 Good morning. Welcome everyone. It is the session on defense reform and military transformation, the changing word at the School of Security Studies conference of the Kings College London. I am Dr. Ben Snemat, a lecturer at the Defense Studies Department. And today we are going to listen to amazing young scholars from different universities about how transformation and military reform is going on in different settings and in different armed forces. We will listen to Lucie Peebe from the University of Bath, then Mehmed Sahim from Kings College London. He's at the Department of Defense Studies on Orcara, also Kings College Department of Forest Studies, and Tamaris Santos from Cranford University. And this topic is very important because what we see that normally, at least the literature says that militaries don't like to change and don't like to learn as much as we would expect. It has its reason. The reason is that armed forces are building up very rigid hierarchical extremely formal organizations, and they do this for a reason. They have to cope with huge uncertainties in the battlefield and huge uncertainties in domestic and international political environments as well. So what they are doing, they try to create certainties from these uncertainties. And when they're doing this, they are focusing on creating rigid and robust hierarchies and also standard operating procedures, because this is how you can create kind of stability in your organization. It is very good and it is very useful because it creates robustness and you can answer to the problems that you prepare for, but it is also a big enemy for change and different defense reforms. So, the literature and scholars are working out how armed forces can do this the best way. But we know in general the literature says that that armed forces are learning and changing very slowly incrementally or they don't learn, they don't change, but if they do they do incrementally. And it is very exceptional if they do peak reforms, systematic reforms, through other organization relatively quickly. So this is the context, what we know in general. And first, we are going to listen to Lucy P. Bay, who is researching France and how France is transforming its army, and she's focusing on tensions dynamics and the quest of balance. So Lucy, the floor is yours. Thank you very much and thank you for the introduction so I'm just going to try and put my PowerPoint on and then I'll get started. Can you, can you see the PowerPoint. Perfect. And so yesterday I'm offering a psychologically and culturally oriented reading of strategic and military studies relying on ontological security to further understand why and how the French non army is transforming. So the purpose of this study is to have a better understanding of the French army model. And it's recent and ongoing transformations. So, so to answer this, this research question, I argue that military transformation is a way to rebalance the end ways and means model. And also highlight the relevance and the permanence of French strategic and military cultures. So, before introducing the methodology of my study, I'm briefly going to define ontological security theory. Because I'm using it as a theoretical framework I think it's important to have a good understanding of the theory. And because it's actually how I'm going to develop my, it'll get a better understanding on how I'm going to develop my arguments. So for those who are not familiar with ontological security theory. The theory broadens the survival assumption by offering a two layered conception of security. So basically both physically and ontological security matters ontological security is the security of the self so the actors identity. So this theory originated in psychology and sociology, and has been appropriated by the escalation scholarship who's scaled up the theory from the individual to the nation states. So in my study I'm following the contribution so claiming the individual need for ontological security can be scaled up to nations, but I also argue ontological security can get scaled up to institutions. I mean that both nations and institutions are driven driven by the need to be ontologically secure. So following my understanding of ontological security I'm here proposing a two level analysis. The first part looking at a strategic level so France, and the second part looking at a lower institutional level. So the French land army. I use thematic analysis relying on qualitative data of interviews of experts and offices, like French transformation experts and offices, official documents and existing literature. So I rely on ontological security so always to highlight the role of culture and identity and military transformation, but if always what is what drives transformation so it's an overarching and objective go culture and identity shaped transformation in that sense I mean that it's a subjective role and active specific. So that's where strategic culture and military culture come in as analytical tools. Sorry. So I'm going to start by analyzing by explaining sorry how French strategic culture not only shapes the French army model in this transformation. It also drives military transformation. When we look at the tensions between strategic ambitions and defense project we can ask ourselves why is France not revising its strategy in the face of growing tensions between the ends and domains. I argue that the need for OS pushes France not to review its strategic ambition shared by shaped by French strategic culture. So as such French strategic culture contributes to military transformation globalization is also a catalyst of both physical and ontological insecurity and paired with the lack of French strategic vision which have been highly stressed in the interviews of French experts and officers, give more importance and relevance to French strategic culture, which along with other factors function as a framework guide for action. So as it influences action it's important to define French strategic culture. What is French strategic culture and how does it translate into strategy. So I have a historical understanding of strategic culture and I use a concept based approach. The concepts of the heart of French strategic culture rooted in history. So the French Revolution and enlightenment period being really influential. And those have developed over time, including for institutionalization. I identify a number of core concepts including universalism, humanism, particularism and independence. These all relate to the meta concept of exceptionalism. So this idea that France is special and unique. And those are actually two complementary aspects that relate to this meta concept so on the one hand, France sees itself. And its values are special so they should be shared by all. And on the other hand, France is unique and should foster its singularity for strategic autonomy and independence. The last concept I identify is activism. So that's the idea that France does not just talk, it also acts so we engage in both soft power and hard power. And that again can be linked and connected to the French Revolution because that this idea that you need to fight for the values and for your ideas. This concept translate today quite evidently in a high ambitious strategic agenda that is structured