A realistic defence for emerging countries

Without this prior definition, defence planning can evolve into three recurring pathologies: scattered purchases, unbalanced structure, and doctrine disconnected from reality. Instead of strategy, a sum of corporate preferences, status symbols, meaningless traditions and reactive decisions is installed. The result is expensive but not necessarily effective armed forces; voluminous but inefficient; equipped, but lacking operational coherence. In defence, the initial mistake is rarely merely technical. It is often conceptual and intellectual.

It should be noted that the “emerging countries” category encompasses considerable strategic heterogeneity. A landlocked state faces a fundamentally different threat profile from a coastal archipelago or a large continental power with contested borders. The framework proposed here is not a universal template but a set of analytical lenses – each of which must be calibrated to the specific geographic environment, economic base and threat landscape of the country in question. What is constant across this diversity is the prior demand for intellectual honesty about threats, constraints and strategic purpose.

This demand for clarity has become even more urgent because the contemporary strategic environment is, by nature, hybrid, volatile and multidimensional. Conventional warfare has returned to the centre of history with the invasion of Ukraine, challenging the perception that high-intensity conflicts between regular armies had become improbable. At the same time, technological warfare has expanded rapidly, while economic warfare has consolidated itself as an almost permanent state of affairs, manifesting itself in sanctions, disputes over critical supply chains, control of energy, strategic minerals, data and digital infrastructure. The boundary between peacetime and wartime has become more blurred. Modern conflict no longer begins only when armies cross borders; it begins when networks are degraded, systems are sabotaged, inputs are blocked and dependencies are seized.

In this context, a defence strategy for emerging countries needs to start from an elementary principle: not to try to imitate the military architecture of the great powers, but to build their own logic of existence, deterrence and resilience. The classic mistake of middle-income and emerging countries has been to confuse national defence with the aspirational miniaturisation of global powers. A scaled-down version of the military instruments of great powers rarely serves their objectives. Emerging states need a defence architecture tailored to their geographic environment, their threat profile, their industrial base and their fiscal capacity. In other words: less imitation, more adaptation and originality.

The first strategic choice: defence by denial, not by global projection

For most emerging countries, the rational focus tends to fall on territorial defence, protection of critical infrastructure, control of immediate airspace and maritime space, border security, cyber capability and institutional resilience. This implies reassessing the temptation of unnecessary power projection. A navy designed for distant oceanic ambitions, an air force organised around symbolic prestige, or an army based on poorly technologised mass may correspond to national narratives but hardly respond to the core of real threats.

Here enters a central strategic alternative that many emerging countries could examine more seriously: defence by denial. Instead of seeking the classic capacity to decisively confront a larger adversary, the objective becomes making aggression costly, uncertain, slow and politically disadvantageous. The question becomes "how to make it difficult for a stronger aggressor to achieve its objectives at an acceptable cost?" This distinction is crucial. Emerging countries will rarely be able to compete on a large scale. But they can compete on friction, low cost, attrition, complexity and resilience.

Defence by denial favours distributed systems, mobility, redundancy, logistical dispersion, persistent intelligence, relatively inexpensive precision strike capability, layered air defence, infrastructure protection and survivability under attack. It's a less aesthetic and more effective logic. It doesn't produce the same glitz as large, iconic platforms, but it produces something more important: concrete deterrent capability.

The second choice: technological asymmetry as a central multiplier

The war in Ukraine made evident a deeper transformation: inexpensive platforms, when connected to sensors, software, data and efficient command, can degrade efficiently expensive means. Relatively low-cost drones have come to perform surveillance, reconnaissance, attack, fire correction, defence saturation and psychological attrition functions with considerable success. Electronic warfare, spoofing, signal jamming, distributed sensors and guided munitions have become as important as the sheer number of armoured vehicles or manned aircraft.

