1 00:00:00,470 --> 00:00:04,500 I'll see you tomorrow. It gives me great pleasure to introduce Dr. Olivier Schmidt, 2 00:00:04,500 --> 00:00:10,200 who is an associate professor of political science at the Centre for Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. 3 00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:17,340 And addition to that, he also currently serves as vice president and scientific director at the French Association for War and Strategic Studies. 4 00:00:17,340 --> 00:00:20,280 Before joining the University of Southern Denmark in 2015, 5 00:00:20,280 --> 00:00:24,600 he obtained his Ph.D. from the Department for Studies Kings in London and was a postdoctoral 6 00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:28,350 research fellow at the University of Montreal Centre for International Studies. 7 00:00:28,350 --> 00:00:38,400 Dr. Schmidt Holds M.A. is from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva Science for a reserve officer and First Lady. 8 00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:43,140 He has past experience in the French movie and later, and he's also happens to think tanks, 9 00:00:43,140 --> 00:00:51,840 the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces and Diplomats in London and now across Europe as well. 10 00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:58,470 He conducts research in two broad fields. First, he looks at the role of ideas and norms in world politics, 11 00:00:58,470 --> 00:01:04,700 with research on strategic narratives, influence and propaganda, and also follow ideologies. 12 00:01:04,700 --> 00:01:12,450 The second, he's interested in security and stability studies, in particular multilateral military cooperation, 13 00:01:12,450 --> 00:01:17,820 comparative defence policies, arms control, most transformation, the training Typekit wolf. 14 00:01:17,820 --> 00:01:24,990 He's been like since day. He's going to be speaking on emerging technologies, a new military revolution. 15 00:01:24,990 --> 00:01:30,870 Thank you so much and good afternoon, everyone. For me, it's a great pleasure to be here today. 16 00:01:30,870 --> 00:01:35,880 I mean, it's a great centre. I've admired the work that is being done at the centre for Fossum. 17 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:41,940 You're very happy to see Rob again. It had been a while, so yeah, thanks for having me. 18 00:01:41,940 --> 00:01:48,900 And I'm very happy to be here. Before we begin, I have to say that it is true that I'm a producer. 19 00:01:48,900 --> 00:01:56,310 Nobody's perfect 18 senior citizen of Denmark, but I'm currently on secondment at the French Institute for Higher National Defence Studies, 20 00:01:56,310 --> 00:02:01,320 which is basically the French equivalent to the Royal College of Defence Studies, 21 00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:05,580 which is under the in the French, the Soviets under the Prime Minister's Office. 22 00:02:05,580 --> 00:02:14,760 So I'm only speaking in my personal capacity, and nothing I say will reflect the view of the Prime Minister's Office in any way, shape or form. 23 00:02:14,760 --> 00:02:18,300 So I have to you have to say that. 24 00:02:18,300 --> 00:02:28,410 So we are here to talk about emerging technologies and the potential that they have to trigger a new military revolution. 25 00:02:28,410 --> 00:02:31,650 I am not going to present any conclusions. 26 00:02:31,650 --> 00:02:38,070 What I'm going to do is not presenting you is a full fledged argument or having a kind of top down approach to. 27 00:02:38,070 --> 00:02:46,740 It's what I would like to do this afternoon is really to present some work hypothesis and eventually to stimulate our collective thinking. 28 00:02:46,740 --> 00:02:54,750 And so after I'm done talking, I'll be happy to discuss it and to be congratulated, hopefully. 29 00:02:54,750 --> 00:03:01,650 So again, it will be something full fledged, but it's more sinking in in progress at the moment, 30 00:03:01,650 --> 00:03:10,050 and I really hope that we could have a good discussion afterwards. So to begin, what do we mean by many terrible illusions? 31 00:03:10,050 --> 00:03:19,710 I'm not going to insult you in the sense that I'm sure you're all familiar with the concepts coming from Michael Roberts in the 50s, 32 00:03:19,710 --> 00:03:27,660 Freud's describing a change in the way the European way of war evolved in the 17th century. 33 00:03:27,660 --> 00:03:32,070 That's led to broader political and military consequences. 34 00:03:32,070 --> 00:03:40,740 So it's a core argument goes that the introduction of firearms leads to a new way to trade the armed forces, for example, 35 00:03:40,740 --> 00:03:52,200 through a drill that leads or overall to new types of taxation that states need to implement in order to sustain the armed forces, 36 00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:58,860 which leads to change in the nature of the state because the state has more extraction capacity and so on. 37 00:03:58,860 --> 00:04:06,150 So basically, the change in these fears leads to broader political and social consequences. 