if it ain't broke don't fix it

Reminders of a Dagger in Anatolia:

A foreign scientist, the leader of an ancient excavation in Anatolia, discovers a dagger made for domestic use. They take it out and clean it with great care. One of the villagers who saw this dagger and worked in the excavation said in astonishment. “I have the same one at my house.”

The scientist asks the villager and the man brings his own dagger in his house to the scientist. When two rows of knives are compared, it is understood that they were made by the same master. The most interesting part is that the daggers give the same carbon dating as each other. A scientist asks our villager, who describes the dagger as a tool inherited from their ancestors and still uses, and takes a blood sample from him. According to the genetic analysis, our villager turns out to be a living member of the ancient civilization one hundred percent!

Time does not pass easily when it comes to tools, especially weapons. Because some instruments, as long as they are properly maintained, can continue their duty as if they are independent of time. Even a thousand-year-old sword or a hundreds-year-old muzzle-loading rifle can still maintain their lethality within their own parameters and function as weapons. What throws them out of the battle scene is that, simply because the parameters have changed, such 'old' systems can no longer be accommodated and eventually fall out of favor.

F-4 Fighter and Others:

Based on the example of a knife, I would like to point out to you that such preferences can become a military habit over time. As you know, this is the basis of military modernization programs. This is one of the reasons why the F-4 aircraft, which opened its eyes with the technology of the 1950s, is still flying in 2022.

However, this classical approach or habituation period is now coming to an end. Even the continuous production, mass production and new production crazes of the industrial revolution are no longer valid. Because, together with the developing technology, we can see that the expectations of the battlefield have changed radically. This leads to the result of destroying the intellectual and operational ground, let alone changing the parameters required from new weapons.

If Something Is Working Well, Never Touch It:

Despite this pressure to change, some classic habits still persist as a rule of thumb in the military: If something is working well, never touch it.

The production line of the F-16 warplane, which entered service at the end of the 1970s, is still kept open, even after half a century. The US Navy likewise keeps the production line of Aleigh Burke-class destroyers open. The M-1 Tank is constantly being modernized and is still being produced by the American defense industry for foreign customers. In other words, many systems on land, at sea and in the air are protected in line with the principle of “if something works well, never touch it”, they are only updated as necessary and their production continues. However, we witness some differentiations when it comes to space and cyberspace.

In recent years, in the international arena, the defense industries and their starting point, the national strategies, have begun to be subject to change processes. Developing countries like Turkey can only try to catch up with big changes, unfortunately they share the common fate of countries that are behind or behind.

Unchanging Nuclear Weapons and Related Deterrence:

The USA, which is at the forefront of the world in the defense industry, has built its entire strategy on the basis of Nuclear Deterrence after the Second World War and has tried to protect the cornerstones that have overturned 70 years. On the other hand, the United States, which adopted the "continuous transformation" view in its army after the Cold War, is currently planning to completely rebuild its entire strategy. It is estimated that this major change will have a total bill of over one and a half trillion dollars in addition to the current defense expenditures of the US army amounting to 700 billion annually. As in the case of America, today's high technology pushes nations to new high-cost solutions, almost forcing them.

The American strategy of change should not be viewed only from the perspective of new types of warheads, ballistic missiles capable of maneuvering at the terminal stage, new generation cruise missiles, medium-range ballistic missiles that are gaining importance and meaning again and even undergoing an identity change. All strategic power multipliers, from intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) to tactical level; stealth (invisibility) ability, directed energy weapons and resistance to them, advanced electronic warfare applications, cyber security, etc. numerous invisible parameters come to the fore.

New Dimensions of War:

In the pioneering perspectives, which aim to bring a new dimension to the war, it is viewed not only in terms of maintaining the strategic determination of the friendly elements, but also in terms of means of countering the strategic determination of the enemy. This situation may make the budgets we have expressed a burden that cannot be lifted even for America. For example, it is said that it requires a flexible budget that can reach four trillion dollars in total for the USA alone.

Of course, such processes have to spread over years. However, it still does not change the fact that a country is a difficult burden to deal with alone. Possible tendencies towards solving such critical issues with international cooperation and various consortia require a change of attitude contrary to conventional security concerns and habits.

International Consortia May Increase:

Consortiums, similar to the production of the F-35 fighter jet in the role of joint attack aircraft, and cooperation in the arms industry among European countries are expected to continue increasingly. Thus, it is possible to partially share the burden on a state. It can also have negative interactions. For example, there may be changes in the concept of the nation-state, which constitutes the philosophical infrastructure of the classical state form. Once the existence of extraordinary conditions is accepted, extraordinary changes and measures can occur spontaneously. History is full of examples of this.

In the 1950s and 1960s, building a strategic nuclear deterrence/determination from scratch was not seen as a costly capability for countries as it is today. The spirit of those times allowed this work to be done at much less cost, with simpler and more logical means. Thus, many countries have been able to have nuclear weapons capability and nuclear deterrence. In this sense, it is not a strategy adopted in vain that France wanted to develop a military capability independent of NATO even from NATO through de Gaulle in the 1960s and put the acquisition of nuclear capability on the basis of this. Thanks to this, France had the opportunity to develop a huge defense industry with its own identity and became a leading player in the global arms market.

The nuclear deterrence capabilities gained by some pioneering countries nearly half a century ago could be maintained without any modification or modification, except for safety requirements, and a high level of deterrence could be maintained by the states at very little cost.

As can be seen, an attitude has been adopted by the states to preserve well-functioning and reliable systems without changing their material life to the end.

On the other hand, each independent state has its own unique flow of time and resources. In this context, this process, which will cost 1.5 trillion dollars for the USA, is expected to be realized by China for 0.5 trillion and Russia for 0.3 trillion. Of course, each country has different expectations and special conditions. The effectiveness of the systems to be revealed by some countries may be of lower quality or quantity than the systems of the USA, which spends huge sums of money. But when it comes to weapons of mass destruction, a country's sense of security is the main factor. This feeling is shaped according to the special conditions of that country, under the shadow of its special circumstances and situations.

Conclusion:

Strategic deterrence is an issue that many countries are working on with many dimensions. While some of the new countries preparing to join the nuclear club are trying to follow the path of the other leading countries for half a century with systemic blindness, some of them may aim to have a much different and deterrent identity by taking advantage of the developing horizon of technology.

In short, it continues as a process for all countries to protect their future, increase their deterrence, and build a new capacity other than nuclear weapons. This process develops differently than before. The range of threats that states, which are the main actors in the international system, should consider; It may be much broader than in the past, but a war-specific fog-like situation may confront countries with the uncertainty of "what should be done, what is the real threat?" in peacetime.