MELBOURNE — South Korea appears to have put a planned follow-on acquisition of the Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopter on ice, with a lawmaker reportedly saying that the budget for the program has been slashed.
Several South Korean outlets, including the state-owned Korea Broadcasting System, reported over the weekend that Rep. Yoo Yong-won of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) said that funding for the program to acquire of 36 Apaches has been cut from 10 billion won ($7.29 million) to just 300 million won.
The significantly reduced allocation was in the supplementary budget passed by the South Korean parliament on July 4 and comes after South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed in May to formally review the Apache procurement and instead explore other alternatives such as unmanned systems, according to Yoo.
South Korea’s defense ministry did not respond to Breaking Defense’s request for comment Wednesday, and a US State Department official referred questions to the South Korean government.
The country had been cleared by the State Department in August 2024 to buy the Apaches for an estimated price tag of $3.5 billion under the Foreign Military Sales program. The 10 billion won originally budgeted for the program was to have been for the down payment of the helicopters.
The South Korean military currently already operates 36 AH-64Es acquired previously, along with the older Bell AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter that was to have been replaced by the second batch of AH-64Es.
The apparent decision by South Korea to put the brakes on the planned procurement of additional Apaches comes after Japan announced in 2023 that it would progressively withdraw its own attack helicopter fleet following a defense review and replace the mission with unmanned aircraft and other helicopter types, which it said would also result in manpower savings.