Explaining Military Innovation across Time and Space

Funded by the LMU’s Junior Researcher Fund

Brief Summary of the Project

Military innovations, like submarines or drones, have repeatedly evolved as a game changer of modern warfare and arguably revolutionized international security and global order. For example, the state’s projection of force and its surveillance of the adversary’s territory were historically linked to soldiers operating in hazardous environments, ultimately risking their lives for some proclaimed national interest. The recent invention of drones has changed this military practice. They are arguably “the most important weapons development since the atomic bomb” (Singer), which might carry tremendous consequences for international security in the future, such as waging war without risking own casualties or even completely without human beings.

While there are extensive debates on the strategic, operational and normative implications of new military technologies, we know much less on the political drivers and obstacles of military innovation. Why was, for instance, Israel with a small and strained R&D budget rather than the United States with gigantic investments into drone technologies the first state to successfully integrate them into their armed forces and to employ drones in combat? In a similar vein, we know little about the causes of recent military innovations like cyber warfare or killer robots and even historical instances like submarines or stealth technologies are by no means over-researched.

An approach to the question of when military innovation succeeds or fails is of great relevance as it has implications for key issues in International Relations, such as the military balance of power between nation states or the debate on the (technological) causes of war (e.g. offense-defense balance). Moreover, a better understanding of the conditions under which military innovations succeed or fail contributes to political economy debates on national comparative advantages in transformative innovation; and possibly even to the comprehensive business literature on innovation at the intersection of the private and the public sector.

Please contact Moritz Weiss if you are interested in the research project.