This report is based on a leadership perception survey, semi-structured interviews with senior military and civilian defense officials, and a review of existing literature, policy documents, and open-source datasets. The research design and analysis draw on SHIELD, a framework comprising six dimensions—strategic readiness and decision velocity; human capability and skills flexibility; innovation translation and procurement adaptation; economic mobilization; leverage over national power; and domestic and capability resilience—to assess how countries adapt their defense postures and capabilities to the risk of war. These dimensions serve as an analytical tool to describe how prepared a nation is to respond to threats, defend itself, and sustain both the use of force and the function of its economy and infrastructure during a prolonged, high-intensity conflict. More details on the SHIELD framework can be found here.

The core challenge identified in Ahead of the Threat is that of conversion. While defense leaders recognize important vulnerabilities and can identify relevant reforms, nations may lack the systems required to convert that awareness into coordinated, scalable, and sustainable action. This report is structured to reflect five readiness functions that describe how national power is converted into strategic readiness and to highlight conversion gaps identified throughout the research process:

• Anticipate and understand exposure: The ability to identify, assess, and monitor the threats, dependencies, and vulnerabilities that could affect national objectives, and to understand what must be prepared before disruption occurs.
• Decide, direct, and align national power: The ability to make timely decisions, establish clear authority, and coordinate government, industry, society, and allies around shared objectives and required actions.
• Generate and mobilize capacity: The ability to convert requirements into deployable capability by mobilizing people, industry, infrastructure, resources, and supporting systems within the available warning time.
• Sustain and regenerate national effort: The ability to maintain essential functions during prolonged disruption while replacing losses, restoring critical capabilities, recovering infrastructure, and reconstituting capacity over time.
• Adapt and scale advantage: The ability to translate experience, lessons, experimentation, and new information into durable improvements in policies, capabilities, institutions, and operating practices.

National preparedness and strategic readiness, therefore, rely on the ability to convert capabilities into outcomes as circumstances change—not just the capabilities a nation possesses at a single point in time. They require whole-of-society participation, as military action depends on civilian infrastructure, essential services, industry, workforce capacity and public institutions. Ahead of the Threat examines the foundations of national preparedness and strategic readiness with the aim of better understanding the key conversion gaps that stand in their way and how leaders can address them.

Anticipate and Understand Exposure

National preparedness and strategic readiness rest not only on the ability to identify, assess, and monitor threats and vulnerabilities that affect national objectives, but also on effectively preparing for those threats before disruption occurs. When surveyed and interviewed, civilian and military defense leaders—both current and recently former—broadly acknowledged the critical dependencies of their national defense enterprises, but many indicated that awareness of vulnerabilities does not translate into the reforms needed to mitigate them.

Given disruptions to global trade, supply chain security is a top concern among military and civilian leaders in security and defense. When surveyed, 76 percent of global respondents were “very” or “extremely” concerned about supply chain weaponization, yet only 8 percent reported “great” or “very great” improvement from supply chain and sourcing reforms. Speaking to FP Analytics, Tommy Åkesson, secretary general of the Swedish Defence Commission, illustrated this disconnect with the example of the Gripen fighter jet—one of Sweden’s most visible defense exports—whose components are primarily sourced from the U.S., the U.K., and France. “We don’t produce everything in Sweden. We are dependent on imports, so that’s a big issue when we look at wartime.” Despite recognition of this supply chain vulnerability, none of the Swedish leaders interviewed for this report disclosed awareness of any effort within the defense establishment to systemically map and mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities. This disconnect was echoed by leaders across other countries. Gro Jære, director general of the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency, noted that in the absence of comprehensive supply chain resilience testing by the government or military, “we are also reliant on industry to be aware of their value chains.”

