Guest

The Future of the Tank

By Lutz Unterseher, guest publication, February 2026.  ➪ see full-text: HTML |  PDF

Renault M FT_17 tank (circa 1937)
 
In this paper, Unterseher surveys the evolution of anti-tank warfare—from artillery, mines, infantry weapons, and guided missiles to drones, precision munitions, and networked reconnaissance—and shows how modern defenses increasingly exploit top attack, long range, and coordinated fire. It then traces the tank’s history from World War I through the Cold War, emphasizing how armored forces repeatedly adapted to countermeasures and doctrinal change. The author concludes that large independent tank formations are less survivable today, especially under ubiquitous drone surveillance and precision fires, but tanks still matter when integrated into an overall defensive structure. The likely future is a battlefield with greater emphasis on networked defenses employing agile engineering, lighter forces, precise artillery, drones, and fewer tanks as time goes by.

“European Army”: A Thought Experiment

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by Lutz Unterseher, PDA Guest Publication (English translation), February 2025.

In nine concise pages, German military analyst Lutz Unterseher provides the strategic orientation, operational modalities, force allocations, institutional framework, overall personnel requirements for active duty and reserves, command organization, and armament composition of an integrated European Union armed force.  He then provides a budget for the component parts.  The total annual cost is €170 billion, 1% of EU nations’ GDP.

Unterseher concludes:

It is hardly accidental that the European Union was chosen as the political framework for this force model. Above all, that is because, given Trump-era U.S. policy, NATO in its Atlantic-partnership sense no longer exists. 

Whether a self-confident “Euro-NATO” can emerge under American pressure and attempts to sow division remains highly questionable. It does, however, seem wise to “carry over” NATO’s infrastructure and communication networks into the authentically European armed forces wherever possible.

see also: European Armed Forces of Tomorrow: A New Perspective, (printable PDF version) (HTML version) (Leicht gekuerzte deutschsprachige Fassung der Studie) by Lutz Unterseher. English version. PDA Guest Publication, 20 October 2003.

 

Tanks and Companions: a critical appraisal

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by Lutz Unterseher, PDA Guest Publication, LIT, Berlin, (English translation), 2025.

tanks and companions

From the author’s introduction:

This volume presents a collection of essays on the history and more recent developments of the battle tank and other armored platforms. In general, these contributions adopt a critical tone and occasionally resort to unvarnished sarcasm—after all, the aim is to keep a measured distance from what are ultimately instruments of killing—rather than to slip into the enthusiasm of an aficionado. Nevertheless, readers will find ample factual information and exploration of relevant contexts throughout.

The collection comprises essays published between 2000 and 2023. Some have been shortened or revised but are not fully updated, remaining true to the time of their initial publication. Because these are essay-style pieces, extensive scholarly apparatus has been dispensed with.

Ukraine: Options for a Confidence-Building Defense

by Lutz Unterseher, PDA guest publication, Berlin, LIT Publishing,  March 2024.  ➪ download (free) book: PDF

PDA is pleased to offer Lutz Unterseher’s book Ukraine: Options for a Confidence-Building Defense in English for the first time.

International politics looks grim for Ukraine — The country has lost the U.S. as its primary war sponsor.

Ukraine must discover and adopt new means to secure itself quickly.

This book offers a military security option for Ukraine that “helps people to help themselves.”

Untersher continues,

It is about self-sustaining, emphatically defensive military protection: without integration into a military alliance and suitable as a possible building block of an all-European security system.

For more about this book, see https://comw.org/pda/ukraine-a-future-with-a-self-sustaining-defense/

For a sketch of an all-European military security system see:  “European Army”: A Thought Experiment

 

Korea versus Korea: Conventional Military Balance and the Path to Disarmament

by Charles Knight and Lutz Unterseher, Lit Verlag, Munster, Germany, April 2020.

➪ full book PDF 

Chapter: “A Path to Reductions of Conventional Forces on the Korean Peninsula” by Charles Knight.

➪ read full English text:  PDF    or   ➪ Korean auto-translation (DeepL)

korea vs korea cover

Varied incremental steps that embody and signal the accumulating commitment to a minimally acceptable common political future for Korea are key to this process. Progressive reduction of cross-border invasion threats through mutual confidence building force restructuring will constitute a virtuous circle of reinforcement for a changed relationship. [Through the] accumulation of the sunk costs of iterative reciprocity North and South Korea will arrive at a point where the demonstrated commitment to smaller restructured military postures is sufficient to allow rapid progress toward a stable level and disposition of arms compatible with a new peaceful political relationship.   ~ Knight

Die Konfrontation auf der Halbinsel, mit offensivir Oreintierung und Bereitschaft zur Praemption, impliziert Stabilitatsrisiken. Diese werden noch erhoht durch Entwicklung und Einfuhrung prazier ballistischer Raketen, welche die Illusion nahren, den Gegner im Konfilktfall ‘enthaupten’ zu konnen.   ~ Unterseher

North Korea’s Conventional Military Forces: Relative Strength and Options

by Lutz Unterseher, PDA Guest Publication, April 2019.
➪ PDF

This paper by German military analyst Lutz Unterseher first assesses the relative conventional military power and potential of North and South Korea, then suggests a number of military restructuring steps the U.S. and South Korea can take to reassure North Korea of its security in the context of denuclearization. Unterseher calls for “…a genuine structural change, shifting the capabilities of the [allied] forces in the direction of a stable, non-provocative defense.”

