Defense Modernization Research Articles

Maverick or Front-runner? Army Modernization in Hungary in the Light of the Other Visegrad Countries

This article compares Hungary's defence modernisation policy with that of the other Visegrad countries and finds that Poland has invested the most in developing its military capabilities and, together with the Czech Republic, has benefited considerably from rising international demand stimulated by the war. Both combined the purchase of modern equipment with the award of government contracts to local suppliers. Slovakia followed the same pattern, but without significant export capacity. Hungary, on the other hand, was unable to prevent the collapse of its former defence industry. As a result, its current development programme uniquely integrates the goals of army modernisation with the plan for rebuilding the sector, which relies heavily on the participation of large European companies, whose role is less important in the other countries. Two other distinctive features of the Hungarian modernisation policy are its embeddedness in broader economic and regional policies, and the creation of six distinct territorial clusters where the reorganisation of the sector is taking place.

Unveiling the means and motivations of defence modernisation in mid-power Eastern Europe

Within the flux of contemporary global geopolitics, middle powers in Eastern Europe, exemplified by Czechia and Poland, have demonstrably prioritized defence modernisation. But is this enough to ensure their security in a volatile world? This paper delves into this critical question through a comparative analysis of their defence policies. By meticulously examining the historical evolution of these policies and their influence on current modernisation patterns, the study seeks to illuminate the motivations driving these efforts. Furthermore, a thorough comparison of Czechia and Poland's approaches will shed light on their challenges in achieving their desired security posture. This paper aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of regional security dynamics and the evolving role of mid- Poland sized powers in the contemporary geopolitical landscape.

India’s Military Modernisation: Role and Impact of France

India’s vision for Atmanirbhar Bharat adopted in 2020 attempts to make the country and its citizens self-reliant in all aspects. India, being the third largest military spender after the US and China, has also worked towards achieving self-reliance in defence production while maintaining a constant push towards ‘Make in India’. The Indian embassy in Paris has reiterated France’s commitment and complete support to India’s vision of self-reliance in areas of defence industrialisation, joint research, and development in India across a broad spectrum of advanced capabilities. The first part of the article examines the historical background of evolving security relationship between India and France, analysing defence and security cooperation as a principal pillar of their Strategic Partnership. The second part of the article attempts to study the impact of France on India’s military modernisation through the transfer of resources and technology, and through co-development and co-production of equipment. It tracks France’s role in assisting India to reduce dependence on Russia for their military hardware requirements, in its path towards indigenous defence production. The concluding part of the article extrapolates the findings onto the future in order to examine the challenges faced by India in its attempt towards military modernisation. It also seeks to examine challenges in the partnership between the two actors and its impact on France’s role in India’s defence modernisation.

Go East or North? Recalibrating Defence Modernization in a Post-Russia Southeast Asia

Go East or North? Recalibrating Defence Modernization in a Post-Russia Southeast Asia

Challenges to India’s Defense Modernization and Moving Forward

India is today confronted with tremendous obstacles as it strives to improve its international reputation. India’s strategic location increases the prospect of future challenges (most notably a nuclear threat) with its neighboring country. India’s strategic location and recent geopolitical dynamics in South Asia by China’s Belt and Road Initiative necessitates India’s Defence Modernization to cater to India’s National Security facing threats from traditional and non-traditional actors. This study highlights how India’s self-reliance in dual-use technology production would give a comparative advantage for India’s mandate to achieve modernization of India’s Defence Technology. This study discusses the push, pull, and compelling factors for the Defence Modernization where the latter would draw significant inference from Ricardo’s Comparative Advantage Theory. This study would conclude by arguing that India needs to diversify its weapon and ammunition, which requires considerable policy correction in Defence Acquisition and Procurement Policy to boost indigenous defence weapon production.

