No Global Hawks for South Korea

Just another indication of how far the rift in the US-ROK alliance is growing:

According to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, military authorities requested the U.S. to sell it four Global Hawks in 2008 at last year’s SCC in Hawaii in order to secure independent surveillance ability on North Korea. Korea requested this several times. However, last June, the U.S. put out a not for sale policy and have rejected Korea’s requests.

So why would the US deny this system to our “blood allies” the South Koreans?  You shouldn’t have to think to hard:

The U.S. is thought to have rejected the request for fear that the core technology might be leaked. Some are known to be worried that confidential information collected on North Korea using the Global Hawk might be leaked to the North.

But look who the US is selling the system to:

The U.S. refusal to sell the Global Hawk has set back the South Korean’s military’s plan to introduce a high altitude UAV system until after 2010, and if the U.S. continually refuses, the whole system could fall apart.

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration said, While continuously requesting the U.S to sell us the Global Hawk, we are also developing a domestic mid-altitude UAV system. However, the mid-altitude UAV system development will be possibly completed around 2015. On the other hand, Japan received consent to buy the Global Hawk last June, and it has already secured budgets and commenced preparations to introduce the Global Hawk into its system.

You can read more at the link.