To shift to a better-prepared and ready defense posture will require mapping critical supply chains. A senior French military official shared in an interview for this report that the process involves a “detailed analysis conducted for each of the products” by the defense establishment, and that planners need to ask, “Where do the raw materials come from, how are they secured, how many supply sources do we have, and if we lose this supply source, what could be an alternative?” To mitigate against disruption, mapping needs to include not only entire pieces of equipment but also necessary components and inputs, such as screws, ball bearings, and microelectronics, into which governments may have little visibility. Once inputs down the supply chain are mapped, planners need to understand how viable alternatives can be sourced within operationally relevant timelines. This is a salient issue, as few governments have robust real-world experience switching suppliers due to interruptions, especially in times of crisis. In the Ahead of the Threat survey, only a minority of respondents indicated that their national defense system had even occasional experience switching suppliers because of disruption—whether that be sabotage, natural disaster, or a supplier losing its security certifications.

Although efforts to mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities are nascent, leaders from some countries pointed to initiatives aimed at better understanding them. Colonel Pierre Bouvier, defense cooperation attaché at the Embassy of France to the U.S., noted that “Over the past five years, we’ve been mapping this entire ecosystem, and we have a whole directorate within the [Directorate General for Armament (DGA)] in charge of relations with [defense subcontractors] and identifying fragilities.” Interviewees from the U.K. highlighted the Adaptive Capability Alliance—an initiative launched in 2026 designed to foster closer contingency planning between the Ministry of Defence and the private sector and establish pre-agreed access to logistical sites in the event of a sudden threat. Norwegian interviewees, meanwhile, said that they are mitigating disruption by anticipating supply chain demands and securing industrial capacity well in advance of a crisis.

Understanding dependencies is critical, but anticipating and preparing for them requires stronger action by governments, militaries, and industry. For supply chains, interviewees stressed that this means moving away from a defense industrial model that maximizes efficiency to one that prioritizes security. Vice Admiral Justin Jones, commander, Joint Operations for the Australian Defence Force, outlined the tradeoffs involved in building more resilient supply chains: “Your gain is speed of spare parts, weapons, ammunition, stores to the fight, and the loss is efficiency.” For effective conversion, leaders need, as far as possible, to map critical dependencies, identify alternatives and exercise and stress test their alternatives, and create processes to enable the defense establishment to quickly switch suppliers when necessary.

Decide, Direct, and Align National Power

National security threats are increasingly ambiguous—taking kinetic and non-kinetic forms; crossing domains; targeting governments, industry, and society; and exploiting the seams between military and civilian authorities and the public and private sectors. National systems are confident when responding to familiar threats but are less certain when they confront novel ones that move across institutional boundaries, whether interagency or cross-sectoral. Hybrid warfare and cyber-attacks are growing in frequency across the globe and in the countries covered in this study. Yet, defense leaders from various contexts who were interviewed and surveyed for this report conveyed less confidence in responding to these non-kinetic attacks compared to kinetic ones or more routine crises like natural disasters. Eighty-two percent of leaders surveyed as part of Ahead of the Threat reported that governments could produce authorized direction within three days for military operations in response to a natural disaster during peacetime. However, for a non-kinetic attack on critical infrastructure, only 60 percent said the same, and 19 percent reported being unable to assess how quickly national authorities could authorize direction for the armed forces.

Part of the challenge stems from the organization of the armed forces themselves, which can undermine interagency coordination. In interviews, U.S. leaders said the siloed structure of the U.S. Armed Forces creates challenges for joint operations. Retired General Christopher Cavoli, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe and commander, U.S. European Command, said “We live separately. . . . Our doctrines are domain-specific and are run by completely separate services that are authorized and funded separately.” As a result, protocols exist on paper, but effective joint action is untested. Christine Wormuth, former secretary of the Army, emphasized the need for real-world exercising to ensure that rapid decision-making structures produce the required effects: “I think being able to demonstrate real capabilities in exercises like that is where the rubber hits the road in terms of actual joint integration.”

