BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//sebbo.net//ical-generator//EN URL:https://lectures.london/london-school-of-economics/beyond-rearmament-e uropes-defence-crisis-as-a-knowledge-problem/calender.ics NAME:Lectures London X-WR-CALNAME:Lectures London TIMEZONE-ID:Europe/London X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London BEGIN:VEVENT UID:9eba8279-ad92-4084-82d0-9d8a696eb254 SEQUENCE:0 DTSTAMP:20260716T075552 DTSTART:20260916T173000 DTEND:20260916T190000 SUMMARY:Beyond rearmament: Europe’s defence crisis as a knowledge proble m LOCATION:London School of Economics: Online public event DESCRIPTION:Wednesday 16 September 2026 6.30pm - 8pmSpeakerWolfgang Benedi kt SchmalChairWolfgang Benedikt SchmalEuropean defence debates are increas ingly framed around spending targets\, industrial capacity\, procurement v olumes\, and strategic autonomy. These questions matter. Yet they risk obs curing a deeper problem: defence capability is not only a matter of resour ces\, but also of knowledge. Drawing on Hayek’s theory of dispersed know ledge and competition as a discovery procedure\, this lecture argues that modern defence systems face a distinct epistemic challenge. In the absence of real operational selection pressure\, peacetime militaries rely on pro xies such as exercises\, readiness indicators\, certification procedures\, interoperability targets\, and procurement benchmarks. These instruments are necessary\, but they are imperfect substitutes for battlefield discove ry.The war in Ukraine illustrates this problem with unusual clarity. Ukrai ne’s defence effort has generated rapid learning through frontline feedb ack\, decentralized experimentation\, improvisation under scarcity\, and s hort loops between soldiers\, engineers\, firms\, and decision-makers. Suc h knowledge is not easily codified\, simulated\, or purchased. It is tacit \, local\, and revealed under pressure. By contrast\, many European armed forces have long operated in a peacetime environment in which formal prepa redness can be mistaken for combat-tested competence.The lecture finally c onsiders the uncomfortable case of mercenaries and private military actors . While normatively problematic\, they raise an analytically important que stion: do organizations exposed to repeated operational testing and compet itive pressure accumulate combat knowledge differently from bureaucratic p eacetime forces? The argument is not a defence of privatised violence\, bu t a Hayekian inquiry into how military organisations discover\, process\, and act upon knowledge. Europe’s defence problem is not merely a spendin g problem. It is\, more fundamentally\, a knowledge problem.About the spea kerWolfgang Benedikt Schmal is a competition economist with a PhD from the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics at Heinrich Heine Univers ity Düsseldorf. His research sits at the intersection of political econom y\, competition economics\, and institutional analysis\, with a particular focus on cartels\, collective governance\, and commons-related questions. He studied economics at Free University Berlin and University College Dub lin. During his PhD\, he held research stays at KU Leuven in Belgium and t he University of Reading in the UK.He was twice awarded an Oskar Morgenste rn Fellowship at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Fairfax \, Virginia. He is an affiliated researcher at the Economic Theory Group a t Ilmenau University of Technology and co-founder of FORMOE\, the Research Forum for Transportation Economics. His work has been published in numero us peer-reviewed journals and has received several awards\, including two Antitrust Writing Awards from Concurrences and the George Washington Unive rsity Competition Law Center. He is regularly featured in the media\, amon g others in The Economist\, The Times\, The Guardian\, Table.Media\, Sky\, and Frankfurter Allgemeine.More about this eventThe Hayek Programme in Ec onomics and Liberal Political Economy is a research initiative based at ST ICERD.Any questions?You can contact us at b.cheang@lse.ac.uk.From time to time there are changes to event details so we strongly recommend that if y ou plan to attend this event you check back on this listing on the day of the event.Whilst we are hosting this listing\, LSE Events does not take re sponsibility for the running and administration of this event. While we ta ke responsible measures to ensure that accurate information is given here this event is ultimately the responsibility of the organisation presenting the event.LSE holds a wide range of events\, covering many of the most co ntroversial issues of the day\, and speakers at our events may express vie ws that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do no t reflect the position or views of the London School of Economics and Poli tical Science. URL;VALUE=URI:https://www.lse.ac.uk/hayek/events/beyond-rearmament-europes -defence-crisis-as-a-knowledge-problem-1 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR