The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Military-Civil Fusion: A New Paradigm for Military Innovation?

Advanced commercial technologies offer new opportunities for defense applications that could greatly affect military power and metrics of military advantage. This is relevant when it comes to civilian-based technological innovations found in the emerging 'fourth industrial revolution,' such as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, 'big data,' and quantum computing. Militaries and governments around the world are increasingly focused on how and where advanced commercial technologies, innovations, and breakthroughs could potentially create new capacities for military power, advantage, and leverage. This process of exploiting civilian-based advanced technologies is referred to as 'military–civil fusion' (MCF). This book addresses MCF not only from a conceptual and practical sense but also comparatively as it explores how four different countries – the United States, China, India, and Israel – are attempting to use MCF to support national military-technological innovation. It will interest scholars, researchers, and advanced students of military, security, and technology studies, as well as analysts and policymakers in military and defense organizations.