Integration challenges extend beyond the armed forces, spanning government institutions, industry, and the broader civilian sector. Responding effectively to threats requires more than plans that define the roles and responsibilities of each actor. Governments and their partners need to establish, coordinate, and regularly exercise the relationships and processes that turn decisions into action. When surveyed for Ahead of the Threat, only 19 percent of respondents indicated that national defense leaders could work with industry and other civil authorities to carry out coordinated mobilization in response to an imminent or active threat to a “great” or “very great” extent. This lack of preparedness was echoed in interviews. Retired Lieutenant General Christopher Coates, former deputy commander of NORAD, said Canada would be “starting from almost a zero in terms of integration and collaboration” in the event of mobilization. Similarly, retired Major General Mick Ryan, former commander of the Australian Defence College, noted that mobilization planning is undermined by an institutional culture that discourages cooperation between the national defense establishment and the defense industry.

However, countries are working to correct this lack of close coordination. Major General Jason Walk, head of national support with the Department of Defence of Australia, explained, “We have undertaken a couple of tabletop exercises to consider how . . . we would respond to crisis and conflict. That’s generated a deeper appreciation across a broader number of departments, both those that are more traditionally within the national security sector and those that sit outside of it, that we all have a role to play.” However, even within countries with strong cultures around national defense, leaders anticipate challenges associated with whole-of-society mobilization. Sweden, for example, has a strong total defense model, wherein all relevant military and civilian agencies have clearly defined roles to support national defense. Tommy Åkesson, secretary general of the Swedish Defence Commission, shared, however, that there remain challenges translating leadership decision-making into action down the entire chain of command: “The biggest problem is the rest of the society and how to coordinate them. . . . It’s very hard to have a centralized command structure. . . . You need to have understanding on the lower levels, both within the private sector and . . . in the government offices, to understand what to do without getting orders from above.” This kind of understanding comes from frequent and close coordination across institutions, not simply from receiving instructions from higher authorities.

Generate and Mobilize Capacity

Directing an effective response to a threat requires generating and mobilizing capacity—including personnel, supply chains, logistics and infrastructure, and equipment and armaments—within the available warning time. These processes are complex, as they require coordination and cooperation among government agencies and across the public and private sectors. Capacity generation, for example, requires building stockpiles, training military and civilian personnel, and establishing dependable supply and logistics chains. Mobilization, however, involves activating these stockpiles, personnel, and systems at speed in response to a crisis and sustaining them throughout the duration of a conflict. Ahead of the Threat survey respondents largely agreed on the mechanisms necessary to shorten procurement and supply timelines, with 47 percent, 42 percent, and 39 percent of respondents highlighting dedicated innovation procurement pathways, accelerated testing and certification, and flexible contracting, respectively, as key mechanisms to improve mobilization. However, less than 10 percent of respondents reported “great” or “very great” improvement in capacity-specific reforms, signaling a failure to convert intent into action.

Closing this capacity gap entails revitalizing defense procurement and supply systems. In interviews for this report, defense leaders spoke about the post-Cold War adoption of a “just in time” model for production, under which militaries lowered overall costs by minimizing stockpiles and contracting according to immediate need. The result is that industrial bases struggle to keep pace with surges in demand. As retired Major General John Reim, former commanding general of Picatinny Arsenal, which supplies 90 percent of the U.S. Army’s armaments and ammunition, recalled: “Most of our facilities, our army ammunition plants, they’re all built in support of the World War II surge and haven’t seen significant investments since. . . . So, it becomes really difficult to surge production when the capability isn’t there.” Strategic readiness will therefore require defense leaders to move toward procurement and supply chain models that continually invest in infrastructure and build in redundancy—actions that entail additional cost but prepare the defense industrial system to surge as needed.

Effective approaches to reform will vary by country and depend on the country’s workforce, the availability of funding, and the government’s relationship with industry. The aforementioned Adaptive Capacity Alliance in the U.K. demonstrates the effectiveness of pre-emptively building collaborative relationships among government, military, and the private sector. Air Vice-Marshal Ange Baker, Director Joint Support at the U.K. National Armaments Director Group, said the Alliance not only aims to ease mobilization in case of an attack or crisis in the U.K., but also that it will raise awareness of the need for national preparedness among the private sector and its workforce.

