There are more than 40 countries with formal soldier modernisation programmes. Most have evolved from unwieldy efforts trying to do everything at once - improving firepower, protection, C4ISR, energy supplies and load carriage - into more pragmatic and prioritised schemes once the complexity of balancing capability against weight, power consumption, logistic burden, and cost became clearer. Inevitably, they have been heavily influenced by the exigencies of COIN campaigns, but, for dismounted infantry at least, there are few if any developments from this that would not be of value across the spectrum of conflict from COIN to conflict between near peers and even hybrid warfare. What follows is a digest of those programmes that have made significant progress over the last year or so.
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