Defence, deterrence and military power

Capability-based planning: an alternative to buying weapons without a strategic concept

By Ali Zuweid · Article date: 1 November 2026 · 8 min read

English translation published 6 November 2026. Read the Arabic original.

At Australia’s National Press Club on 16 April 2026, the defence minister faced questions about how defence expenditure was being measured. His answer was that the starting point was to assess the capabilities required by the strategic environment and then resource the force the country needed. The exchange formed part of the presentation of the 2026 defence strategy and investment programme. The statement does not establish that implementation has succeeded. It does, however, provide an accountable standard: does the state buy what serves its missions, or redefine its missions to justify what it wants to buy?

This distinction matters for Iraq because acquiring a modern system provides a visible image of achievement, whereas building the capability that makes it useful requires less conspicuous work: preparing personnel, maintaining equipment, sharing information, financing operations and assigning responsibility. A purchase can be completed while some of that work remains unfinished. This article therefore examines how a defence requirement becomes an investment decision, how different options can be compared, and who should answer for the gap between receiving equipment and being able to perform a mission.

Capability begins with a mission and its limits

Capability-based planning organises resources around required defence outcomes while testing whether those outcomes can be delivered under realistic constraints. The state first defines what it intends to protect, which responsibilities it accepts and how much risk it can bear. It then asks what its institutions need to fulfil those responsibilities. Weapons form part of the answer, alongside personnel, command, training, sustainment, information and legal rules. Capability can thus be understood as verifiable institutional performance, rather than simply an asset recorded in an inventory.

This definition needs clear political boundaries. “Protecting national security” is too broad to serve, by itself, as the basis for a purchase contract: it allows every organisation to add its demands. Defining an authorised defence mission, its legal scope and its intended outcome makes comparison possible. Protecting sovereignty might require better coordination between existing institutions before expanding the number of systems. That possibility must be tested against evidence; it is not a prior judgment about Iraqi acquisitions whose evaluation details are unavailable to us.

NATO’s defence planning process moves from political guidance and requirements to capability targets, implementation support and review. Its targets permit solutions beyond replacing old equipment with equivalent equipment. Iraq can learn from the connection between decisions, outcomes and reassessment. The Alliance’s collective arrangements, commitments and resources cannot simply be assumed to exist in Iraq.

Beginning with capabilities does not eliminate threat assessment. Without a view of the risks, “flexibility” could become a justification for buying everything. Without comparing more than one possibility, a single threat could lock planning into a particular direction for decades. Options should therefore be tested against a limited range of plausible conditions, identifying capabilities they share and those that require additional provision. The details belong with the competent institutions; public debate needs to understand the reasoning connecting expenditure to a legitimate and sustainable mission.

From a national document to a comparable decision

Iraq has an announced starting point. In July 2025, the Ministry of Planning held a workshop on implementing the “Iraq First” National Security Strategy for 2025–2030 and connecting it with planning and development. The ministry’s statement establishes an institutional process for introducing the strategy, not that procurement decisions already derive from it. The next step is to translate objectives into responsibilities, resources and verification stages, making the rationale for each project traceable.

I propose that any major defence commitment be preceded by a decision file explaining the gap it addresses, the alternatives considered, the cost of continuing current arrangements and the funding required throughout service. This comparison should neither be written by the seller nor begin with the specifications of a particular product. Supplier information is useful, but the state must retain responsibility for defining the requirement and evaluating alternatives, with review independent of the team seeking to conclude the transaction.

Consider a purely illustrative choice between expanding a fleet and improving sustainment of the existing fleet. Neither the number of new assets nor a lower repair bill alone settles the question. The comparison must examine the expected improvement in mission performance, the time required, recurring costs and uncertainty surrounding each estimate. Expansion may be necessary if existing capacity has been exhausted; sustainment may take priority if it is the binding constraint. The answer cannot be known before the baseline is examined.

That examination protects decisions from two opposing temptations: fascination with new technology and attachment to old equipment because money has already been spent on it. Past expenditure alone cannot justify continuing an unviable project, just as novelty does not establish suitability. A gradual transition may carry less risk than rapid replacement before instructors and technicians are available. A sound comparison also reveals what the state will lose during transition, so future capability is not counted as available from the day of signature.

The budget tests whether ambition is credible

In its 2025 Iraq consultation, the International Monetary Fund warned of rising fiscal vulnerabilities associated with expenditure expansion and lower oil prices. It estimated the oil price needed to balance the budget at about $84 in 2024, compared with $54 in 2020. These are historical fiscal estimates from a 2025 report, not today’s oil price or a measure of defence capability. They illustrate why long commitments need financing-risk tests rather than permanent optimism about revenues.

A purchase creates obligations beyond its initial price: recurring training, maintenance and upgrades, specialist salaries, replacement and retirement costs. Approving a project on its purchase price alone can make it appear inexpensive before it competes with other projects for funding never reserved for it. I therefore favour presenting life-cycle costs as an estimated range with explicit assumptions, showing the effects of exchange-rate or support-cost changes instead of a single figure conveying false precision.

Dependence also has costs associated with access to technical information, continuity of support and lawful skills transfer. Diversifying suppliers may reduce reliance on one source while introducing different training and maintenance requirements. Standardisation may simplify operations while increasing dependence on a particular provider. Neither is universally preferable. The better approach is to expose the trade-off beforehand and relate it to the institution’s actual ability to manage complexity.

Protecting sustainment expenditure consequently forms part of protecting the investment itself, without exempting that expenditure from review. If a new project requires diverting operating resources from essential capabilities, the capability that will decline should be recorded alongside the one being promised. This prevents gains from appearing prominently in the decision while losses are hidden in other organisations’ budgets. It also makes trade-offs between defence and public services more honest, since both compete for limited resources.

Responsibility must extend beyond delivery

The hardest part of this approach is institutional. One team defines the requirement, another concludes the contract, a third receives the equipment and a fourth experiences the operating costs. If each team’s success is measured only by its transaction, every procedure can appear successful while the outcome remains absent. I propose assigning programme responsibility to a defined body that follows the entire decision chain, while keeping independent evaluation separate. Delivery indicators must be clearly distinguished from indicators of achieved capability.

Oversight requires two levels of information. The state can publish a project’s general rationale, aggregate cost and assigned responsibilities while reserving sensitive details for authorised institutions. Accountability does not require disclosure of operational information, and secrecy does not justify the absence of a decision record. When a programme is delayed, reviewers need to know whether the requirement changed, the supplier underperformed or complementary domestic work fell behind. Different causes require different remedies and prevent one party being blamed for every failure without evidence.

A realistic beginning does not require designing a perfect model for the entire institution at once. The method can be tested on a limited number of major programmes, supported by a review of assets and sustainment costs, before initial estimates are compared with actual outcomes. This connects directly with readiness after acquiring a system: planning that never returns to the results of use loses its most important opportunity for self-correction. The wider relationship is developed in the military institutions and defence policy collection.

My conclusion is that the quality of an acquisition decision should be judged by the defence gap it closes sustainably and by the risks it leaves understood and manageable. Good planning may lead to a new system, an improvement to existing assets or postponement of a project whose prerequisites are missing. Its strength lies in the state’s ability to justify a choice and bear its consequences, rather than adopting one answer before comparison begins.

Ali Zuweid — Researcher in strategic affairs and national security