around power projection, interventionism and strategic autonomy. So what does that mean for the French land army. It means that needs to do a lot with not so much and that entails a constant quest for balance. So this helps us understand the army model and its transformation and on what it invests and prioritizes when it comes to transformation. So I've listed three examples of core traits defining French army model, along with the kind of positives and negative consequences or that might be associated to those. First French model is an all capacity model. So it's the only army in Europe to be able to offer this full spectrum and all capacity model. So hypothetically this would mean that the army can undertake a wide variety of tasks missions and strategic requirements. So it gives them the strategic autonomy that they're looking for, while at the same time making them an attractive partner. And then it means means it's a result in limited capabilities. So what the French call the capacity is shantyona. So that impacts the extent and the duration in which they can act and, and that's especially the case that they engage in a high intensity scenario for instance. So linked to the cat, the culture of active activism the second trait is the fact that the French army is active and experienced. So the French army is used to fighting, which improve efficiency and avoid disconnect with the art and the act of war. Again, this is an advantage when it comes to cooperation because it makes them credible partner credible false experts and officers consulted for the study have also highlighted how this culture of getting done improves transformation and efficiency, appreciate operational experiences, make transformation and ongoing requirements. So that keeps the model up to date and also makes it arguably more efficient. So it also fosters this mentality of self criticism and strengthens lessons learned processes that's again something that's been highlighted in the interviews. And the active activism and the multiplicity of engagement also where is the men and the equipments and the risk of overstretching the forces a constant and that's even more true now that we're looking into turning to high intensity warfare. So it's important to also highlight that over the last 30 years the French army is focused on counterinsurgency, and that makes all other kind of conflict foreign for the French army. And the French officers although they embrace the turn to high intensity warfare, they are not seeing a future without overseas operation and interventions so there's a kind of another problematic they're over stretching the force once again. So finally, the last straight here is the general approach to transformation and training. So because France wants strategic autonomy and has power projecting ambitions, it needs to be able to act autonomously like I highlighted earlier, and cover these wide range of missions and strategic requirements. As such, it takes a proactive approach to transformation that is structured first around the Scorpion program, which is modernization of the army around one core system so the digitalization of the force. So this holistic approach allows for more coherent model. And the idea of a general approach to transformation is also embraced more broadly in the training of the force and and overall mentality where in France. The army insist your soldier before anything else so before being an engineer before being a paratrooper you are a French soldier and so that's another idea that's very permanent. So with this example I've demonstrated how French strategic culture influences the army and its transformation. And here I'm looking at the institutional level and I'll give the, the military, the army sorry, also seeks to be physically and ontologically secure. So physical survival is dependent to both international and domestic dynamics. So first it shows through the necessity to adapt and to remain relevant in a changing world with strategic failures of forever wars, evolving threats and technologies. The current transformation is structured around high intensity large scale conflicts and the Scorpion program, answering both the questions of threats and technologies. The army's proactive approach to transformation is also driven by the fit to lose a war, because it does not transform and that's due to the history of past failures. So an officer has explained, I quote, we are haunted by these anticipation failures and we seek to avoid them. The second physical survival of the army is dependent to society and the political sphere, who it answers to. So that also has an impact on the army model and its transformation. First, when the army is unable to prove its value, it runs the risk of suffering for the budget cuts. And that was very true during the Sarkozy presidency in France. When an officer explains of that period, we are in a deep crisis, the workforce is cut down in all sides with dying. And the obsession of the land armies chief of staff is to say we need to justify our existence. So there we see again the need to justify the army's value, puts the focus away from efficiency and operation sentinel is a strong example of this. As it's an operation that gives a mission to the army so it's counter terrorism on the homeland, but it has no strategic relevance and very costly so you can see that's kind of disconnect. That affects the efficiency. On the other hand, there's also the need to be ontologically secure. So in France is their model and its transformation until you said how military culture might influence the model and its transformation or just mentioned a couple of concepts because I think I'm going to be running out of time. So the tensions at the strategic level have developed French qualities. French is adaptation and rusticity so those push the army to think more creatively for example but also to be able to function in the harsh conditions so that's kind of positive aspects but there's also the fact that French autonomy also strengthens the arity for example so France does not really work with NATO standards and that can be an issue when it comes to cooperation so that's kind of all the elements that show that there's strength and weaknesses that are connected to the French military culture. So I can't really develop any further so I'll go to my concluding remarks. So the French army model is one of balance. It developed with the influence of strategic and military cultures and tensions between the ambition and the means making both at the same time like I said the strength but also the weaknesses of the French army model. I would also like to add that the French land army has a very generally positive view of its army model and ongoing transformation and how it sees its future. Thank you. Excellent presentation. I will ask a question you don't answer now just in the Q&A. So it's about if anyone from the audience want to ask a question we have this Q&A button and you can type your questions there and after every presenters gave her or his presentation. So I will answer all the questions and Lucy I'm just a question that you might want to think while the others are presenting that what we see in the British military that for the last 30 years the main teams in the strategic documents are remained the same