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Open research questions in Defense, Military, and Policy Studies

27 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,641 Defense, Military, and Policy Studies papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • The previous analysis generates a set of actionable recommendations directed at the four principal actors whose decisions will determine SAFE’s long-term eff ectiveness.

    SAFE AND THE EUROPEAN STRATEGIC AUTONOMY: FROM COORDINATION TO CAPABILITY DELIVERY · 2026 · DOI

  • Our analysis features a number of limitations that need to be kept in mind when interpreting the presented results. The modelling framework underlying our empirical analysis allows us to explore the medium- to long-run impacts of trade policy changes on prices, production, consumption and investment of countries through the reorganisation of the GSCs they are involved in. While the employed comparative static analysis captures broad economy-wide linkages, it assumes markets adjust to a new equilibrium – a discrete event, which may not reflect among others wartime disruptions. Moreover, as noted in Sect. " The EU-EMS model", our modelling framework omits standard short-run business-cycle effects, implying that it does not capture recessionary dynamics like demand shocks or unemployment surges. In this sense, the immediate impact of the simulated systemic shock could be underestimated in our results. A promising area for future research would be to investigate the trade channel of geoeconomic fragmentation by developing a dynamic continuous time model with rational forwardlooking agents that would capture wartime disruptions and short-run business-cycle effects. The second model-related limitation concerns the empirical representation of inter-industry differences in terms of input and output substitutability, particularly in the short- and medium-run. Indeed, input substitution possibilities vary greatly between and within sectors, with some critical components like rare earth metals or specialised electronics having no ready alternatives outside CRINK in the short-run. While the model captures asymmetry between short- and long-run substitution possibilities (see Fig. 1), investigating inter-sectoral differences in substitution possibilities at a 3 or 4 digit level of trade data is a promising area for future research. Such a disaggregated analysis would reveal the true heterogeneity both in the input and output side and potential reveal critical vulnerabilities. Our modelling choice – to assume a uniform elasticity of substitution within the broader defence sector – is driven entirely by the limited data availability. Third, the model is calibrated to World Input–Output Tables (WIOT) and Inter-Country Input–Output (ICIO) data from the OECD. While providing consistent and harmonised trade data for all input and output flows globally, these data feature a number of limitations that need to be kept in mind when interpreting the presented simulation results. Notably, global input–output tables are generally available only at a 2-digit level, which masks a great deal of inter-sectoral heterogeneity both on the sourcing-side as well as market-side global interdependencies.

    Cold War 2.0 and defence readiness · 2026 · DOI

  • The competitive nature of negotiation about its terms resulted in incomplete transparency, the conflation of the concepts of ‘confidence’ and ‘security’ shifted the focus towards assessing an adversary’s military capability rather than intent, and the regime’s inflexibility meant that it did not account for technological changes that otherwise altered understanding of proximate threat.

    Is security still the chiefest enemy? The challenges and contradictions in European confidence- and security-building in the Cold War · 2024 · DOI

  • This paper sheds fresh light on an understudied aspect of PLA modernisation and contributes to the study of the globalisation-security nexus and pertinent policy debates.

    China’s defence semiconductor industrial base in an age of globalisation: Cross-strait dynamics and regional security implications · 2023 · DOI

  • The multilayered and fragmented nature of the German cooperation landscape suggests that German efforts in this area follow a complex and evolving interplay of motivations—yet the rationales behind Germany's bilateral work in the area of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) have rarely been examined in a systematic way.

    An organized anarchy? Understanding the role of German cooperation in the construction and export of the dual training model · 2022 · DOI

  • While few studies have investigated this subject before, that the conclusion reached by this investigation is that administrative bodies in the defence sector of the Baltic countries are affected by politically driven processes pertaining to the foreign affairs domain, which play a key role in matters related to cooperation and synchronisation of the defence and security of the Baltic States.

    Bureaucratic policy and defense cooperation among the Baltic states · 2022 · DOI

  • Reanalyzing prior research findings linking US foreign military training to the risk of coups d'état in recipient states, we find that this effect is limited to a single US program representing a small fraction of overall US training activities.

    Tracking the rise of United States foreign military training: IMTAD-USA, a new dataset and research agenda · 2022 · DOI

  • While considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to the impact or consequences of UAV proliferation, few studies have analyzed the actual diffusion process.

    Diffusion and policy transfer in armed UAV proliferation: the cases of Italy and Germany · 2018 · DOI

  • Specific details remain unclear, but China's defence spending overall is no mystery – it supports PLA modernization and personnel development as well as its announced objectives of securing China's homeland and asserting control over contested territorial and maritime claims, with a focus on the Near Seas (the Yellow, East, and South China seas).

