Changing Character of War

In light of the Integrated Review this year, what other military reviews have there been and what was their impact? Peter Watkins (former Director General in the UK MoD) looks back at previous military reviews and discusses continuing themes. Peter Watkins became an associate fellow for Chatham House in June 2019. Before that, from 2014 to 2018, he was Director General (DG) in the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) responsible for strategic defence policy, including key multilateral and bilateral relationships (such as NATO), nuclear, cyber, space and prosperity (latterly this post was known as the DG Strategy and International). Previously he served as DG of the Defence Academy, Director of Operational Policy, Director responsible for the UK share of the multinational Typhoon combat aircraft programme and as Defence Counsellor in the UK Embassy in Berlin. He is a frequent participant in conferences on defence and security in the UK and overseas. He was awarded the CB (2019) and CBE (2004) for services to defence. He has an MA from Cambridge University.

How are new technologies impacting the conduct of war? And what will be the impact more broadly on our societies and, in particular, our understandings of time, space, and self. “Military revolutions” refer to major changes in the technologies required for prosecuting wars, which in turn fundamentally alter the organization and functioning of human societies. This phenomenon has been observed for the Napoleonic wars, the industrial age, and the nuclear age. The 4th industrial revolution (4IR), characterized by the fusion of the digital, biological, and physical worlds through technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, genetic engineering and quantum computing (among others), is already profoundly changing the conduct of war (warfare). Yet, it also has the potential to simultaneously alter our perceptions of time (hyper-velocity weapons, speeding up of warfare), of space (militarization of new domains such as cyber and extra-atmospheric space), and of self (transformed human bodies through “augmented soldiers”, robotization of the battlefield). Combined, 4IR military technologies may trigger a new “military revolution” with far-reaching consequences not only for warfare but also for the politics, self-understanding and functioning of human societies. This talk will discuss how 4IR technologies may transform our understanding of war and affect our societies.

Dr Schmitt is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Center for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark. He also currently serves as Vice-president and Scientific Director of the French Association for War and Strategic Studies (AEGES).Before joining CWS in 2015, he obtained his PhD from the department of War Studies, King’s College London, and was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Montreal Center for International Studies (CÉRIUM). He holds MA degrees from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva) and Sciences Po Aix. A reserve officer in the French navy, De Schmitt has policy experience at the French MoD and NATO. He also worked for two think-tanks: the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He conducts research in two broad fields. First, he is interested in security and strategic studies, in particular multilateral military cooperation, comparative defence policies, arms control, military transformation and the changing character of warfare. Second, he looks at the role of ideas and norms in world politics, with research on strategic narratives, influence and propaganda, but also far-right ideologies. His current research project, entitled “Transforming Armed Forces in the 21st Century“, is founded by the Carlsberg Foundation (“Distinguished Associate Professor Fellowship“), the Independent Research Fund Denmark (“Research Project 1“) and the Gerda Henkel Foundation (special programme “Security, Society and the State“).

As space becomes increasingly central in military planning and strategy development, what is the current situation and what capabilities (and weaknesses) currently exist? Since the start of the Space Age, the orbital domain has always been used for military purposes; but in recent times there has been an increasing focus on tactical rather than strategic satellite applications. There has been a shift in military emphasis towards systems that provide wider coverage, more timely information, increased data capacity, and lower latency communications. Nevertheless, these novel military capabilities are now being surpassed by commercial mega-constellations, some of which are providing services that were once exclusively military functions.

For these reasons, space assets have now become targets; a number of nations have demonstrated anti-satellite (ASAT) systems in multiple orbital regimes. In a hostile military environment, both offensive and defensive space operations require highly detailed space domain awareness (SDA) information. This level of SDA is currently in relatively short supply, and as satellite systems start to develop SDA countermeasures, it will become increasingly difficult to acquire.

The lecture will explain the ongoing technical evolution in space systems that will, inevitably, influence future conflicts, and the increasing threats that such systems face. It will make the case that the outcome of future military engagements in orbit will be reliant on SDA which needs to be far better than the limited information that is available today, especially if satellite system designers start to protect their assets by conducting “SDA Warfare”.

In 2018, Stuart Eves founded his own space consultancy company, SJE Space Ltd, after spending 16 years with the UK Ministry Of Defence, and 14 years with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL). He has been involved with a wide variety of space missions, including TopSat, which set a satellite world record for “resolution per mass” when it was launched in 2005, and which was featured in the Space Gallery at the Science Museum in London. Stuart’s recent book “Space Traffic Control”, describes the measures needed to maintain the space environment and protect satellites from both natural hazards and man-made threats. He serves on the Advisory Panel for the ESA Space Safety Programme, and is a founder of the GNOSIS network on sustainability in space. He has been involved in a diverse range of media activities on all aspects of space, (including most recently on “SSA Warfare”), and has previously been a recipient of an Arthur Clarke Award for space education and outreach. Stuart has an MSc in Astrophysics, a PhD in satellite constellation design, and has been a fellow of both the Royal Astronomical Society and the British Interplanetary Society for more than 25 years.

