Strategic operations research

Rightsizing the politics of defense

It is becoming increasingly clear that the nation-state is not longer the 'optimal unit' to deal with many defense issues. This is certainly the case for smaller and mid-sized countries, but arguably even for the larger ones. When 'national defense' essentially meant territorial 'self-defense', the centrality of the nation state in defense matters was self evident, even almost tautological. But for many developed countries this is no longer the case.

Both components of the expression 'national defense' ('national' and 'defense') are continuing to evolve. 'National defense' has gradually morphed into a broader concept of 'national security'. And as the international system has become ever more interwoven and 'complex', the concept of 'national' is also far less obvious than it used to be.

For a long time planning defense was just a purely 'national' matter. Nations did of course enter into alliances for various purposes and varying amounts of time, but forward defense planning remained essentially a national activity. Since the end of World War II and the advent of the Cold War, at least some NATO countries (and to some extent  - but in a different way - also Warsaw Pact countries) added a fairly thin layer of multinational defense planning on top of their national efforts. The NATO defense planning process represents probably the most developed form of multinational defense planning - even though its actual impact    on national defense decisions has been fairly disappointing throughout NATO's existence. The European Union has recently also become somewhat involved in defence planning, but the added value of this additional effort has so far (unfortunately) been marginal.

Confronted with the current fiscal tsunami that is starting to hit our National Defense Organizations, nations can essentially head in three different directions.
More multinationalism
A first option is that nations would opt for a more systematic multinational approach. This would appl

Capabilities and the second Arab awakening

This is probably the

An insider's view on NATO defense planning

As I mentioned in another posting, defense planning is changing from a narrow focus on just the 'force' (units and platforms) to a broader sense of anything than can help us in achieving our defense (and security) objectives. So what used to be called 'force planning' within NATO is now called 'defense planning'. A few years back, a NATO colleague handed me a hilarious little blurb that had been written by some NATO force planner. There was no classification on it, so I see no reason not to post it. I cannot source it, although the Brigitte Bardot reference suggests it was probably written sometime in the late 60s or 70s; while the wording and the sneer at the type of English used may point to a British (or American) officer. For those of you with suspiscious minds (and let's face it - that does tend to be somewhat of a professional hazard in our line of work) let me assure you that I had absolutely nothing to do with this!!! J

Grammars of power - some personal recollections

A good colleague and friend of mine at HCSS (Tim Sweijs - War Studies at King's College) and I (with a number of talented interns at HCSS)  have been doing some interesting work on 'the future of power'. Few concepts are more central to international relations (and international security) than this one. And yet, even this central concept suffers from the same definitional and conceptual imprecision that bedevils so many other concepts in international relations. One would hope that a more 'applied' policy-think tank like HCSS would be able to rely on cumulative theoretical knowledge built up by academia [I will definitely return to this topic in more detail in subsequent blog entries]. It is true that much has been written on 'power' in the (remarkably insular) discipline of political science. But I have always felt that this literature still misses a number of  important 'dimensions' of power. This is especially the case in the field of international security, in which the realist tradition - and its particular view on power - has been dominant for decades now. We were also never able to find a nice synoptic overview of the various 'forms' of power and what we actually know about their relative effectiveness. As I define 'armed force' as essentially a bundle of any (useful) capabilities that can be applied to exercise raw power in the pursuit of certain goals, and as I am also convinced that there are many un(der)explored recesses of power, we set out to do our homework on this topic.

Capability taxonomies can kill

The power of taxonomies never ceases to amaze me. We use a lot of (explicit AND implicit) taxonomies and other types of classifications in defense planning - as we of course also do in other walks of life. Most of us are not even aware that we put things into various mental 'boxes' for all sorts of purposes ("she's one/not one of us"; "he is attractive/not attractive; etc.). Some of the more geeky amongst us might be more conscious of this, but might still think these categories are innocent, 'objective' mental 'aids' that just assist us in moving from the more abstract to the more concrete. My own take on this is that the taxonomies we currently use in defense are among the main culprits why we have the 'armed forces' we have now, and why we have too much of certain types of military capability and too litle of others.