Technology and Policy: System Acquisition in a Complex Operational Environment

The United States’ (US) ability to maintain a technological edge in the current operational environment is challenged by the increased ability of near-peer nations to produce military technology. In response to this problem, the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) seeks to model the three key elements of military system acquisition—context, product, and process—to develop a more comprehensive understanding regarding how and why nations acquire technical solutions. Through the application of the System Dynamics Modeling Process (SDMP), this research examines the interactions between the strategic context of Germany, the military products it acquires to address its operational needs, and the processes it employs to acquire military technology. The results of this research indicate that numerous dynamic variables of context impact the acquisitions process for Germany, particularly political support and subsequent monetary allocations to research and development.

The Critical Break

With this chapter, the book’s major focus shifts from the whole world to Europe, where sustainable capitalist economic development first takes off. After Rome’s disintegration, due to Western Europe’s geography and level of military technology, no European state could gain a hegemony on power. The resulting intense and ever-present state competition fueled an arms race and technological innovation while keeping rulers in need of revenue. They found additional resources in the expanding commerce, manufacturing, and capitalist institutions that accompanied an emerging bourgeoisie. Consequently, uniquely in Europe a bourgeoisie sustainably managed to survive its own self-destructiveness and the hostility of a hereditary landed aristocracy. The growing muscle of the bourgeoisie expressed itself in increasingly successful demands for greater freedoms, privileges, status, and political power commensurable to their wealth. The unique sustainable success of the European bourgeoisie and capitalist institutions constitutes a historical singularity, paving the way for today’s riches and freedoms.

Places of Knowledge between Ulm and the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century : The Kunstkammer of Johannes Faulhaber

This article investigates how the Kunstkammer of Johannes Faulhaber, renowned mathematician and engineer of Ulm, functioned as a place dedicated to the advancement of mechanical-architectural knowledge. Examining several unstudied publications associated with his Kunstkammer and a previously unknown inventory, we reconstruct the collection and examine Faulhaber’s advertisement of it in printed catalogues. A comparison of Faulhaber᾽s collection with that of his contemporary Joseph Furttenbach the Elder highlights specifics of its focus and scope. The Kunstkammer was also a place of technology transfer, whereby aspects of Dutch military technology were introduced into the German context, and were in turn further disseminated through Faulhaber’s publications. In this sense, Faulhaber᾽s Kunstkammer can be understood as an entanglement of ‘places’ – both physical and printed.

International Law and Weapons Review

International law requires that, before any new weapon is developed, purchased or modified, the legality of its use must be determined. This book offers the first comprehensive and systemic analysis of the law mandating such assessments – Article 36 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. Underpinned by empirical research, the book explores the challenges the weapons review authorities are facing when examining emerging military technology, such as autonomous weapons systems and (autonomous) cyber capabilities. It argues that Article 36 is sufficiently broad to cover a wide range of military systems and offers States the necessary flexibility to adopt a process that best suits their organisational demands. While sending a clear signal that law should not simply follow technological developments, but rather steer them, the provision has its limits, however, which are shaped and defined by the interpretative decisions made by States.

European Mail Armour

Mail armour (commonly mislabelled 'chainmail') was used for more than two millennia on the battlefield. After its invention in the Iron Age, mail rapidly spread all over Europe and beyond. The Roman army, keen on new military technology, soon adopted mail armour and used it successfully for centuries. Its history did not stop there and mail played a vital role in warfare during the Middle Ages up to the Early Modern Period. Given its long history, one would think mail is a well-documented material, but that is not the case. For the first time, this books lays a solid foundation for the understanding of mail armour and its context through time. It applies a long-term multi-dimensional approach to extract a wealth of as yet untapped information from archaeological, iconographic and written sources. This is complemented with technical insights on the mail maker’s chaîne opératoire.