For emerging countries, the implication is clear: technological asymmetry is no longer a complementary option, but a central operational multiplier. This means prioritising both tactical, operational and strategic drones; roaming munitions; electronic warfare; anti-drone defence; distributed sensors; resilient communications; satellites and commercial space services; mobile anti-ship systems; layered air defence; command and data fusion software; offensive and defensive cyber capabilities; and integration between ISR, fire and mobility.

But it is advisable to go beyond the already well‑known repertoire. Several additional lines of development deserve close attention:

• First, investment in unmanned surface and subsurface systems, especially for countries with significant coastlines. The debate often focuses on aerial drones, but unmanned naval assets protect ports, monitor routes, reinforce coastal surveillance and expand maritime denial at lower costs.
• Second, the use of commercial constellations and private infrastructure for observation, communication and geolocation. Access to space capabilities no longer depends exclusively on complete sovereign programmes. An emerging country can build a significant part of its situational awareness with mixed arrangements, commercial contracts, technological partnerships and national data integration.
  
  
• Third, imposing increasingly unsustainable costs on the adversary. Technology can be designed to force the adversary to spend disproportionately more to neutralise the defence system. This logic is particularly useful for countries with structural budgetary constraints.
  
  
• Fourth, the construction of an intelligent defence architecture, not based on the traditional accumulation of people and platforms, but rather on the rational use of sensors, means of communication, processing capacity, logistical redundancy, efficient maintenance, ammunition production, inexpensive drones and rapid replenishment capabilities.

The third choice: selective autonomy, not illusory autarky

Total autonomy is fiction. Total dependence is vulnerability. Between these two extreme positions, there is a more mature strategic path based on selective autonomy. No country, not even a great power, fully dominates all components of its defence. The issue is not producing everything, but controlling the right bottlenecks.

For emerging countries, this means identifying what needs to be nationalised, what can be shared, what can be acquired externally with low risk and what can never be entirely in the hands of third parties. Priority segments tend to be ammunition, software and digital architecture, maintenance and modernisation, secure communications, systems integration, crisis repair capability, production of critical parts and fuel, cryptography and data sovereignty.

This discussion needs to be broadened. Selective autonomy should not be limited to the classic military industry. It should include dual industrial reserve, that is, the ability to convert parts of the civilian economy to support defence in a crisis scenario. Emerging countries should map, with much greater precision, which civilian companies can be mobilised under contingency plans, which supply chains are critical, which inputs are irreplaceable, and which external dependencies could paralyse defence, even before a single shot is fired.

Another relevant initiative is the creation of strategic stockpiles and technological reserves, not only of fuels or ammunition, but also of chips, components, fibre optics, spare parts, alternative navigation and communication systems and redundant infrastructure. In many cases, a country's core vulnerability will not be the absence of weapons, but the inability to sustain operations.

The fourth choice: predictability and effect-driven budgeting

One of the biggest misconceptions in the debate on defence in emerging countries is the idea that everything depends solely on increased spending. In many cases, the central problem is not insufficient resources, but their poor composition, institutional rigidity and low predictability. Defence does not function well under erratic cycles of budget cuts. Strategic projects require a multi-year horizon, order stability, continuous training, scheduled replacements and the capacity to sustain innovation over time.

As stated above, the defence budget needs to be structured by expected strategic effect, not by bureaucratic tradition or internal political balance between forces. This change is much more profound than it seems. It means moving away from an input-based budget logic and towards a capability-based budget: denying maritime access, protecting energy infrastructure, ensuring cyber defence, guaranteeing rapid mobilisation, sustaining prolonged operations, ensuring situational awareness, etc.

An additional, particularly relevant alternative is the creation of strategic, shielded funds for critical projects, separate from routine spending on payroll, operating costs and ordinary maintenance. Another is the intelligent use of technological procurement, innovation contracts, public purchases focused on prototyping and mechanisms that connect defence to the national ecosystem of applied research. Without this, defence spending tends to be absorbed by inherited structures, not by future capabilities.

