CCW engages with those in government and practice as a ‘critical agent’, examining change, its implications, and its costs. Rather, it has a direct impact on how one thinks about armed conflict, our frames of reference, and our intellectual architecture for dealing with future challenges. In this sense, our research at CCW is not a purely academic endeavour. Each of these developments challenge the efficacy of existing strategic, operational and tactical approaches to warfare they demand organisational changes, new initiatives in professional military education, fresh thinking on procurement and supply chains, and strategic leadership. We have examined the debates about change that have dominated the study of armed conflict in recent decades, including ‘new wars’, law-fare, the implications of automated systems, cyber and information warfare, the development of AI, and ‘hybrid’ or ‘grey-zone’ warfare. But we also recognise there are a great many continuities that must not be overlooked, including the techniques of war, the dynamic nature of conflict, the attempts to limit war, and the impact of ideas. CCW has identified some prevailing characteristics of war in the early twenty-first century, not least the evident impact of new technologies. The consensus has been, over the years of our research, that the nature of war (that is, its essence) has not changed, despite the existence of new actors, contexts, technologies, drivers, and dynamics. From its inception in 2003, the Changing Character of War research team set out to examine these claims in rigorous detail, analysing the drivers of change and the extent to which the nature of war could alter, if at all. The future appeared to be one that would be dominated by acts of terrorism or insurgency. ‘Conventional’ wars, it seemed, were a thing of the past. Soon after the terrorist attacks on the United States on ‘9/11’ in 2001, it was asserted that warfare had changed, and there was some speculation that, perhaps, ‘war’ itself had been superseded. Research: The Changing Character of War What is war Today?
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