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Drones and Missiles Are Rewriting the Military Balance on the Korean Peninsula

North Korea’s ability to disperse, conceal, and employ its drones, missiles, and nuclear weapons is outpacing South Korea’s capacity to destroy them.

In this photo provided by North Korean state media, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends tests of “various kinds of reconnaissance and suicide drones” developed and produced by research institutes and enterprises under the Unmanned Aerial Technology Alliance, Mar. 18, 2025.

The two Koreas have been close observers of the wars in Ukraine and Iran – not least because aspects of the conflicts mirror how both sides think they will win a potential war on the peninsula. The ongoing exchange of long-range drones and missiles, in particular, resembles the type of war both Koreas envision for themselves: a deep strike contest. To this end, both have recently begun developing low-cost, long-range attack drones, with some systems slated to be operational in the near term. 

Long-range artillery, ballistic missiles, and nuclear weapons have, so far, shaped each side’s view of the military balance and whether deterrence holds on the peninsula. Armed drones will soon enter the picture.

These drones will exacerbate the South Korean military’s existing gaps in surveilling the North. Pyongyang’s growing missile and nuclear arsenal and diversified launch platforms have made the problem acute. With cheap attack drones, North Korea’s ability to disperse, conceal, and employ offensive firepower will further outpace South Korea’s capacity to destroy it. 

This trend is at odds with the Lee administration’s ambitious timeline for gaining wartime operational control from the United States. South Korean forces will need additional capabilities to meet the qualitative conditions previously established by the two allies.

Drones on the Korean Peninsula

Long-range drones – unarmed aerial vehicles with operational range far beyond the forward edge of battle along the armistice line – have been a feature of the inter-Korean military competition for the past two decades. The first known operational use was in 2010 when a North Korean reconnaissance drone was spotted during the Yonpyeong Island shelling. Since then, periodic drone incursions have been a feature of the inter-Korean low-intensity skirmishes. 

In 2014, South Korea recovered the wreckage of three North Korean drones less than 50 miles from the border. In December 2022, five North Korean drones overflew Seoul, including the presidential office, and returned North. In response, then-President Yoon Suk-yeol floated the idea of South Korean forces conducting reciprocal drone incursions into North Korea. North Korea claimed South Korean drones overflew Pyongyang in October 2024. While officially denied, public analysis of North Korean-released images visually matched developmental South Korean reconnaissance systems.

Rudimentary platforms – small, fixed-wing, turboprop, and unarmed – have featured in these largely symbolic aerial incursions so far, alongside unpowered balloons. There is no evidence that either side has employed armed drones in cross-border operations. Drones that had been operationally used on the peninsula, however, represent only a small subset of a broader inventory that includes systems with greater range and capability.

North Korea has been importing Chinese and Soviet drones and has been developing indigenous models for reconnaissance missions since the 1980s. In 2023, North Korea unveiled a high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) reconnaissance drone and a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) multi-role drone. Both are qualitatively different from its existing unmanned aircraft – the latter, for example, is capable of firing a missile – though limited numbers are in the inventory. 

For South Korea, abortive development efforts in the late Cold War resumed in the 1990s with a focus on the tactical surveillance drones supporting the Army’s ground operations. Interest in long-range systems came in the late 2000s when the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) started developing a domestic MALE, KUS-FS, and the Republic of Korea Air Force procured Global Hawks from the United States. Four Global Hawks were delivered by 2020, and the KUS-FS is expected to enter service in 2027.

The wars in Ukraine and Iran have catalyzed the two Koreas’ interest in massed, cheap, and armed long-range drones while they continue to invest in large, sophisticated unmanned systems. In 2024, Kim Jong Un ordered officials to “establish a mass-production system and begin full-scale operation” of “suicide attack drones.” Thousands of North Korean laborers, and possibly engineers, have also reportedly been sent to the Yelabuga factory in Russia producing copies of Iran’s Shahed one-way attack (OWA) drone. 

For South Korea, the ADD is developing the KUS-LM – dubbed the “K-LUCAS” with reported range and payload figures comparable to the American OWA drone called LUCAS – with plans to deploy it before 2030. The system has started trials on land and sea.

These investments by both Koreas in long-range unmanned systems, for both strike and surveillance, will alter the terms of the inter-Korean military competition. In the past few decades, the main domain of the inter-Korean military competition has become a deep strike-centric contest. The ability to wage a strategic air campaign – one not directly connected to the ground fight – is now central to how each side assesses the balance. Both sides appear to believe loitering munitions fit into this air power paradigm.

North Korea has pursued missile and nuclear weapons technology to hold at risk its neighbor and its ally, the United States, with long-range fires. South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense assessed that, in a contingency, North Korea plans a surprise massive firepower attack to create favorable conditions and force a rapid end to the war. Even absent an offensive intent, the threat of catastrophic damage from nuclear missiles and conventional........

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