Militaries also need to address shortages of ammunition and equipment. Building stores of critical munitions will correct the challenges associated with the “just-in-time” production model, but multiple interviewees highlighted the risk that rapid technological change could render stockpiles ineffective or obsolete. Frank Kendall, former secretary of the Air Force, said, “What the services want is the next better version of what they already have. . . . But everything we have is becoming obsolete, and replacing those systems with a better version of an obsolete system is just replacing one obsolete system with another one.” Governments and militaries need to balance the procurement of legacy systems and munitions with investment in emerging ones and develop strategies to rapidly scale up production of rapidly changing systems, like drones, as conditions change.

Procurement and integration of emerging technologies are also pivotal to effective capacity mobilization. While interviewees were optimistic about their defense institutions’ interest in emerging technologies, few could confidently say that procurement pathways were efficient or effective. Over two-thirds of interviewees highlighted regulatory hurdles, slow approval processes, and rigid contracting mechanisms as a significant preparedness risk, and 55 percent identified procurement reform as necessary to improving mobilization, surge capacity, and the integration of emerging technologies. Interviewees from France, for example, noted that despite consolidating procurement and supply chain management under one agency, the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA)—which enjoys a close relationship with the French defense industrial base—the military still suffers from unwieldy R&D and procurement processes in need of reform. Canada, likewise, is currently undertaking a review and reform of its procurement processes under the recently established Defence Investment Agency, an exercise that may serve as an example to other countries facing similar challenges.

In addition to reviewing and reforming national procurement processes, 39 percent of interviewees advocated for allied co-production and shared supply chains, acknowledging the impossibility of total self-sufficiency in an interconnected global economy. Shared standards and multinational initiatives can help countries go beyond interoperability to having interchangeable capabilities. Gro Jære, director general of the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency, spoke to FP Analytics about the difference: “Interoperable is like you can fight together, and interchangeable is actually that the Norwegian soldiers, the Norwegian staff can use the equipment for the other nation.” Similarly, Lieutenant General Rolf Folland, chief of Norwegian Armed Forces at NATO, noted, “The defense industrial base, especially on the European side, but also I would also say both for Canada and the U.S., must be interoperable and exchangeable so that we can actually use each other’s weapons, munitions, operate alongside each other as we were totally one force.”

Fragmentation and localization also hinder the mobilization of personnel, equipment, and armaments. Chief of the Defence Force Admiral Mark Hammond noted that the structure of the Australian defense establishment creates “A patchwork quilt.” He said, “We have a number of forces that maintain a high readiness setting, and then there are other elements of the force and Australian society . . .which are yet to be mobilized and are not what I would call on a preparedness setting commensurate with the challenge of the strategic environment.” Similarly, Vice Admiral Justin Jones, Commander, Joint Operations for the Australian Defence Force, stated that localized legislative frameworks can unintentionally hinder contingency planning at the national level, and there is currently no unified national mobilization plan. This fragmentation thus risks undermining the mobilization of relevant supply chains and personnel at speed and was consistently highlighted by Australian interviewees as a critical vulnerability. In addition to force integration, interviewees highlighted the importance of continuous communication and data sharing—both within national military institutions and, where relevant, across alliances and partnerships including NATO.

Sustain and Regenerate National Effort

The ability to sustain and regenerate national effort is critical to readiness for prolonged conflict, and it separates national preparedness for emergencies such as natural disasters from preparedness for kinetic or non-kinetic attacks. This ability includes maintaining adequate personnel, functional critical infrastructure, and robust supply chains while replacing losses and reconstituting capacity over time. As Dr. William LaPlante, former U.S. undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, noted, “[P]art of the challenge is to try to predict ahead of time where you need to surge, where you’re going to need to surge in manpower, where you’re going to need to surge in equipment. And then the other piece of it, which is often underappreciated, is one of supply, repair, maintenance, and logistics.” The ability to respond to threats rapidly and effectively, therefore, does not necessarily mean that a country can sustain and maintain defense in the long term, and the two functions need to be addressed in tandem to strengthen strategic readiness.

