NDC Outlook 07-2026: Betting on blue: how to improve NATO military forecasting for acquisitions, by Ben Connable1
Summary
- Effective acquisition strategies require a solid, evidence-grounded forecasting methodology and real-world data. But at least for land warfare, that baseline is inadequate.
- Absent a global understanding of land war – by far the most common and strategically relevant type of conventional and irregular war – NATO acquisitions may not best address even the pressing threat from Russia.
- Analysis of the new Ground Combat Database shows how important findings and questions relevant to acquisitions can be drawn from longitudinal case data.
- Even better analytic approaches are readily available, as are better data. Action plan forecasting and acquisitions can be improved with aggressive and evidence-grounded analyses.
NDC Public Affairs Office
- PhD – Executive Director of the non-profit Battle Research Group and author of Ground Combat: Puncturing the Myths of Modern War. The author would like to thank Michael McNerney, Battle Research Group, and David Ucko, Head of Net Assessment at NATO Headquarters, for their invaluable reviews of the first draft of this article. ↩︎
NATO Defense College