Advances in an Event-Based Spatiotemporal Data Modeling

Spatiotemporal data are vitally important for the national economy and defense modernization since it is not only an important component of human society and geographical information of the environment but also a key carrier of spatiotemporal information. An event-based spatiotemporal data model and its improvements are employed to model spatiotemporal objects, change history, and change relation, which is the main approach to resolve the spatiotemporal change modeling and has been comprehensively developed in modeling theory and applications. This manuscript studies the event-based spatiotemporal data modeling theory based on three aspects of the cognitive theory, which are the spatiotemporal object, the concept of the spatiotemporal dynamic object, and the spatiotemporal object relationship. Then, the implementation characteristics of the models were analyzed regarding the management of cadastral information, analog natural disaster phenomena, and reasoning. Finally, the key points and difficulties of an event-based spatiotemporal data modeling and prospective developmental trends were discussed to provide insights with spatiotemporal data modeling.

Navigating the contours of maritime defence cooperation between India and Japan: Impulses, challenges and opportunities

ABSTRACT Maritime affairs have been experiencing a state of flux in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly since the beginning of the present decade, attributable to the policies of an assertive China, consequently evoking proportional responses from regional state actors. Amid this transforming scenario, regional states such as India, Japan and Australia have devised policies towards ensuring uninterrupted freedom of navigation and overflight of the Indo-Pacific waterways, given their strategic and commercial sensitivity as sea lanes of communication. The compulsion of sustaining the maritime balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region has necessitated responsible states like India and Japan to forge and bolster bilateral defence cooperation, in keeping with their respective national interests, policies and guidelines. Against this backdrop, this article analyses the impulses, dynamics and challenges of maritime cooperation between India and Japan, particularly in the defence-industrial realm. It underscores the imperative of sustaining and further strengthening the dynamics of bilateral defence-industrial cooperation and optimally exploring the opportunities unveiled by policies like “Make in India”, in sync with Japan's quest for defence modernisation and development, towards securing a free and open Indo-Pacific.

China’s “World-Class Military” Ambitions: Origins and Implications

At the Nineteenth Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October 2017, Chinese leader Xi Jinping outlined the party’s goal to “complete national defense and military modernization b...

Evaluation of Coordination and Optimal Route of Military-Military Integration Logistics System

In order to promote the deep development strategy of national civil-military integration, establish a mutual coupling and coordinated development of military local logistics system, and promote the sound and rapid development of national economic development and national defense modernization, this paper studies the construction and coordination evaluation of civil-military integration logistics system from the field of logistics. This paper briefly describes the relationship between military logistics and civil logistics, at the same time, according to the current situation of domestic epidemic situation, on the basis of the military civilian integration logistics system constructed by scholars, an emergency response mechanism is added to constitute the index system and evaluation model of the coordination degree of the military civilian integration logistics system. This paper uses fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) to analyze the new evaluation model of military civil integration logistics coordination degree, and the evaluation matrix of each criterion relative to the overall evaluation objective is obtained. According to the evaluation matrix, and puts forward corresponding suggestions and opinions aiming at the possible problems existing in the current military civil integration logistics system, so as to provide reference for the construction and adjustment of the military civilian integration logistics system by the relevant national departments in the future.

Algorithms at War: The Promise, Peril, and Limits of Artificial Intelligence

AbstractHow might rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies affect the construction and application of military power? Despite the emerging importance of AI systems in defense modernization initiatives, there has been little empirical or theoretical study from the perspective of the international relations (IR) and security studies fields. This article addresses this shortcoming by describing AI developments and assessing the manner in which AI is likely to affect military organizations. We focus specifically on military power, as new methods and modes thereof will alter the constitution of security relationships around the world and affect the ability of states to bargain, signal, and influence in the twenty-first century. We argue that, though rapid adoption of AI technologies stands to transform states’ ways of war on a number of fronts, an AI revolution brings with it new forms of risk that must be reconciled with the widespread integration of algorithmic systems across military functions. Where new technology promises a transformation of the character of military power in some veins, it also complicates the cognitive aspects of decision-making and bureaucratic interactions in security institutions. The speed with which complex integrated AI systems enable entirely new modes of war also stands to detach human agency in a potentially destabilizing fashion from the conduct of warfare on several fronts. Preventing the negative externalities of these “ghosts in the machine” will involve significant efforts to educate decision makers, promote accountability, and restrain irresponsible employment of AI.

