CIO.

GAL/81/17
16 May 2017
RESTRICTED
ENGLISH only

Vienna, 15 May 2017

With reference to the Invitation to the 2nd IWG Structured Dialogue Meeting in
Capitals Format on Trends in Military Force Posture (CIO.GAL/74/17) to take
place on 6 June 2017 in Vienna (Hofburg) please find attached an academic paper
prepared for the meeting:

“Trends in military capability development: forces, equipment and technology”

by Mr. James Hackett, Editor, The Military Balance, Senior Fellow for Defence
and Military Analysis, International Institute for Strategic Studies (London).

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James Hackett, Editor, The Military Balance, Senior Fellow for Defence and
Military Analysis,

The International Institute for Strategic Studies

Trends in military capability development: forces, equipment and

technology
Since the adoption of the Hamburg Ministerial Council Declaration entitled ‘From Lisbon to
Hamburg: 20th Anniversary on the OSCE Framework for Arms Control,’ the OSCE has
embarked on the Structured Dialogue process. The purpose of the Structured Dialogue is to
discuss ‘the current and future challenges and risks to security in the OSCE area to foster a
greater understanding on these issues that could serve as a common solid basis for a way
forward.’

The first phase of this process focuses on the state of, and perceptions of, the current
European Security environment. It comprises three interconnected thematic areas devoted to
issues of threat perceptions, military doctrines and military force postures. An Informal
Working Group, established to facilitate the Structured Dialogue process, convened its first
meeting in April 2017. Discussions in this meeting focused on trends in threat perceptions.
In May 2017, the Austrian Chairmanship organized the Intersessional OSCE Dialogue on
Military Doctrines, in the Structured Dialogue framework. This seminar assessed the
evolution of military doctrines as a result of changing threat perceptions and technological
developments.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a contribution to discussions on trends in military

force postures in the OSCE area. The paper focuses on issues related to defence capabilities,
technological developments and activities.

The contemporary defence environment

Changing security threats, transforming forces, new technologies and ambiguities

The contemporary politico-military environment is increasingly complex and unpredictable.

Security threats today emanate from, inter alia, unstable and insecure states, transnational
terrorism, internal conflict, cyber-attack, organised crime and urban insecurity, as well as
more traditional threats from state actors. Old security challenges have not gone away.
After all, conventional conflict has re-emerged in Europe and as states renew their focus on
territorial defence as a driver for defence policy and capability developments there is
renewed attention on deterring perceived adversaries, and sharpened focus on the place of
conventional military forces in deterrent postures.

Across a broadening range of warfighting domains, military capability developments are

enabled by modernising weapons systems, accelerating technological change and militarily-
relevant capabilities that are increasingly derived from, and are in turn increasingly useful

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in, the civil as well as defence sectors. Military platforms and weapons that previously
would have been in the hands of a select few have proliferated, both vertically within states
and horizontally to new operators, and also to non-state actors. New and emerging
technologies have had the effect of accelerating the speed not just with which military forces
and adversaries can affect outcomes, but also the speed with which security challenges can
transform into security crises.

These have the potential to more speedily cross borders: remote, foreign crises may become
national threats more rapidly than in the past. They also have the potential to rapidly
transform, shifting between the civil and military realms and, once within the military
sphere, more rapidly transition across warfighting domains. This makes modern conflict
more fluid but also more unpredictable.

It is also more ambiguous. Security effect these days can derive from the use of a growing
array of capacities. In some ways, this reflects a growing interrelationship between complex
security challenges, modernising equipment capabilities and accelerating technological
progress. This means that states may be able to use new capabilities like cyber to sharpen
old strategies, such as influence operations, or might simultaneously employ non-traditional
forces alongside – or in place of – regular militaries. Non-traditional actors, meanwhile,
empowered by the democratisation of some militarily-relevant capabilities, also have the
ability to shape the strategic environment. While it is true to say that the use of traditional
military capability remains a principal way of exerting force, it is not the only way.

