Military globalization is defined by David Held as "the process which embodies the growing extensity and intensity of military relations among the political units of the world-system.
Understood as such, it reflects both the expanding network of worldwide military ties and relations, as well as the impact of key military technological innovations (from steamships to satellites), which over time, have reconstituted the world into a single geostrategic space".
[2] Held divides the military globalization into three distinct phenomena: All three processes above "are connected to technological development, which made them possible in the first place.
[4] The process of military globalization starts with the Age of Discovery, when the European colonial empires began military operations on the global scale.
[5][6] Keohane dates military globalization at least from the time of the conquests of Alexander the Great.