Data-centric warfare and the reshuffle of armament market

Military capabilities have become increasingly technology-intensive since WWII (Bellais and Droff 2016) and it appears that this trend has been intensifying in recent years under two drivers: the comeback of Clausewitzian war (opposed to contingency operations), and the blossoming of civilian IT innovation on both software and hardware dimensions (gearing up the renewal of military resources). This evolution could jeopardised the equilibria inside the defence technological and industrial base, disrupting a quite stable landscape over more than half a century. However, can we consider that the new rules of the game are able to put this market upside down? Or, do these innovations only constitute an intensification of pre-existing trends? The question proposed in this contribution consists in analysing to what extent the growing role of data in military operations leads to question the current approach to military effectiveness and therefore how to design military capabilities in their relation to data. This contribution puts into perspective the interactions between technology, operational needs and the capability development process. It aims to identify the transformative effect of the place of data in the architecture of defence system and the possibility of developing a multilayer approach in which data and artificial intelligence play an essential place. It will put into perspective the projects for future air and land combat systems that are planned within a decade.