PRIORITY DIRECTIONS OF ECONOMIC COOPERATION BETWEEN UKRAINE AND THE USA IN THE HIGH-TECH SPHERE

Ukraine’s international economic cooperation with other countries is becoming a determining factor in providing national security, in particular, in the political, military and economic spheres. This is manifested in such areas as the equipping of the Armed Forces and other components, the implementation of national weapons production projects and the export of Ukrainian weapons. The Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine in 2014 led not only to the cessation of Ukrainian-Russian high-technical cooperation, but also transformed Russia from a competitor in the market of weapons of mass destruction into an overt enemy of the Ukrainian state, which compelled Ukraine to start looking for a new model of behavior in the market. Given that both Ukraine and the Russian Federation operate largely in the same segment the weapons market, Ukraine would be able to move from this segment dominated by our main competitor only with the support of our strategic partners and international sanctions policy against the RF because of its aggression against Ukraine. The possibility of using high-technical cooperation between Ukraine and the USA as an instrument of displacement of the Russian Federation from the world market of weapons-equipped vehicles is substantiated. It is proved that US interest in the implementation of sanctions imposed by the Russian Federation and the prevention of Russian weapons in the zone of conflict through third countries can be a powerful impetus for the development of Ukrainian-American cooperation in the high-tech sphere. Cooperation in traditional industries such as transport aircraft building, marine shipbuilding and turbine construction, rocket engineering, which are predominantly state-owned and not traded on stock markets, requires additional attention from the state to attract US investment and assistance. Variants of development of these basic branches industries have been addressed in numerous research papers. At the same time, other areas of cooperation deserve a greater attention. Priority, in our opinion, should be given to strategic materials for manufacturing and energy sector; electronics and communications industry. The article discusses ways to enhance military technology cooperation in a manner that would better reflect both parties’ strategic interests and argues that a deeper understanding of these interests will help attract investment into the domestic industrial sector.

Science, Technology and Religion: The Exchange Between Enlightenment Europe and Imperial China

The European Enlightenment fostered a sense of progress through a delineation of universal human rights as well as through a reductionist mathematization of nature. Science, technology and religion became a form of cultural currency between Europe and Imperial China. The Jesuits bartered mathematics, geographic surveys and military technology to win religious permissions with Chinese emperors. Other Europeans were convinced ancient Chinese texts corresponded to the Old Testament. China sent to Europe a Confucian model of a social ethic that demonstrated non-Christian civic virtues. This article examines this exchange using the intercourse in science, technology and religion as the metric.

Economic effects of defense industry projects

Subject. This paper discusses the assessment of economic effects of project implementation in the defense industry. Objectives. We investigate economic effects in the defense industry from the bottom, i.e. we calculate methods for analyzing specific project in specific conditions. Methods. The study rests on the rules for licensed trade, tax and accounting practices. Results. We offer tables to assess the effect of job creation, license and tax payments in international transactions. Conclusions. The economic effect of defense projects is very ambiguous, as it depends on the country, the existence of the national defense industry, and indicators in question. Given the high interest to defense technologies in the military technology recipient country, it is possible to remove technology transfer transactions from the general regulation, and create special conditions for projects implementation.

Configuration of Multifunctional Polyimide/Graphene/Fe3O4 Hybrid Aerogel-Based Phase-Change Composite Films for Electromagnetic and Infrared Bi-Stealth

Electromagnetic (EM) and infrared (IR) stealth play an important role in the development of military technology and the defense industry. This study focused on developing a new type of multifunctional composite film based on polyimide (PI)/graphene/Fe3O4 hybrid aerogel and polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a phase change material (PCM) for EM and IR bi-stealth applications. The composite films were successfully fabricated by constructing a series of PI-based hybrid aerogels containing different contents of graphene nanosheets and Fe3O4 nanoparticles through prepolymerizaton, film casting, freeze-drying, and thermal imidization, followed by loading molten PEG through vacuum impregnation. The construction of PI/graphene/Fe3O4 hybrid aerogel films provides a robust, flexible, and microwave-absorption-functionalized support material for PEG. The resultant multifunctional composite films not only exhibit high microwave absorption effectiveness across a broad frequency range, but also show a good ability to implement thermal management and temperature regulation under a high latent-heat capacity of over 158 J/g. Most of all, the multifunctional composite films present a wideband absorption capability at 7.0–16.5 GHz and a minimum reflection loss of −38.5 dB. This results in excellent EM and IR bi-stealth performance through the effective wideband microwave absorption of graphene/Fe3O4 component and the thermal buffer of PEG. This study offers a new strategy for the design and development of high-performance and lightweight EM–IR bi-stealth materials to meet the requirement of stealth and camouflage applications in military equipment and defense engineering.