Abstract
This study aims to substantiate and unfold the method of analysis of problems of economic support for the armed defense of Ukraine, taking into account the military-economic capabilities of the adversary (Method M1), as the starting and conceptually defining component of an integrated four-method apparatus for studying defense economics under the regime of a protracted high-intensity war of attrition. The combination of systems analysis, structural-functional approach, and multi-criteria assessment is operationalized through the simultaneous analysis of three interrelated contours: the domestic economic potential of the state, the dynamics of the military-economic capabilities of the adversary, and the factors of external support. The operational core of the method is the composite indicator of state economic endurance EZS, constructed in accordance with the ten-step methodology of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and the OECD, with normalization of primary indicators by the distance-to-reference method, weighting of sub-indices by the analytic hierarchy process, and linear additive aggregation of six sub-indices isomorphic to the links of the six-link endogenous loop. Empirical verification on a panel database of 27 indicators across 11 years for seven countries yielded the current EZS value for Ukraine in 2024 of 0.514, located in the upper segment of the critical-state zone in immediate proximity to the satisfactory-state zone. Robustness analysis via Monte Carlo simulation with 10,000 iterations confirmed the stability of the composite to weight variation within ±20% of the baseline, with a 95-percent confidence interval width of 0.043 units of the scale. The method enables the identification of critical nodes of economic support for defense, determination of their sensitivity to environmental changes, and the assessment of risks of loss of system stability; combined with the three other methods of the apparatus, it closes the diagnostic function of the adaptive regulatory cycle of military-economic system management.
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