ANALYSIS OF FOREIGN APPROACHES TO ASSESSING THE MILITARY-SCIENTIFIC POTENTIAL OF STATES

Modern armed conflicts are increasingly characterized by the growing role of scientific and technological factors in ensuring military superiority. The confrontation between states is gradually shifting to the domains of artificial intelligence, autonomous unmanned systems, cyber capabilities, hypersonic weapons, and space technologies. Under such conditions, traditional approaches to assessing military power, which are mainly based on quantitative indicators such as the size of armed forces, the amount of military equipment, and the capacity of the defense industrial base, no longer fully reflect the actual level of a state's military-scientific potential. The purpose of this study is to analyze foreign approaches to assessing the military-scientific potential of states and to identify the key criteria used in international practice. The study examines the approaches applied by the United States, NATO member states, the European Union, China, and the Russian Federation. The results demonstrate both common and distinctive criteria used in evaluating militaryscientific potential. The findings may serve as a basis for the development of a comprehensive methodology for assessing the military-scientific potential of states in the security environment.