Currently we observe that uncrewed platforms sometimes take shape as quick-stop solutions to immediate needs. While these rapid “hacks” may deliver initial wins, they often lose traction once adversaries adapt or technology races forward, leaving buyers to scramble for new fixes. By contrast, governments and large organizations, aware that a system may stay active for decades, look for technology designed from the outset to evolve and positioned for the “long-game”.
A multi-horizon approach surpasses these stopgap measures by acknowledging that near-term deployments must also be the groundwork for longer-term success. Defence buyers, be they armed forces of nations or major firms demand more than one-off “hacks.” They expect active support for a product’s evolution, ensuring it adjusts to changes and battlefield innovations. Oversight reports from the US Government Accountability Office, often note how poorly planned projects incur delays or overshoot budgets. Conversely, organizations that adopt a multi-horizon view set conditions for incremental upgrades, modular architectures, and a resilient supply chain from day one.
Rapid development coupled with thoughtful, long-term planning, the military industry enterprises show clients that near-term achievements can grow and adapt. The aim is to weave short-term practicality into a framework extending across multiple decades, eliminating the risk of investing in gear that cannot keep pace with new threats or unforeseen technological leaps. This approach puts the concept and capability development logics at the centre.
Benefits of Long-Term View
Defence capability development tends to be viewed in discrete phases or, even worse, from a single perspective, usually a short-term one – yet a multi-horizon approach links these intervals into one cohesive framework. In the near term, especially the initial years, ideas frequently emerge at speed, particularly during rapid technological developments. Today, the focus is on unmanned and AI-based systems; decades ago, it was on computer integration. There is always a technological change to existing ecosystems, creating immediate market opportunities to fill gaps or meet urgent needs. This demand, though, can quickly diminish.
A coherent approach to capability development recognizes that near-term decisions must do more than solve today’s issues; they also lay the foundation for expansions and adaptations over a much longer period. For example, an uncrewed platform introduced within the first few years of a program might begin as a modest effort to fill a gap, yet if its core design and supporting processes anticipate mid-range refinements, it can evolve into a versatile tool rather than a one-off fix. As the program matures, these early investments guide each subsequent stage, ensuring that incremental gains are not lost but instead feed directly into broader opportunities, such as multi-domain operations or more complex mission sets.
Over a span of ten or more years, short-term prototypes or initial production runs often transition into widespread usage. By that stage, an organization typically refines performance parameters, develops MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) and training support, and merges the platform with its concepts and turns its use into a doctrine. It is during this middle window that a system might pivot from merely functioning in isolation to collaborating with related assets, manned or unmanned, operating under an increasingly demanding operational framework.
Multi-domain operations (MDO) deepen this logic by integrating air, land, sea, cyber, and space elements. A single uncrewed platform that initially handles surveillance might, by the mid-term stage, link with manned aircraft, artillery, or offshore vessels to share data and coordinate missions in real time, allowing to create new options for its use to deliver effects. By treating each capability as part of a broader whole, organizations bridge immediate tactical fixes with long-term opportunities.
Internal teams benefit from clarity about how initial prototypes will be improved upon, making open-architecture and modular design decisions today that keep a system relevant tomorrow. Meanwhile, partner nations or clients evaluate whether these developments will truly stand up to shifting threat environments and technology leaps, expecting more than an interim solution that quickly becomes outdated.
Looking two decades or more into the future, the question becomes whether each platform can adapt to major changes in conflict or technology (especially important with more advanced platforms where manufacturing period extend weeks or months, compared to days and even hours for mass produced small drones as we see today in Ukraine). Oversight reviews frequently note how programs fail when they overlook new mission needs or security developments. Describing a clear thread of refinement from the start, that is complete with interfaces for ongoing upgrades, the industry reassures stakeholders that their investments stay relevant. Satisfying both internal ambition and external expectations, mitigating the risk of assembling a short-lived portfolio. Each upgrade and integration feeds into a longer pathway: near-term goals remain supported while momentum continues for the changes to come.
Ensuring a decades-long lifecycle also hinges on doctrinal alignment. As military and security concepts and doctrines change, hardware and software must keep pace. This is why many organizations adopt a “capability-based” planning model, regularly asking, “What capabilities are required to achieve specific mission outcomes?” rather than, “Which product do we buy next?” In doing so, they blend multi-horizon development into force design, matching technical solutions to the demands of today, tomorrow, and beyond.
This vision emphasizes the system-of-systems perspective. For example, todays sensor-equipped ground vehicles, C2 systems, and aerial surveillance integrate, forming a responsive operational web – a system of system. Each incremental update, be it a security patch or a refined part of physical system enriches this interconnected environment, rather than prompting a cycle of replacements, there also must be opportunities and understanding how to build the flexibility to design and produce long-term solutions that can still as easily be “plug-and-played” without making parts of previous capabilities obsolete. By treating each component as part of an ongoing evolution, organizations reconcile short-run feasibility with medium- and long-term objectives, cultivating resilience, efficiency, and readiness for a future that may look very different from today. In the end the competitive edge in the long-term is not about cutting-edge innovations, it is about having today’s investments stay relevant for decades and offer opportunities to be upgradable. This is what drives the interest for nations – tax payers money can’t be used for gambling on technology and based on wonder-weapons, militaries rely on proven solutions and backbone that can be enhanced by innovations, but for the innovations to work there must be a foundation.
Conclusion
Systems in defence often endure for decades, but their staying power depends on how they transition from initial deployment to ongoing evolution. A multi-horizon perspective—encompassing a window that can easily span 10 years or more—provides the guiding framework to keep today’s platforms and related technologies aligned with future requirements. Short-term view helps to offer solutions give options to solve urgent demands, while follow-on phases refine and expand on that foundation, linking each step to new doctrines and operational patterns.
For those evaluating large programs, seeing a cohesive plan suggests that an early investment will not become dead weight when fresh technologies arise. Internally, design and engineering teams benefit from a unified roadmap, so a first-phase solution naturally feeds into subsequent development cycles.
As part of a wider commitment to future readiness, industry should continue to highlight importance of multi-horizon planning to show near-term benefit in the context of long-term views and help clients to see where actual value is being made. It attracts governments seeking sustained return on investment and motivates internal teams that wish to contribute to a lasting narrative of capability advancement. By grounding each release in a context that stretches decades, multi-horizon thinking cements the idea that short-run outcomes and long-run objectives are not competing aims but complementary pillars of a more agile defence enterprise.
These principles will dovetail with other emerging themes, like multi-domain operations, zone-based doctrines, and advanced AI to be explored in subsequent articles. Each new layer highlights that a multi-horizon plan is far more than a technical roadmap; it’s a broader vision that spans short-run tasks to long-range reshaping of doctrines and force composition.
Authors:
- Sten Allik Capability Development Advisor, Milrem Robotics
- Ivo Peets, Senior planning officer, Chief of Estonian Defence Forces Future Force Program
