Defence, deterrence and military power

Military doctrine: why must it precede armament?

By Ali Zuweid · Article date: 31 October 2026 · 9 min read

English translation published 31 October 2026. Read the Arabic original.

In July 2025, Iraq’s Ministry of Planning held a workshop on implementing the ‘Iraq First’ National Security Strategy for 2025–2030, connecting its own role to planning and development. The announcement matters because national security, within the framework presented, extends beyond weapons. Yet a national strategy or a staff-awareness workshop does not by itself explain how army requirements should be derived from it. Between a broad objective such as protecting sovereignty and purchasing a particular system lies a sequence of judgments that must be explainable and reviewable. Ministry of Planning: following up the National Security Strategy.

That distance is where military doctrine belongs in public discussion. I use the term here for the professional principles guiding how the military understands its role and builds and uses capability within policy and law, rather than a purchasing document or detailed operational instructions. The Iraqi question is how these principles prevent armament from becoming disconnected decisions driven by a funding opportunity, supplier offer or desire to own what another country possesses. Doctrine cannot resolve every political disagreement. It can reveal, however, that some weapons decisions require political judgment before price negotiations begin.

From political purpose to a defensible requirement

Iraq’s Constitution places defence under civilian leadership, establishes federal responsibility for national security policy and affirms good-neighbourly relations and peaceful dispute resolution. These boundaries should frame the military role. They do not automatically generate an equipment list. Leadership must assess threats, commitments and resources and compare military and non-military means. Purchasing a capability should not create, by default, a political commitment that the competent decision-maker has not considered. Iraq’s Constitution, Articles 8, 9 and 110.

The value of this sequence becomes apparent when defining a requirement. Saying that the state must protect a specified public function differs from saying it needs a particular product. The first formulation allows alternatives to be compared and may reveal a role for organisation, training, lawful cooperation or improved civilian infrastructure. The second starts comparison after implicitly choosing the solution. This does not mean every weapon can be replaced by administrative reform. It means evidence of need should precede supplier specifications, so that a seller’s expertise does not define the state’s problem on its behalf.

Doctrine must distinguish what is relatively stable from what changes. Commitment to constitutional and civilian authority is not an assumption that changes when a technology appears. Assessments of risks, protective means and education methods do change. Placing all these elements on the same level can make technical review an excuse to change the purpose, or respect for that purpose a justification for rejecting learning. In my view, a sound professional document exposes the distinction and specifies who reviews assumptions, when and what evidence warrants revision. The institution can then update itself without redefining its political role each time.

What Britain illustrates—and what it does not

Britain’s Strategic Defence Review, published in June 2025, made NATO priority a framework connecting defence roles with force development, education and procurement, and proposed a more integrated force. The document does not establish that this transformation is complete. It does present a logic traceable from policy to capability development. That is the useful comparison: oversight can ask whether a programme serves the declared role, rather than only whether the purchase followed procedure. UK Strategic Defence Review 2025.

Copying its content in Iraq would be mistaken. Britain operates within a defined defence alliance and has commitments, capabilities and geography different from Iraq’s. Its priorities may not be Iraqi priorities, and support it expects from allies cannot be assumed available to Iraq on identical terms. The lesson is therefore not to choose a British supplier or adopt a foreign concept because it is new. It is to expose the assumptions making a defence choice reasonable in its context. Where those assumptions are absent, the choice must change or the comparison be rejected, rather than erasing the difference from discussion.

Britain’s experience also offers a financial counterweight to optimism about documents. In its December 2023 assessment, the National Audit Office estimated that forecast costs for the 2023–2033 Equipment Plan exceeded allocated funding by approximately £16.9 billion. This was a historical forecast for that plan, not Britain’s deficit in October 2026 or a fully realised loss. It demonstrates that defining roles does not remove the need to test whether they can be financed. National Audit Office: Equipment Plan 2023–2033.