38 00:04:06,150 --> 00:04:11,400 There has been a lot of debates about the concept itself, most notably a case, I guess, 39 00:04:11,400 --> 00:04:18,630 between Charlie Black and Parker on the exact content and shape of the MeToo revolution. 40 00:04:18,630 --> 00:04:29,350 There have been debates about whether there had been an Asian MeToo revolution 200 years before the Academy Revolution was. 41 00:04:29,350 --> 00:04:34,800 Our debates about the link that you said has been made between the European 42 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:42,060 military revolution and the gradual domination of Europe on the world stage. 43 00:04:42,060 --> 00:04:48,750 It's especially true for a factor that makes this argument that the European revolution led 44 00:04:48,750 --> 00:04:56,490 to this increased military potential that led to the rise of Europe into world system. 45 00:04:56,490 --> 00:04:59,910 All this has been debated. On top of that is our. 46 00:04:59,910 --> 00:05:09,300 Is also the confusion that has been made in the 90s between the concept of military revolutions and the term revolution 47 00:05:09,300 --> 00:05:19,350 in military affairs that was promoted or studied by Andrew Marshall in the U.S. at the Office of Net Assessment, 48 00:05:19,350 --> 00:05:29,700 and the core argument behind this concept of revolution is what that structure of war was going through a profound transformation. 49 00:05:29,700 --> 00:05:37,830 And it will be I'm throwing events, but it will be possible to lift the fog of war through network centric technologies. 50 00:05:37,830 --> 00:05:46,560 But the difference between this revolution in military affairs, R-Maine that was studied by Marshall and his crew, 51 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:55,140 if that does not have the drastic social and political consequences that the a concept of need for a revolution usually entails. 52 00:05:55,140 --> 00:05:57,180 Also, the timeframe is different. 53 00:05:57,180 --> 00:06:07,860 What the historians who have been studying the European revolution look at our processes that go through several gates. 54 00:06:07,860 --> 00:06:19,680 Marshall in the Army were mostly thinking about the twenty twenty five years time span, so the the term revolution has been used widely, 55 00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:27,930 both in academic debate in policy debates, which means that the term meta revolution itself is a bit loaded and a bit complicated to handle. 56 00:06:27,930 --> 00:06:37,680 So all this introduction to to say that I'm aware of the fact that the term meta revolution is not perfect because of course, 57 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:42,510 this history of how it has been used in different ways. 58 00:06:42,510 --> 00:06:51,930 I use it in as a juristic device, basically to describe the change in the context of warfare, 59 00:06:51,930 --> 00:06:57,420 which itself triggers changes in the functioning of societies and politics. 60 00:06:57,420 --> 00:07:04,530 So political organisations. So just as these broad categories, this is how I use the term for revenge. 61 00:07:04,530 --> 00:07:15,420 So I'm going to give you my core hypothesis upfront. And my question, if that is to investigate whether we are on the brink, 62 00:07:15,420 --> 00:07:23,730 on the brink of a new military revolution due to current technological changes in particular. 63 00:07:23,730 --> 00:07:38,040 I think that there is a convergence of much more emerging and prototyping technologies which will be converging between now and the next 25 years. 64 00:07:38,040 --> 00:07:47,100 And those new technologies, which are primarily but not exclusively meat, are in nature together. 65 00:07:47,100 --> 00:07:59,010 It's really this convergence that together has the potential to alter what I think are our perceptions of time, of space and of self. 66 00:07:59,010 --> 00:08:12,120 And this alteration of our perceptions of time, space and self may have what I think will be unforeseen and therefore understood its consequences, 67 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:21,210 social and political consequences and the technologies I'm talking about all linked to the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. 68 00:08:21,210 --> 00:08:26,910 So here I'm borrowing from Charles Schwab. I mean, again, it's not perfect. 69 00:08:26,910 --> 00:08:33,270 The category of Fourth Industrial Revolution is just a catch all term to describe new technology, 70 00:08:33,270 --> 00:08:42,540 the new genomics technologies, A.I., cyber in propulsion sensors, additive manufacturing, energy and energy storage. 71 00:08:42,540 --> 00:08:51,150 So all those different categories are brought together in this catchall term of Fourth Industrial Revolution. 72 00:08:51,150 --> 00:08:56,850 So what I'm talking about? Exactly. Let's begin with perceptions of time. 73 00:08:56,850 --> 00:09:03,150 So time, in my view, is a bit of an afterthought in strategic thinking. 