If we can assume that the drive to generate unconventional [nuclear] instruments of deterrence is a response to the lack of options in the conventional realm, it would make sense to come up with policy recommendations aiming to lessen northern concerns.

DPRK Soldiers Patrol the Yalu

DPRK soldiers patrol the Yalu River shore. Image by WZ Still WZ from Pixabay.

Pleasant Lunches: Western Track-Two Influence on Gorbachev’s Conventional Forces Initiative of 1988

by Lutz Unterseher, PDA Guest Publication, August 2018. ➪ PDF

Secretary-General Gorbachev’s astounding and pivotal speech to the UN General Assembly in December of 1988 announced substantial reductions and defensive restructuring of Soviet conventional forces in Eastern Europe.

Lutz Unterseher, living at that time in Bonn, West Germany, was a leading developer of the concepts of the confidence-building restructuring of armed forces intended to reduce East-West military tensions and improve crisis stability. There is no doubt that some of these concepts were influential with Soviet officials in Gorbachev’s closest circles. This article is Lutz Unterseher’s recollection of some of his most consequential interactions with Soviet analysts and diplomats in the several years before Gorbachev’s announcement of the force reductions and restructuring.

What Will Success at the Inter-Korean Summit Look Like?

HTML by Anastasia O. Barannikova, English edits by Charles Knight, The Diplomat, 24 April 2018.
 

“Much will depend on U.S. readiness to negotiate and its willingness to adapt to the changing international conditions in northeast Asia. With an improvement of U.S.-North Korea relations, tensions in the region will not disappear, but instability will be more manageable and there will be less risk of a war engulfing Korea and beyond.”

Military Intervention and Common Sense: Focus on Land Forces

by Lutz Unterseher, Berlin-Greifswald: Ryckschau, 2008. Foreward by Charles Knight. Includes a chapter by Carl Conetta, Helicopters in the US wars since 9/11.   PDF  |  order paperback

book cover

[from the Foreward]
“This book…makes a major contribution to undoing the confusion for one class of increasingly likely 21st Century uses of military force. That is, internationally sanctioned military intervention using greater force than traditional peace-keeping and less than ‘war-fighting’.”

A Note on the State of Israel

(HTML version) by Lutz Unterseher, Universities of Osnabrueck and Muenster, November 2007. Focuses on selected aspects of Israel’s military security. It looks at the basic pattern of this country’s recent war against Hezbollah in 2006, and attempts to give a sketch of the problems affecting Israel’s military position today. In addition to objective factors, the subjective side is considered: in the form of impressions gained in casual conversations with Israeli citizens.

Report of the task force on a Unified Security Budget for the United States, FY2007

(printable PDF version) Lawrence Korb and Miriam Pemberton, principal authors, Foreign Policy in Focus and the Center for Defense Information, 03 May 2006, Guest Publication. Builds a unified budget for all aspects of national security and assesses the opportunities for improved security through altering the balance among defense, homeland security, and international affairs expenditures. PDA is a member of report’s task force. David Unger cites this report in Our Indefensible National Security Budget, The New York Times, 20 September 2006.

A Few Thoughts on the Evolution of Infantry: Past, Present, Future

by Lutz Unterseher, Guest Publication, Studiengruppe Alternative Sicherheitspolitik, Berlin, Germany, May 2006.  PDF  | HTML 
Subduing resistance and guarding the peace in modern interventions requires high-quality infantry, but it is erroneous to think the job could be done by elite SOF forces because there can never be enough of these. The vast majority of the all-volunteer armies in the industrial West face a problem when it comes to attracting sufficient personnel: relatively few recruits are good enough to receive the more demanding training needed — creating a dilemma that has rarely been addressed and one that certainly is yet to be solved by today’s armies.

Die Europäische Union: Stolpersteine auf dem Weg zur Integration (The European Union: Stumbling Blocks on the Road to Integration)

(printable PDF version) by Lutz Unterseher, Guest Publication, Studiengruppe Alternative Sicherheitspolitik, Berlin, Germany, May 2006. In German with English abstract. The EU is entering a sustained period of conflict-prone development with grossly different paths of adjustment and modernization stimulating constant fighting for a redistribution of notoriously scarce central resources. If Europe does not want to fall back onto the level of a mere free-trade arrangement, if it intends to become a unified actor in the international arena that transcends the role of just an economic bloc and is also capable of generating and executing global policies with respect to the environment, security and other issues, there is no alternative to an ‘open-club régime’.