The fifth choice: defence as a national ecosystem, not an isolated sector

Perhaps the most important transformation is to understand that defence has ceased to be merely a military-industrial domain and has become a national ecosystem of technology, data, infrastructure, intelligence and adaptation. The line separating the military sector from the civilian sector has become more porous. Commercial satellites, AI, data analysis, cloud computing, software, digital logistics, autonomous platforms, communication networks, cybersecurity and startups have gained direct strategic weight.

For emerging countries, this imposes a radical revision of the way strategic security is conceived. Defence can no longer be treated as an exclusive matter for barracks, arsenals, and large manufacturers. It depends on universities, research centres, software companies, telecommunications operators, energy producers, logistics integrators and digital infrastructure. Countries that fail to organise this ecosystem will have formally existing armed forces, but technologically outdated ones.

Here are some additional crucial alternatives:

• First: create innovation hubs in dual defence, bringing together military personnel, researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs around concrete problems, without hierarchies between civilians and the military.
  
  
• Second: develop a national reserve of technological talent, with programmes that allow for the rapid mobilisation of specialists in new technologies, who can respond effectively to the country's concrete challenges in the new geopolitical environment.
  
  
• Third: expand the use of simulation, war games, integrated exercises and doctrine laboratories that truly test capabilities, doctrines and operational logics, and not simply reproduce unverified premises. Many emerging countries suffer less from a lack of equipment than from a lack of critical learning based on real operational certifications, not purely formal ones.
  
  
• Fourth: treat data in a digital environment as strategic defence assets, as critical as installations and arsenals in contemporary warfare.
  
  
• Fifth: Total national resilience. Perhaps the most neglected dimension in defence planning for emerging countries is not a capability gap in the conventional sense – it is the vulnerability of the country itself to continued functioning under sustained stress. Contemporary warfare does not always seek military victory in the classic sense. It seeks to degrade the adversary’s will and capacity to resist through infrastructure attacks, energy disruption, digital sabotage, mass disinformation and the erosion of institutional cohesion. A country can possess credible armed forces and still collapse as a functioning society under pressure.

Therefore, emerging countries should examine the concept of total national resilience much more closely. This includes:

• redundancy of critical infrastructure;
• continuity of government protocols tested under realistic scenarios;
• protection of energy and digital networks against both physical and cyber attack;
• logistical reserves adequate for sustained operations;
• industrial mobilisation capacity mapped in advance and not improvised under crisis;
• training in response to hybrid attacks;
• civil defence structure articulated with national security;
• protection against large-scale disinformation campaigns to paralyse political will.

A modern defence consists not only of preventing the enemy from advancing. It also consists of preventing the country from collapsing without formal invasion.

Emerging countries that invest seriously in this dimension achieve considerable strategic value: they become genuinely difficult to coerce. An adversary facing a society capable of absorbing disruption, maintaining institutional continuity, and sustaining public cohesion under pressure must weigh not only military costs but also political ones.

This is a different and often more durable form of deterrence – one that does not depend on matching an adversary’s firepower but on denying them the collapse they engineer.

The central mistake to be avoided: strategic prestige without operational utility

For emerging countries, the rational strategy is not to seek parity with great powers, but to build a credible combination of: clarity of threats + defence by denial + technological asymmetry + selective autonomy + national resilience + innovation ecosystem.

This is perhaps the most realistic formula for deterrence in the 21st century, because, in the end, the decisive question is not whether an emerging country can become militarily comparable to a great power. History suggests that this comparison is rarely the right objective. The correct question should be framed differently. For instance, can the country become difficult to intimidate, expensive and slow to attack, complex to paralyse, or resilient enough to preserve its sovereignty?

This may not guarantee a perfect defence, but a well-thought-out defence. Which is already a considerable strategic advantage and a far more realistic approach than imitating great-power postures.

About the authors

Dr Vinicius de Carvalho is a Reader in Brazilian and Latin American Studies in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and the Circle U. Vice-Dean for Academic Chairs.

Jackson Schneider is a Senior Fellow at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) at Columbia University and a Trustee of the Brazilian Center of International Relations (CEBRI).