Introduction: military technology – the neglected field in technology assessment

Usually, technology assessment (TA) is concerned about potential negative impacts from new technologies – affecting humans, the environment, society – and strives to provide information that can help decision makers and society to avoid these effects. Preventing or minimizing death, injury and damage is a routine task in engineering, even before TA, and they occur rarely, mainly in accidents and sometimes from intended misuse by single perpetrators. On the opposite, military technology – central for armed forces – is designed and developed to kill, injure, or destroy from the outset. Thus, it is odd that TA does not often take military uses of technology into view. Text books on TA neglect military issues. [1] But there are exceptions. The Office of Technology Assessment of the US Congress, which operated from 1972/1974 to 1995, had an International Security and Commerce (later: International Security and Space) Program that produced many highly relevant reports. In Germany, the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB) has done a handful of preliminary and full studies of military technologies. [2] In the 105 issues of TATuP since 1992 a few articles have covered military technologies. [3]

With the start of natural-science/technical peace research in Germany came important contributions. Following the intermediate-range missile debate and protests of the 1980s, some researchers in Germany turned to problems of disarmament and peace (Kronfeld et al. 1993). A major focus was military TA and preventive arms control – work was done, among others, for the respective TAB project (Petermann et al. 1996). Five groups collaborated to develop a general framework and study specific cases (Altmann et al. 2001). Such work was continued since then in several areas, e.g. biotechnology, plutonium disposition, nanotechnology, and ballistic missile defense. Recently, the acceleration of military technologies has led to increased activities in peace-research institutes and to new professorships in computer science and physics (Reuter et al. 2026).

This article discusses the purpose of military TA, explaining the differences between civilian and military uses. It presents approaches of military TA and methods how threats can be reduced by preventive arms control. Ballistic missile defense serves as an example of an enduring issue. Challenges from new technologies conclude the text.

Two ways of assessing military technologies

The assessment of new military technologies, new military uses of technologies, or new kinds of military systems can have the goal of increasing the combat strength of one’s armed forces. Such analyses are routinely done in the planning of armaments as well as of military research and development. Such work much increased after 1945 and led to think tanks such as RAND (2025), long before TA began.

The other approach rather follows the general goal of TA, that is, to avoid harm. Since war consists of the systematic production of harm to overcome the will of an enemy by violent force, a main aim should be the avoidance of war, in particular nuclear war, or, if war cannot be avoided, to limit the damage and suffering. The first aim is enshrined in the UN Charter (Art. 2) and the German Fundamental Law (Art. 26), the second aim is covered by international humanitarian law (the laws of warfare), generally accepted by the states. These lay one foundation of the ethical framework for military TA. Thus, its first task is to investigate whether new military technologies or systems would increase the risk of war or would make war more horrible. The second then is to study ways of preventing such outcomes, possibly by preventive limits on technologies or on their military uses.

A main aim should be the avoidance of war.

There is no strict separation between both approaches. Firstly, analyses in both can come to similar results on a technical level. Secondly, if one accepts that armed forces exist – or if one even finds continued nuclear deterrence important to avoid nuclear war – preventing destabilization is a common motive, and each type of analysis can learn from the other.

Civilian versus military uses of technology

There is a fundamental difference between civilian and military uses of technologies. In civilian life dangerous technologies are regulated to prevent or at least minimize damage, injury, or death. Such regulation takes place within states (often with international co-ordination). Misuse is prohibited and accidents are precluded as far as possible by laws and other regulation; handling may require licenses. The state has the power, means, and personnel to enforce compliance with the set rules. Perpetrators can be prosecuted, brought to court trial, put into jail, etc. The state has far-reaching inspection rights, e.g. on suspicion of non-compliance. Such constraints on individual freedom are broadly accepted for the sake of safety and security of citizens and society.

Military technologies, on the contrary, are designed intentionally to destroy, injure, or kill, selectively or massively. In the international system, still basically anarchic, there is no overarching authority with a monopoly on legitimate violence that could guarantee the security of states, that would be legitimized to set and enforce rules for weapons and armed forces, which would include military uses of technology. Thus, to prepare themselves for aggression by another state, the states maintain armed forces. This creates the security dilemma (Herz 1950): As states strengthen their armed forces for defense against aggression, at the same time they increase the threats towards other states. While each state strives for its own security, the overall outcome at the system level is that the security decreases for all. One way out is arms control, that is, mutual limitation of armaments and forces (Bull 1961/1965). Arms control has three goals: avoiding war (in particular nuclear war), limiting the damage should war nevertheless occur, and saving expenses. These goals are not automatically consistent, so the first goal should take precedence.

