The Rising Dual-Use Potential of the Defense Industry

Arms procurement has always been central to a nation’s ability to maintain strategic autonomy. Reliance on foreign suppliers for weapons, spares, or munitions makes its capacity to fight or deter contingent on external political will and supply continuity. By ensuring autonomy in arms procurement, countries reduce their dependence on foreign suppliers and shield themselves from potential external constraints. This ability to produce and supply critical defense systems domestically is a cornerstone of political independence. For many governments, investing in defense industries therefore represents more than a technological choice; it is a strategic safeguard that reinforces national authority and secures greater freedom of action in the international arena.

Beyond its primary function of ensuring security, the sector also enhances a nation’s ability to innovate and adapt. Defense industries often operate at the technological frontier, giving their countries a clear strategic advantage. Governments dedicate substantial resources to military spending, but the real challenge lies in ensuring that these allocations also generate economic value. Building strong domestic defense capabilities increases the likelihood of turning defense expenditures into broader economic gains. One important aspect of this advantage is the spillover effect, as military technologies extend into civilian domains and generate spin-offs that contribute to broader economic growth.

At the same time, deeper cooperation between military and civilian industries ensures that rising defense budgets and expenditures are used more efficiently, aligning national security priorities with economic development goals. Analysing the interactions between military and civilian industries offers valuable insight into how industrial policies can simultaneously strengthen security and promote long-term economic progress.

Ultimately, duality cannot be assumed; it must be actively cultivated. Effective dual-use potential depends on deliberate policies and supportive institutions, including mechanisms such as standard harmonization, disclosure practices, and industrial programs that align military and civilian needs. In this sense, the relationship between defense and civilian industries should not be viewed as automatic but rather as a strategic process that requires sustained effort and careful coordination. Nations seeking to convert defense industry spending into broader economic welfare must adopt deliberate, well-designed policies.

The relationship between military and civilian technology has undergone profound transformations over the past two centuries, reflecting not only practical developments but also shifting ideological frameworks.

In the nineteenth century, the liberal tradition largely dismissed military technology as “corrupt technology,” a remnant of feudalism incompatible with the ideals of free trade and individual liberty. Science and technology were believed to flourish only in open, non-militaristic societies, while weapons were regarded as degenerative products of authoritarianism. Within this framework, the military sphere was seen as an anomaly in the broader narrative of progress.

After the First World War, this suspicion deepened. War was increasingly portrayed as essentially destructive, and military innovation as a distortion of “normal” technological development. The belief in technology as inherently civil and liberating persisted, even as confidence in humanity itself was shaken.

The Second World War represented a sharp turning point that fundamentally altered earlier assumptions about the relationship between military and civilian technology. Breakthroughs in radar, nuclear energy, and early computing transformed the technological landscape of the Second World War. Early computers such as Colossus in Britain and ENIAC in the United States were originally designed for military purposes, including codebreaking and ballistic calculations. These successes demonstrated that military research could generate innovations of lasting significance well beyond the battlefield. As a result, it became impossible to sustain the old liberal dichotomy, the view that civilian technologies were inherently progressive and liberating, while military technologies were by nature corrupt or tied to feudal structures. Yet postwar discourse did not abandon the suspicion of military institutions. Instead, it reframed the issue. The armed forces were now portrayed as pioneers of technological methods that could be transferred to civilian economies. Within this context, the idea of the “spin-off” gained central importance, offering a way to reconcile massive defense expenditures with liberal economic values by presenting military R&D not as waste but as a hidden engine of civilian innovation.

During the Cold War, this reframing crystallized into policy. Far from being seen as corrupt, military institutions were celebrated as leaders of technological progress. Western governments adopted military-style technology strategies in civilian sectors such as nuclear energy and aviation. However, from the 1970s onward, historians began to challenge the optimism of the spin-off narrative. Critical studies emphasized that military technology is profoundly shaped by the institutions that produce it, and that civilian applications often carry the imprint of their military origins. Over time, historiography shifted toward recognizing the structural and political determinants of technology, raising the question of whether spin-off was an objective reality or an ideological construct designed to justify defense spending in liberal societies. At the same time, other contributions have treated spin-off less as an ideological narrative and more as a form of technological externality or knowledge spillover, assessing its role in industrial competitiveness, innovation diffusion, and international trade performance. These perspectives emphasize measurable economic outcomes rather than the ideological framing of the concept.

Debates around dual-use technologies have not only focused on their historical and ideological framing but also on the practical question of when and how civilian benefits can emerge from military research. There are some concepts sought to explain at which stages of technological development dual-use outcomes were most likely to occur and whether these transfers could be efficient. Building on these discussions, a more detailed understanding can be gained by looking at the dynamics of experimentation, maturity and rationalization across the life cycle of technology.

