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This is the accepted version of a paper published in Technology in society. This paper has been peer-
reviewed but does not include the final publisher proof-corrections or journal pagination.
Citation for the original published paper (version of record):
Andersson, K., Bang, M., Marcus, C., Persson, B., Sturesson, P. et al. (2015)
Military utility: A proposed concept to support decision-making.
Technology in society, 43(November 2015): 23-32
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2015.07.001
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License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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1
Military Utility, a proposed concept to support decision-making
Kent Andersson
a
*
, Martin Bang
a
, Carina Marcus
b
, Björn Persson
a
, Peter Sturesson
a
,
Eva Jensen
a
, and Gunnar Hult
a
a
Division of Military-Technology, Swedish National Defence University,
Box 27805, 115 93 Stockholm, Sweden
*
Corresponding author, e-mail: kent.andersson@fhs.se , Phone: +46 766 357628, Fax: +46 8 553 425 98
b
Saab Aerosystems, 581 88 Linköping, Sweden, e-mail: carina.marcus@saabgroup.com, Phone: +46 13 185938
Abstract A concept called Military Utility is proposed for the study of the use of technology
in military operations. The proposed concept includes a three-level structure representing key
features and their detailed components. On basic level the Military Utility of a technical
system, to a military actor, in a specific context, is a compound measure of the military
effectiveness, of the assessed technical system’s suitability to the military capability system
and of the affordability. The concept is derived through conceptual analysis and is based on
related concepts used in social sciences, the military domain and Systems Engineering. It is
argued that the concept has qualitative explanatory powers and can support military decision-
making regarding technology in forecasts, defense planning, development, utilization and the
lessons learned process. The suggested concept is expected to contribute to the development
of the science of Military-Technology and to be found useful to actors related to defense.
Keywords Military, decision-making, concept analysis, operational research, Systems
Engineering
1 Introduction
For Clausewitz, in his masterly analysis of the mental and physical spheres of
war, neglected the material--man’s tools. If he thereby ensured to his work an
enduring permanence, he also, if unwittingly, ensured permanent injury to
subsequent generations who allowed themselves to forget that the spirit cannot
win battles when the body has been killed through failure to provide it with up-
to-date weapons.
[1, p. 158]
New requirements and challenges are born from strained military budgets and a rapidly
changing world, as well as from the fact that the time when the military industry was in the
forefront of technological development has passed in most areas. In Sweden, and probably in
most other democratic states, the question of how limited resources should be put to best use
2
is more relevant than ever before. In general, a military system is complex and already its
early life cycle stages, from R&D to initial operation, span over several years and often a
decade. After that a typical platform on land, at sea or in the air has an operational lifetime of
perhaps thirty years or more. Hence, decisions today may influence warfighting capacity for
decades.
Our first case of a decision situation is the technology forecast. Even before the technical
system is born as a concept, armed forces have to make decisions about what technologies to
invest their limited R&D budget in. This means there is a need to forecast and predict the
utility of technologies as part of a potential technical system in some far away uncertain
future.
The second case is defense planning. In short to midterm defense planning, i.e. the next ten-
year period, decision makers are faced with the question of when and with what technical
systems to replace those currently in operation, while keeping within budget restraints.
Furthermore it has to be done taking requirements from interdependent capabilities and
foreseen doctrinal, tactical and organizational development into account – optimizing the
whole capability system.
The third case is development. Once in the concept, development and production life cycle
stages of a technical system, the question of how to build a technical system of maximum
utility to the customer, the armed forces, within a limited time frame and budget, is addressed
using requirement management within the systems engineering process.
The fourth case is use. In the utilization and support stage of a materiel system, military
commanders and their staffs plan the best use of their limited resources in order to maximize
the probability of mission success. Concretely, during planning, a staff is typically required to
assess what capability systems, i.e. units and technology, the opponent is likely to use based
on their strengths and vulnerabilities. Assessing own strengths and weaknesses in the situation
the staff is likewise asked to recommend the best use of own available capabilities, not least
based on expected technical performance.
The fifth case regards lessons learned. This is the long-term review of systems and
capabilities throughout all stages from technology forecast, development, defense planning
and use. The lessons learned process must be executed in close collaboration with the system
stakeholder in order to be accurate in validation of system performance and capability but also
to be accurate in the time domain helping decision makers get near-real time information
regarding the utility development of the system-in-focus.
In light of the above illustrated incentives for competence in decision making, Military-
technology is developing as an academic subject at the Swedish National Defence University,
SEDU, defined as:
“Military- Technology is the science which describes and explains how technology influences military
activity at all levels and how the profession of an officer affects and is affected by technology” [2]
3
It seems, though, that in every project similar analytic constructs have to be defined over and
over with moderate adjustments to application. And evidently there are similarities between
central questions in all the presented use cases from decision situations above. But, is it then
possible to form a common theory, to support decision-making regarding use of technology in
military affairs, from R&D investments to military operational planning? A more complete
Military Technology conceptual apparatus would make it easier to relate to theories across
academia, e.g. to economics or management sciences. It would certainly aid effective
communication across disciplines within the defense community, i.e. between actors within
military research agencies, the armed forces, procurement agencies and industry.
