Beyond the Hardware: The “Hidden Ecosystem” Driving Türkiye and Korea’s Military Boom Quwa Premium

Bilal Khan

In early December, Türkiye’s Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) introduced that defence and aerospace exports had reached USD 7.45 billion by the top of 2025, already surpassing the 2024 full-year report of USD 7.2 billion.

“With this momentum, our sector broke a brand new report,” declared SSB President Haluk Görgün. “Our export figures, achieved in simply 11 months, surpassed all-time annual figures.”

The trajectory is exceptional: exports grew at a median annual charge of almost 30 % between 2020 and 2025, representing greater than a 250% enhance from $2.28 billion in 2020.

Days later, South Korea fulfilled a $6.5 billion contract for 180 K2 Black Panther principal battle tanks (MBT) with Poland – the biggest single defence export in Korean historical past.

South Korea now ranks because the world’s tenth-largest arms exporter, focusing on the highest 4 by 2027. Türkiye rose to eleventh globally, with 5 firms now in SIPRI’s High 100 arms producers, whose mixed revenues exceed $10 billion.

These headlines mirror a extra important shift.

Each Türkiye and South Korea have moved from near-total dependence on American weapons to turning into main exporters, capturing NATO and key non-NATO markets alike.

Nonetheless, export figures alone obscure the extra vital query: what do these billions really imply?

So, for instance, when Türkiye studies report exports, how a lot financial worth stays within the Turkish financial system? When South Korea sells tanks, is Seoul capturing high-value manufacturing or assembling imported parts?

And crucially, for this text, why have Türkiye and South Korea succeeded the place others, together with Pakistan, stay trapped in dependency?

The reply lies not in technological breakthroughs, however in what South Korea’s Prime Minister Kim Min-seok lately stated: constructing “a win-win ecosystem.”

Ecosystems: How Türkiye and South Korea Flew Forward

The traditional narrative frames defence industrial success as a operate of R&D funding, engineering expertise, or authorities dedication.

Nonetheless, Türkiye and South Korea have all three, however so do many international locations which have did not construct aggressive defence industries.

What distinguishes Ankara and Seoul is the structure of their defence sectors – particularly, the triangular relationship between authorities, non-public trade, and overseas clients.

“The K2 is greater than a tank – it’s a platform for strategic partnership,” defined Hyundai Rotem CEO Kim Yong-hyun after the Poland deal. “Via this contract, we’re constructing the inspiration for long-term industrial collaboration, joint innovation, and regional safety.”

This method captures what distinguishes Türkiye and South Korea: they export partnerships, not simply merchandise.

Throughout each international locations, it begins with the federal government offering market/demand certainty, analysis and improvement (R&D) funding/credit, and different types of sturdy institutional coordination and help.

Leveraging that help, the non-public sector drives funding in the direction of manufacturing capability, innovation, product improvement, and different tangible outcomes.

Lastly, when defence items are exported, Ankara and Seoul stress that their clients obtain not solely {hardware} but in addition know-how switch, native manufacturing rights, and, in essence, a way of possession of their buy.

When exports develop, Ankara and Seoul not solely profit from direct income and key navy clients, however they increase their defence industries throughout borders, thus including extra producers (and their respective hooks into native human, materials, and/or monetary sources) to develop and grow to be extra aggressive.

This triangulation, so to talk, is exactly what Pakistan lacks.

The nation can produce engineering and strategic expertise, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and even natural R&D foundations (e.g., in nuclear power). Nonetheless, Pakistan lacks a functioning ecosystem to power these parts to work together productively.

Typically, as soon as a serious Pakistani defence program is concluded, it doesn’t evolve into one thing better – be it as a associated follow-on venture or a lesson for constructing an indigenous trade.

For instance, Pakistan Aeronautical Advanced (PAC) was unable to translate its longstanding information and help capability for the Dassault Mirage III/5 into an unique improve that includes domestically designed and constructed structural parts.

In distinction, Atlas in South Africa was in a position to take action by means of the Cheetah program and, as well as, had launched into designing an unique fighter from its base through the Carver.

Likewise, South Africa’s sturdy depot-level upkeep, restore, and overhaul (MRO) experience for the Puma sequence of helicopters knowledgeable the event of the Denel Rooivalk assault helicopter.

One may rightfully contend that PAC was unable to ‘make one thing new’ of the Mirage III/5 as a result of Pakistan lacked the required industries (e.g, alloys) to allow that pathway. But that’s exactly the query: Why was Pakistan unable to develop these industries on the again of the Mirage III/5 (which commenced within the late Sixties), or the Agosta 90B, or the F-22P, or the al-Khalid, or the JF-17?

There is no such thing as a scarcity of multi-billion-dollar, multi-decade defence initiatives in Pakistan. But there may be by no means an actual outgrowth of an ecosystem from these packages, neither is there any feeding into them.

Pakistan’s main defence packages ultimately grind to a halt and both are outmoded by new imports or, worse, stay stagnant (e.g., Pakistan Ordnance Factories nonetheless produce G-3 rifles, or Heavy Industries Taxila manufactures M113 derivatives).

Türkiye, in distinction, had spent a long time supporting the Turkish Air Pressure’s F-16 program with duties from meeting to subassemblies manufacturing to MRO.

Nonetheless, Türkiye’s defence packages have led to the event of industries (e.g., alloys, composites, electronics) that may feed into its home designs and even main imports (together with the current Storm buy, which reportedly consists of provisions for Türkiye to configure its personal munitions to the fighter in addition to provide inputs for different Storm customers).

Pakistan’s Typical Functionality Push

The PAF’s induction of the Taimoor ALCM (i.e., re-leveraging the strategic Ra’advert/-II for the standard function) displays the Pakistani navy’s wider push to unfold guided strike capabilities past the normal confines of strategic or nuclear deployment.

Traditionally, Pakistan’s guided munitions ecosystem skewed in two methods: First, it handled precision strike as a specialised mission space – e.g., anti-ship warfare (AShW) and selective assaults geared toward high-value targets (HVT). Second, the shortage of industrial-scale manufacturing capability meant that NESCOM’s options – e.g., the Ra’advert/II, Babur, and so forth – may solely be inbuilt small numbers. The constraint in missile output then meant that cruise missiles and ballistic missiles have been, by default, handled as strategic deterrence belongings, not high-tempo standard warfighting programs.

Türkiye’s Hybrid Mannequin

Arguably, the closest of the 2 surging trade gamers to Pakistan is Türkiye, in that its defence trade is SOE-led.

The Turkish Armed Forces Basis (TSKGV) holds stakes in 14 firms instantly and 61 not directly, together with anchor or prime corporations like ASELSAN, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), and ROKETSAN.

These TSKGV-linked firms account for 42 % of complete trade gross sales, 33 % of exports, and a exceptional 74 % of R&D expenditures.

But the system’s dynamism derives not from these state-anchored primes however from the roughly 3,500 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that represent the availability chain beneath them.

The SSB coordinates this ecosystem by means of greater than 1,300 energetic initiatives, allocating roughly $3 billion yearly to R&D.

“With excessive localization charges in our platforms, we foster an ecosystem that nourishes your complete sector,” Görgün famous earlier this 12 months.

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