National defence policy
Encyclopedia
Defence policy is public policy
Public policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...

 dealing with international security
International security
International security consists of the measures taken by nations and international organizations, such as the United Nations, to ensure mutual survival and safety. These measures include military action and diplomatic agreements such as treaties and conventions. International and national security...

 and the military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

. It comprises the measures and initiatives that government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

s do or do not take in relation to decision-making and strategic goals
Strategic goal (military)
A strategic military goal is used in strategic planning to define desired end-state of a war or a campaign. Usually it entails either a strategic change in enemy's military posture, intentions or ongoing operations, or achieving a strategic victory over the enemy that ends the conflict, although...

, such as when and how to commit national armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...

.

It is used to ensure retention of independence in national development, and alleviation of hardships imposed from hostile and aggressive external actors. The Defence Ministry (or a synonymous organisation) minister
Minister (government)
A minister is a politician who holds significant public office in a national or regional government. Senior ministers are members of the cabinet....

 is the primary decision-maker for the national defence policy.

Defence policy identifies threats of hostility and aggression based on intelligence analysis
Intelligence analysis
Intelligence analysis is the process of taking known information about situations and entities of strategic, operational, or tactical importance, characterizing the known, and, with appropriate statements of probability, the future actions in those situations and by those entities...

, and defines military scope of national security
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...

, defence alliances, combat readiness
Combat readiness
Combat readiness is a condition of the armed forces and their constituent units and formations, warships, aircraft, weapon systems or other military technology and equipment to perform during combat military operations, or functions consistently with the purpose for which they are organised or...

, military organisation
Military organization
Military organization is the structuring of the armed forces of a state so as to offer military capability required by the national defence policy. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in a nation's armed forces...

 of national forces and their use of military technology
Military technology
Military technology is the collection of equipment, vehicles, structures and communication systems that are designed for use in warfare. It comprises the kinds of technology that are distinctly military in nature and not civilian in application, usually because they are impractical in civilian...

.

The national defence policy defines the national defence strategy, the "when" of committing national armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...

. The national defence policy also defines the strategic posture, the "how", towards any possible threats to national territory, its society, environment, and economy, and defines options available to deal with such threats. The more options a defence policy provides to the government, the better it is considered in its formulation. Strategic posture in turn defines the military doctrine
Military doctrine
Military doctrine is the concise expression of how military forces contribute to campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements.It is a guide to action, not hard and fast rules. Doctrine provides a common frame of reference across the military...

 of the armed forces. This doctrine may include confronting threats to national interests located outside of the national territory such as shipping lanes. The defence strategy and military doctrine are developed though strategic policy and capability development processes.

A defence policy is created through the defence policy process of making important organisational decisions, including the identification of priorities and different alternatives such as defence personnel and technology programs or budget priorities, and choosing among them on the basis of the impact they will have on the overall national development. Defence policies can be understood as political, management, financial, administrative and executable mechanisms arranged to reach explicit military goals and objectives.

Defence policy addresses the achievement of its military goals and objectives by making explicit statements about the desired capability in: combat readiness
Combat readiness
Combat readiness is a condition of the armed forces and their constituent units and formations, warships, aircraft, weapon systems or other military technology and equipment to perform during combat military operations, or functions consistently with the purpose for which they are organised or...

, military organization
Military organization
Military organization is the structuring of the armed forces of a state so as to offer military capability required by the national defence policy. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in a nation's armed forces...

, political-military relationships (civilian control of the military
Civilian control of the military
Civilian control of the military is a doctrine in military and political science that places ultimate responsibility for a country's strategic decision-making in the hands of the civilian political leadership, rather than professional military officers. One author, paraphrasing Samuel P...

), the role of the armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...

, command and control, military intelligence
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....

 and counterintelligence, defence diplomacy
Defence diplomacy
In international politics, defence diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives through the peaceful employment of defence resources and capabilities.-Origin of the Concept:...

, defence capability in terms of (technology
Military technology
Military technology is the collection of equipment, vehicles, structures and communication systems that are designed for use in warfare. It comprises the kinds of technology that are distinctly military in nature and not civilian in application, usually because they are impractical in civilian...

, mobility
Mobility (military)
Mobility in military terms refers to the ability of a weapon system, combat unit or armed force to move toward a military objective. Combat forces with a higher mobility are able to move more quickly, and/or across more hostile terrain, than forces with lower mobility.Mobility is regarded as a...

, materiel
Materiel
Materiel is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management....

