What is it about?
There are four different types of defense style used by countries worldwide. These are directed towards political, rational, emotional and military thinking and spending. All countries are somewhere towards one dominant model with aspects of the others. The budget decisions are usually made with this thinking in mind. For example Finland has a political model whilst UK has a rational model. Bulgaria is emotional with the greatness of Bulgaria affecting all decisions. Argentine in Junta days and India today have military styles where the organisation serves those who are employed in the defence not the country.
Featured Image
Photo by Bao Menglong on Unsplash
Why is it important?
It is important for policy makers to understand what sort of organisation and style they have and why those in it react and think as they do. Most policy makers think that they are in the rational model but when viewed against this set of models it becomes clear that actually very few countries spend their money on real defense.
Perspectives
I realized that the models were important when trying to help countries reform. It was clear from some strategic defense reviews that getting real defense for the country was often the last thought on peoples minds. All too often social welfare, supporting mayors, having a good time for officers or supporting defense industry took a greater priority than operational effectiveness. Despite the challenging world of today with a resurgent Russia and Putin there are still many countries far from effective
Mr Glen Grant
The Ukrainian Institute for the Future
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Defence models uncovered: how to understand the defence style of a country, Defense and Security Analysis, January 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2019.1565669.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