    Demystifying China's Defence Spending: Less Mysterious in the Aggregate · 2013 · DOI

  • While relative scarcity is undoubtedly an element driving international resource dispute, a focus on supply and demand measures alone is insufficient to understand international conflict potential, because of the pervasive willingness of nations to construct regimes, structures, and frameworks – that is, institutions – for dispute mitigation.

    International Resource Conflict and Mitigation · 2004 · DOI

  • Although the paradigm of distributive politics dominates legislative studies (Krehbiel 1992), empirical studies have produced negative, inconsistent, or mixed findings on the relationship between the organization of legislatures and the distribution of various policy benefits, particularly military procurement expenditures.

    The Distributive Politics of Cold War Defense Spending: Some State Level Evidence · 1996 · DOI

  • Minutes of the Bureau, I (Geneva, 1935), 26-27; this volume records many discussions on the issue of inspection and supervision that go beyond the scope of this paper. ” “For the situation must be absolutely avoided whereby France also pockets these concessions-as to state after- wards these are insufficient and to make fresh demands, so that we would never reach the bottom of the barrel.

    International Arms Inspection Policies Between World Wars, 1919‐1934 · 1969 · DOI

  • However they need to be examined more closely - a prolonged, costly and perhaps dangerous period of transition would tend to decrease the value of the Nordic alternative. Moreover in all situations one encounters "practical" problems which are scarcely easy to solve - degree of integration within the alliance, level of armaments and distribution of costs among its members, transitional difficul ties and perhaps the nuclear question.

    A Nordic Defense Alliance 1949–1965–197? · 1966 · DOI

  • Thus a posture which is limited to a massive-retaliation capa- bility and threat may reduce the probability of war quite low but at the same time carry the risk of very high cost in war if the threat is carried out or high losses in terms of terri- tory, prestige, and capacity to make future threats credibly if it is not carried out.

    Deterrence and power · 1960 · DOI

  • Future research should examine defense industrial cooperation across different strategic partners or defense sectors to assess whether similar patterns of capability development and technology transfer are observed in other forms of international collaboration.

    Defense Industry Cooperation as an Instrument of Indonesia–Türkiye Defense Diplomacy: A Case Study of the Harimau Medium Tank Joint Development Program · 2026 · DOI

  • Military sanctions have significant but complex effects on the economies they target, yet empirical research specifically addressing their macroeconomic implications remains sparse.

    Defence spending and economic performance under sanctions: Some sign restricted VAR evidence for Turkey · 2026 · DOI

  • Furthermore, the paper elaborates that defence acquisition is characterised by a “problem of theory” and a “problem of practice” and that further research is necessary in order to transform its institutional culture and tackle the theory-practice divide with a more holistic approach.

    Defence acquisition: a WICKED problem? · 2022 · DOI

  • Although a prevalent technology of conflict, the impact of small arms imports on the risk of intrastate conflict outbreak has not been examined so far.

    Arming for conflict, arming for peace? How small arms imports affect intrastate conflict risk · 2021 · DOI

  • Civilian and military must find party and executive-branch allies who can compete for them to craft or defeat legislation affecting their interests, but coalition building alone is insufficient.

    Defense Sector Politics · 2021 · DOI

  • The empirical investigation has produced mixed results, which can be attributed to differences in data sets or time periods, variable selection, econometric methodologies used etc.

    A Literature Survey on Defense Expenditures – External Debt Nexus · 2020 · DOI

  • This article contends that these conflicting findings are due to scholars failing to consider how regime type influences the choice between arms and allies.

    Arms versus Democratic Allies · 2016 · DOI

  • ” The lack of standardization, as well as program delays and issues concerning the division of the work-share, lead to the emerging alignment being characterized as “quasi-alignment” at best.

    Aligning national “logics” in a European military helicopter program · 2013 · DOI

  • Important contributions notwithstanding, our understanding of this episode still has caveats, and a significant pool of theoretical lessons for strategic studies remain to be learned.

    The 1983 Nuclear Crisis – Lessons for Deterrence Theory and Practice · 2013 · DOI

  • Still less satisfactory is the position when system is equated with the network model, that is when it is limited to the drawing up of a network which is never used and never corrected during the carrying out of the project.

    Management spillovers from Soviet space and military programmes · 1972 · DOI

  • And if the answer to the que~tion of whether we spend too much on defense remains elusive, the facts are that these expenditures are controlled relatively severely and that the totals are already sharply reduced and will probably be more so.

    Military-Industrial Complexities · 1971 · DOI

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27 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 1,641 Defense, Military, and Policy Studies papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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