News

Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed attends specialised demonstrations by 22nd cohort of UAE National Service Programme at Sweihan Training Centre
Hamdan bin Mohammed witnesses display of skills of National Service Programme recruits
44 Interns Join Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Internship in Abu Dhabi
DCI’s OCA Steers MDO Command Course
EDGE Recognised as ‘Best Company to Work For’ at the Employee Happiness Awards 2025
Raytheon and Northrop Grumman Achieve Milestone in Next-Gen Interceptor Rocket Motor Tests
SMARTSHOOTER Secures USD13 M U.S. Army Contract for Fire Control Systems
L3Harris Boosts Space Force Defences with Mobile Satellite Comms Jammer
MH-139A Concludes Nuclear Transport Training Exercise
EDGE Signs MoU to Localise Maintenance Capabilities of Thales’ Advanced Optronic Systems in the UAE
Babcock Wins Contract to Support Nuclear Submarine Defueling Operations
Embraer to Offer Gogo Galileo HDX In-Flight Connectivity for Phenom 300
Germany to Acquire Joint Strike Missiles for F-35s in Deal with Kongsberg
BAE Systems to Build 10 Missile Warning Satellites Under U.S. Space Force Deal
EDGE Signs Record-Breaking AED 9 Billion Naval Contract with Kuwait Ministry of Defence
Hamdan bin Mohammed attends graduation ceremony of 43rd cohort of Zayed II Military College in Al Ain
Saab Showcases Locally Developed Coast Control Radar at Make it in the Emirates 2025
EDGE Entity EPI Receives Prestigious Accreditation from EIAC for Calibration
Make it in the Emirates 2025 Concludes Successful Day Three under the Theme of Smart Manufacturing, Industry 4.0, and Artificial Intelligence
Tawazun Council and Thales Sign Agreement to Establish Ground Master Air Surveillance Radar Production Facility in UAE

2025-06-24

Code & Combat: Rebooting Military Minds

For decades, nations across the globe have reaped the benefits of the so-called peace dividend, redirecting resources away from military investments towards domestic priorities. However, in a world marked by mounting geopolitical tensions, that era is rapidly coming to an end.

Allied nations now find themselves at a crucial crossroads, forced to reassess their defence strategies in light of evolving threats and complex security challenges.

The shift comes at a time when warfare and security dynamics are shaped by several critical factors. In an increasingly hyper-connected society, public perception of military activities, including training, plays a decisive role in influencing policy and funding decisions.

Simultaneously, rapid technological advancements have ushered in an era of innovation where artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality are transforming the way military personnel train and operate.

The evolution also aligns with the emergence of a new generation of digitally native soldiers who instinctively adapt to artificial intelligence- and virtual reality-driven training methodologies, further reinforcing the necessity for modernisation.

Adding to the complexity is a cyber threat landscape that now stands on equal footing with traditional kinetic warfare, presenting challenges that demand a proactive and integrated defence strategy.

Operational Time Crunch

An additional consequence of this environment is a reduction of the window in which defence forces can prepare and respond to threats. Acquisition and training strategies must be agile enough to respond in a timely manner, while being robust enough to replicate or advance any level of intensity in conflict. Recent events in Europe have underscored a critical challenge in modern defence strategy—namely, the delay in generating and deploying proficient soldiers and aviators at a pace necessary for operational success.

This shortfall has demonstrated that military effectiveness is not solely determined by technology or equipment but also by the readiness and capability of personnel.

When nations engage in conflict, it is rarely a unilateral effort. Instead, warfare in the modern era is defined by multinational cooperation, with military campaigns coordinated alongside allied forces. This collaborative approach reflects the reality that geopolitical challenges transcend borders, requiring a unified response that integrates intelligence, logistics, and tactical execution across multiple nations.

Every major conflict in the last century has been fought in conjunction and coordination with a coalition of other nations, and future conflicts are anticipated to continue this pattern.

Military training and execution must have elements of standardisation performance measures and outcome analysis to remain effective and interoperable with allied forces. Past and current approaches to pilot training programmes were developed to maximise production by using fixed curricula with set educational methods to deliver a known product —a qualified aircrew. But these programmes are no longer fit-for-purpose in the age of contemporary military operations and the learning needs and expectations of younger, connected students.

Aviation Readiness

The rapid pace of technological advancement demands a comprehensive change management strategy to integrate modern, student-focused methodologies into pilot training.