74 00:09:03,150 --> 00:09:11,160 People are looking at tactics. Think about time in terms of tempo or sequence the sequencing of operations, right? 75 00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:14,220 Like, how do we achieve cumulative effect? 76 00:09:14,220 --> 00:09:21,840 So you have to have a sequence of different operations or you need to think about the tempo of your military operations or things. 77 00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:25,800 Think about it in terms of what the Greeks will call the Kangaroos. 78 00:09:25,800 --> 00:09:30,150 So seising the moment. So here's an opportunity you need to seise the moment. 79 00:09:30,150 --> 00:09:39,990 But this is the the main ways classical strategic thinking considers the role of time. 80 00:09:39,990 --> 00:09:47,870 I think so underexplored. There is a new scholarship at the moment which is emerging on how to think about Time and Serdyukov for years. 81 00:09:47,870 --> 00:09:54,300 There is a great article by Andrew Carr into trauma of strategic studies that was published. 82 00:09:54,300 --> 00:09:59,940 I think this year, which I think is is really interesting to try to. 83 00:09:59,940 --> 00:10:08,250 Think about time in a different way. I will be very shameless here, but I will also plug a book that I credited with you colleagues, 84 00:10:08,250 --> 00:10:13,800 which is Cold War time, but I still think there is much to do in that regard. 85 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:22,200 Why? Because perceptions of time is a heavily social and cultural construct. 86 00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:29,730 I tend to develop in the individual when they used to want, but basically the core argument that we do not experience time. 87 00:10:29,730 --> 00:10:37,800 We do not experience the flow of time in the same way, depending on our social and cultural backgrounds. 88 00:10:37,800 --> 00:10:42,840 And this is a consistent finding from sociology and Baloji for the best 50 years. 89 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:50,640 So, for example, just to go straight to the point six periods of time in Western countries is often linear. 90 00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:57,960 So basically, we see time as being like New York is that instead of cyclical, that most Asian cultures is. 91 00:10:57,960 --> 00:11:01,530 This is how most Asian cultures understand it. 92 00:11:01,530 --> 00:11:10,470 And at least since the 19th century, we experience time through what we perceive as being speed and acceleration. 93 00:11:10,470 --> 00:11:16,890 Everything seems to be going faster and faster. I argued somewhere else, you know before. 94 00:11:16,890 --> 00:11:26,190 That's our perception of time through the categories of speed and acceleration actually have an impact on our military police making. 95 00:11:26,190 --> 00:11:30,150 But now I would like to come back to the new technologies. 96 00:11:30,150 --> 00:11:40,050 My sense is that emerging technologies have the potential to drastically alter our own perception of time within the next 20 to 25 years old. 97 00:11:40,050 --> 00:11:50,370 Start with cyber technologies. Cyber attacks on his are a bit contradictory because both the foster the sense of immediacy, 98 00:11:50,370 --> 00:12:00,780 but also of man's presence that makes me cyber campaigns have a different temporality from sender to meet certain things. 99 00:12:00,780 --> 00:12:06,180 For example, next, Smeets talks about the transitory nature of cyber weapons. 100 00:12:06,180 --> 00:12:16,530 So when you used the basically disappear, which is kind of different from traditional weapons that don't disappear unless they are being destroyed, 101 00:12:16,530 --> 00:12:26,570 so that changes our idea of sequencing me to operation the sequence that are building RG firms more broadly. 102 00:12:26,570 --> 00:12:41,580 The conclusion of cyber in our datelines through cell phones through virtual reality tomorrow, I think we'll modify our expectations of immediacy. 103 00:12:41,580 --> 00:12:52,710 Can we wait? What is the acceptable delay and what do we consider being slow or fast in our data experiences? 104 00:12:52,710 --> 00:13:01,350 I mean, I think some of you will remember the first generations of connecting to the internet 105 00:13:01,350 --> 00:13:06,450 in the 90s through the modem where you had these weird sounds when you was connecting. 106 00:13:06,450 --> 00:13:07,980 And when I think about that nowadays, 107 00:13:07,980 --> 00:13:16,680 I think all of us will just throw out the computer out of the window because we will experience it as being extremely slow. 108 00:13:16,680 --> 00:13:26,370 But it's a change in our perception of what is a legitimate delay in our interactions and in our experience of life, 109 00:13:26,370 --> 00:13:31,410 which is totally triggered by emerging technologies. 110 00:13:31,410 --> 00:13:39,480 Second, type of technologies that can alter our perception of time, I think, is hypervelocity. 