تغییر ویژگی های جنگ و آینده تحقیق و توسعه نظامی  Changing characteristics of warfare and the future of Military R&D

1. Introduction Wars have been a part of human life since prehistoric times and they are expected to play an important role in the future. The shape, characteristics, and size of wars have changed drastically over time due to transformations in Societies, Technologies, Economy, Environment, Politics and Values/Cultures (STEEPV). The military’s response to changing characteristics of warfare has been through ‘technology-driven’ and ‘concept-driven’ approaches. There have been times when new technologies enabled armies to develop new war concepts; and times when new concepts required the development of new technologies. In both cases, armies have aimed to adapt themselves to changing characteristic of warfare through military Research and Development (R&D), which is called “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA) (Krepinevich, 1992). Historical transformations show that from the battle of Greek phalanxes to nano-soldiers’ network-centric warfare, there have been enormous shifts in the perception of threats and security. The key challenge for armies has been to remain resilient under changing circumstances of warfare due to transformations in STEEPV systems by adapting themselves constantly through RMA. The key research questions of the present study are: 1. Why and how have military technologies and concepts driven RMA as a response to changing conditions? 2. What are the emerging technologies and concepts, which may change the nature of warfare? 3. How can the future military R&D agenda be configured to respond to changing conditions? To answer these questions, the second section of the paper begins with a review of the RMA literature within a broader historical perspective. First the RMA concept is introduced, and then key drivers for RMA are discussed. Building upon this background, Section 3 describes the research methodology with the use of a combination of literature review, patent-based technology trend analysis and scenario techniques to investigate the emerging military technologies and concepts. A research model is presented to illustrate how the key research question is addressed.