or remain very similar so although the British armed forces are transforming but what we can see that the core teams are changing incrementally and we also see the full spectrum of capabilities joint operations or working with allies and it seems to me that the French armed forces have also this kind of core teams that full spectrum of capabilities their experienced army general approach to transformation how do you see these core teams helping or also maybe pulling the French military back from transformation because if you don't change or adapt your core teams, it also might show some starvation not only just transformation that is my question to the Q&A. Okay, excellent. But it was a very good presentation. Excellent. So now we will have Mehmet Sakhim who is a PhD student at the Defence Studies Department at King's College London and his research focusing on the Turkish Defence Officer regulations and how they have changed through the years. I mean, for the last 10 years, basically, Mehmet, the floor is yours. Thank you for your introduction. Now I will basically what I'm going to do is I will basically start with explaining what Defence of States regulations are and why countries use them. And then I will give a brief explanation of the background of Turkey until the 2002 just to give a sense to how the changes, how the changes make sense and how they connect to each other. And then I will explain they're like basically five different documents that were released in years 1991, 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2011. You don't have to memorize the years I will explain all of them. And I will explain how slowly it changed in years from the purpose of using Defence of States regulations. It changed from Defence industrialization to into ecosystem building, and then it changed into general like it changed into general tool of industrialization, like so it also included the civil purposes in years. Starting with the Defence of States regulations. So what are they? They are basically compensation practices that are required as a condition of a purchase on either government to government or commercial sales of Defence articles and or Defence services. What this means is basically it's because these are huge transactions when countries, when countries buy Defence products or services, not to lose too much foreign currency, not to be able to, not to put their budget in like a hard position, or to get more from this transaction, they apply these counter trade applications. So in essence, this is the trade that has been done by countries who are transaction, who are doing Defence trade from mostly the developing countries who are buying the product. They are trying to get more of the technology or more of the investments that they can get from this trade. So what they do is they come up with this regulations that proposes an offset trade, offset, sorry, rate, which means the rate to apply to the actual cost of the transaction to find the total credits to be fulfilled by the buyer. So it's let's say that the transaction is $1 million and you have 40% of offset trade. So this means that the buyer will require the seller to compensate this trade in a value of $400,000. Of course, this is not directly money. This is just the credits. So how to earn these credits? You can as the seller propose transferring some of the technologies that you have. You can train people in the buyers country, or you can invest in infrastructure, or you can buy something back from the buyer country, or you can integrate them into your production. So you can basically let's say Turkey buys F16s from Lockheed Martin, but some of its parts are produced in Turkey as a compensation. So in those credits, there's also the disconcepts of multipliers. So not every dollar is equal. So the buyer regulates multipliers to incentivize the seller to fulfill those credits in prioritized areas. So let's say that you prefer training people and technology transfer over investment on infrastructure. So you can just as the buyer country, you can just change the multipliers accordingly so that the seller would prefer fulfilling their credits by investing in those areas. There's also the two more, there are lots of concepts, but two more concepts I will talk about now. One of them is thresholds. The other is the second is penalties. The thresholds are the thresholds of the trade, which means below this threshold. The transactions below this threshold do not trigger the regulations. And also the penalties are the penalties are the sanctions if applied if the commitments by the seller are not fulfilled so the seller pays a penalty. So in the literature, defense officers are like very much criticized, not criticized, but that their contributions are like very skeptically evaluated. Most of the scholars argue that they do not contribute as much as they promise. Also, the risks are always stable because most of the seller companies because they come up with this compensation package, they add it on the total price of the product. So the costs are mostly stable but benefits are not promised. So it works in some time. So it turns into sustainable jobs in some cases and it doesn't in others. So in, let's go, let's come back to Turkish case. Turkey started producing defense policies in starting from 1985 with the establishment of the office for defense industrialization of course before this there was attempts to but it was not holistically defense policy creation but more like individual solutions to individual problems. So one of the main focus of Turkey was trying to integrate in the international projects and transfer technology and train people as much as they could. So in the, until the 2000s, defense officers were quite central in the Turkish defense industrialization. One prominent example is the F16 projects between Turkey and Lockheed Martin, which gave Turkey the like most of the experience on its aviation industry today, which we also can see in the in the Turkish drones that are operating in various countries. In 2004, Turkey switched to local production from international participation. So rather than trying to go expand, learn from the existing existing project, Turkey focused more on producing local solutions on local problems in 2004. So how this is how this reflects itself on defense offsets and how the regulations change. So before 2003, so there's like basically five regulation in 1991 and 2000 before 2002 and 2003, 2007 and 2011 after 2002, and until the 2000 until today, let's say. The regulations before 2002 basically were mostly on defense industrialization. In 1991, the offset rate was 50% and penalty was 10%. The sectors that it was regulated for was defense sector, electronic sector, aviation and medical sector. And the firms that defense officers were applied to us foreign companies. There was no threshold, threshold decided and the team was defense industrialization. So it was increasing the procurement capacity of the Turkish defense industrial base. In 2002, nothing changed. Of course, nothing changed much, apart from coming up with a threshold of $5 million, because then the number of the project increase and it started to create some confusion. So they need to prioritize the bigger, bigger deals. Also, they added the aviation and space that