Multiple obstacles to effective capacity sustainment and regeneration exist, but the Ahead of the Threat survey and interviews highlighted personnel and supply chains as the two greatest challenges. When considering the extent to which they agree with the statement, “The national defense system is able to keep the necessary military and civilian personnel available, protected, and operational under crisis,” just 28 and 27 percent of respondents agreed to a “great” or “very great” extent regarding non-kinetic and kinetic attacks, respectively, compared to 52 percent regarding a natural disaster. Slow and inflexible hiring, competition with the private sector, and rigid personnel systems in relevant industries were highlighted by survey respondents as the key barriers to effective personnel sustainment. These concerns were echoed by interviewees, who noted the difficulty associated with tracking, allocating, and replacing personnel to industries and professions critical to sustaining both military supply chains and everyday civilian life.

This challenge links to a more fundamental vulnerability: the lack of public awareness about the critical nature of national preparedness. Major General Jason Walk, head of national support at the Department of Defence of Australia, shared, “We lack a broad awareness, and that permeates through every entity in public sector, private sector, and society.” While hiring practices can be made more rapid and agile, and government and the private sector can implement emergency procurement agreements—as have been implemented in the U.S., France, Germany, and other countries—creating a public culture around participation in national defense is more challenging. Interviewees repeatedly raised concern over poor public awareness of rising national security threats and a related lack of interest in the military and defense industry. As Major General Walk concluded, “Building the networks, building the relationships to be able to advance national preparedness is constrained by our current national mindset with regards to crisis and conflict, what we need to be prepared for, and how quickly we might need to undertake that preparation.”

Interviewees from countries with mandatory conscription identified national service as crucial to boosting public participation in national defense. A senior official within the Swedish defense establishment told FP Analytics that “Sweden has a long tradition of total defense, and under the current system, all Swedish citizens between the ages of 16 and 70 are subject to total defense duty. This reflects a broad understanding that the defense of Sweden is a responsibility extending well beyond the Armed Forces.” However, sustaining conscription models can be challenging in aging populations where the eligible cohort is contracting, as in the case of Singapore. In countries such as France, the U.S., and Australia, where security threats are viewed as distant and hypothetical, other approaches will be necessary. Lord Toby Harris, chair of the U.K.’s National Preparedness Commission, emphasized that public education and communication are key, pointing to current efforts by the British government to share guidance and information on preparedness with the public through news media and other channels.

Beyond personnel, building and adapting supply chains to support regeneration and replenishment of necessary supplies is key to a country’s long-term sustainment ability. National defense institutions need to identify and secure supply chains during peacetime and prioritize security and stability rather than just cost. Ulf Häußler, formerly of the innovation management team at the German Federal Ministry of Defence, noted Germany’s gradual, yet mixed, success in this work, sharing, “We’ve worked very hard and at great cost to reduce our dependence on Russian natural gas, yet at the same time we’ve said, ‘Let’s not look at the other dependencies for now’—especially those involving China, some of which have actually become even stronger.” In addition to strengthening supply chain security, it will be critical to shorten lead times for manufacturing and identify the supply pipelines that would benefit most from being ‘always-on.’ Doing so will require a trusting, collaborative relationship with the private defense sector, as is the case in France, where the government is a partial owner of many of the country’s largest defense contractors, and procurement and stockpile management is all coordinated from a single agency, the DGA. However, French interviewees noted that despite this close relationship, challenges remain to ensuring adequate regeneration of supplies, even in times of peace on the home front.

In seeking to address these and other sustainment challenges, leaders can benefit from considering whether critical systems and industries can absorb and recover from initial shocks; how and whether personnel, logistics, infrastructure, and essential services can continue operation in the face of prolonged disruption; the pathways for depleted resources to be replaced or restored; and whether priorities and operating systems can adapt and iterate as threats evolve.