, and logistics
Military logistics
Military logistics is the discipline of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of military forces. In its most comprehensive sense, it is those aspects or military operations that deal with:...

), block obsolescence, professionalism and training, recruiting
Military recruitment
Military recruitment is the act of requesting people, usually male adults, to join a military voluntarily. Involuntary military recruitment is known as conscription. Many countries that have abolished conscription use military recruiters to persuade people to join, often at an early age. To...

, social change in the military, standing forces
Standing army
A standing army is a professional permanent army. It is composed of full-time career soldiers and is not disbanded during times of peace. It differs from army reserves, who are activated only during wars or natural disasters...

, military reserve force
Military reserve force
A military reserve force is a military organization composed of citizens of a country who combine a military role or career with a civilian career. They are not normally kept under arms and their main role is to be available to fight when a nation mobilizes for total war or to defend against invasion...

s, and conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

s.

Defence policy differs from rules of engagement
Rules of engagement
Rules of Engagement refers to those responses that are permitted in the employment of military personnel during operations or in the course of their duties. These rules of engagement are determined by the legal framework within which these duties are being carried out...

 determine when, where, and how military force is be used by formations and units.

See also

  • Capability management
    Capability management
    Capability management is a high-level integrative management function, with particular application in the context of defence.- Overview :Capability management aims to balance economy in meeting current operational requirements, with the sustainable use of current capabilities, and the development...

  • National security
    National security
    National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...

  • Defence Diplomacy
    Defence diplomacy
    In international politics, defence diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives through the peaceful employment of defence resources and capabilities.-Origin of the Concept:...

  • Small arms proliferation
    Small arms proliferation
    Small arms proliferation is a term used by organizations and individuals advocating the control of small arms and their trade; the term has no precise definition...

  • European Union arms embargo on the People's Republic of China
    European Union arms embargo on the People's Republic of China
    Relations between the European Union and the People's Republic of China were established in 1975 and the two are each others' largest trading partners. A major point of contention in relations is the EU's arms ban to China.-Agreements:...

  • List of National Defense Industries
  • Private military company
    Private military company
    A private military company or provides military and security services. These combatants are commonly known as mercenaries, though modern-day PMCs refer to their staff as security contractors, private military contractors or private security contractors, and refer to themselves as private military...

  • Campaign Against Arms Trade
    Campaign Against Arms Trade
    Campaign Against Arms Trade is a UK-based NGO and campaigning organisation working towards the abolition of the international arms trade. Founded in 1974 by a broad coalition of peace groups, CAAT is united in opposition to the military industrial complex and the growth of the private military...

  • Canadian Arms trade
    Canadian Arms trade
    Canadian Arms Sales are governed by the country's Export and Imports Permits Act. Sales with the United States are also specifically regulated by the 1959 Defence Production Sharing Arrangement....

  • List of countries by military expenditures
  • Permanent arms economy
  • Military funding of science
    Military funding of science
    The military funding of science has had a powerful transformative effect on the practice and products of scientific research since the early 20th century...

  • Military-industrial complex
    Military-industrial complex
    Military–industrial complex , or Military–industrial-congressional complex is a concept commonly used to refer to policy and monetary relationships between legislators, national armed forces, and the industrial sector that supports them...

  • Military Keynesianism
    Military Keynesianism
    Military Keynesianism is the accusation that John Maynard Keynes advocated government economic policy in which the government devotes large amounts of spending to the military in an effort to increase economic growth. In fact, the English economist John Maynard Keynes advocated that government...

  • Peace dividend
    Peace dividend
    The peace dividend is a political slogan popularized by US President George H.W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the early 1990s, purporting to describe the economic benefit of a decrease in defense spending. It is used primarily in discussions relating to the guns versus butter...

  • Guns versus butter model
    Guns versus butter model
    In macroeconomics, the guns versus butter model is an example of a simple production possibility frontier. It demonstrates the relationship between a nation's investment in defense and civilian goods. In this example, a nation has to choose between two options when spending its finite resources...

  • Gunboat diplomacy
    Gunboat diplomacy
    In international politics, gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of military power — implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare, should terms not be agreeable to the superior force....

  • Al Yamamah arms zdeal
    Al Yamamah
    Al Yamamah is the name of a series of a record arms sales by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, which have been paid for by the delivery of up to of crude oil per day to the UK government. The prime contractor has been BAE Systems and its predecessor British Aerospace...

  • Arms control
    Arms control
    Arms control is an umbrella term for restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation, and usage of weapons, especially weapons of mass destruction...

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