111 00:13:39,480 --> 00:13:48,330 I mean, we do a lot of hype about hyper velocity in a way I don't think it's that much of a break in the structure and environments. 112 00:13:48,330 --> 00:14:02,130 But what is certain is that we perceive it as compressing the decision making windows that policymakers have at their disposal. 113 00:14:02,130 --> 00:14:10,980 So it's compressing the time that's for the window of opportunity that policymakers have to react to or potential aberrations. 114 00:14:10,980 --> 00:14:18,330 So again, changing how we perceive time if we don't have that window of opportunity, do we do we have one? 115 00:14:18,330 --> 00:14:24,030 How how do we need to think about strategic stability? It means that we cannot react. 116 00:14:24,030 --> 00:14:28,050 We need to prioritise. So the perception of time is different. 117 00:14:28,050 --> 00:14:34,620 It's not about reacting to something coming in, it's about presenting something that might happen in the future. 118 00:14:34,620 --> 00:14:40,410 So last, emerging technology that could have an effect on our perception of the time is, 119 00:14:40,410 --> 00:14:47,700 of course, A.I., which makes decisions by definition much faster than any human being. 120 00:14:47,700 --> 00:14:59,660 So all this change again, to to summarise these arguments about our perceptions of fine or all those emerging technologies may have an impact on. 121 00:14:59,660 --> 00:15:08,090 How we perceive time and what we consider to be an acceptable speed and an acceptable play in our daily lives. 122 00:15:08,090 --> 00:15:12,770 And I'm opening, you know, it's an open question. 123 00:15:12,770 --> 00:15:20,200 But what are the consequences for our social interactions, right? How long do we have to wait for friend in a coffee shop? 124 00:15:20,200 --> 00:15:24,860 Some say that with what our consequences for work, 125 00:15:24,860 --> 00:15:33,380 what are the expectations that our bosses are going to have from workers based on what they think is unacceptable delay? 126 00:15:33,380 --> 00:15:37,140 What does it mean for our cognitive capabilities, right? 127 00:15:37,140 --> 00:15:43,130 The way our brain develops from childhood to adulthood? 128 00:15:43,130 --> 00:15:52,790 Almost all of these are potential social and political consequences that may be triggered by emerging technologies. 129 00:15:52,790 --> 00:15:57,560 Most of them being from a military origin. 130 00:15:57,560 --> 00:16:02,600 Second, arguments potential changes in our perceptions of space. 131 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:12,740 Space is, of course, a very important factor in how we experience the world and how we see our place in the world again. 132 00:16:12,740 --> 00:16:17,930 I mean, the way we experience space is a very social construct by nature. 133 00:16:17,930 --> 00:16:26,330 For example, depending on your social status and your integration of background, and I'm very aware of the fact that I'm not Oxford right now, 134 00:16:26,330 --> 00:16:34,730 it is very likely that you experience space in as a kind of archipelago of different cities. 135 00:16:34,730 --> 00:16:39,260 So you may have family in London and New York. 136 00:16:39,260 --> 00:16:43,220 You may vacation in Paris or Berlin or Singapore. 137 00:16:43,220 --> 00:16:53,180 And with a dash of exoticism here and they are doing your work trip, but you probably have not extensively travelled in any of those countries. 138 00:16:53,180 --> 00:17:00,020 So your your experience of space is actually an archipelago of European environments in several countries. 139 00:17:00,020 --> 00:17:06,920 That is your experience of space. But if you go to Berlin, have you been to read the North Barrens? 140 00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:10,830 I mean, don't go there. It's really puzzling. But that's that's basically the idea. 141 00:17:10,830 --> 00:17:17,420 That's your experience of space is really different and disconnected from the political 142 00:17:17,420 --> 00:17:24,890 authority of the states that he's having having sovereignty over a certain territory, 143 00:17:24,890 --> 00:17:33,440 from caricaturing a bit, you know, in the sense of you and also me experiencing this archipelago of different cities worldwide. 144 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:42,740 But you see the point that depending on your social background, your social capital and so on, we all have different experiences of space. 145 00:17:42,740 --> 00:17:53,660 You can easily imagine people in France or Germany nowadays whose experience of space is 50 kilometres radius around the city where they were born, 146 00:17:53,660 --> 00:17:59,810 and which is totally different from what most of you are experiencing anyways. 147 00:17:59,810 --> 00:18:04,370 So our perception of space is inherently political. 