About the Seminar

The School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW Canberra will deliver a seminar on the Future of War between Tuesday 11 and Thursday 13 April 2023 in the ACT. The seminar aims to inform policy, strategy, operations and training relating to the defence of Australia, and participants will have the opportunity to hear from world-leading scholars and practitioners.

The Future of War Seminar, chaired by Professor David Kilcullen, and presented by UNSW Canberra in collaboration with the Kings College London and Arizona State University, will address topics including:

Russo-Ukraine War with speakers including Dr David Stahel and Peter Jennings PSM
Political, Proxy and Irregular Warfare with speakers including Dr Tom Richardson and Dr Jian Zhang
Deterrence and Emerging Technologies with speakers including Dr Deane-Peter Baker and Dr Christina Boshuijzen van Burken

Content will be aimed at the nexus between academia and the defence and security sector, and attendance would be most beneficial for researchers, current Australian Defence Force personnel, current member of the Australian Public Service, and anyone else with a professional or personal interest in the topic.

Each day of the seminar will feature 4 x 90 minute sessions, each on a different topic, as well as opportunities to engage with speakers and network with other attendees. Participants can choose to attend one, two, or all three days of the seminar. Catering will be provided on each day.

There is a 10% discount available for Commonwealth personnel. In order to receive the 10% discount, you must provide your full name, title, and position. This will be cross-checked.

Program Booklet - https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/UNSW_Future_of_War_%20booklet.pdf

Meet your Seminar chair - Professor David Kilcullen

David Kilcullen is a former soldier and diplomat, and a scholar of guerrilla warfare, terrorism, urbanisation and the future of conflict, who served 25 years for the Australian and United States governments. During the Iraq War, he served in Baghdad as a member of the Joint Strategic Assessment Team, then as Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor, Multi-National Force Iraq in 2007, before becoming Special Advisor for Counterinsurgency to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2008. He was the U.S. State Department’s representative on the 2008 Lute Review of Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy, and was lead author for the U.S. Government’s Counterinsurgency Handbook. In Afghanistan, he founded the ISAF Counterinsurgency Advisory Assistance Team in 2009, served as advisor to Commander ISAF, and was a senior research scientist on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Afghanistan country program.

Prof. Kilcullen has taught at universities and military colleges in the United States and Europe, making scholarly contributions to the theory of guerrilla warfare, insurgency and counterinsurgency, future conflict, human geography, urban studies, and fieldwork methods for conflict ethnography and remote observation. He is a distinguished graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy, where he was awarded the 1987 Chief of Defence Force Prize for the top Army graduate, and of the Australian Command and Staff College, where won the 2001 Commander-in-Chief’s Sword for the top graduate from all services, and the Commander Australian Theatre Award for excellence in Joint Operations. He holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Politics and English from the University of New South Wales, a Masters of Management from the University of Canberra, a Graduate Diploma in Linguistics from the Australian Defence Force School of Languages, and a Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales.

Prof. Kilcullen was named one of the Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2009. His books, The Accidental Guerrilla and Counterinsurgency, are used in several universities, as well as by policy-makers, the military, intelligence services and development agencies worldwide. His third book, Out of the Mountains, which examines conflict in the connected, coastal cities of the future, was awarded the 2013 American Publishers’ Association prize for Professional and Scholarly Excellence in Government and Politics. Accidental Guerrilla won the same prize in 2009 and was a Washington Post best-seller. His 2015 essay, Blood Year: Terror and the Islamic State won the 2015 Walkley Award for long-form writing, and was published as a full-length book in 2016 by Oxford University Press.

Program

Tuesday 11 April 2023	Russian Ukraine War - Member's Dining Room 2, Old Parliament House
9:00am-9:15am	Welcome
9:15am-10:30am	Session 1: Prof. David Kilcullen, AMB Michael Polt (ASU), Dr. Zeno Leoni & Dr. Maeve Ryan (KCL)
10:30am-11:00am	Morning Tea
11:00am-12:15pm	Session 2: Dr David Stahel, Dr. Tim Stevens (KCL), Professor Tracey German (KCL)
12:15pm-1:30pm	Lunch
1:30pm-3:00pm	Session 3: Prof. David Kilcullen, Michael Shoebridge, Nataliya Bugayova (ISW) & Peter Jennings.
3:00pm-3:30pm	Afternoon Tea
3:30pm-4:30pm	Senior Speaker prepared comments and Q&A.
4:30pm	Conclusion

Wednesday 12 April 2023	Political, Proxy and Irregular Warfare - Adams Auditorium, Australian Defence Force Academy.
9:00am-9:15am	Welcome
9:15am-10:30am	Session 1: Prof. David Kilcullen, A/Prof Jian Zhang, Peter Bergen (New America)
10:30am-11:00am	Morning Tea
11:00am-12:15pm	Session 2: Prof. David Kilcullen, Dr. Tom Richardson, Dr. Andreas Kreig (KCL), Dr. Ajit Maan (ASU) & Jeff Kubiak (ASU)
12:15pm-1:30pm	Lunch
1:30pm-3:00pm	Session 3: A/Prof. Ian Langford, Dr. Paul Lushenko (Cornell University), Prof. Mike Evans (ADC) & A/Prof. Shannon Houck (Naval Postgraduate School)
3:00pm-3:30pm	Afternoon Tea
3:30pm-4:30pm	Senior Speaker prepared comments and Q&A.
4:30pm	Conclusion

Thursday 13 April 2023	Deterrence in an age of emerging technology - Adams Auditorium, Australian Defence Force Academy.
9:00am-9:15am	Welcome
9:15am-10:30am	Session 1: Prof. David Kilcullen, Ryan Shaw (ASU), & Prof. Alessio Patalano (KCL)
10:30am-11:00am	Morning Tea
11:00am-12:15pm	Session 2: A/Prof. Deane-Peter Bake, Prof. Mike Brennan, LtGen(r) Bob Schmidle (ASU), Prof. David Whetham (KCL) and Prof. Ken Payne (KCL)
12:15pm-1:30pm	Lunch
1:30pm-3:00pm	Session 3: A/Prof. Deane-Peter Baker, Marcus Hellyer, Dr. Rich Dunley, Dr Christina Boshuijzen van Burken (Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre & UNSW CBR) and Prof. Andrew Neely
3:00pm-3:30pm	Afternoon Tea
3:30pm-4:30pm	Senior Speaker prepared comments and Q&A.
4:30pm	Conclusion