MilitaryCompare / South Korea vs France
South Korea vs France
South Korea ranks #6 and France ranks #9 in the 2026 Military Atlas Index. South Korea spends $47.8B on defense with 450K active personnel; France spends $68.0B with 204K.
| Overview | ||
|---|---|---|
| #6 | Global Rank | #9 |
| $47.8B | Defense Budget | $68.0B |
| 2.6% | Budget % of GDP | 2.0% |
| $1.87T | GDP | $3.37T |
| 51.68M | Population | 68.72M |
| Personnel | ||
| 450K | Active Personnel | 204K |
| 3.10M | Reserve Personnel | 38K |
| 14K | Paramilitary | 127K |
| Air | ||
| 1,713 | Military Aircraft | 769 |
| 637 | Combat Aircraft | 253 |
| 387 | Fighter Jets | 201 |
| 40 | 5th Gen Fighters | 0 |
| 0 | Bombers | 52 |
| 532 | Helicopters | 148 |
| 147 | Attack Helicopters | 0 |
| 10 | Military Drones (UAV) | 22 |
| Land | ||
| 1,826 | Main Battle Tanks | 246 |
| 499 | Infantry Fighting Vehicles | 627 |
| 3,110 | Armoured Personnel Carriers | 466 |
| 5,735 | Artillery Systems | 84 |
| Naval | ||
| 20 | Submarines | 9 |
| 0 | Nuclear Submarines | 9 |
| 0 | Aircraft Carriers | 1 |
| 2 | Helicopter / Amphibious Carriers | 3 |
| Strategic | ||
| 0 | Nuclear Warheads | 370 |
| 3 | Ballistic Missile Systems | 1 |
| 0 | ICBM Systems | 0 |
| 6 | Cruise Missile Systems | 6 |
| 0 | Hypersonic Systems | 0 |
| 1,500 km | Longest Missile Range | 8,000 km |
South Korea leads in 14 of the 24 measured categories, France in 10. Numbers alone do not decide a war: training, logistics, geography, alliances and nuclear deterrence matter too. A dash means the source publishes no figure.
Sources: CSIS Missile Threat, Federation of American Scientists, IISS Military Balance, Military Atlas Index, SIPRI, Wikipedia, Wikipedia / FlightGlobal, World Bank.