148 00:18:04,370 --> 00:18:16,850 And again, here we have technologies that may alter the way we experience space we can, starting with cyber cyber capabilities because it's of course, 149 00:18:16,850 --> 00:18:24,350 the most obvious one in the sense that it's always a possibility to leave in different cyber spaces, 150 00:18:24,350 --> 00:18:32,450 which in the end may shape our political and social affiliations and disconnecting our political 151 00:18:32,450 --> 00:18:39,650 and social affiliations from our physical location where we are at a specific moment in time. 152 00:18:39,650 --> 00:18:45,650 I was know when ISIS was still a thing. 153 00:18:45,650 --> 00:18:51,090 I mean, they still are, but still had a territorial incurring. 154 00:18:51,090 --> 00:18:53,120 You know, so what's a cyber conflict, 155 00:18:53,120 --> 00:19:02,600 which I have always found is an interesting term because they were basically hacking and propaganda branch for for ISIS. 156 00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:10,970 But the term cyber conflict is in itself interesting because it signals that you have people who can be anywhere in the world, 157 00:19:10,970 --> 00:19:22,550 physically, anywhere in the world, but still feeling that we belong to a specific political entity, which is which is the caliphate. 158 00:19:22,550 --> 00:19:35,540 So there was a decoupling between the physical space that those people inhabit and the political affiliation, which is facilitated by cyber means. 159 00:19:35,540 --> 00:19:48,770 And I suspect that we will see more and more of those connexions between where we are and what we feel is our political and social affiliations. 160 00:19:48,770 --> 00:19:59,590 Another example of a different nature, but still in this same idea of disconnecting where we are from, what we see and what we experience is. 161 00:19:59,590 --> 00:20:09,490 The fact sets of digitalisation of war removes the distinction between actors, decision makers and bystanders, 162 00:20:09,490 --> 00:20:18,610 basically, because we see images of war all the time, belligerents are competing for our attention. 163 00:20:18,610 --> 00:20:29,320 They are competing for the images that we are going to see, which are also going to shape how we react to certain to certain events. 164 00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:37,750 And again, that is, well, I think this is sort of erasing or not deleting, 165 00:20:37,750 --> 00:20:42,400 but erasing this distinction between being a bystander and being a participant. 166 00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:55,150 But this is part of this trend of disconnecting the political and the physical presence and the political consciousness in a way. 167 00:20:55,150 --> 00:21:01,570 And of course, the last trend in that area is virtual reality, right? 168 00:21:01,570 --> 00:21:09,460 I mean, the project that Facebook revealed or what they were based, totally dystopian in nature, 169 00:21:09,460 --> 00:21:15,730 and Zuckerberg has been totally mocked for and deservedly mocked for presenting 170 00:21:15,730 --> 00:21:22,480 it because he has never as much as a robot as basically as its presentations. 171 00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:29,680 But it's revelatory of a broader trend of engineers, 172 00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:40,540 of technologists that are actually looking forward to disconnecting our physical presence and our social experience. 173 00:21:40,540 --> 00:21:51,610 And I think this is just a first step in what will probably be other attempts to participate in the disconnection between our, 174 00:21:51,610 --> 00:21:56,350 yeah, our body and our consciousness in a sense. 175 00:21:56,350 --> 00:22:07,210 Second, technology that might alter our perception of space is, of course, the competition in extra atmospheric space at the moment. 176 00:22:07,210 --> 00:22:17,620 So, I mean, you are all aware of that. I suppose there is a gradual transition of extra atmospheric space, which is made possible by new technologies, 177 00:22:17,620 --> 00:22:23,260 the satellite technologies to begin with, but also anti-satellite capabilities. 178 00:22:23,260 --> 00:22:30,100 So basically missiles that are now able to shoot to shoot down satellites. 179 00:22:30,100 --> 00:22:42,970 And I think that gives this competition increases that will make people realise that most of our daily lives depend on space assets. 180 00:22:42,970 --> 00:22:46,480 I mean, your cell phones, your TV connexions, 181 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:57,190 a lot of the way of the things that we use every single day depends on the signal that is coming naturally from space. 182 00:22:57,190 --> 00:23:04,090 So it was interesting when Russia did say our assets test last week because, 183 00:23:04,090 --> 00:23:08,590 you know, there was a lot of fragments that went through the internal space station, 184 00:23:08,590 --> 00:23:16,630 so basically potentially endangering the lives of the astronauts into space station at the moment. 