South Korea to train nearly 500,000 troops as drone warriors

South Korea plans to train every member of its nearly half-million-strong military to operate drones, Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back announced in a June 26 briefing. The ministry says the goal is to make drones a universal combat tool, pushing initial training with 11,000 drones this year and a target of 60,000 deployed across the force by 2029.

What is South Korea's drone-warrior plan?

The plan trains enlisted personnel to use small commercial-style drones as a routine part of combat skills and equips units with many more cheap, expendable drones, the defense minister said. The ministry wants soldiers to handle drones as easily as personal firearms and has described the aim to make drones a "second personal weapon," while reorganizing its former drone operations command to focus on industry collaboration and procurement.

How many troops and drones are involved, and what are the numbers behind the move?

South Korea's active-duty force currently numbers 450,000 personnel, and the ministry says it wants to make the concept universal across the force, effectively training up to roughly 500,000 "drone warriors." The immediate hardware rollout starts with 11,000 training drones this year and a goal to deploy 60,000 drones servicewide by 2029. The defense minister also said the military will seek drones with 100 percent domestically produced components, explicitly excluding Chinese parts for security reasons.

What practical limits and challenges does Seoul face?

The plan confronts three concrete constraints. First, South Korea's conscripted military has been shrinking because of a declining birthrate, which could make maintaining an active-duty force near 500,000 difficult. Second, the defense ministry clarified it is not equipping everyone immediately; initial training inventories total 11,000 drones with a 60,000-drone target by 2029. Third, the ministry's requirement for fully domestic components complicates procurement because China dominates the commercial drone market, and many widely used models contain Chinese parts.

Analysts and practitioners in South Korea warn of shortages of noncommissioned officers and officers needed to train conscripts on new drone tasks. One cofounder of a South Korean counter-drone red team has said the ministry may struggle to find enough commercial drones made without Chinese components to train hundreds of thousands of conscripts.

How is Ukraine influencing this approach?

Ukraine does not train every soldier as a drone pilot, but it has scaled training to produce tens of thousands of drone operators and built specialized operator teams and a dedicated Unmanned Systems Forces branch. South Korea's defense minister cited conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East as inspiration for reform: the ministry plans broader use of drones for surveillance and strike missions, plus more counter-drone lasers and microwave weapons. The article notes North Korean combat veterans who fought on Russia's side and encountered Ukrainian drone warfare are returning home and may pass on lessons, though what those lessons will be is unclear.

Why it matters

The proposal rewrites how South Korea imagines its individual soldiers' roles by treating drones as a routine combat tool, not a specialty. That shifts training, procurement and industrial priorities: the ministry must scale hardware and domestic supply chains while expanding the instructor corps. The gap in manpower versus North Korea — which fields over 1.2 million active soldiers — gives the move strategic resonance, since Seoul seeks force multipliers to offset numerical disadvantage.

What to watch

Watch whether the ministry meets the near-term delivery of 11,000 training drones this year and whether the defense sector can produce or source 60,000 non-Chinese-component drones by 2029. Also monitor changes to personnel structures, especially moves to increase noncommissioned officer and officer ranks to support mass training.

Specific, attributable data points in this story: South Korea's active-duty strength of 450,000, North Korea's more than 1.2 million active-duty soldiers, the immediate 11,000 training drones being provided this year, the 60,000-drone deployment target by 2029, and 28,500 US troops currently stationed in South Korea.