{"id":871919,"date":"2026-10-05T19:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T19:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/871919\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T19:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T19:14:11","slug":"7th-air-force-seeks-new-counter-drone-capabilities-for-point-defense-modernization-in-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/871919\/","title":{"rendered":"7th Air Force seeks new counter-drone capabilities for point defense modernization in South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Air Force is conducting market research to support efforts to beef up its point defense capabilities in South Korea against small unmanned aerial systems and other drones.<\/p>\n

A new RFI<\/a> released Monday to support \u201cProject Iron Sentry\u201d noted that 7th Air Force, which is headquartered at Osan Air Base, is seeking \u201ccombat-proven, theater-wide C-sUAS\/C-UAS capabilities\u201d from vendors eligible under the Pentagon\u2019s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT<\/a>) program.<\/p>\n

The APFIT program<\/a> is overseen by the Pentagon\u2019s chief technology officer and provides funding to speed up the acquisition of new capabilities sought by combatant commands and other Defense Department components.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s RFI release comes amid growing concerns in the U.S. and South Korea about North Korea\u2019s drone arsenal.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> that Pyongyang had started exercises to practice \u201cswarm\u201d operations that combine attack drones with missiles and other weapons.<\/p>\n

Reuters reported<\/a> Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia may have provided its North Korean ally with jet-powered drone technology, which Moscow has been employing against Ukraine.<\/p>\n

According to a U.S. Pacific Air Forces website<\/a>, the mission of 7th Air Force is to \u201cdeter, protect and defend the Republic of Korea from attack from North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project Iron Sentry is related to \u201cKorean Theater of Operations (KTO) Joint Point Defense Modernization,\u201d per the RFI.<\/p>\n

The market research effort comes amid a broader push by Air Force leadership to boost the service\u2019s arsenal and prowess.<\/p>\n

During his keynote address<\/a> at AFA\u2019s annual Air, Space and Cyber Conference in September, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach announced plans to develop a \u201cPoint Defense Weapon System\u201d to protect air bases and service members and the creation of a new career field for airmen focused on point defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor decades, American air and space power has often operated from a position of sanctuary. Those days are over. We can no longer treat point defense as a side hustle. We must make it a core function of air and space power,\u201d Wilsbach said.<\/p>\n

According to an Air Force press release, the Point Defense Weapon System will be an \u201cintegrated system-of-systems designed to connect sensors, command and control and layered kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities to detect, track and defeat airborne threats before they can disrupt installation operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The service aims to have the new career field \u201coperational\u201d within two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cEstablishing a new career field is about more than creating a specialty code,\u201d Lt. Gen. Jefferson O\u2019Donnell, Air Force deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, said in the press release. \u201cWe must build a professional community with the right training, experience, and career development to deliver this capability over time. Success is an Air Force where Airmen\u2014recruited, trained, developed, and retained as point defense specialists\u2014strengthen the Air Force\u2019s ability to fight and win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Jon<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWritten by Jon Harper
\n\t\t\tJon Harper is Editor-in-Chief of DefenseScoop. He leads an award-winning team of journalists in providing breaking news and in-depth analysis on military technology and the ways in which it is shaping how the Defense Department operates and modernizes. You can also follow him on X: @Jon_Harper_\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Air Force is conducting market research to support efforts to beef up its point defense capabilities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[367345,367346,367347,19472,23,214589,367348,161548,16777,367349,3,6505,367350,367351,1206,1866,1208,21,19,22,20,133942,25,24],"class_list":["post-871919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-7th-air-force","tag-accelerate-the-procurement-and-fielding-of-innovative-technologies-apfit","tag-air-defense","tag-air-force","tag-america","tag-apfit","tag-attack-drone","tag-counter-uas","tag-drones","tag-gen-kenneth-wilsbach","tag-news","tag-north-korea","tag-pacific-air-forces","tag-point-defense","tag-russia","tag-south-korea","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-unmanned-aerial-systems","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}