185 00:23:16,630 --> 00:23:20,980 And I think I may be wrong, 186 00:23:20,980 --> 00:23:28,450 but I think it was one of the very first time that the global public realised that what we do in space can 187 00:23:28,450 --> 00:23:38,140 have very concrete consequences for citizens and maybe in the future for what is going to happen on Earth. 188 00:23:38,140 --> 00:23:44,980 You know, most military people for the past five, six years have been very aware of the competition coming up. 189 00:23:44,980 --> 00:23:50,860 You all know the space command that was created in the US, also in France, for example. 190 00:23:50,860 --> 00:23:55,630 So there is even a show on Netflix about Space Command. 191 00:23:55,630 --> 00:24:01,720 So most military people have been aware of that. I don't think the global public has been, you know, 192 00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:15,580 in has realised the strong connexion that exists between the extra atmospheric space and basically what we are doing every single day on Earth. 193 00:24:15,580 --> 00:24:23,440 If the competition continues, we are going to see more and more of those connexions being disrupted, 194 00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:35,470 which will make the public and people realise that Ceres is always a continuum between the two, which will change the way we think about the space. 195 00:24:35,470 --> 00:24:41,740 That is a legitimate concern. How you doing things? That extra atmospheric space is a legitimate concern. 196 00:24:41,740 --> 00:24:47,410 It's not politicised. If you want in national discourses nowadays, it's not. 197 00:24:47,410 --> 00:24:53,230 Maybe it will be in the future. Maybe you will see movements to say, we need to protect our satellites, whatever. 198 00:24:53,230 --> 00:24:59,570 Right? So but I think that's the way we experience excitement for space and. 199 00:24:59,570 --> 00:25:07,610 Will change in the sense that we will gradually realise the strong connexion between what we do and what happens here. 200 00:25:07,610 --> 00:25:14,000 And of course, it's not a military development, but an economic development. 201 00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:22,520 Space tourism is getting cheaper and cheaper, which also means that space will not be the ultimate frontier. 202 00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:27,680 But it will be a new neighbourhood and again, 203 00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:38,990 when it becomes a new neighbourhood salaries and increased potential to politicise the end of the environments and to compete in it. 204 00:25:38,990 --> 00:25:44,480 So all this this convergence of technology trends, I think, 205 00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:55,250 will make us experience the space around us differently and change the way we perceive space overall. 206 00:25:55,250 --> 00:26:02,690 Finally, there is the potential for changing our perception of self where we are again. 207 00:26:02,690 --> 00:26:16,880 What constitutes our identity is a mix of socialisation, of cultural upbringings and of ideas about what is our physical integrity, right? 208 00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:25,580 Who we are as a person, volunteers, but also who we are as bodies in a sense that exist in the world. 209 00:26:25,580 --> 00:26:35,120 And here we have a number of technologies that have the potential to directly affect our bodies. 210 00:26:35,120 --> 00:26:40,310 Think about, you know, all the debates about the augmented soldiers, the so-called augmented soldiers. 211 00:26:40,310 --> 00:26:46,280 So you can have basically two ways to do it. The first one being genomic technologies. 212 00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:53,150 So gene editing, so basically manipulating DNA to remove potential potential flows. 213 00:26:53,150 --> 00:27:02,090 But when you think about it, DNA is in public consciousness seen as being the core of what the human being is supposed to be like. 214 00:27:02,090 --> 00:27:10,670 The most natural of things, in a sense, because it comes from a combination of two of the four genes that are presented from your parents. 215 00:27:10,670 --> 00:27:16,850 So as you start editing this and change people directly through gene editing, 216 00:27:16,850 --> 00:27:29,180 I wonder what it will trigger in terms of how we perceive what is our integrity, our physical integrity and how we're going to react to it. 217 00:27:29,180 --> 00:27:41,630 The second potential change is, of course, all the potential influence to improve the physical capabilities of soldiers that 218 00:27:41,630 --> 00:27:47,150 are being that several military organisations are working on at the moment, 219 00:27:47,150 --> 00:27:58,400 basically creating cyborgs, improving eyesight, improving earrings, improving physical fitness and resistance, so on and so forth. 220 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:02,270 Again, I personally, I'm a fan of Japanese science fiction. 