The Chaebol and the US Military—Industrial Complex: Cold War Geopolitical Economy and South Korean Industrialization

Among scholars of East Asia, the role of US military offshore procurement (OSP) and the military–industrial complex (MIC) has been underplayed in explanations of rapid industrial transformation. Yet the foundations of industrialization in places such as South Korea, when analyzed in strongly ‘national–territorial’ and state-centric terms of the predominant, so-called ‘neo-Weberian’ accounts, remain inadequately illuminated. We argue that a geopolitical economy approach focusing on the roles of OSP and relations within the US MIC brings to light crucial sociospatial dimensions of the Korean developmental state's industrial success during the Vietnam War era, dimensions that are largely absent from the neo-Weberian accounts. We examine, in particular, the Park Chung Hee regime's participation in the Vietnam War, and the attendant development of Korean industrial chaebol such as Hyundai, arguing that the successes of the south Korean developmental state and chaebol were enabled by their enrolment in the US MIC, via OSP.