Military forces must maintain agility in adopting new capabilities, ensuring seamless and timely implementation while balancing the challenges of transition with long-term operational benefits.

Investing in cutting-edge training approaches must yield tangible advantages—producing highly skilled pilots, refining instructional techniques, enhancing safety protocols, and strengthening decision-making capabilities.

While the cost of achieving chosen levels of operational preparedness is high, there is potential to dramatically lower it. Adopting readily available and innovative training approaches that leverage simulation can lessen cost of operations and provide additional time for nations to react. Adoption is supported through this robust change management approach, assuming defence forces are open to collaboration and outsourcing, while developing their own sovereign capabilities.

There is a crucial need to ensure the shift to modernised training systems is communicated as a move towards improved efficiency, resilience, and safety.

Advanced air forces are increasingly partnering with private industry to manage and deliver pilot training programmes and facilities. This model not only increases productivity and enables faster integration of new technologies, but also frees up military pilots to focus on critical operational tasks.

By combining existing assets with immersive simulators and optimised trainer jets, private partners can effectively enhance both aircrew output and training quality. These collaborations also promote innovation, accelerate learning cycles, and provide greater flexibility in scaling training capacity based on emerging requirements. A government-owned, contractor-operated model aligned with national regulations and defence budgets offers long-term efficiency, improved outcomes, and sustained readiness.

Trade Barriers

In an uncertain geopolitical landscape, collaboration between nations becomes increasingly important. However, the world is also experiencing an increase in fragmentation, with countries threatening to break into rival economic trade blocs. Barriers to trade have increased rapidly in the past years.

Additionally, changes in global climate and other dangerous transboundary threats are already transforming the context in which many governments operate. Increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, and more recurrent extreme weather conditions will affect basing and access while degrading readiness and capabilities.

Budgetary increases in defence spending to equip nations for uncertainty in the geopolitical landscape suggests that traditional tactics to capability acquisition and training are no longer fit for purpose.

Australia’s recent Defence Strategic Review has committed to shifting focus from achieving the perfect solution to delivering timely and relevant capability. This approach urges political and military leaders to move away from rigid project management risk frameworks and embrace strategic risk management, ensuring adaptability and operational readiness in a rapidly evolving security environment.

As the window for governments to react and respond to threats grows shorter each day, those responsible for acquisition and training must focus on the minimum viable competence in the shortest amount of time.

Retention Challenges

Military enlistment and retention face multiple challenges. The end of the war in Afghanistan has made voluntary service less appealing in contributing nations, while general fatigue with the Global War on Terror has further dampened recruitment. A tightening labour market following the COVID-19 pandemic adds another obstacle, requiring defence forces to offer stronger incentives to attract top talent.

Demographics also play a role, as aging populations shrink the pool of potential recruits. The pandemic worsened mental health conditions, with rising depression and anxiety from social isolation, while disrupted schooling led to declining test scores. Meanwhile, increasing youth obesity rates have reduced the number of candidates deemed fit for service, further straining recruitment efforts.

Shorter Attention Spans

Different nations face unique demographic and cultural challenges in military recruitment and retention, but these obstacles are not insurmountable. Over the past two decades, research has provided valuable insights into the evolving behaviours and attitudes of the newest generation of personnel — commonly referred to as Generation Z or Digital Native learners, born between the late 1990s and mid-2010s.

Having grown up in a world saturated with computerised technology, Digital Natives possess an inherent proficiency in digital tools, shaping the way they process and retain information. Unlike previous generations, they are highly accustomed to rapid task switching, often misinterpreted as multitasking. However, their shorter attention spans can result in a diminished depth of learning, posing challenges in educational and training environments.

Addressing the needs of this new generation — instead of trying to shoehorn them into a decades-old training paradigm — remains the biggest challenge facing military trainers globally.

Labour Resources

Geopolitical instability and recruitment challenges put increased pressure on air force pilot training, requiring faster, high-proficiency pilot production to maintain operational readiness.

To accomplish this in the current and traditional pilot training pipeline requires an increase in funding, equipment, and, most importantly, labour resources that are already in short supply.

Most training pipelines suffer in throughput due to a lack of resources and the use of outdated recruitment and training methods and technologies.

There is an obvious need for a time, manpower, and resource-efficient solutions to resolve the pilot training conundrum. Digital technologies such as immersive synthetic environments, data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence promise to advance the effectiveness and efficiency of military aviator training programmes.

