration. The government established the Drone Operations Command in September 2023 to integrate drone forces across all services, but after the launch of the Lee Jae-myung administration, dissolution was considered during organizational restructuring talks before the direction shifted back to maintaining it. Currently, a plan is under discussion to distribute drone operational functions to each service, such as the Army and Air Force, while reorganizing the Drone Operations Command into a dedicated unit responsible for advancing drone concepts, rapid acquisition and civil-military cooperation.
Rep. Lim Jong-duk said, "Drones are no longer an auxiliary means but have established themselves as a core asset on the battlefield," and "the current budget scale and force integration plans do not properly reflect these changes."