What is better integration? More integration may not be the simple answer for militaries like the US and UK. The Integrated Review, Multi-Domain Integration, The Integrated Operating Concept, Multi-Domain Battle,, the list goes on. These concepts define US and UK ideas of how to fight and win in the future, and they all have a common underpinning premise: integrate better. But what is ‘better’ integration? Counter-intuitively to many, better integration is not as simple as more integration. ‘Better’ integration doesn’t just enable efficient communications, it enables systemic learning and memory, collective intelligence, speed of response, and effective adaption. Increased integration, but done badly, induces blindness, slower responses, bloat, and systemic stupidity. In an era where how data flows across a military system is going to matter more, what are the lessons from DeepMind’s research, paper plates, cats, the P-38 Lightning, the biggest theoretical artificial intelligence, the disaster that is the human eyeball, and even how you are sitting in that chair.

Lieutenant Colonel Al Brown is a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford. In addition to all the things one might expect in a twenty-year military career in the post-9/11 era, Al was previously the lead for Defence on the study of global trends in robotics and artificial intelligence and their impacts on conflict. He has been one of the group of government experts providing advice to and speaking at the United Nations, and an occasional guest lecturer at various universities, the Royal United Services Institute, and the Alan Turing Institute.

Ricardo Nogales gives a talk for the Changing Character of War seminar series.

Sara Polo, University of Essex, gives a talk for the Changing Character of War seminar series.

Oscar Jonsson, Stockholm Free World Forum, gives a talk for the Changing Character of War Programme.

Lord John Alderdice gives a talk for the Changing Character of War seminar series.

This talk will discuss the parallels between the Thirty Years War and today’s Middle East and suggest ways in which lessons drawn from the congress and treaties of Westphalia. It was the original forever war, which went on interminably, fuelled by religious and constitutional disputes, personal ambition, fear of hegemony, and communal suspicion. It dragged in all the neighbouring powers. It was punctuated by repeated failed ceasefires. It inflicted suffering beyond belief and generated waves of refugees. This description could apply to Syria today, but actually refers to the Thirty Years War (1618-48), which turned much of central Europe into a disaster zone. The Thirty Years War is often cited as a parallel in discussions of current conflict in the Middle East. The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the war in Europe in 1648, has featured strongly in such discussions, usually with the observation that recent events in some parts of the region have seen the collapse of ideas of state sovereignty -ideas that supposedly originated with the 1648 settlement. This talk will discuss the parallels between the Thirty Years War and today’s Middle East and suggest ways in which lessons drawn from the congress and treaties of Westphalia might provide inspirations for a peace settlement for the Middle East’s new long wars. The talk is based on a recent book and ongoing collaborative project.

Patrick Milton was born in Zimbabwe and is a German-British research fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and an affiliated lecturer at the Dept of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge. He was previously a postdoc at Freie Universitaet Berlin and has been working on the ‘Westphalia for the Middle East’ project since 2016.

Using longitudinal data from Burundi collected in 2011 and 2015, this paper explores the consequences of repatriation for stayee households i.e. those who never left the country during the conflict Large-scale refugee repatriation is sometimes considered a threat to stability and sustainable development because of the burden it could impose on receiving communities. Yet the empirical evidence on the impacts of refugee return is limited. Using longitudinal data from Burundi collected in 2011 and 2015, this paper explores the consequences of repatriation for stayee households (i.e. those who never left the country during the conflict). Burundi experienced large-scale repatriation during the 2000s, with the returning refugees unevenly spread across the country. We use geographical features of the communities of origin, including altitude and proximity to the border, for identification purposes. The results suggest that a higher share of returnees in a community is associated with less livestock ownership, the principal form of capital accumulation in the country, and worse subjective economic conditions for stayee households. Additional analysis suggests that refugee return had a negative impact on food security and land access for stayees. The negative impact on food security largely disappears between rounds of the survey. Refugee return had no significant effect on the health outcomes of stayees. The article finishes with a discussion of the implications of the results for policies that aim to support refugee repatriation and long-term sustainable development in post conflict societies.

Dr Carlos Vargas-Silva is Research Director and Associate Professor at COMPAS. He is also the Director of the DPhil in Migration Studies and a member of Kellogg College. Carlos is also co-founder and current Associate Editor of the journal Migration Studies. He was also one of the researchers that developed the Migration Observatory in 2010, and acted as Director of the Observatory in 2014 and 2017.