Evaluating civil-military relationship for effective procurement decision-making: the case of two fighter jet procurements of the Republic of Korea

Overseas procurement aims not only to acquire the most high-end weapons systems, but also to enhance their technological expertise. However, the degree to which a procuring state succeeds in these dual objectives varies. Sometimes, a state acquires nearly the most advanced weapon systems in a timely manner with significant terms of technology transfer. At other times, a state’s procurement is fraught with a series of disadvantageous decisions on technology transfer, maintenance, and timeliness. From where does this variation in effectiveness emanate? This article argues that the key to explaining these variations is civil–military co-ordination. States can secure effectiveness when a civilian chief executive proactively capitalises on appointment authority and/or when proactive civil–military consultations transpire. For these causations, this article studies two major fighter jet procurement activities of the Republic of Korea (ROK), the Korea Fighter Project (KFP) and the Fighter eXperimental-I (FX-I) programme.