Saving General Shinseki: on the future of wheeled armor

(printable PDF version) (HTML version) by Lutz Unterseher. PDA Guest Publication, February 2004. Presents the specifications for a ‘hybrid’ combat vehicle featuring: considerable, versatile firepower (kinetic energy and fragmentation) without the weight penalty of a main gun system; a high degree of crew protection; better strategic mobility than current tracked armor; superior operational mobility; and acceptable tactical mobility.

European Armed Forces of Tomorrow: A New Perspective

(printable PDF version) (HTML version) (Leicht gekuerzte deutschsprachige Fassung der Studie) by Lutz Unterseher. PDA Guest Publication, 20 October 2003.
This brief models an integrated European Armed Forces. It details a viable all-European force’s conceptual framework, strategic orientation, key functions, posture, resources, personnel, and budget.

German Defense Planning: In a Crucial Phase

(HTML version) October 2001. Update: German Defense Spending: Insufficient Adjustment, February 2002. By Lutz Unterseher, Berlin. These two reports review recent German defense planning with attention to the difficulty of reconciling personnel and force modernization goals within the budget constraints imposed by the process of currency integration in the UE. It also assesses the effect of the Bundeswehr’s new emphasis on power projection on German defense budgeting and planning.

Rotocraft for War: Descending on a Military Dilemma

(HTML version) by Dr. Lutz Unterseher, PDA Briefing Memo #19, May 2001. Offers a critical assessment of the value of combat helicopters in modern war with examination of the technical characteristics and limits of combat helicopters, the doctrine for their use, and issues of cost. Case studies include the Gulf War, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.

Concepts for Army Transformation: A Briefing for the Transformation Task Force

 by Col. Douglas A. Macgregor, 2001.  PDF

Col. Macgregor offers a vision of a modular Army comprising various types of basic combined-arms units that would be much smaller than today’s divisions, but larger and more capable than today’s brigades. This is an Army that is not only rapidly-adaptable and rapidly-deployable but also “joint” and “combined” from the bottom up. 

Europe’s Armed Forces at the Millennium: A Case Study of Change in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany

(HTML version) by Dr. Lutz Unterseher, chair, International Study Group on Alternative Security Policy (SAS), PDA Briefing Report #11, December 1999. Many European nations are re-thinking their post-Cold War military requirements in light of NATO’s new strategic concept and the experience of the Kosovo war. This article analyzes the process of defense restructuring and modernization in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In each case, it offers an overview of current military posture and closely examines the plans for change in force structure, equipment procurement, and personnel policies, attending to various constraints on defense planning, including military traditions, economic conditions, and domestic politics.

Slovenian Security in the European Perspective

(HTML version) by Anton Grizold and Ljubica Jelusic, September 1999. Examines the development of this new nation’s security establishment and policy in the light of Slovenian history, cultural attitudes toward the state, the military, and alliances. Places the development of security policy in the social/political and economic context of Slovenia’s efforts to join NATO and the EU and includes analysis of Slovenian public opinion on these issues.

Interventionism Reconsidered: Reconciling Military Action With Political Stability

(HTML version) by Lutz Unterseher, September 1999. When troops trained, structured, and equipped for traditional peacekeeping are employed in missions such as the protection of humanitarian sanctuaries and convoys under acute threat they are not prepared for forceful measures sufficient to deal with and discourage military challenges. This paper discusses what would constitute “adequacy” of force that does not have a character or magnitude that compromises the primacy of political conflict resolution. A revised version of a paper was contributed to a 1999 workshop held at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Philosophy and Public Issues on the topic, The Ethics of Armed Intervention.

The Coming Transformation of the Muslim World

(HTML version) by Dale F. Eickelman, July 1999. by permission of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), Philadelphia, PA, USA. This essay provides insight into forces of change in Muslim societies that contain seeds of reconciliation with Western culture and political practice. It is worth taking note of the opportunities therein for relations of respect and peace, and for avoidance of the great ‘clash of civilizations’ famously predicted by Samuel Huntington.

On the Threshold of Change: South African Defence Review reflects the continuing struggle to define a military policy for the new era

(HTML version) by Carl Conetta, Charles Knight, and Lutz Unterseher. This commentary reviews the findings of the draft South African Defence Review (SADR) — Report on Posture, released in October 1996. Although the SADR represents an important advance in the new democratic control of the South African military, it has a number of shortcomings in assessing policy objectives, design directives and force requirements and design.