Although there are doubts about the potential of Blockchain technology, it is possible to say that it is becoming more important and widespread day by day. Nowadays, especially the public has started to establish its relationship with this technology through the Crypto currencies of central banks, and we see intensive applications in the field of financial technologies.
However, blockchain technology is gaining momentum in many areas such as registering ownership of the land, combating digital content piracy, verifying and saving the origin of artworks, registering voters, securely storing files, and digitally authenticating. With this momentum, we see in different reports and briefings that the defense ministries of countries such as the USA, China and organizations such as NATO have formed working groups and experimented on blockchain technology. Especially with the former NATO secretary general being a strategic advisor to a private blockchain company, we can easily say that private companies have also started to work in this field.
Considering that many technologies, especially the internet, were opened to the public after they started to be used in the military field, we can understand the importance of research on the use of blockchain technology for military purposes. In addition, according to some researches carried out with all these, it is predicted that 80% of the major defense industry companies will start working on blockchain technology as of 2021.
If we start to examine on the basis of countries, the USA is positioned as one of the leading countries in the studies carried out on this subject both within NATO and the national army. In section 1646 of the 2018 National Security Doctrine Act published by the US Congress, blockchain technology is referred to as a technology that the military should pay special attention to. It is also among the reports that the US Department of Defense is working on blockchain for supply chain processes and will use blockchain in the management of a supply chain of approximately $ 100 billion.
In addition, data security stands out as one of the areas of use of blockchain in the field of defense. In 2016, reports were reflected that the Department of Advanced Research Projects (DARPA) under the Ministry of Defense began to study blockchain technology to protect data on various weapons, including codes for launching nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles. In addition, we see that NATO started to work on blockchain in 2018 by declaring the year of innovative technology aiming to accelerate transformative, modern technology solutions to meet NATO C4ISR and cyber requirements.
On the other hand, there are many countries working on the potential use of blockchain technology, especially Russia and China. While Russia is working on cryptography and encryption algorithms, we know that China is working on social credit systems and supply chain systems. In addition, it is seen that defense industry units of the countries are working on financial technologies.
In addition, we know that working groups have been established within the EU and that consultancy firms make their strategic reports on the relevant platforms of the EU. Several main application areas stand out here. First of all, in this industry, where supply chain tracking, the supply of very critical parts and high-cost parts are in question, building the supply chain of the sub-units of mission-critical systems on the blockchain stands out among application scenarios.
Other potential areas of application can be listed as follows. Areas such as access and identity management, cyber security, military logistics applications, military data storage and processing technologies, and tracking software stand out.
In summary, we can say that Blockchain technology has attracted a lot of attention in defense industry and military applications, along with other fields, applications have begun to develop, very serious applications and organizations have been working intensively, and academic studies have increased very rapidly since 2018. In the light of these, it is possible to say that studies on this subject will gain momentum in the future, and of course, different application areas will emerge.