To make arms control legally binding, states conclude international treaties. To make it reliable, mechanisms of verification of compliance are included, by observation from outside or, co-operatively, by on-site inspections. There is a friction between limitations of the armed forces and their motive to gain victory in war, should it occur, and between transparency and military secrecy.

Thus, military uses of technology set a very different context for TA and the ensuing regulation: International agreements are needed, states have to enter them voluntarily, limiting one‘s armaments or forces is at odds with the motive for higher combat strength, and secrecy creates additional hurdles. Thus, agreeing to arms control can be a tedious process within and among countries.

Military technology assessment – criteria and preventive arms control

Assessment of a new military technology (or its new military uses) needs interdisciplinary research, proceeding in several steps (Altmann 2008). The first is prospective natural-science/technical analysis of the foreseeable applications – what would be the properties of the technology, how would a weapon effect propagate, what would be the effect on a target? In the second step, one investigates military/operational aspects – what would be probable uses, against which targets? How about unusual modes of use? Which collateral damages would be possible? In the third step, one studies potential consequences systematically. Would the technology undermine arms-control and disarmament treaties or violate international humanitarian law? Could it be used for weapons of mass destruction? Could it destabilize the military situation or lead to an accelerated qualitative arms race? Is there a potential for proliferation? Would it bring dangers for humans, the environment or society?

If the assessment is negative in at least one dimension, then in the fourth step options for potential limits need to be considered, including methods and means for the verification of compliance, and the required extent of inclusion of civilian uses. Ideally, then, states would take up such analyses and proposals and would start negotiations, optimally about a legally binding treaty.

Such preventive arms control concerns technologies or systems that are not (yet) introduced into the armed forces. Inclusion of preventive elements succeeded in several arms-control treaties. This is the case with the nuclear test ban treaties (partial 1963, comprehensive 1996), the Conventions banning biological (1972) and chemical (1993) weapons and environment modification (1977), the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968), the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty (1972–2002, USA-USSR), the Antarctica (1959) and Outer Space (1967) Treaties and the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons (1995). Some treaties prohibit not only deployment and use, but also the earlier stages of development and testing, e.g. the Biological and the Chemical Weapons Conventions.

Despite such partial successes of preventive arms control, the general qualitative arms race was not significantly slowed down – neither in the Cold War nor after it. Ballistic missile defense provides a case in point.

Ballistic missile defense – an example of military technology assessment

In the Cold War, several scientists advised the governments in the USA and the USSR on military-technical issues, mostly under secrecy rules. Motivated to prevent nuclear war and unintended escalation, some issued warnings to the public, built on technical analyses of the new kinds of weapons that were being researched and developed. An enduring issue has been defense against ballistic missiles. Explaining the technical properties of the intended anti-ballistic missile systems, Richard Garwin and Hans Bethe pointed out in Scientific American that protection from nuclear missiles could not be achieved and that ABM deployments would rather lead to an increase in offensive missiles on the US and Soviet sides (Garwin and Bethe 1968). At the same time Herbert York explained that the introduction of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) on ballistic missiles was inseparable from ABM and that “the military power of the United States has been steadily increasing while at the same time our national security has been rapidly and inexorably decreasing. The same thing is happening in the Soviet Union.” (York 1970) [4] . Such arguments played a role in the 1972 conclusion by both countries of the ABM Treaty and the SALT I Interim Agreement. ABM systems were limited strictly, strategic missiles moderately, and MIRVs were not prevented.

When in 1983 US President Reagan proposed his “Strategic Defense Initiative” (SDI) in which ballistic missile defense by directed energy weapons in space should render “these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete” (Reagan 1983), a big study from the American Physical Society (APS) assessed that crucial system elements would need improvements of several orders of magnitude and that space weapons would create threats against satellites, including other space weapons (Bloembergen et al. 1987). This and the reports by the OTA (1985, 1988) – here under the explicit designation as TA –, as well as experiences in SDI research, raised fundamental questions about the feasibility and sensibleness of the program. They were important factors in the decisions of the late 1980s and the early 1990s to direct ballistic missile defense away from beam weapons and from the idea of full nation-wide protection against nuclear attack. Later APS studies investigated defense acting in the boost phase of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) (Barton et al. 2004) and studied the effectiveness against ICBMs from North Korea (Lamb et al. 2025), both skeptical.