they expanded the aviation industry to space industry, and also software and communications were also added to the under the under the title of the electronic industry. In 2003 offsets rates remained 50%. Again, then the penalties remain 10%. And the sectors remain the same. But, but yeah, sorry, the sectors become more, more definite about threshold firm, the team didn't change three in three years between 2000 and 2003. But starting from 2007, the offsets rate remaining 50% again penalty penalties or decreased to 6%. And also sectors were shrink back to defense aviation and space. Also firms are not only foreign firms right now, the, the, who the defense offsets are applying to, but also the local firms and the threshold increase to the $10 million. And this is this change shows us that that that after increasing the general industrialization defense in 2007 Turkish defense offsets go back to its initial center of defense aviation and space. But I also but it also since it had some companies of Turkey grow globally in those years. They also started to apply the defense offsets on the local companies to create to create sustainable growth within the defense industrialization to create an ecosystem, in which that smaller or small to medium enterprises could also benefit from the defense transaction and local companies and the foreign companies. And in 2011, the offsets rate increased to 70% from 50% penalty remain the same sectors remain the same, and also from again, or foreign and local, but then the threshold were threshold was removed. So, in all transactions on defense aviation and space in, in Turkey, all foreign and local companies are subject to defense offsets regulations but in 2021 according to retired lieutenant general, I'll pass on Erdogan offsets become less and less influential because it worked in 90s and in the early 20s on defense industrialization, and then it helped with the defense ecosystem building, and now it's, it started to covering some specific big expenditures, including Turkish Airlines purchase of aircrafts, because it's also although it's not a defense related purchase. It has similar features of being being a very big transaction aviation, it's an aviation expenditure and so on and so on. It started to get more and more dissolved into the general expenditures of Turkish industrialization. So it completed its mission in the defense industrialization part because now Turkey imports less because it produces more. So you don't have that kind of technology transfer need that much as as Turkey needed before. So this is my presentation. Thank you all for listening. Thank you, Matt. And I also have a question to you for the Q&A and you can think about it. You partially answered it. I mean it was very interesting and you are absolutely right that that in most cases, the offsets kind of disappointing for the buyer. In most of the cases, it is the experience. It seems to me that based on your presentation that Turkey is different or Turkey perceive the offset in a different way. So, so my question is, do you see that Turkey's approach to offset was different based on the regulations and based on the policies than other countries and it is the reason why it is perceived as a more successful or it was not more successful just Turkey used it for developing and building up its own defense industry and it was the strategic goal. So this is my question and you can come back after all the presentations. Okay, excellent. Thank you, Matt. So, on our car is the next one on worries is is also a student at King's College London but he is a PhD student at the worst department is also graduate teaching assistant at King's and also tutor at Royal College of Defense Studies and his research is focusing on Tunisia how institutional change in post-authoritarian military regimes are going on and he's focusing on the Tunisia military transformation on the floor is yours. Thank you very much and thank you everyone for joining us today. Today actually I would like to talk about military was learned a lot. I mean it's increasingly emerging as a case of successful transition right, but I'm going to argue that all this transformation and learning process actually might be happening for not necessarily for the correct reasons. The case I would like to talk a bit is the case of Tunisia right. Tunisia military, just to give a brief background in 2010 just after the onset of the Arab uprising it was a rather modest force of 3000 troops, which is around three mechanized brigades and one territorial brigade, which is a very modest force, and it was you very briefly very generally considered as the you know the quintessential cook proved military because of the restrictions it faced in order to enact cook prevention measures on the Lebanese regime. Just to give a couple of examples to illustrate the extent of change occurred that the military was usually considered not being able to operate far away from its logistic depots before 2010. It was quite simply not expected to fight and the last purchase they made for their combat dams warfare capabilities was actually they made in 1984. So by the time Arab Spring happened, they were actually far than updated. And the entire military doctrine of the country for lack was actually based on you know resisting based on resisting external aggression for 24 to 48 hours, during which time they expected for in reinforcements probably from Europe or the United States to arrive. So it was essentially a military which was not expected to engage in any prolonged conflict right. But once you look at this military after 2011 now we see that they have increased their budget significantly, they successfully fought counterterrorism campaign in Tunisia's borderlands and they kept participating in peacekeeping missions. And in general, it was the same in my field work in Tunisia and in the second law literature as well they, they are met with almost universal acclaim, I did say that for being either good if you like, I don't like the term student but as a student of international sort of partner like and also in terms of their own capability to you know to increase the capabilities using the domestic sources despite the limits of capabilities of being a small country. So I would like to keep most of this presentation of speech if you like as action empiricals and I will specifically talk about two things which show that the Tunisian military growth after 2011 has been lopsided. The first is that the country actually kept having very serious recruitment problems in military which traditionally relied on conscripts. In the second and relatively, the country in Tunisians started over relying on special operations forces, which and this later point is actually where my research is currently evolving. As I think that those two patterns are interrelated and they actually show a couple of problems that indicate a wider regional pattern which goes beyond Tunisia as well. I think Tunisia is a rather interesting case in this regard. I believe that it was one of the most understudied military in the region but after 2011 now there's excellent work coming out of the civil-military relations in particular, both from the United States and also from France as well. But what I would say that my concern in this research is much