Military organisations
Smaller, more mobile militaries and new actors

The range of current and emerging security challenges means that the structures of military
forces are changing. Of course they altered after the end of the Cold War, as changing threat
perceptions led to a ‘peace dividend’ for many. Defence budgets reduced significantly in the
OSCE area and forces – and particularly land forces – that had been forward-deployed in
Europe were reduced significantly. Overall numbers of personnel and equipment are today
lower than Cold War levels. At the same time, changing missions produced re-configured
forces, with heavy reductions in infantry and tank formations in a number of states, while
for some the need to deploy out-of-area led to smaller armed forces with equipment
intended, in theory at least, to enable deployability. While a reduction in mass was
acknowledged, it was hoped that improvements in equipment and personnel would still
equal an overall increase in capability.

While force levels have reduced across the OSCE region, heightened security concerns since
2013 have prompted a reversal of this long-term trend. Some states have concluded that
reductions have gone far enough if not too far. This has been reflected by the reintroduction
of conscription in some, and plans in others to boost existing volunteer forces. It is, though,
important to consider what conscription can and cannot do. For instance, while it might
create a larger personnel pool from which the regular force would hope to recruit, much of
its practical utility depends on the terms of service offered to conscripts. Those on a one-year

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term, for instance, may not be prioritised for training in advanced equipment that, by
definition, can be expensive and time-consuming. Also, they may not be posted to rapid
reaction units; regular staff may be prioritised for these to avoid regular personnel rotations
that might in turn erode combat capability. Nonetheless, while establishment strengths will
not reach Cold War levels, personnel increases reflect growing security worries and will
also, in time, create a wider pool of reservists.

More responsive military forces

While some states retain militaries of significant size, there are no longer massed armies
forward-deployed in Europe. Instead some military formations now reflect contemporary
operational requirements and modern equipment developments, in that the most usable
elements may be small but are often designed to act promptly, deploying at speed and using
a range of flexible lift capabilities to enable rapid mobility. While there are once again force
elements forward-deployed in Europe, a challenge is that some now comprise smaller
forces, intended to be more nimble and with the capacity to be rapidly reinforced.

Forces designated for rapid reaction tasks might include Special Forces or elite infantry,
airborne formations or commandos, or other troops or capabilities held at high-readiness.
This could change the military dynamic during a period of increasing tension and
instability. These forces have been supported by the introduction of more flexible airlift and
mobile platforms – such as light-weight wheeled vehicles, some air-portable – that are
increasingly well-protected, drawing the lessons from combat experiences against
asymmetric adversaries in Iraq and Afghanistan. These encompass vehicles of the type often
employed to conduct reconnaissance close to enemy lines, as well as vehicles analogous to
armoured personnel carriers.

Non-traditional military actors, and non-traditional military tasks

As the number and complexity of security challenges has increased, states are employing
non-traditional forces to undertake military or security operations.

Some states employ forces like gendarmeries or coast guards, or units reporting to
departments other than defence ministries – interior ministries for example. These forces
may be able to undertake security-relevant tasks using additional skills and powers, such as
police functions, or they may have greater access to non-lethal capabilities; they could also
be used to support military forces directly.

There is a risk that deploying non-traditional forces in order to perform traditional security
or defence tasks could blur the lines between peace and war. The posting of some ‘non-
military’ forces might be intended to manage escalation, by deploying a non-military
‘security presence’ rather than military forces, but the often-conventional capabilities held
by some of these units can create uncertainty. Furthermore, a deployment could create
doubt over the precise roles that these deployed forces are intended to undertake, or
whether the deployment of ‘non-traditional’ troops (or proxy forces) is the prelude to a more
conventional military deployment.

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One of the principal factors underlying this is that such forces may fall outside traditional
reporting structures and so may not be ordinarily considered when assessing a state’s
militarily-relevant power. Additionally, should nations decide to employ these forces,
generating adequate transparency and confidence might mean that other states would have
to maintain contact networks additional to those that underpin existing military-to-military
ties. The absence of these, or difficulty in quickly establishing clear lines of communication,
might hinder an adequate sense of predictability and confidence in another state’s defence
activity. These all add new elements of calculation in seeking to create effective confidence-
building measures.

