MilitaryCompare / South Korea vs Japan
South Korea vs Japan
South Korea ranks #6 and Japan ranks #10 in the 2026 Military Atlas Index. South Korea spends $47.8B on defense with 450K active personnel; Japan spends $62.2B with 247K.
| Overview | ||
|---|---|---|
| #6 | Global Rank | #10 |
| $47.8B | Defense Budget | $62.2B |
| 2.6% | Budget % of GDP | 1.4% |
| $1.87T | GDP | $4.44T |
| 51.68M | Population | 123.37M |
| Personnel | ||
| 450K | Active Personnel | 247K |
| 3.10M | Reserve Personnel | 56K |
| 14K | Paramilitary | 15K |
| Air | ||
| 1,713 | Military Aircraft | 1,214 |
| 637 | Combat Aircraft | 264 |
| 387 | Fighter Jets | 264 |
| 40 | 5th Gen Fighters | 47 |
| 0 | Bombers | 0 |
| 532 | Helicopters | 488 |
| 147 | Attack Helicopters | 83 |
| 10 | Military Drones (UAV) | 43 |
| Land | ||
| 1,826 | Main Battle Tanks | 340 |
| 499 | Infantry Fighting Vehicles | 70 |
| 3,110 | Armoured Personnel Carriers | 766 |
| 5,735 | Artillery Systems | 772 |
| Naval | ||
| 20 | Submarines | 22 |
| 0 | Nuclear Submarines | 0 |
| 0 | Aircraft Carriers | 2 |
| 2 | Helicopter / Amphibious Carriers | 2 |
| Strategic | ||
| 0 | Nuclear Warheads | 0 |
| 3 | Ballistic Missile Systems | — |
| 0 | ICBM Systems | — |
| 6 | Cruise Missile Systems | — |
| 0 | Hypersonic Systems | — |
| 1,500 km | Longest Missile Range | — |
South Korea leads in 12 of the 18 measured categories, Japan in 6. 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.