Defense industrialization in Latin America

This article analyzes contrasting approaches to defense modernization in the Latin American region focusing on Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina. Three variables of autonomy, spending, and integration highlight the tradeoffs in each country’s strategy while facing the pressure of rising costs of technologically sophisticated systems. We show that these countries’ responses to the defense trilemma between autonomy, technology, and economic sustainability differ according to geographic, economic, and political conditions. Finally, we suggest that regional cooperation in this field is one possible response to the trilemma.

Feeding the Lion: China and defence development in African states

ABSTRACTIn analysing trends in Chinese defence engagement and their impact on defence development in African states, it is important to consider both China's changing policy priorities and its capabilities for the provision of defence support. China's international ambitions and its economic development contribute to its emergence as a key supporter of defence capability development in Africa, occupying a crucial niche as a provider of support, particularly arms transfers, appropriate to evolving local requirements. The economic and politico-military imperatives driving China's engagement of Africa, which stem from its economic reforms and re-emergence as a great power, are facilitating defence modernisation by accelerating the introduction of modern arms in substantial quantities. The commercial importance of arms exports and the growing importance of strategic ties strongly situate China to help sustain processes of defence capability development in African states over the long term.

Persistence or Reversal of Fortune? Early State Inheritance and the Legacies of Colonial Rule

This article assesses the relative merits of the “reversal of fortune” thesis, according to which the most politically and economically advanced polities of the precolonial era were subject to institutional reversal by European colonial powers, and the “persistence of fortune” view, according to which early advantages in state formation persisted throughout and beyond the colonial era. Discussing the respective arguments, the article offers a synthesis: the effect of early state formation on development trajectories was subject to a threshold condition. Non-European states at the highest levels of precolonial political centralization were able to resist European encroachment and engage in defensive modernization, whereas states closest to, yet just below, this threshold were the most attractive targets for colonial exploitation. Since the onset of decolonization, however, such polities have been among the first to regain independence and world patterns of state capacity are increasingly reverting to those of the precolonial era.

Impact of the Imperial State Tradition on Modernization in Contemporary Russia

The article explains the influence of imperial state tradition on the substance, direction and purpose of the modernization in contemporary Russia. One of the key factors of the imperial nature of the Russian statehood is the historically formed imperial consciousness of Russian elites and Russians as the dominant ethnic group, which is being constantly reproduced. Contemporary Russia pursues a strategy of defensive modernization that aims at overcoming the military-technical gap between Russia and the advanced Western countries. The Russian leadership has neither conducted nor planned modernization of the Russian state and political system on the basis of the principles of the real non-controllable democracy. It is shown that successful technological, economic, and especially political modernization is impossible without changing the socio-political model established in modern Russia.

INDO-US Defence Industry Co-operation: Problems and Prospects

The Indian Defence Industry in the past has been public sector dominated and exclusively controlled by Government of India. But this scenario is changing since 1991, with New Economic Policy of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (1991) has been bringing major changes in Indian Defence Industry. The private sector participation is increasing gradually in this sector. In 2001 the country opened up defence sector for 26% FDI and100 per cent for Indian private sector investments in select areas. In recent budget FDI limit is raised to 49%. It denotes the paradigm shift in defence public sector industries where state is reducing its investments and encouraging private and portfolio investments. Recent Modi-Obama initiatives have reenergized defence sector. Defence modernization is priority of the present Indian government and US can certainly help in this direction. India and the U.S.A. agreed to extend the Defence Cooperation Agreement in January 2015 and identified four projects under the Defence Technology Trade Initiative (DTTI) for joint production and development and exploring cooperation for jet engines and aircraft carrier systems. The US has been hard-selling a score of transformative defence technologies for co-development and coproduction with India under the DTTI. There are various obstacles in Indo-US defence industry cooperation and it needs to be analyzed in spite of policy changes which call for politico-techno-economic facilitation in true sense. India and US are having a strategic relationship for this sector. It is therefore expected that private sector industry from both the countries will force their respective governments to take realistic policies. This paper reviewed the problems and prospects involved in it.