At the same time, today’s complex security environment means that traditional military
forces have been called on to perform a range of non-traditional tasks. These include
stabilisation operations, military assistance to the civil power or humanitarian assistance and
disaster-relief, or actions against insurgent or criminal groups. The reasons for deploying
military forces in these contingencies might result from heightened insecurity precluding the
deployment of groups ostensibly more suited to the mission – such as civilian experts or
police – or it could be that states would not have recourse to deploy these assets. It could
also result from the capabilities available to military forces (such as airlift and deployable
engineering plant) meaning that they are increasingly seen as first responders. Deploying
into non-traditional environments troops that are ostensibly trained to close-with and
engage peer combat adversaries might risk unintended consequences, and it makes it more
important that conventional forces so tasked are sufficiently adaptable and well-trained.

New domains - cyber

At the same time, militaries’ traditional flexibility and adaptability mean they are
increasingly seen as relevant to new areas such as space, cyberwarfare and the information
domain, even if there remains uncertainty over the precise military role in these.

The role of the armed forces in cyber is one example. Here, military cyber units have grown
in number. Cyber requires the armed forces to adapt internally to societal changes in ways
they may not have had to do before. This includes working with, rather than assimilating,
unconventional elements that might be welcomed in these new domains and reflects that
disruptive capability, and ways of thinking, are becoming as important as conventional
capability. While questions persist about how ‘new’ a domain cyber actually is, or whether it
should instead be seen as an extension of the electromagnetic spectrum (and so a new
technical means of exerting traditional effect), the fact remains it is now a fast moving and
established field of military responsibility.

But even as cyber is being increasingly integrated into defence thinking, and is seen as vital
across all other military domains, there remains a lack of clarity – at least publicly – over the
actual responsibilities that the military would have in this area. For instance, some military
‘cyber units’ seem to focus on network defence or information assurance; in so doing
perhaps encompassing responsibilities previously held in some countries by Signals units.
Others seem tasked with offensive actions in cyberspace. With multiple states establishing
differing cyber organisations, it remains unclear what would constitute an attack deserving

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a military response rather than a response from law-enforcement or intelligence agencies,
what body should decide who responds, and what form should a response take? Then there
is the challenge of how to measure military cyber power, in such a way that bolsters
predictability and confidence, given that it would arguably be more useful to focus on
qualitative capability and effect rather than quantitatively on equipment.

More effectively measuring military exercises

The changing tasks and organisation of armed forces, together with the use of non-
traditional security actors and newly introduced capabilities and technologies, means that
military training activities are also changing.

Generating new military organisations and buying more equipment might attract column
inches in newspapers, but they do not by themselves improve military capability. This also
encompasses, inter alia, developments in doctrine and training, partly reflecting the human
dimension of military capability. Exercises have long been considered as a measure of
national capability development, but in light of the complexity of the contemporary
operating environment and accelerating military modernisation and technological change,
there could be a reassessment of the metrics used to assess them. For instance, a greater
focus on reporting the exercise of rapid-reaction and high-readiness formations, and the
assets used to enable their mobility, may bolster the utility of exercise reporting, while the
average size of these formations would argue for a lower personnel threshold for reporting
and monitoring.

At the same time, because of the greater integration and utility of capabilities across
differing domains, there could be greater scrutiny of exercises in the air, sea, space and cyber
domains – as well as on land – as well as exercises that are designated joint, are integrated
by design, or include non-traditional defence actors. This is important because, as new
military capabilities and new missions have emerged, there has been a growth in the variety
of militarily-relevant exercises, rather than strictly ‘military’ drills. Some military forces now
train for non-traditional as well as traditional tasks. Exercises involving non-traditional
security actors now also need to be considered, particularly where these forces have in the
past been used to support conventional military forces, or when they are capable of doing
so.

