CSS News and Impact
All stories that have been tagged with Doctrine & Arms
Learning from the Ukrainian Battlefield: Tomorrow’s Drone Warfare, Today’s Innovation Challenge
Doctrine & Arms
Dr. Dominika Kunertova has written a capstone drone report that marks her recent departure from the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. The report outlines major drone developments based on analysis of Russia’s war in Ukraine and its impact on the proliferation of uncrewed systems across operational domains.
Defense-Industrial Bottlenecks: Gunpowder
Doctrine & Arms
Supply shortages in gunpowder highlight the challenges that Europe currently is facing in its quest to regain basic defense-industrial capabilities. The product is in high demand, and there is a strong preference to source it domestically. The expansion of the European supply base, however, is restricted by momentous technical and structural factors. Numerous states therefore opt for industrial policy measures.
Sicherheit 2024
Doctrine & Arms
The Military Academy at ETH Zurich and the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich have published the survey «Security 2024». Since 1999, the annual study has evaluated long-term trends and tendencies in public opinion on foreign, security and defense policy issues in Switzerland.
ETH CSS Public Event: Global Nuclear Risks and Non-Proliferation: A View from the IAEA
Doctrine & Arms
A conversation with Dr. Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
"Security 2024" Study: Report on the Media Conference on March 26, 2024
Doctrine & Arms
Global pessimism meets desire for an operational army.
German Military Planning: Aims and Trade-Offs
Doctrine & Arms
German security and defense policy faces considerable challenges. The armed forces are confronted with serious recruitment and financial issues, in addition to conflicts between political and military priorities, write Alexander Feltes and Niklas Masuhr in this edition of the CSS Analyses in Security Policy series.
The Ukraine Drone Effect on European Militaries
Doctrine & Arms
The war in Ukraine is the first large-scale, high-intensity military conflict in which both sides deploy different types of drones extensively and to different military effects. European countries should take note to adopt a holistic approach on drones and anti-drone defenses, argues Dominika Kunertova in this CSS Policy Perspective.
Current Dynamics of Urban Military Operations
Doctrine & Arms
According to Niklas Masuhr in this new CSS Analysis, intense and protracted combat in towns and cities seems to confirm predictions that urban areas will increasingly become the primary battlefields of wars and conflicts.
Arms Control is Dying, Long Live Arms Control
Doctrine & Arms
Nuclear arms control faces an existential crisis. The INF Treaty is about to end and the future of New START is also uncertain. But how should nuclear arms control be conceptualized to be effective today? In this article, Oliver Thränert argues that in the future it would have to be multilateral rather than bilateral. In addition, future negotiations should no longer focus solely on nuclear weapons, but should include other strategically important technologies.
Why China Has Not Caught Up Yet: Military-Technological Superiority and the Limits of Imitation, Reverse Engineering, and Cyber Espionage
Doctrine & Arms
This new journal article by Andrea Gilli and Mauro Gilli argues that an increase in the complexity of military technology has made the imitation and replication of state-of-the-art weapon systems harder—so much so as to offset the diffusing effects of globalization and advances in communications. As a result, China will not easily imitate the United States' advanced weapon systems and thus erode its military-technological superiority.
Diffusion of Technology: Myths and Realities
Doctrine & Arms
According to a growing consensus, globalization and advances in communication are promoting the diffusion of defense-industrial capabilities, thus eroding the established position of Western countries. The empirical evidence, however, suggests that even with newly available opportunities, including cyber espionage, the most advanced weapon systems remain very difficult to copy and replicate
ETH Workshop: “Arms Procurement in Europe: Current Trends and Implications for Switzerland"
Doctrine & Arms
On 16 November 2018, the CSS held a conference on “Arms Procurement in Europe: Current Trends and Implications for Switzerland.” In three panels, the participants discussed the procurement of major military systems, key technologies and industrial policy, and the upcoming arms procurements in Switzerland.
The Transformation of European Armaments Policies
Doctrine & Arms
Despite moderate increases in their defense budgets, for most European states, the need to modernize main weapon systems and acquire future-proof high technology capabilities is a burden that continues to stretch their fiscal possibilities to the utmost. While forward-looking armaments policies cannot eliminate these deficits, they can lay the groundwork for tackling them successfully.
European defence cooperation in the second machine age
Doctrine & Arms
Over the past year the EU has made important steps to strengthen collective security and address its two more pressing challenges. European countries need a broader portfolio of capabilities to address the newer and wider set of threats they are confronted with. But different technological trends are undermining the leadership in weapons manufacturing European countries have long enjoyed.
Arms Procurement (2)
Doctrine & Arms
Future European armaments projects will continue to be marked by high costs and decreasing unit numbers. While it is possible that new approaches in procurement will alleviate that situation, success is uncertain. This will also impact the next major project of the European armaments industry – the development of unmanned combat aircraft.