What Happened
Rethinking Defense Industrial Policy For Middle Powers
The current narrative around defense industrial policy emphasizes the role of startups and drones in driving innovation, but this perspective may be incomplete. Middle powers face significant challenges in developing institutional capacity for defense acquisition, and the drone revolution, while strategically significant, is often overstated. According to Martin Novella, writing for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, defense markets are shaped by government demand and procurement institutions, and middle powers must prioritize the development of institutional capacity for defense acquisition to effectively convert scarce resources into military capability.