Meanwhile, new technologies and increasing integration of capability across domains means
that metrics traditionally associated with assessing exercises, such as the number of troops,
equipment or units involved, may need to be reshaped. Also, increased computing capacity
may ostensibly allow for the exercise of lower personnel numbers, though the capability
being exercised or modelled could still remain significant. So, existing measures could be
augmented with enhanced ways of assessing capability, such as focus on mobility or ‘rapid
reaction’, the use and operational management of large military formations, or tasks such as
‘integrated air and missile defence’, ‘military cyberpower’ or ‘counter-terrorism’.

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Changing technologies and modernising military systems
Another challenge stems from the changes to military equipment and militarily-relevant
technologies. Equipment numbers have reduced in some areas and increased in others. New
capabilities have emerged and there has been increasing integration of weapons across
domains. Overall there has been greater focus on improving the capability of military assets.
Changes in technology, and in the military applications of some technologies, mean that our
understanding of what actually is militarily-relevant might also be changing.

For instance, an increasing amount of defence-relevant equipment is now developed in the

commercial world. Some could be purchased on open or grey markets, or manufactured by
countries newly developing their own defence industrial base. They could even be
developed ‘at home’, including by non-state actors, as new online technologies enable more
dispersed learning and as the increased mobility of human capital makes it more possible
for states or non-state actors to ‘buy-in’ expertise.

UAVs are one example. Smaller systems are increasingly available commercially, and a
growing number are employed in contemporary conflicts. Meanwhile, some larger and
more capable platforms are now fitted for strike missions as well as Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and are being sold to states that previously would
not have operated such systems.

Cyber capability too is increasingly generated in the civil, commercial sector and is
progressively being integrated into military formations; it is more and more seen as an area
of military competence. Reducing technological barriers to entry also mean that this
capability – admittedly at varying levels of effect – is more accessible, more quickly, to new
actors traditionally unable to procure systems with the potential to generate strategic effect.

A significant commonality among the capabilities noted above relates to response times and
distance.

These systems all use the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit information rapidly, and use
growing computing power to rapidly process data. This means not just that information is
more promptly obtained, but that military effects may be brought to bear more quickly. The
same can be said of recent developments in complex battle management systems, now more
rapidly able to integrate multi-domain military capabilities.

More accuracy and more speed

Improved capability may result from the use of emergent technologies, like cyberpower, to
generate new outcomes or to accelerate the impact of old tactics, like information and
influence operations. These may lead states to consider that they can achieve strategic effect
without the overt employment of military force, or alternatively supplement or enhance
conventional forces’ activities. But improved capability may also derive from new-
generation kinetic weapons or modernised, more mobile, lethal and more accurate legacy
systems. There is also an increasing trend of cross-domain relevance, meaning it is in some

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cases increasingly difficult to assign ‘boundaries’ relating to ‘land, sea or air’ that correctly
reflect the effect of many military systems.

Some platforms have been modernised, and new equipment has been procured, to take
account of changing requirements. There are fewer tanks in Europe’s inventories. There has,
however, been an increase in the number of crew-protected vehicles and more mobile
wheeled armoured personnel carriers and light tactical utility vehicles. Speed and mobility
across ground is increasingly at a premium. However, while these platforms may be more
mobile than their predecessors, today’s systems and weapons also demand greater attention.

The sophistication of some of today’s weapons, and the speed and distance at which they
can generate military effect creates new challenges for defence planners; one is the risk that
they can undermine predictability.

Battlefield rockets and Short range ballistic missiles (SRBMs)

For instance, there have been significant developments in the accuracy, range and payloads
of battlefield rockets and short-range ballistic missiles. In past decades, area suppression
was a key driver for some of these systems – in line with many artillery doctrines at a time
when massed forward-deployed armies were in relative proximity. Area suppression
remains a factor, while some states are now also developing more accurate munitions. Some
of these may in future comprise projectiles guided-to-target, in order to conduct more
precise engagements and expend fewer rounds. At the same time, some of these systems are
now able to engage targets at increasingly long ranges, reflecting not just changes in doctrine
but also the reality that military formations now are often smaller, more dispersed and more
mobile than during the Cold War.

