The U.S. and Korea should consider a bilateral defense industry agreement styled after the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, former commander of the U.S. Forces Korea said.

In an article published in the U.S. political and defense publication Defense News co-written with Monitor National Security associate partner John Prior, retired U.S. Army Gen. Walter Sharp said that a military FTA would facilitate cooperation between the two nations’ defense industries.

Sharp served as the USFK commander for three years before retiring from service in 2011, and is currently working as senior adviser at Monitor National Security, a California-based defense strategy consulting firm.

“The South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, approved by Congress in October, strengthens our alliances and sends a strong deterrent message to North Korea and China,” Sharp and Prior said in the article.

“Using this agreement as a model, the U.S. needs to develop a Military South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement to further incentivize cooperation between our respective defense industries and encourage South Korean firms to enter the U.S. defense market.”

Emphasizing the close alliance between Korea and the U.S. that has lasted more than 60 years, the former USFK commander also said that conditions for arms sales to Korea should be eased to aid the U.S. defense industry, and to aid its own defense acquisition programs.

“When South Korean leaders want to buy military equipment from the U.S. to bolster their capabilities, the U.S. government makes it exceedingly hard for them to obtain much-needed top-of-the-line weapons,” the article said. The article added that the U.S. imposes such conditions in fear that Korea may reverse engineer military systems, which is a concern that ignores the safeguards in place when provisioning weapons to the U.S.’ other allies.

“If the U.S. defense policy is not changed, countries like South Korea will procure what they need elsewhere, hurting U.S. employment and driving up the unit costs the Pentagon pays for systems it buys for itself.”

In addition to boosting U.S. exports, Sharp and Prior argued that the U.S. defense industry would benefit from allowing Korean firms to compete more freely in the U.S. market.

“The U.S. should pursue buying more from them, or at least let them compete more actively in potential arms sales to the U.S.,” the article said.

“A trans-Pacific alliance focused on South Korea, much like the trans-Atlantic defense manufacturing alliance that emerged toward the end of the 1990s, will enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. defense market.”

By Choi He-suk(cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)