The fundamental situation is the same as sixty, or forty years ago.

Recently, motivated by the apparent Israeli success in defense against the Iranian missile attacks of April (accompanied by drones) and October 2024, US President Trump has revived the concept of full defense of the US against all kinds of missiles (Trump 2025). According to independent analysis by experts in missiles and missile defense, Israel stopped only 80 to 85 percent of the (conventionally armed) missiles. Concerning complete protection of the much larger USA against nuclear missiles, the fundamental situation is the same as sixty or forty years ago: It is not a credible possibility for several reasons (Fetter and Wright 2025). It is noteworthy that according to the Executive Order the US “will guarantee its secure second-strike capability” (Trump 2025), that is, US missiles must to be able to overcome any Russian or Chinese missile defenses. But obviously Russia and China will do the utmost to maintain their respective capabilities in the face of increased US defense efforts; the US aspiration for complete asymmetry cannot materialize.

Scientists’ warnings were partially heeded in the early 1970s: ABM systems and strategic weapons were limited, but missiles with multiple warheads (MIRVs) proceeded. Similarly, in the 1980s beam weapons in outer space were put on hold, but other defense technologies were pursued. Whether in the present situation rational arguments can again be at least partially successful, remains to be seen.

Challenges from new technologies

Military technologies are on the rise. When one looks at challenges to military stability, international security, and peace from them (Altmann 2020), some issues seem familiar; this holds for ballistic missile defense and military uses of outer space. Hypersonic missiles are related, but more recent. Cyber-war preparations, a subject of military research and development since a few decades, have been studied to quite some extent (Hansel et al. 2018), but open questions remain. The same holds for autonomous weapon systems, where ethical, legal, and stability problems come up (Bhuta et al. 2016; Altmann and Sauer 2017), and for additive manufacturing (Brockmann and Kelley 2018). There are more recent developments that deserve deeper scrutiny – one is synthetic biology including gene editing (Patrick and Barton 2024). Even more radical change could come from body manipulation, e.g., for enhanced soldiers (Matthews and Schnyer 2019). Military uses of artificial intelligence can change many aspects of warfare, in particular leading to much reduced times for warning and reaction, increasing escalation risks (Chernavskikh and Palayer 2025). The new field of quantum technologies raises special problems concerning breaking or securing encrypted information, the design of new biochemical warfare agents, or detection of strategic weapons, in particular submarines, possibly endangering the second-strike capabilities which are a central priority for nuclear-weapon states (Krelina and Altmann 2022). [5]

First considerations suggest that for these technologies some questions of the third preventive-arms-control step would be answered in the affirmative. Thus, systematic natural-science-/technological and interdisciplinary research should be done or deepened.

Designing preventive limitations in many of these areas poses significant challenges: one is dual use. Difficult trade-offs will need to be considered. Limitations, definitions, and verification means and methods need to be negotiated between states, in particular between potential enemies. But also, internal negotiations will occur between factions that favor military strength and those that see national security in a wider context, in a framework of international security. All such questions will thus be decided as much by political as by scientific arguments. TA can help in increasing the weight of the latter.

Technology assessment can help in increasing the weight of political and scientific arguments.

Conclusion

While most of TA focuses on civilian applications of technologies and largely neglects military uses, there are many reasons to widen the scope. One is that the very purpose of military technologies is to produce harm – damage to objects or injury and death to humans. Another is that even if preparations for war are motivated by concerns for one’s own security, the combined actions in the international system intensify threats and increase the probability of war.

There are good examples of military TA in the Cold War when the main issues were nuclear weapons and their carriers, and arms-control treaties reduced the danger. But military-technology development has not stopped – many kinds of new weapons or other systems have been added or are at the horizon. Military TA is needed more than ever. Even though the present geopolitical situation is extremely unfavorable for preventive arms control, it is important to do this research soon – on the one hand to prepare for a future change for the better, on the other to contribute to such change.