Risk assessment and economic appraisal of protection methods for the Tarascon-Arles railway embankment

The coordination of flood management practices and the reduction of flood risk as proposed under the Plan Rhone project has led to a vast program of flood defence modernization and construction in the lower Rhone valley. One key element of the project involves the construction of a new 9km levee structure parallel to an existing railway line between the towns of Tarascon and Arles (Bouches-du-Rhone, France ) on the left bank of the Rhone, which has historically been an obstacle to the propagation of flood flows. The new levee is designed to protect the towns of Arles and Tarascon up to the 10−2 annual probability flood event, after which floodwater will flow over a 5km spillway which will be integrated into the structure. In case of overtopping of the spillway via a spillway structure, floodwater is collected in the space between the two embankments and will subsequently flow towards one of ten newly constructed flood discharge structures, spaced at regular intervals in the railway embankment. The levee will form part of a global system of defence which is designed against flooding on the Rhone with an annual probability of occurrence of 10−3 . In the event of overtopping of the levee, the railway embankment will be subjected to hydraulic loading and is at risk of damage from flood flows. During the detailed design phase of the project, options were explored for optimizing the permanent protection for the railway embankment. Using results from 2D and 3D hydraulic numerical modelling, a detailed risk assessment of the railway embankment was undertaken to evaluate its vulnerability under different hydraulic loading conditions and for different failure mechanisms using various parameters including water depth, hydraulic load, the duration of flood exposure and flow velocity. A comprehensive understanding of the main mechanisms of embankment damage under hydraulic loading (internal/ external erosion, overtopping, rotational failure etc.), existing geotechnical conditions and the railway embankment structure were required to undertake the risk assessment. For each hydraulic loading scenario, a detailed economic appraisal was undertaken for each method of protection involving the evaluation of damages associated with disruption to train services and the associated costs to repair the structure. The final stage of the project involved integrating the economic assessment into a wider reaching multi-criteria analysis including indicators for train security, maintainability and environmental impact aspects. The multi-criteria approach was tested under two management strategies to evaluate the effectiveness of each embankment protection system. This paper outlines how the risk assessment, economic appraisal and management-strategy based multi-criteria approach resulted in a highly optimized system of embankment protection with significant gains in terms of both reduced cost of implementation and environmental enhancement whilst maintaining the high levels of railway security required by SNCF-RESEAU.

Linkage of Domestic and International Policies: Asian Experiences

Linkage of Domestic and International Policies: Asian Experiences

Defensive modernization in Germany and in the Habsburg Empire – a historical study of capitalist transformation

AbstractWith the beginning of the Napoleonic war at the turn of the 19th century, capitalist transformation in the German states and in the Habsburg Empire took different routes. The article analyses the political economy of both types of ‘defensive modernization’ from the viewpoint of institutional economics. We argue that initial reforms in German states gave way to a transformation process which drove a wedge between the interest of the monarchs and the landed nobility. Liberal reformers established a political bargain with the nobility which made capitalist institutions acceptable for the power holders. Later on, reformers established a ‘market preserving federalism’ which gave capitalism a further boost. By contrast, the dependence of the Austrian Emperor on the multiethnic nobility weakened the power of the central state. The transformation process in the Habsburg Empire remained dependent on the personal interests of the dominant coalition, which either delayed capitalism or sought to combine capitalism with protectionism on its own behalf. As a result, capitalist dynamics took up speed in Germany but were delayed in Austria.