221 00:28:02,270 --> 00:28:05,840 I'm a fan of Ghost in the Shell. I'm looking forward to it. 222 00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:12,110 But you know, you are lucky because I've also terrible eyesight, so meaningful improvement. 223 00:28:12,110 --> 00:28:17,810 But it changes the way we perceive the human. 224 00:28:17,810 --> 00:28:26,960 What is what is a human in itself? So that's one trend technological trend that can modify our perception of self. 225 00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,140 Second trend is and here I am, 226 00:28:30,140 --> 00:28:41,270 relying on the Canada based work on the artificial intelligence and strategy strategies a profoundly human activity, right? 227 00:28:41,270 --> 00:28:48,140 Because it's truly about the use of violence. And it is shaped by two things. 228 00:28:48,140 --> 00:28:50,850 It's shaped by our reasoning. 229 00:28:50,850 --> 00:28:59,210 I mean, we hope that there is a degree of reasoning when we use force, but it's also profoundly shaped by our emotions, right? 230 00:28:59,210 --> 00:29:04,760 I mean, I'm being very close of each and here, but you know that it's one of the elements of the treaty. 231 00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:10,270 That passions are one of the elements of the treaty. 232 00:29:10,270 --> 00:29:23,050 If we start automating some degree of decision making in warfare through artificial intelligence, if pushed too far, 233 00:29:23,050 --> 00:29:30,910 we have the potential to remove these very human elements in warfare for the first time in history. 234 00:29:30,910 --> 00:29:35,650 Removing passion in war from the front for the first time in history. 235 00:29:35,650 --> 00:29:42,520 And I mean, again, it's an open question. But what will be the consequences of this kind of automated war? 236 00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:46,360 Is it still a war if it doesn't include passion? 237 00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:51,910 If so, one element of the Trinity? Or is it just automated murder, right? 238 00:29:51,910 --> 00:29:58,990 If we don't have passion, we don't have. Maybe we remove the connexion with the political motivations for using force. 239 00:29:58,990 --> 00:30:04,130 Again, simple question, but I think it's at least worth thinking about. 240 00:30:04,130 --> 00:30:14,600 So to wrap up, I think it's this combination of technologies which are themselves at different stages 241 00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:20,900 of maturation that could lead to a profound change in our understanding of time, 242 00:30:20,900 --> 00:30:26,870 space and self and with unforeseen political and social consequences. 243 00:30:26,870 --> 00:30:36,680 Individually, any of the changes I just described will probably be easy to integrate in our daily lives. 244 00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:40,610 I mean, our societies change all the time through technological developments. 245 00:30:40,610 --> 00:30:46,310 What I think is interesting right now is that we have a convergence of a lot of different technologies, 246 00:30:46,310 --> 00:30:56,750 which all have an impact on the way we experience the world around us, and they are all converging more or less in the same time frame. 247 00:30:56,750 --> 00:31:01,250 And this is what I think is worth studying at the moment. 248 00:31:01,250 --> 00:31:05,480 So of course, you have a lot of, you know, think tanks, suite organisations, 249 00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:11,030 academics while looking at the impact of this new technologies on warfare itself. 250 00:31:11,030 --> 00:31:24,320 But I think it's also worth going a bit further and ask the question of what will it do cumulatively speaking for our our societies. 251 00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:33,620 So this is being said, I think there is a few. I'm trying to give you a few thoughts on the potential directions for, I don't know, research papers. 252 00:31:33,620 --> 00:31:43,190 These are any students or PSG projects or whatever, but I think a few things that I think will be worth thinking about. 253 00:31:43,190 --> 00:31:52,650 The first thing is, are our strategic concepts fit for this new environment? 254 00:31:52,650 --> 00:32:03,690 The strategic tension in the 20th century is fundamentally deeply influenced by them thinking about nuclear weapons, right? 255 00:32:03,690 --> 00:32:09,120 The concepts that we have developed are a reaction to the nuclear revolution. 256 00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:14,130 It all comes from Brody, 46, and Sherry, 62, basically. 257 00:32:14,130 --> 00:32:18,930 So think about the most important terms in strategic thinking 20th century. 258 00:32:18,930 --> 00:32:27,930 It's coercion, deterrence, compulsions. Well, you know, you know your shaming and you don't have to to summarise it. 259 00:32:27,930 --> 00:32:33,840 But what it is about fundamentally, it's about the signal intentions. 260 00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:37,410 You need to signal in one way or the other. 