For Iraq, comparison is more useful when policy and audit are considered together rather than selectively. A strategy may be coherent in its purposes while its financial plan fails to accommodate its commitments. A procurement process may follow the law while crowding out a higher-priority capability. Decisions therefore need two separate tests: does the choice serve the approved requirement, and can the state afford it for the necessary period? Passing the first cannot substitute for passing the second. This is a resource-management conclusion, not a judgment that defence spending is less valuable than every alternative use of money.

Armament creates long-term commitments

The price at signature does not describe the full obligation. The competent authority should compare acquisition, training, maintenance, updating and eventual retirement costs, stating assumptions sensitive to prices or supplier terms. I offer no cost estimate for specific Iraqi systems: the sources used here do not provide data for a fair comparison. The point is to require a decision file covering a reasonable service period and exposing what has not yet been priced, instead of allowing unknown costs to become obligations discovered only after withdrawal is expensive.

The commitment includes the state’s ability to learn, maintain systems and obtain what is needed for continuity under law and contract. Supplier diversification can appear to provide independence, yet increase training, compatibility and support burdens if poorly assessed. A single supplier may appear more efficient but increase exposure to one interrupted channel. No general answer fits every case. Doctrine should provide a criterion tied to mission, sustainability and acceptable dependence, rather than an absolute political preference for either diversification or standardisation.

The same reasoning applies to new technologies. Rapid adoption or reported success elsewhere does not establish suitability. Decision-makers must identify the problem addressed, the personnel, administration and information required, and how effects can be tested without endangering rights or data. Assessment may support limited adoption, postponement or rejection; all are legitimate professional outcomes. Treating purchase itself as proof of modernisation prevents learning from an unsuccessful test, because rejecting the product then appears to admit backwardness rather than demonstrate evidence-based judgment.

An accountable sequence for Iraqi decisions

I propose that every major armament commitment be preceded by a file connecting the national objective, defence role, defined requirement, alternatives and sustained cost. Sensitive elements need not be publicly released, but must be available to authorised decision-makers and oversight bodies. A suitable summary of the general purpose, review stages and financial discipline should be published where law permits. This separates transparency from exposing operational details and prevents the sensitivity of some information from becoming a reason to conceal every justification involving public funds.

The file should explain why alternatives were rejected rather than merely defend the preferred choice. If repairing an existing capability is insufficient, it should explain why. If postponement increases cost or risk, it should state the assessment’s basis and limits. Assumptions whose change would require reconsideration must also be recorded. This prevents successors from inheriting an unexplained decision and protects the institution from continuing a project merely because money has already been spent. Past expenditure does not automatically make the next commitment beneficial.

Evaluating results remains different from accepting delivery. Receiving what a contract specified matters, but the subsequent question is whether the need that justified the decision was addressed within the assumed cost and period. Professional review under appropriate authority should produce lessons that alter subsequent contracts, training and planning. Where failure appears, honest misjudgment, changed circumstances, poor management and misconduct must be distinguished. Treating them all alike obstructs learning in the first case and may obstruct accountability in the last.

Placing doctrine before armament does not require waiting for a perfect document before addressing a proven urgent need. Legal frameworks may permit a bounded decision in response to necessity, provided its scope, justification and review remain clear. The danger is that successive emergencies become a permanent substitute for planning, leaving force structure assembled from exceptions without a shared concept. In my assessment, useful doctrine reduces that accumulation and gives leaders a common language for deciding what must be achieved and what available resources cannot accomplish simultaneously.

The state needs doctrine to explain why a weapon should or should not be purchased before commitment, rather than to explain the weapon after purchase. Iraq’s National Security Strategy opens space to connect defence with other state functions; the test remains the decisions derived from it. When requirements, alternatives, costs and lawful boundaries can be traced, armament becomes an instrument of considered policy. Declining an unjustified purchase becomes an act of institutional strength rather than a sign of weakness.

Ali Zuweid — Researcher in strategic affairs and national security