more traditional and more interested in their military capabilities and force organization and things like that. And what makes Tunisia theoretically quite interesting is that, except literature, especially in the last 10 years, there has been a very significant amount of push if you like to understand how authoritarian military forces are organized. Also, that sometimes extends to the internal security forces as well. And we also have a significant amount of literature, an older one if you like, which analyzes the sources of military doctrine and military organization in established democracies or in great powers. But our understanding of how this relationship works and evolves when our country transitions from authoritarian regime to democracy is much less understood. So I think the case of Tunisia might have some benefits in terms of theory building there as well. Then I would like to start a bit about talking about recruitment in this case. What happens in Tunisia after 2011 is that given that their police force was defeated in the revolution, if you like, the military was increasingly drawn into policing and counter-terrorism duties because of political reasons. That, however, caused a number of very serious problems immediately for their military high command because they quite simply did not have enough people. Having the force of around 35,000 people, they had to deploy at one point 22,000 troops to the ground in order to secure the elections in October 2011. And similar kinds of public order deployments continued until all the way through years into the revolution, which actually created significant problems within the military. In order to solve this problem, what Tunisians did was to get back to their traditional recruitment practices, which was to go conscription, but that I was very problematic. What they did is Tunisian lawmakers facing manpower shortages, they actually reignited the debate on compulsory military service in 2016. The Defense Ministry declared that they wanted to train 12,000 soldiers that year, which would actually be divided to three intakes of 3,000 conscripts. So after several years of lacking in troops, they would be able to get that. That's the problem is that immediately become very, very problematic because they realized that in 2017 alone, I'm actually reading numbers from your Defense Minister. They have sent 31,000 call-ups for the military training and only 506 people out of that 31,000 actually completed that training, which is quite optimal for a country which relies on conscription to fill their ranks. So obviously, because of all historical reasons or capability issues, the country is not able to actually fill their ranks. And even if they managed to do so, they also saw that the mobilization, the mobilization circle that actual cycle that is required to establish a full force will require 60,000 individuals to be trained because due to Tunisia's young population, if they force it on everyone, military training facilities in Tunisia on the other hand only had a capacity around one fourth of it, around 50,000 trainees and distributed among 10 camps in the country. So quite simply, they found themselves in a position which cannot be sold by, you know, throwing more money or the budget at the problem alone. That's the very, you know, path-dependent capability issue. And that brings it to the second part of my talk, if you like, which is the solution they found, which is to rely even further on the special operations forces. Now, what happens in Tunisia is that they do not have a unified military command or training on doctrine commands, where they can actually, you know, trace the development of doctrine and force development. But being a democratizing country, what happened is there is now a debate on Tunisia where retired military officers and the people are able to, you know, raise their concerns about the military in the public, including newspapers, if you like. So tracing that debate, if you like, I was able to, you know, find two camps in Tunisia, which, you know, are located where the military should go. The camp number one are the traditional, if you like, and they argued for, you know, pushing for what I have been narrating so far. They argued that the country needs to keep, you know, pushing for establishing a regular military force and equate the conscription because it's the national duty. And I think this is taking quite a bit from the French perspective as well, as there are many, many of them are French trained. But the second camp, actually, and taking support from the overseas military training from the United States and their recent, you know, engagement in counterterrorism as well, I think that Tunisia needs to go for a much more leaner force, if you like, something much more based on Air Force and the Special Operations Force and a force which is quite explicitly aimed at, you know, countering non-conventional threats, if you like, rather than any conventional threat from Libya they would have expected 10 years ago. So, and from what's been happening in the ground, I was able to describe that the second camp, the lean one, and the more innovative one, if you like, has been winning out, but this is not necessarily for the reasons that are good for the country. For example, starting from 2017, the countries established a couple of rapid intervention brigades, very similar to the American model, and they have been deploying them. And the Special Operations Command in northern Tunisia has emerged as pretty much the one single most important unit in the entire armed forces. And actually they have been engaging in operational tempo, which is actually more than three-fold with what we had, they have experienced before the uprisings. And secondly, I found that looking at their training programs and the track record of military procurement, I realized that Tunisia did almost nothing to actually implement its combined arms capabilities since 2011. All tanks I mentioned from 1984 are still there. All new purchases are armored cars, UAVs, and the equipment that are related to small arms, and the counterterrorism. But I argue that many of these programs are actually driven not by external threat, but by the problems that the country is facing, especially because many of the Special Operations missions in Tunisia right now are not based on what the Special Operations Forces are actually for. I mean, intelligence gathering or training the local militias. In contrast, despite their prevalence, the vast majority of special forces in Tunisia are being used in direct combat missions. And which means us to think that they are, this is a way of compensating for regular military weakness rather than through military innovation or going for a lean force. So I would argue that despite arguing for some, so despite achieving, if you like, some short term successes, which is very laudable by the way, this military transition in Tunisia is starting to reflect a couple of structural problems if like in the country. And for the future in particular, I argue that this increased role of Special Operations forces needs more security in the art world because despite their prevalence, we still do not know. Are the prevalence of those forces is because of diffusion? Is the question of islands of efficiency, as