While the strategy describes North Korea’s expanding nuclear forces as a “clear and present danger” to the U.S. homeland and its regional allies, it also makes explicit that responsibility for conventional deterrence on the Korean Peninsula should increasingly rest with South Korea.
Seoul is portrayed as a country with high defense spending, a robust defense industrial base and a mandatory conscription system — in short, fully capable of defending itself against North Korea, with U.S. forces providing “critical but more limited” support.
This approach reflects the broader U.S.-first logic underpinning the NDS. Washington signals that it will prioritize resources for homeland defense and deterrence of China in the Indo-Pacific, while other security challenges are to be managed under a framework in which allies and partners assume “primary responsibility.”
According to Jung Kyeong-woon, a research fellow at the Korea Association of Military Studies, the document draws a clear line between U.S. and South Korean roles.
“The U.S. direction is to maintain nuclear deterrence, while placing primary responsibility for conventional deterrence on South Korea,” Jung said.
“For decades, the South Korean military has relied heavily on U.S. forces. As a result, imbalances in certain capability areas have accumulated and are now quite serious.”
He pointed in particular to high-cost, technologically demanding domains.
“ISR, C4I systems, missile defense, cyber and electronic warfare all require enormous resources and advanced technology,” Jung said. “If South Korea is expected to shoulder most of the conventional deterrence burden, structural reinforcement in these areas will be unavoidable.”
The strategic shift is reinforced by a new burden-sharing benchmark embedded in the NDS. The document incorporates the concept agreed at the 2025 NATO Hague Summit — defense and security spending equivalent to 5 percent of GDP, including at least 3.5 percent for core defense outlays — as a guideline for U.S. allies and partners.
This direction is already reflected in South Korea’s fiscal plans. Seoul has set its 2026 defense budget at around 66 trillion won ($45.6 billion), an increase of roughly 7.5 to 8.2 percent from the previous year, marking the fastest growth rate in nearly seven years.
New resources are being concentrated on strengthening the three-axis deterrence framework — Kill Chain, Korea Air and Missile Defense (KAMD), and Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) — while expanding precision-guided munitions stockpiles and accelerating investment in manned-unmanned teaming, artificial intelligence-enabled systems, drones, and space and cyber capabilities.
With Washington pressing allies toward a 3.5-percent-of-GDP benchmark for direct defense spending, Seoul faces mounting pressure over the medium to long term to further raise the defense share of its national budget. The government has already announced a long-term objective of lifting defense spending to around 3.5 percent of GDP by 2035, suggesting close alignment with the NDS’s burden-sharing framework.
These pressures are expected to reshape not only South Korea’s military posture, but also the structure of its defense industry.
The NDS reframes deterrence as a system of “allied and partner production,” placing renewed emphasis on industrial capacity. Within this framework, South Korea is positioned as both a model ally and the primary security provider on the Peninsula — expected to strengthen its own forces while supplying equipment and capabilities to regional partners.
South Korea’s defense industry has already entered a phase of structural expansion. Between 2020 and 2024, the country rose to become the world’s tenth-largest arms exporter, driven by large-scale package deals for K2 main battle tanks, K9 self-propelled howitzers and Chunmoo multiple rocket launchers.
By the end of 2024, the combined order backlog of major Korean defense firms was approaching 100 trillion won, with overseas contracts accounting for a growing share.
However, experts caution that growing demand does not automatically translate into durable, long-term gains.
“With the increase in global conflicts, the Trump administration’s assertive use of military power and the shifting of responsibilities to allies, demand for weapons systems will certainly grow,” Jung said.
“Korean platforms such as the K2, K9, Chunmoo and Cheongung-II have demonstrated strong performance, cost competitiveness and delivery speed, making further exports likely.”
At the same time, competition is intensifying.
“The United States and Europe are fully aware of these shifts and will not simply surrender the benefits,” Jung said. “It remains unclear whether Korea’s defense exports will become fully institutionalized and structurally sustainable. In many cases, cooperation and competition will coexist.”
Washington is already moving aggressively to rebuild its own industrial base. Between 2024 and 2026, the U.S. Army is investing several billion dollars to expand ammunition plants, aiming to raise 155mm artillery shell production to around 100,000 rounds per month — or more than 1 million rounds annually — by 2026.
Speaking at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) annual meeting on Oct. 13 last year, Maj. Gen. John Reim, the Army’s Joint Program Executive Officer for Armaments and Ammunition, described the effort as historic.
“We haven’t seen this level of investment — about $5.5 billion since 2022 — since World War II,” he said.
Europe is following a similar trajectory. The European Union’s Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) and related initiatives are channeling hundreds of millions of euros into new artillery and missile production lines, as NATO members race to rebuild domestic capacity rather than rely on foreign suppliers.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, EU countries produced an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 artillery shells annually. ASAP funding is designed to lift output to around 2 million rounds a year — a six- to eightfold increase over prewar levels.
Washington’s recent decision to back Seoul’s pursuit of nuclear-powered submarines — marking the first serious move to extend such cooperation beyond the AUKUS partnership — further underscores South Korea’s elevation as a frontline maritime and industrial partner, even though the 2026 NDS stops short of detailing the SSN program.
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