Note from the Editor

Abstract

The CLAWS Journal Summer 2023 is focused on strategic, technological, financial and diplomatic aspects of the development of military capabilities. The authors, who are acknowledged experts in their diverse fields, write on a number of subjects which educate and make us contemplate hitherto obscured or opaque areas in these subjects. They cover aspects of air and space capability development, organisational evolution, the value of intangible aspects such as military diplomacy and alliances, and strategic affairs in our neighbourhood or globally.

The past six months have been eventful. They have witnessed an acceleration of certain trends that had been underway since 2014 when Russia first took over Crimea. This exacerbated the geopolitical frictions at global, regional, and domestic levels fuelled by uncertainty and insecurity. Undoubtedly the war in Ukraine is one of the defining conflicts of this decade and a continuation of the conflict between the erstwhile USSR and the West. That conflict itself was rooted in ideology and two different political systems each of which tries to enhance its sphere of influence and the strength of its system. The evolution of modern warfare and lessons learnt from this war in various spheres of defence and strategic studies are evident because Ukraine finds mention in a number of articles in this
issue. This is either directly or indirectly because willy-nilly the Ukraine war does enter any military discourse—whether in detail or in passing.