The dynamics of dual-use technologies can be explained through three interconnected phases: experimentation, maturity, and rationalization. These phases help clarify when and how military research can generate civilian benefits, and why dual-use outcomes vary depending on the trajectory of a given technology.

In the early stages of a technology’s development, experimentation is critical. At this point, both military and civilian actors share what Cowan and Foray describe as a “similarity of ignorance,” since neither side fully understands the principles or long-term applications of a new technology. Military willingness to fund broad exploratory research is decisive. Defense R&D generates not only general knowledge about fundamental properties, such as material behavior or design concepts, but also “infratechnologies” like measurement methods, safety standards, and testing tools. These provide the informational infrastructure on which later civilian innovation can build. For example, U.S. military programs in nuclear energy and superconductivity created data and instruments that civilian industries later used to scale applications. In this way, defense-sponsored experimentation reduces uncertainty, diversifies technological pathways, and produces researchers whose skills eventually flow into civilian markets.

As technologies move beyond the initial exploratory stage but have not yet reached full standardization, a phase of maturity emerges. This stage often represents the most favorable window for dual-use outcomes, as basic principles are already established but applications remain flexible. In maturity, spin-off potential is at its peak: technologies can be adapted for civilian purposes before they become locked into narrowly defined military specifications. However, identifying this window requires product- or technology-specific analysis, since the timing and scope of useful spillovers vary widely. For instance, advanced materials or communication systems may offer significant civilian benefits during this stage, while highly specialized weapon platforms may not. The maturity phase therefore underscores that dual-use opportunities are contingent, context-dependent, and best captured through deliberate observation of technological lifecycles.

As technologies mature, rationalization becomes the dominant process. This phase is marked by standardization and focused learning, in which specific variants are refined and selected. The potential for dual-use depends strongly on the type of R&D program. In product-oriented efforts, such as weapons systems, military and civilian requirements quickly diverge. Combat conditions demand specifications like portability or extreme durability that are often irrelevant or uneconomical for civilian markets, limiting overlap to certain components. By contrast, process-oriented programs, especially in manufacturing, retain broader dual potential. Innovations in flexible machining, composite processing, or laser-based manufacturing frequently spill over into civilian industries because they address universal challenges of efficiency, quality, and reliability.

Rationalization also makes clear that duality cannot be taken for granted. It requires deliberate policies and supportive institutions. Mechanisms such as standard harmonization, disclosure practices, and supply-side industrial programs are crucial for aligning military and civilian needs.

For instance, The U.S. MANTECH initiative demonstrates how governments can play this role, ensuring that process technologies achieve their full dual-use potential. Established in the 1950s and significantly expanded during the Cold War, the program aimed to strengthen the manufacturing base that supported both military readiness and commercial competitiveness. Through funding for advanced production methods such as precision machining, composite materials, and semiconductor processing MANTECH reduced costs, standardized practices, and created spillovers that directly benefited civilian industries. Its long-term experience shows how deliberate state intervention can bridge military and industrial priorities, turning defense-driven innovations into broader engines of economic growth.

Taken together, experimentation, maturity, and rationalization reveal the evolving nature of military–civilian technological relations. Experimentation highlights the ’s role in generating knowledge under conditions of high uncertainty, maturity identifies the optimal window for spin-off potential, and rationalization shows how dual-use opportunities depend on program design and institutional frameworks. The relationship is therefore best understood not as a simple decline or separation, but as a dynamic, context-dependent process shaped by the timing and structure of technological development.

Debates surrounding dual-use technologies tend to rise and fall among countries with mature defense industries, yet recent developments suggest their renewed importance. The war in Ukraine and the resulting increase in European defense spending have already brought the issue back to the forefront. For growing powers, where defense industries are experiencing rapid growth, following these debates and adapting them to their own contexts is crucial.

Many countries today place the development of their defense sector at the core of both domestic and foreign policy. Türkiye stands out as a prominent example. Over the past two decades, Ankara has pursued the goal of building a stronger and more autonomous defense industry under the banner of indigenous capabilities. This appetite for a robust domestic defense industry encouraged greater investment in domestic infrastructure and higher allocations from the national budget. Yet the strategic question now lies in whether such spending can be transformed into broader prosperity. For Türkiye, as for other developing countries, the answer will depend on how effectively the defense sector engages with civilian industries, research institutions, and the wider economy. The capacity to convert rising defense expenditures into long-term innovation and sustainable growth will determine whether current momentum leads merely to strategic gains or to a deeper and more resilient general technological / industrial base.