Today, in modern air forces, the application of digital technologies is generally limited to high-cost training solutions and simulators of varying degrees of fidelity that use prevailing training methodologies. Given the ambiguous geopolitical landscape, along with the new generation of students discussed above, future military pilot training must transform to become far more competent in acquisition, resourcing, and operations.

Learning Evolution

In recent years, society’s approach to education and learning has evolved rapidly—and this trend is set to continue. Technological advances, guided by research in learning and behavioural sciences, have been a key driver of this transformation.

This shift in attitude to education has also been influenced by certain non-technical aspects, such as self-motivation in learning. Harnessing the power of community in learning via virtual chat platforms and social nudging has compounded this motivation and has offered supplementary useful learning content outside of formal Learning Management Systems (LMS). The freedom to access on-demand learning anytime and anywhere is one of the biggest shifts in instruction. Objectives for pilot training are becoming more and more focused upon the retention of knowledge and skills for critical moments in live operational environments.

Integrated with existing training materials, advanced simulation technologies are becoming a cornerstone of the modern learning ecosystem. These innovations are shifting military education away from centralised institutional control towards a more personalised approach that fosters individual motivation.

As best practices in education increasingly favour interactive and exploratory learning, air forces can no longer rely on outdated training methodologies to achieve the same levels of proficiency and throughput.

The latest generation of recruits — Digital Natives —not only anticipate these modern training methods but require them to develop the skills essential for operational readiness.

Over recent years, the spectrum of training technologies and methods available to defence forces has expanded to include procedural trainers and modernised versions of Computer Based Training (CBT). This spectrum, now ranging from digital textbooks to an instructor-led full flight simulator session, must expand to include diverse types of simulated learning and training.

Experiential Simulation

Simulation for Experiential Training (SET) offers an effective method for developing procedural, tactical, and Crew Resource Management skills. By identifying high-value learning scenarios and presenting them in a progressive sequence, SET enables a more immersive and effective training experience — particularly when access to high-fidelity, and often limited, Full Flight Simulators (FFS) is constrained.

Increasingly, SET is being adopted for a wide range of foundational training tasks, including complex decision-making exercises, before student pilots transition to Full Flight Simulators or live aircraft.

The effectiveness and efficiency of SET technologies, like Virtual Reality, is becoming progressively evident as students are learning and absorbing information at a faster rate when compared to traditional training techniques. Simplifying tasks using Virtual Reality is proven to allow better focus and memory, particularly when it comes to learning new information and sanitising their abilities to perform complex tasks. To put it simply, the data suggest learning outcomes may not always correlate with higher fidelity and can be achieved with SET.

In addition to SET, there are other ways that should form part of a future learning ecosystem. This includes embedded, sometimes referred to as blended, training in the individual’s environment. This involves having flexibility at work (or greater operational time) to meet long-term learning and training objectives.

Instruction delivered by Artificial Intelligence (or a Synthetic Instructor) during SET also assists with the provision of coaching and tailored feedback to students based on their performance, reducing the requirement for human instruction to constantly monitor a cohort of students. This capability stems from advancements in artificial intelligence, speech, and computing technologies allowing for tailor-made and repetitive training in a safe and low-footprint simulated training environment.

Awareness of the specific student’s profile, recent performance, and training goals offer insight on effectiveness of training, assessing how pilots perform after following training recommendations and interventions. These performance and training patterns provide invaluable insight into human capability, enhancing awareness of trends that contribute to achieving air superiority. While this may seem like a concept of the future, similar techniques have long been utilised in the training of elite athletes and professional sports teams.

Future-Ready Air Power

The projection of air power by allied defence forces must evolve to meet the demands of the shifting geopolitical security landscape and the complexities of future conflicts. Given that the development and deployment of high-end military equipment can span decades, air forces must focus on optimising existing capabilities — placing greater emphasis on the human factor within operational systems, a concept some militaries define as Cognitive Weaponry.

Current approaches to testing, evaluation, and training do not fully utilise the potential of modern learning sciences and immersive technologies, which offer transformative opportunities to attract, engage, and produce aviators at the required proficiency and pace.

To maintain operational superiority, armed forces must swiftly adopt these advancements, building a student-centric learning ecosystem that prioritises the trainee’s development journey to ensure success in future engagements.

By integrating these innovations, air forces can elevate training quality through engaging and relevant material, enhancing accessibility and flexibility while simultaneously reducing costs and accelerating the overall training cycle.

The ability to realise such improvements is now within reach, and nations must act decisively—because in the battles of tomorrow, readiness will be the ultimate determinant of victory.