South Korea
Global Firepower rank #5 of 145 路 PowerIndex 0.1642 (lower is stronger)
SIPRI puts South Korea's 2025 military spending at $47.8 billion, 2.6% of GDP and up 2.6% on the year in real terms, ranking #13 in the world. It has no nuclear weapons of its own.
Alliances: US treaty ally
People and money
- Military spending
- $47.8B
- Active personnel
- 450K
- Reserves
- 3.1M
- Paramilitary
- 120K
Land forces
- Tanks
- 1,831
- Armored vehicles
- 117K
- Self-propelled artillery
- 2,780
- Towed artillery
- 5,800
- Rocket artillery
- 525
Air power
- Total aircraft
- 1,540
- Fighters
- 242
- Attack aircraft
- 98
- Helicopters
- 827
- Attack helicopters
- 113
- Tankers
- 4
- Transports
- 40
Naval forces
- Total fleet
- 215
- Aircraft carriers
- 0
- Helicopter carriers
- 2
- Submarines
- 22
- Destroyers
- 14
- Frigates
- 18
- Corvettes
- 3
Nuclear weapons
- Warheads
- 0
- Deployed warheads
- 0
Compare South Korea with
Australia 路 Brazil 路 China 路 Egypt 路 France 路 Germany 路 India 路 Indonesia 路 Iran 路 Israel 路 Italy 路 Japan 路 North Korea 路 Pakistan 路 Poland 路 Russia 路 Saudi Arabia 路 Spain 路 Taiwan 路 Turkey 路 Ukraine 路 United Kingdom 路 United States
Last updated 2026-10-27. Sources: Global Firepower 2026 (personnel, equipment counts, powerindex), SIPRI Military Expenditure 2025 (Apr 2026) (military spending, share of gdp), SIPRI Yearbook 2026: World Nuclear Forces (nuclear warheads (jan 2026)).