Lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties have jointly introduced a bill to create a separate procurement track for advanced weapons such as artificial intelligence systems and drones, allowing the military to field them faster than under current rules. The bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Kim Byung-joo of the Democratic Party of Korea and Rep. Yoo Yong-won of the People Power Party, a rare show of bipartisan cooperation in defense policy.
Yoo's office said on the 31st that the lawmaker had introduced the bill on advanced defense capability projects together with Kim. Sixteen lawmakers from both parties signed on to the measure.
The bill targets what its sponsors see as the limits of the current weapons acquisition process, which fixes target specifications in advance and waits for a finished product. That approach struggles to secure equipment in fast-moving fields such as AI and drones, they argue. Rather than spending years developing a fully refined weapons system, the sponsors contend that quickly identifying the technologies the battlefield requires, converting private-sector innovations into military capability and improving them during operation is a better way to keep weapons systems competitive.
The bill would designate equipment such as drones — which have emerged as a game changer in modern warfare — as "advanced capability systems" and establish an Advanced Capability Development Committee under the defense minister to review key policies and requirements.
If enacted, the measure would first change how requirements for such weapons systems are raised. Instead of fixing the performance of future equipment in advance, requirements could be framed around the "mission" and the "effect to be achieved." Once the committee reviews and approves a requirement, specific performance targets would be settled through project planning and discussions of technical options with companies and research institutes. The center of gravity in acquisition would shift from "specs" to the "objectives" being sought.
Development methods would also change. Under what the bill calls "organic cyclical development," the military would not wait for a finished product but would first build a "minimum viable product" capable of performing core missions, deploy it to frontline units and then supplement and improve its performance based on field evaluations.
Buying products already on the market would also become possible. Supply chains, security and performance would be verified in advance and suitable products listed on a certification register. When individual services raise a requirement, they could purchase such items through committee review alone, without going through the full test and evaluation process.
"As the war in Ukraine has shown, the battlefield has become a contest of speed — building quickly, validating in combat and continuously upgrading, rather than waiting years for a perfect weapon," Yoo said. "Procuring AI and drones, where technology turns over at an extreme pace, by a yardstick set a decade ago is no different from tying our troops' hands."
"What the battlefield needs is not a perfect weapon but a weapon that can be used right now," Kim said. "We keep seeing cases where equipment is already obsolete by the time it reaches a unit. Since there can be no partisan divide on national security, we will work to pass this in the current regular session of the National Assembly."