a political economist will say, or are they a continuation of cooperating practices? Or finally, is this an accounting trick in a way to, you know, see that more capabilities are being added as the forces get smaller and smaller? I think this was a very popular criticism in the United Kingdom a few years back. I think this is my time and so thank you. My question to you is that you are, you talked about the different camps that they are kind of, it is also in the literature that innovation or learning happens often when different camps in the armed forces try to outsmart each other. So it is, my question will be, it is the driving force in innovation and reform in Tunisia or something else. So just when Tamaris finishes the presentation, let's come back to this question. This is our next presenter. She is a PhD student at the Stanford University and also a member of the Defence Research Network. And she's going to give a presentation about how change and transformation can happen and what kind of institutional on interoperability can be identified as a factor that drives and sustain mental change. Tamaris, the floor is yours. Thanks, Professor. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. That's perfect. Many thanks and apologies for my ability to join. Well, following our discussions and transformation, my presentation is likely more general and focused on the process of transformation itself. So apologies in advance if I am eventually repetitive after the brilliant speech of all my colleagues. So I would like to briefly discuss with you the relation between institutional interoperability and transformation as understood as a major scale military change in the process. Well, I think that it's just too good to put some remarks about military transformation. Basically, in terms of process, the center of transformation can act a lot with the revolution of the military affairs happened after the post of war in the US. Nevertheless, despite the French diffusion of transformation across other parts of the globe, as my colleagues have talked about the Asia, Turkey, France, we have here in Latin America as well. There are some issues in the process of adoption of such a major scale military change like transformation. So, some issues are pointed out by the literatures, like the domestic context affecting the adoption capacity of the state to promote this process. The geopolitics is also a very collision factor in the adoption process. As long as organization of capital and financial intensity also are on the line as final by Rohanowitz and other authors. But it's interesting enough to notice that Sir Lawrence Friedman, for instance, ever since the beginning of this process also brought that for every RMA, there is also an RPI, the revolution of political as as it happened here in Britain. So, it is a very complex process of adopting such a change, be it based on innovation, technology and other aspects that are encompassed by such process. Other issues that we have moving on are the principles. As military, as a military change, we can detect that some principles are common for bearing with the transformation and military change in general. It involves always a doctrine change in order to set the new guidelines, shared values and visions, organizational pattern learning in order to sustain this process. And it can be considered as a major change once the result of any transformation is the creation of the path of a very brand new institution. So across military change literature, any of you can observe that different aspects play a central role in order to divert these institutions. But the biggest question in terms of change and process adoption is how to perform those changes, where all values are reinforced, proceeding very part of the time, the process of transformation itself. For that, I think that as soon as I'm concerned with my research, it's necessary to have a responsive and robust structure. And that's why our interoperability comes to the ground because, well, even though we have a lot of different definitions for this phenomenon, interoperability can be understood as a measure of the degree to which various organizations, individuals are able to operate together to achieve a common goal. It's pretty pretty similar to the concept of jointness, jointry and joint operations. But if I can make some distinction here, there is interoperability outside joint theory and joint military operations, but the opposite is not true. So this term is basically native from systems engineering and information systems literature. And we brought here to defense studies and military operations in order to take a category of the contemporary warfare with the birth of joint military operations. But as I was telling some a minute before, we have a wide range of interpretations of this concept. In the literature, we can find something like the order of 35 different definitions. It's very complex to make a meaning of it. But apart from that, I think that the greatest difficulty to talk about it is that in the document defense documents across the world. It's seen as a name associated with military effectiveness increase, but it's also seen as means to achieve integration and military effectiveness. So what is it anyway, and how much do you need to do any from it, when, where, how to raise it. The consensus here is clear that we have more questions and then when it comes to the scheme, and when it comes to sustaining military exchange based on this phenomenon beta capability a name or me. But just to add one, one more complexity to that a bit more complexity to that. Interferability goes far beyond data and info exchange and the operational aspect of defense. We have the no technical aspect of interoperability that was it. Another thing about the preparedness of the single services in the field, the coordination and command the ethos, the understanding how it's shared the styles of command and the like, and how it responds to the environment. It interacts with the domestic and international context of applying a different, a different range of military changes, and it includes transformation. So, it means that we depend on the framework to make it happen. So, the bunch of questions that I just presented like, when, where, what, how much, who, and how much of interoperability is needed into a certain context means that we need a governance design while established. And it's a precondition when they do it properly, and you know where we will go and where this transformation will lead us to. So, as I said, I do, I'm quite a fortunate I am from the mobile phone and I can't show you the slides. You would be more familiar with the complexity of how interoperability and codes, but basically, it's not just summing up preparedness plus understanding plus command and control plus coordination. It deals with the interactions or broad range of components inside of these categories. Even it's greater than the sum of its parts. That's why it's a complex to measure and to address it. But on the top of that, it's also seen by the literature as a source of organizational sustainability. Because it relates with the endurance, the adaptation, and the continuity of organizational change, including transformation. So just to summarize, yeah, a tip in