[Professor Park Soo-yong] In an Age of All-Out Economic Security, the NIS Should Help Companies
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As the world economy is reshaped around digital technology, an era has arrived in which the countries that seize advanced technology first lead the global order. Technological hegemony competition between the United States and China is intensifying, and Japan and Europe are likewise concentrating national capability on securing advanced technology supply chains and core source technologies. This is an age in which a single semiconductor design technique, AI algorithm or key robot component can decide the fate of a national economy. Competition to seize technology in advanced industry grows fiercer, and economic security is emerging not as a choice but as a matter of national survival.
The heart of economic security lies in defending the national interest through global technology cooperation and supply chain management. This requires the intelligence-gathering capability to grasp precisely the industrial strategies, technology trends and supply chain shifts of countries around the world. With growing concern that 'Claude Mythos', the next-generation AI model of the American AI company Anthropic, could be misused to attack infrastructure such as financial and power networks, economic security work is urgently needed.
The problem is that the response of private companies alone cannot deal effectively with economic security threats. Because global supply chains move at the level of nations, there are clear limits to a company building its own overseas intelligence network or preparing for state-level threats on its own. In the end a national system is essential — one in which government authorities actively carry out economic security duties and systematically support private economic activity. For the sake of economic security, the national intelligence agency should lend a hand in grasping global trends and formulating medium- and long-term policy.
The United States is a good example. It gathers overseas strategic intelligence through the CIA, and organically connects advanced technology companies with the national security system through strategic venture investment bodies such as In-Q-Tel (In-Q-Tel). It has built a system in which the state actively provides support, treating advanced technology not as a mere industrial domain but as a central pillar of national security.
We too need government bodies such as the National Intelligence Service to take a more active role in advancing the national interest, in order to maximize the national competitiveness of future industries — semiconductors·AI· robots, shipbuilding, blockchain — and to keep supply chains with high external dependence stable. In this context, the amendment now being pursued by the government and the National Assembly to write a basis for economic security duties into the National Intelligence Service Act is the right direction. It feels late compared with the United States, which has assigned economic security duties by statute to its own intelligence agencies, the CIA and the FBI, for twelve years already, but with public–private cooperation the gap can certainly be closed.
In the end, protecting advanced technology, securing supply chains and gathering global industrial intelligence must be institutionalized as core national missions, and a system built in which government, companies and research institutions cooperate closely. Competition in future industry is no longer a fight for companies alone. This is an age that calls for an all-out national response. Now is precisely the time for Korea to reinforce its economic security system across the board in order to become an advanced industrial power. Amid a compound global crisis, stabilizing the national economy and securing technological advantage are not a choice but a necessity.
Source: [Contribution] In an age of all-out economic security, the NIS should help companies https://n.news.naver.com/article/023/0003979013