Quantitative monitoring of military transformation in the period 1992–2010: Do the protagonists of transformation really change more than other countries?

Military transformation is a complex, slow, asymmetric, changeable, political, and not necessarily completely rational process that clearly needs an effective monitoring mechanism. This paper fills a gap in current literature by creating and testing a model for multi-dimensional and multi-level quantitative monitoring of military transformation applicable in any country. The model is based on 10 transformation indicators that reflect changes in organizational structure, personnel structure, weapon systems, and defense spending. Its application on a sample of seven countries (USA, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, and China) in the period from 1992 to 2010 unexpectedly shows that the USA – a protagonist in the transformation process among allies as well as globally – has carried out the smallest relative change. The non-directed transformation index indicates that Russia carried out 51.8% more change (or 34.1 index units), and the directed index indicates that Poland carried out 157.2% (or 40.8 index units) more change than the USA.