Arming Our Allies: The Case for Offensive Capabilities

ABSTRACT: The desire of some US allies to rearm presents an opportunity to shore up a system of deterrence challenged by ambitious and disruptive powers. Given the nature of the threat (a limited war scenario) and the security environment of the region (A2/AD capabilities of the revisionists), frontline US allies should be armed with offensive arsenals capable of targeting our common rivals. Such a capability would strengthen not only the immediate deterrent of the individual states but also the effectiveness of American extended deterrence. ********** Some of the most vulnerable US allies, located near regional revisionists in Europe and Asia, are beginning to rethink their security strategies. A combination of obstreperous revisionist powers in their vicinity and a distracted and solipsistic United States far away is in fact awakening security fears dormant for decades. Poland and Japan, among others, are embarking on defense modernization plans and are adjusting their postures to reflect new regional realities. Most interestingly, some US allies are acquiring, or planning to acquire, weapons capable of striking inside their rival's territories. The United States should encourage such rearming. Well-armed frontline states, capable of hitting a common rival on its own territory, are a source of stability in a US-led alliance. They develop a missing and necessary component of the deterrence that undergirds regional stability, strengthening local defense and enhancing US extended deterrence. In particular, offensive capabilities in the hands of the most vulnerable allies address two sets of problems. First, they reinforce indigenous deterrent capabilities that are especially needed to deal with the threat of small, localized attacks by the nearby revisionist power. They also give the targeted small or medium-sized state the option to force the enemy either to escalate to an uncomfortable level or to continue a limited war under more difficult conditions. Second, offensive capabilities in the hands of frontline allies reinforce the credibility of American extended deterrence by breaking the hostile A2/AD bubble, thereby lowering the costs of projecting power to the battlefield. The nature of the threat presented by regional revisionist powers --China and Russia--makes such offensive capabilities more necessary than in past decades. The Western alliance system in Europe and in Asia cannot rely on a defense in depth, trading space for the time required to activate the allies and to project their forces to the frontline. The rapacious regional powers may in fact pursue a limited war, striking quickly for narrowly defined geographic objectives: their goal is not the territorial conquest of whole states but a gradual revision of the regional order, and they have demonstrated an aversion to direct and large confrontations with the United States and its alliances. To respond to this threat, it is crucial to have some frontline states armed with offensive capabilities. Through such capabilities, the targeted states can steel their own deterrent, increasing their ability to deny the enemy's limited objectives. At the same time, they can make allied participation less costly and thus more credible, elevating the risk of the larger war the rival fears. Defensive Mindsets, Offensive Capabilities Before examining the strategic benefits of offensive capabilities, it is important to note frontline states such as Poland or Japan are interested in defending their independence, not in expanding their influence or control. They are status-quo powers, benefiting from the decades-old order underwritten by the United States and maintained by its system of alliances. Their mindset is defensive. The question they face concerns the most effective way of shoring up their defenses. There are two basic ways in which exposed frontline states can defend themselves against an aggressive neighbor: they can develop a posture of territorial defense, blunting and slowing those forces that might penetrate their state--or they can also target the enemy's rear lines and bases and even strategic assets deep inside the rival's homeland. …

Staging Singing in the Theater of War (Berlin, 1805)

Almost fifty years after the original event, Willibald Alexis’s historical novel Ruhe ist die erste Bürgerpflicht (1852) commemorated a musical performance that had taken place on October 16, 1805, at Berlin’s Nationaltheater. According to both Alexis’s reimagining and contemporary reports, after the closing “Reiterlied” of Schiller’s Wallensteins Lager a new war song was sung by audience and actors. The sensation this caused—in a city awaiting its troops’ departure for war against Napoleon—established Schiller’s play as a privileged site for political singing in Berlin and across German lands for the next decade. In this article, I account for this first occasion, its unusual press reception, and its influence by contextualizing it within a growing early nineteenth-century discourse on public communal singing, arguing that Berliners were self-consciously enacting French patriotic behaviors. As well as indicating longer-term continuities, I distinguish the political role attributed to war songs in this period from the more familiar Bildung-orientated discourse on choral singing and folk song. In contrast to established accounts that locate the emergence of popular political song in the volunteer movements of the Wars of Liberation and the national politics of the Burschenschaften and male-voice choirs, I suggest that these early performances show the official imposition of public political singing—as a kind of “defensive modernization”—in response to the Napoleonic threat. I thus revise our understanding of the establishment of singing as a modern political tool in German lands, and of the role of singing in the development of political agency and national sentiment more broadly.