Supercharging Adaptation: AI and War in the 21st Century

Military organisations must possess many traits, but perhaps the most vital is a culture of learning and adaptation. The ability to adapt has always been important, but the pace of 21st century technological and geopolitical change makes it more important than ever.

But while rapid technological change is driving faster adaptation cycles, it also provides part of the solution to the challenge of recognising change, developing solutions, sharing them and repeating that process constantly and consistently.

AI offers the chance to improve all aspects of adaptive cycles for individuals, institutions and nations.
But it also offers the chance to understand, and interfere with, enemy adaptation cycles, in an approach called Counter Adaptation.

SPEAKER

Major General Mick Ryan AM (Retired)

Major General Mick Ryan spent 35 years in the Australian Army and had the honour of commanding soldiers at troop, squadron, regiment, task force and brigade levels. He served in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan as well as on the U.S. joint staff in Washington DC.
Mick is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, the U.S. Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting, and a distinguished graduate from the Johns
Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC.

He is a keen author on the interface of strategy, innovation, advanced technologies, and people. 
In February 2022, his book War Transformed was published by USNI Books.
His second book, White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan, was published on 4 May 2023 by Casemate Books.
His latest book, The War for Ukraine: Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire, was published in August 2024.

Mick runs his own strategic advisory company and is a strategic advisor to several Australian and U.S. companies.
Mick is the inaugural Senior Fellow for Military Studies at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, and an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.

CHAIR

Professor Toni Erskine, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs

Toni Erskine is Professor in the Coral Bell School's International Relations Department at ANU, and Associate Fellow of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at Cambridge University, She is Chief Investigator of the 'Anticipating the Future of War: AI, Automated Systems, and Resort-to-Force Decision Making' Research Project and the recipient of the International Studies Association's 2024-25 Distinguished Scholar in International Ethics Award. 

This Public Lecture Series, ‘AI, Automated Systems, and the Future of War’, is part of a 2.5-year (2023-2025) research project on Anticipating the Future of War: AI, Automated Systems, and Resort-to-Force Decision Making, generously funded by the Australian Department of Defence, and led by Professor Toni Erskine from the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs.

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