来源：Military Innovation as the Result of Mental Models of Technology
"Summary"
Rising political tensions and advances in technological development have prompted the Scandinavian countries (Scandinavia, Europe's largest peninsula, consisting of two countries, Norway, Sweden, and a small part of the northern tip of Finland.) to increase military research and capability development investment. The purpose of this study is to better understand why actors sharing similar strategic cultures implement new technologies for military purposes in different ways. Based on a cognitive psychology perspective, the study compares two cases of innovation processes: the development of nuclear weapons in Sweden during the Cold War and the development of Swedish cyber defense in the first decades of the 21st century. The main finding is that military innovation is better explained by consideration of common mental models of new technologies than by consideration of strategic culture. Analysis shows that this has implications for capacity development. First, the military innovation process is initiated only when a new technology is militarily relevant to an actor; thus, the ability to properly assess a technology's military relevance at an early stage is critical. Second, developing shared mind-sets can both facilitate and counteract military innovation, so policymakers need to be aware that mind-sets can be shared and that cognitive biases affect actors at a collective level. Third, the military innovation process is likely to benefit from the challenge of thinking models and the manifestation of different thinking models. Therefore, from the perspective of this study, it is good practice to diversify and welcome different perspectives on the use of new technologies. Further research is required in order to develop practical guidelines.
"introduce"
Military innovation is an attractive strategy for developing defense capabilities, especially for large, aggressive states with highly educated populations. An actor with fewer resources can still hope to deter aggressors or win armed conflict through more creative use of technology and methods of warfare. In previous research, there have been many definitions of this concept, some focusing on doctrinal change, others on structural or organizational change (see, for example, Farrell & Terriff, 2002; Griffin, 2017; Gleason ,2006). Many projects focus on innovative use of existing resources in ongoing conflict. However, we believe it is appropriate to integrate this study with a broader understanding that includes efforts to meet future military challenges in peacetime (see, for example, Rosen, 1991, p. Innovation is understood as the development of new capabilities integrated with a coherent military strategy. This new capability, in turn, consists of a new combination of military assets, including interesting technologies and conceptual ideas for using this capability.
Countries such as the Scandinavian nations invest considerable effort and money in defense research and development. In Sweden, the R&D budget of the armed forces has increased again after declining for decades after the Cold War. This is understandable given the current rate of technological development in materials, communication, information, autonomy, etc., and the way society has adapted to these technologies. Rapid advances in materials, combined with new uses and new vulnerabilities from increased societal complexity, present new opportunities for military innovation. Indicators of ambition to develop capabilities through military innovation include, for example, a nation's efforts to make long-term technological forecasts. These measures are intended to support decision-making, exploit technological advances or prepare adequate protective measures to avoid technological surprises on the battlefield (Finkel, 2011; Handel, 1987).
While predicting 20-year technological developments is not straightforward, studies have shown that it may be meaningful with modest precision expectations (Kott & Perconti, 2018; Silfverskiöld et al., 2021). However, state actors appear to be implementing new technologies or approaches to military ends with varying degrees of ambition and degree. If these differences are not justified, then, of course, resources can be used more efficiently. This is why the study of the implementation and dynamics of military innovation has formed its own multidisciplinary field over a period of more than 30 years. In this study, we assume that reliable assessments of technological development are available. But how do findings in the field of military innovation help us understand how knowledge gained from these assessments should be communicated to decision makers during capability development?
The first generation of research in this field focused on who was driving military innovation—civilians or military personnel (Posen, 1984; Rosen, 1991)? The basic assumption of these researchers was that innovation was driven primarily by the perception of foreign military capabilities and Technological developments are driven by fear. Today, these are considered underlying conditions rather than causal factors (Grissom, 2006).
In the second generation, the first generation identified cultural aspects, shifting the field to the study of drive itself (Griffin, 2017). For example, in their seminal 2002 book, Farrell and Trief identified three main motivators for military innovation; in addition to conscious and active change in actor culture, they also noted innovations that imitated others, and due to strategic More pronounced, forced changes resulting from shocks.
Contemporary research, the third generation, seems to focus on gaining a deeper understanding of these cultural aspects of influence. For example, Adamsky (2010) highlights how players perceive and implement new capabilities differently based on differences in strategic culture. Our understanding of the concept of strategic culture is somewhat simplified, but close to that of Gray (1999, p. 51): actors' military strategic preferences based on national cultural norms and traditions.
However, there are other perspectives as well (see Ångström & Honig, 2012), and researchers discussing civil-military relations are now in terms of encounters between two different cultures (Farrell & Terriff, 2002; Adamsky, 2010; Berman, 2012; Cole, 2017). Research on the impact of military innovation and competition within and among defense sectors has often focused on the organizational culture of competition (Hill & Gerras, 2016; Lee, 2019). Today, we see different approaches to study the influence of cultural characteristics on military innovation. In our view, however, creativity in the operationalization of culture makes comparisons of these studies difficult. We agree with Griffin (2017): the field appears to be fragmented or "messy".
It is more productive to view strategic culture as an underlying condition of change in military innovation, rather than an explanation. We found that looking at the issue from another angle, there are basically two views. First, strategic culture is of little practical use as an explanatory model if its goal is to enhance innovation. Arguably, innovation processes would benefit more from identifying factors that may affect actors' understanding of new technologies or the pace at which innovation processes progress. Military actors who are the quickest to exploit military innovation will undoubtedly have greater leeway. Second, as this study shows, while strategic cultures are largely the same, the drivers behind military innovation differ. Instead, we choose here to study the military innovation process from a cognitive psychology perspective. Therefore, our goal is to find out why players implement new technologies for military purposes differently while sharing similar strategic cultures. The approach involves studying military innovation from the perspective of cognitive biases at the actor level, in the form of so-called shared mental models. By taking this perspective, we hope to identify specific explanatory factors that contribute to the development of actual military innovation processes. For example, results might support participants' self-examination of competency development, including which assessments were requested and how they were addressed when received.
Below, the cognitive psychology perspective on which the research design is based is presented. The research methodology is then described, including the comparative case study approach applied here. The Results section below is divided into three sections dealing with the results and comparisons of two separate studies; the subsequent two sections discuss the results, relate them to earlier research in the context of capacity development, and present the final conclusions .
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"Conclusion "
The cognitive psychology approach employed in this study contributes to the understanding of the military innovation process. The widely accepted explanation based on strategic cultural differences was further developed. The results suggest that a shared mindset for finding new technologies can more accurately address military innovation than simply considering strategic culture.
Through a comparative case study of the development of nuclear weapons in Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s, and the development of cyber defense in Sweden over the past 20 years, three conclusions are drawn:
- The military innovation process is initiated only when a new technology is militarily relevant to an actor ; thus, proper assessment and understanding of a technology's military relevance is critical to developing capabilities in a timely manner.
- The formation of shared mental models can both facilitate and counteract the military innovation process; therefore, decision makers in the capability development process need to be aware that cognitive psychological phenomena, such as mental models, can be shared and their cognitive errors can be Influence actors at a collective level.
- The military innovation process may benefit from both challenged and highlighted mindsets; thus, findings support research from other perspectives and argue that diversification and welcome differences in the use of new technologies for effective capability development Views are a good practice.
More research is needed to further exploit knowledge in this field. This research highlights the need to explore processes that facilitate enhanced sharing of mental models for the use of technology in capacity development decision-making teams. One goal is to more effectively advance military innovation by promoting initial guidelines on how technology assessment and communication will take place.
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