interoperability basically can enable sustainable transformation adoption, because it's not just starting the process. It's continuing it, just signing it until we extend, until we have the birth of a new institution across the different parts of the globe. And in this sense, both interoperability and transformation are understood as means to achieve greater military effectiveness as we've seen replicated across national defense dog, greens and defense white papers from all over the world. So the hypothesis here that we can infer is that the more interoperability, the more responsiveness to change. Consequently, the greater propensity to adopt transformation successfully. And, well, the great challenge in the end of the day is how to address track and measure interoperability. And it's impact on military change to achieve transformation successfully, independently on where it is established. So, thank you very much for the opportunity of being here for your time and many thanks again. Thank you Tamer, it's a very interesting and I also have a question for you while the others are coming for the Q&A. So it's, it seemed to me that, so you agree with Eric Schmidt is used to be the former chief executive officer of Google, and he was in the Pentagon advisory board on innovation and what he said that the Pentagon didn't have an innovation problem with innovation adaptation problem so basically there were lots of good ideas in there but the adaptation part was very difficult because of different reasons so so my first question is do you agree with that. The second question is, if no, why not, if yes, what is the main reason it is the reason that you mentioned the interoperability is the main issue about the other thing innovations and new practices or something like that, but you have time to think about it because now I'm going to come back to Lucy and I'm just asking her again. So, how do you see that these, these, these teams that you mentioned are there, it was if I remember well, full spectrum of capabilities, experienced army and general approach to transformation. So these teams are stable. Are they helping transformation or they are a little bit pulling back and generating more stagnation? Well, for me, that's why ontological security is useful for the study of transformation because it actually provides a framework to better understand transformation and to better understand the resistance in the military to transform. As we mentioned earlier, there's this reluctance to change and we don't really in the military transformation literature we don't really look at why is there this resistance and that's what ontological security comes in to helps to answer this because I think it provides that framework to understand that when you look at transformation, you also need to look at what doesn't change. And when I'm talking about the quest of balance, I was obviously looking at the balance there is to be in the French model, but it's also more generally in transformation there's this balance between continuity and change that's important to always be kind of articulated because there's this need for being ontologically secure so not letting go of things that make your identity be it for the nation or for the military. But there's also this requirement to evolve and adapt to the evolution of the world so there's this kind of like balance between the two that needs to be articulated and I think on some things it can slow down transformation but on others it can also reduce the strength of the model that's why I tried to show with the French model that there's some kind of strength and weaknesses in a model that wants to do a lot with not so much. And ontological security helps to answer this and better understand it. I also mentioned in your question earlier the comparison with the UK, which I think is really interesting because it's actually something I'm developing in my thesis so it's another chapter I'm working on. And I think it's quite natural to make a tie between those two nations because, again, if we look at ontological security. There's this desire for both nations that are fallen empires that want to maintain the status and that kind of drives. Also the model but if you take on again ontological security understand the differences. And although they got the same objective of having high ambitions and power projecting and that global reach. We end up having very different models and ontological security helps us understand how culture and identity shape different solutions. No, no, no, it's just fascinating. Usually I read papers about these issues from organization management perspective and so on I really like the concept of ontological security and it's I think it's a great gap in the literature that you found that no one really answered transformation transformation from this technical perspective so great. I think it's looking forward to read your research in the future. Mehmet. So just quickly, what do you think was it what was the offset regulations and policy in Turkey more successful than in other countries or just a perception is different. Or how do you see this. I think it might provide a different case an exceptional case. This is also what I try to basically focus on my PhD but of course I don't frame the question as, as how the offsets work but I frame it as as the following, most of the countries that use offsets are also developing countries who have different problems with defense industrialization. And I think some of the problems of defense industrialization in these countries were external to defensive sets are also thought of as the consequences of the offsets. So I think how I tried to frame Turkey as a different case is that Turkey is a case that actually defense industrialization worked. To an extent there's a sustainable growth and the offsets are used in it. So offsets might a show an exceptional case in this one and be might be still disappointing. But still since the industrialization is more or less sustainable compared to other cases. So it might not be very visible that offsets didn't work. So I think that the interesting part is in here like whoever needs offsets might fail defense industrialization and whoever who doesn't need offsets are mostly developed countries like United States and then there's no offsets regulation internally in the EU. So, most of the cases about developing and defense industrialization in itself I think I hope that's an absolute Thank you very much. I didn't know the Turkey case. It seems to be fascinating. So it's great, great, great, great case selection. Excellent. I see from the attendees that Claire Hurst is raising her hands. I don't know how to give you the microphone. So if you could just type down your question in the Q&A box, that would be great. So about Tunisia. So what is the driving force behind this surprisingly dropping transformation and change because which is not, not I would say a kind of regular fingering on forces so we can see in Tunisia for the last decade there was lots of change and you mentioned one of them and just caught my attention that the different camps try to outsmart each other and it is one of the teams that the literature brings up that in these cases a transformation might happen faster. Do you think that it is a driving force