With this paper we intend to propose a concept with potential for both qualitative and
quantitative analysis to support decision-making in military technology. The concept is named
Military Utility. The starting point is a presentation of the postulates of Military Technology
and the theory of concept analysis. After that an applied method for concept analysis is
presented followed by a description of the resulting concept. The center of gravity is the
following discussion on the concept dimensions and indicators. The paper ends with an
example, final conclusions and proposed future work.
2 Military-Technology
The technology the military profession chooses, and how it uses that technology, will affect
the outcome on the battlefield and the sustainment of capabilities over time. This phenomenon
is at the centre of interest here. Our viewpoint originates from postulates in military-
technology [3]: the character of war change in pace with the development of technology,
technology has influence on all military command levels, and a lack of understanding of
technology causes diminishing military opportunities. Consequently, for an analyst in
military-technology it is essential to understand what is important to the military decision-
maker - i.e. what constitutes military utility?
In an article on the military-technological perspective on Geographical Information Systems,
Åke Sivertun finds that maximizing military utility, (translated from Swedish “Militär nytta”)
of the technology, is the core question. He stipulates a definition of the concept - how to in an
effective way and at a minimum cost, in human life as well as materiel, reach the military
mission objectives [4]. This definition is here regarded as a first iteration of the concept.
Military-technology is cross-disciplinary covering engineering as well as both natural and
social sciences. The terminology used originates from these and the aim is to propose a
concept in harmony with the use of related concepts within these disciplines. Coming from a
Systems Engineering tradition viewing problem phenomena as Systems is fundamental. A
System should be understood as “an integrated set of elements, subsystems, or assemblies that
accomplish a defined objective. These elements include products (hardware, software,
firmware), processes, people, information, techniques, facilities, services, and other support
elements”[5]. In the military domain, Capability is a key concept. Our understanding of
capability is that it is being able to do something and being able to do it well [3]. With
Military capability an actor can solve military tasks and thereby achieve desired effects.
4
Using a systemic approach military capability can be viewed as a system composed of
interacting elements, as thoroughly discussed by Jukka Anteroinen [6]. We can choose to sort
these elements into categories of Personnel, Organization, Methods and Technology (POMT)
or into Doctrine, Organization, Training, Personnel, Materiel, Facilities, Leadership and
Interoperability (DOTPMLFI), as in NATO publications. Regardless of categorization we
realize that any component in a system, e.g. the technology element, has dependencies to
other elements. Hence, a component has military utility only if it is viewed as a contributing
element in a Capability system.
The prefix Technical system is used to label the technical element in an operational military
capability system when it is beneficial to view the element in itself as a system. In this paper
the object for the assessment is an element in the capability system and it is labeled the
Element of Interest (EoI), following the Systems Engineering tradition.
3 Concepts development and Concept Analysis
The above identified need for a concept is based on the view of them fulfilling several
important functions within the scientific community. Frankfort-Nachmias and Nachmias
states that a concept: provides a common language; provides a perspective to understand the
phenomena; allows classification and categorization of different phenomena and; finally, it is
the fundamental building block of theories[7, p.2 8]. Goertz submits that concepts are
essential theories about ontology [8, p. 5]. Govanni Sartori even claims that “concepts are not
only elements of a theoretical system but equally tools for fact-gathering, data containers”[9].
A conclusion is that how a concept is designed constitutes not only the building blocks of
theories, but also affects how the phenomena are measured and examined. Concept analysis is
a process where the characteristics as well as the relations to other relevant concepts are made
clear. It can be argued that in fields directly connected to a profession the need of concept
analysis increases. A comparison can be made to nursing science where concepts analysis has
a given role and where several methods have been developed [10].
There is a lack of lexical definition of the phenomena indicating that the concept is
underdeveloped. Two approaches can be used in support of concept development. One is
traditional Concept Analysis where the aim is to capture how the concept is used. The other
approach is to focus on the phenomena, developing the concept, sometimes referred to as
Concept Formation. Which approach is used is primarily dependent on the purpose of the
concept in question. The difference between developing a concept for broader usage, through
concept analysis, and providing a stipulative definition of a word is minimal according to
Goertz [8, p. 3].
There is a fundamental difference in views on concepts, and how to measure them. Goertz and
Mahoney conclude that quantitative scholars primarily “use indicators and the aggregation of
the indicators that are causes or cause the concepts”[11] to construct the concept in question.
Qualitative scholars on the other hand use a semantic process identifying the attributes that
constitutes the concept. Goertz and Mahoney argue that which approach to use depends on
whether reliability or validity is central for the research in question. Since, in most cases, we
![Table 2 presents the resulting evaluation of the two final competing tenders for the new Swedish AWV. The compound figure of merit for the two concepts, calculated using the evaluation model enclosed in the RFQ, is presented on the bottom line. [33]](/figures/table-2-presents-the-resulting-evaluation-of-the-two-final-224mztdp.webp)
![Table 1 presents the evaluation parameters, with weights on the top indicator level, in the evaluation model for tenders in the procurement of new armored wheeled vehicles for the Swedish army [32, Pt. E].](/figures/table-1-presents-the-evaluation-parameters-with-weights-on-14dk4nqd.webp)