In cases like this, listing numbers and locations of platforms and expecting that this alone
will generate adequate confidence or predictability, becomes less useful. Instead, the types
of weapons that each platform may carry are perhaps of more value in assessing capability,
as may be information about the launch system, such as the number and calibre of launch
tubes or the manufacturers’ designation, or the possible capacity of the launch tube.

Multi-mission launch systems

This becomes a problem when discussing naval vessels. Modern naval vessels are
increasingly multi-mission in nature, with many capable of undertaking a range of tasks and
engaging a variety of targets, albeit not necessarily simultaneously. In many ways this is a
result of (and a factor in) the increasing cost of naval vessels – and policymakers’ desire to
secure greater value from reducing hull numbers – but it could also be a result of the greater
capability offered by modern offensive and defensive missile systems on naval platforms.

Importantly, a growing number of naval platforms are now capable of land-attack or air-
defence. They are able to take an active part in operations in the air/sea/land/space and cyber
domains, operating as part of an integrated suite of military systems, and able to find and
strike targets at range. These developments have been enabled by improved technologies
and battle-management systems, radars and better weapons, but also by better launch-

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system technologies, some of which now offer the capacity to carry different types of
weapon useful in different domains, such as air-defence missiles, anti-ship weapons and
land-attack cruise missiles.

That some of these launchers are also now ‘multi-mission’, able to carry different weapons
for different tasks, would mean that listing a platform – or indeed a platform with ‘common
launcher X’ – may have less value than detailing the weapon systems actually on the vessel.
At the same time, to add to the complexity of the challenge, some of these missile systems
are capable of being transported in, and fired from, non-traditional platforms such as de-
mountable ISO containers.

It is likely that similar developments will take place on land. In some cases different
battlefield rockets can today be fired from the same or similar vehicles and, while fixed
emplacements may currently be the only way of introducing into the land environment
launch systems similar to those on naval platforms, it is likely that research continues.
Meanwhile, research continues to extend the range, speed and accuracy of existing and
developmental land-based rocket and SRBM systems.

Conclusion
New defence technologies have entered and are shaping inventories. There is greater
reliance on systems to generate military effect, instead of just on platforms. As a result,
considerations on what constitutes military capability has changed also to include militarily-
relevant capabilities like cyber and specialist information and influence capabilities. The
same is true of organisations, with armed forces increasingly used in non-traditional
military environments and non-traditional military or security forces increasingly deployed
by states. Some military forces have been reshaped away from large static formations
towards more mobile and rapidly-deployable units, equipped with reducing numbers of
more mobile equipment.

A growing range of military platforms and systems now originate in the civil sector, and can
be adapted to generate military effect. There has been greater integration of systems in the
air, sea, land, space and electromagnetic domains and increasingly capabilities in each of
these areas have to be considered relevant in another. This increasing ‘cross-domain
relevance’ of military equipment, such as the increased capability of launch systems to
house different weapons, might increase uncertainty about the precise capability of
platforms. At the same time, there has been a move towards greater speed and accuracy for
systems and weapons.

The following questions could be addressed during deliberations on military force

postures:

Measuring impact:

How could the strength and capability of States’ military and non-military security forces be
better assessed, taking into account their versatile roles and missions, especially when these
forces may be used interchangeably or may be used to supplement one another.

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Are traditional approaches of numerical arms limitations still sufficient? What qualitative
aspects of defence capabilities are of most significance? How could these be measured?

Accommodating new technologies:

With the recognition that information and communications technologies are taking an
increasingly important role in military operations, should these be better defined, also
through agreed international codes of conduct?

What formats are most useful for discussing technological progress in defence technologies
and particularly how can new technologies be better integrated into international discussion
frameworks to understand and assess their impact?

Understanding intentions:

What kind of transparency measures are helpful in preventing misunderstanding when

conducting military exercises, particularly given their different missions and scale.

What additional measures could be applied, including communication and contacts, in

resolving tensions about new deployments of personnel and equipment in, or close to,
border areas?

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