behind the transformation or something else? Yeah, I think that's definitely possible giving that you know many of the individual units are actually you know engaged in some sort of bureaucratic competition as with each other right because what you see is when you see this increased budget you know coming inside the country so then what happens is you know it's just less to be paid to be had. So it's not just the military as well they also compete with the internal ministry as well with the rest of you. So yeah that is pretty much complete. I'm watching perhaps I can add to that as well as the impact of the external aid because most of these techniques, capability and equipment is actually coming from overseas assistance. So I think they're not just outsmarting each other, trying to outsmart each other, they also try to outpeat each other to receive that specific training as soon as you want your troops rather than you know this other directorate to take that training. So I think this has been that might have generated a feedback loop which you know increased the process in further than the other ones. Excellent so what you say that that basically is two things two factors that it's it's worth to looking at it, one of them is coming from outside so this is the driving force the outside support, which also makes lots of sense and also the other one is the internal kind of competition. It can generate very interesting dynamics so it's good, good, excellent, excellent. Tamariz, you, you told us a great amount of how transformation happens or doesn't happen and what are the problems is, and I just mentioned one of the code from Eric Schmidt, do you agree with Eric Schmidt. You talked about the Pentagon, but do you agree that innovation adaptation is a more problem than innovating in general for armed forces or innovation is problem per se. And, and what is the main reason the problems of innovation adaptation it is what you mentioned the interoperability or there are other factors that we might take into consideration too. Professor, basically, I don't think that we can compare these two process, quite a fight in the same with the same weight, it's not the same weight and it's not the same position for both of them, because, well, adaptation needs some ground or first and some degree of responsiveness inside of the organization. So, once we trigger the first change. And we are talking about adapting something we are taking something that already exists, and you are adapting to different contexts. So, the precedence and taking here a hook from on your talk. We need some feedback loops inside the system to guarantee this response and that's when we're trying to totally innovate. Even though we, we know that any innovation doesn't come from nothing. It comes from the combination of existing technology or existence techniques with with different categories to different applications. We can face greater resistance, because you don't know it's you never know if it would be successfully adopted. So we can adjust the system accordingly. And their structures to accommodate that and now the situation that now the technology, but in the case of relating all of that with interoperability. I think that we, in terms of adaptation, it's required an already very robust and responsive organization to keep it going. And in order to innovate, we need to establish this structure fast. And we need to establish the responsiveness to that innovation. So it's a whole chain that we need to cascade down all the different areas of the organization to make it work. If I was to give an example, I really don't. I'm not totally familiar with the US defense sector in a whole as a whole. I'm a bit more familiar with the British case that I've been studying for a while. And when we're when joint read was established in Great Britain, the first app was institutionalizing the joint command and the permanent joint headquarters. And afterwards, we had this series of reviews, including the strategic defense review, the institutional, the joint services come under support college, and all great structure to accommodate that major scale. And now adapting it from now on, as we've seen with a lot of different top greens, different strategic documents, and the like, it's way easier than making this innovation to go on again, this organizational innovation. What I mean is that innovation takes a while longer, even though it's a technological one organizational one, and it's, it's a way more difficult to make it happen. But adaptation without a strong structure will not be able to trigger the change, which will not be able to break their new share of that organization. I think I don't know if I answered the question. Thank you. Thank you. Good, good points, good points here. That is a very, very tricky one. And we don't have too many too much time. You see, if you could answer in one minute, this question that we got from Carl in the question box. It's a completely just for them. So it's the question is about multinational and multidisciplinary teams in different operations. How does it affect transformation? So I think, like I highlighted my kind of presentation highlighted the influence of culture and identity. And I think it's important to keep in mind that it plays a role when you're thinking of interoperability and cooperation with partners. And it's also important to keep in mind that today, nations are special nations in the West that work together the nations that are on the NATO, the Chinese standardized so they've made an effort they know that networking is a mass multiplier for armies that are really strong so they know that they need this to work together so they have standardized and even if there is some elements of culture that can come in between cooperation, I think that generally they do have a model that facilitates that cooperation. Here I'm talking more about state on state because that's what I know that's what I'm also looking at in my thesis so I'm not sure how this would also work on on another level but I think the fact that they're aiming to be standardized is relevant. I'd also say for France in that case, like I highlighted that it wants to be to keep that strategic autonomy, and it has ambitions, and one of their new kind of the route that taking now is to kind of present itself as a strategic framework like a nation framework when they work in cooperation so still taking that leader role that also leave them the space to act in the way they want to so I think that's also interesting to keep in mind that there's still this element of culture coming in. Excellent. It's a, I think the ontological security framework is very useful here so thank you, thank you for answer and thank you for all of the presenters so thank you. Lucy thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Onur and Thamiris. We learned a lot from different aspects of innovation and transformation today from you. And thank you for presenting your research insights. It was very very useful and I really enjoyed it. And I would like to thank you for attendees and our audience for joining us and hope they liked our presentation as well. I hope that you can, you can join or attend these to the sessions that are coming after us. And, and thank you again for coming and have a lovely day.