261 00:32:37,410 --> 00:32:47,820 It's all about signalling credible commitments, communicating red lines, communicating abilities, communicating intentions. 262 00:32:47,820 --> 00:32:55,170 The core idea of strategic thinking in the 20th century is what's signalling, and if done well, 263 00:32:55,170 --> 00:33:00,090 this will lead to some kind of punctuated equilibrium between the adversaries. 264 00:33:00,090 --> 00:33:06,450 Right? So it may fail. We may be is understand the adversary is intentions and vice versa. 265 00:33:06,450 --> 00:33:15,630 It may fail. But the core idea that that's signalling done well will lead to some sort of strategic stability, 266 00:33:15,630 --> 00:33:23,230 and that has deeply shaped our doctrines and the way we think about the use of force. 267 00:33:23,230 --> 00:33:28,510 Now, I think that combined again combined, 268 00:33:28,510 --> 00:33:38,080 some of those new technologies have the potential to create a new strategic drama or at least a new strategic environments, 269 00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:42,790 which is about shaping and manipulating the air of the adversary. 270 00:33:42,790 --> 00:33:46,900 Think about, you know, the eruption. You mean all warfare. 271 00:33:46,900 --> 00:33:52,810 So a stage of warfare, which is before the use of force. 272 00:33:52,810 --> 00:34:01,270 So think about the Chinese who talk about history, warfare so publicly on warfare, legal warfare and psychological warfare. 273 00:34:01,270 --> 00:34:09,790 Recently, France updated its course, operational concepts and the new buzz. 274 00:34:09,790 --> 00:34:19,630 Words from our Joint Chief of Staff is to say that we need to win the war before the war, which I think is a terrible phrasing. 275 00:34:19,630 --> 00:34:29,110 But don't quote me on that. Not yet. But what it's about all those ideas of lethal warfare through warfare. 276 00:34:29,110 --> 00:34:32,980 Winning the war before the war. It's about shaping a strategic audience. 277 00:34:32,980 --> 00:34:37,360 It's not about signalling. It's about shaping what the adversary is doing. 278 00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:45,040 And I think we all feel very uncomfortable with this state of affairs who are very uncomfortable with this environment. 279 00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:55,690 And this is why we have terms such as hybrid warfare, fourth generation warfare, great on warfare, high Cold War and so on and so forth. 280 00:34:55,690 --> 00:35:00,190 All those terms, they say, is a war in between something, right? 281 00:35:00,190 --> 00:35:05,980 It's hybrid. It's graze on whether it's in between some categories. 282 00:35:05,980 --> 00:35:11,470 So we are very uncomfortable with that. And I think it's because we don't have we haven't. 283 00:35:11,470 --> 00:35:17,380 At least we haven't found the versioning for the new strategic environment. 284 00:35:17,380 --> 00:35:29,980 We haven't found the person or persons who give us the vocabulary and the concepts that help us make sense of this new state of affairs. 285 00:35:29,980 --> 00:35:41,170 And I think what? So one of the lines of effort, I think, will be going into that direction, trying to update our concepts in our strategy vocabulary. 286 00:35:41,170 --> 00:35:50,980 I think we'll be also worth looking at the cultural representations of this new strategic environment in movies, 287 00:35:50,980 --> 00:35:59,500 in video games, in series, TV shows and on not only because he can give us ideas on how to do it, 288 00:35:59,500 --> 00:36:10,720 but also mostly because it will tell us something about how our societies are evolving in terms of their expectations of law, 289 00:36:10,720 --> 00:36:17,320 of how war will unfold and what the role of the military will be in this hybrid force. 290 00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:28,150 Fourth generation, whatever you call it in this type of second, think we, I think we need to think about in death, 291 00:36:28,150 --> 00:36:39,160 only to rethink what the arms industry is or at least in a technological and industrial base is. 292 00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:43,840 And I think it's important to distinguish between open and closed innovation. 293 00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:47,680 So to summarise it, very quickly closed you. 294 00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:57,100 Innovation in states led open innovation is private sector myth to 20th century military innovation is closed innovation. 295 00:36:57,100 --> 00:37:04,720 Most of it came from the states directing research in certain areas. 296 00:37:04,720 --> 00:37:11,650 It's very likely that we are now in an era of open innovation, which means that it's led by the private sector, 297 00:37:11,650 --> 00:37:27,940 which also means that the private sector that innovation will spread and diffuse more quickly because the private sector has incentives to do so. 298 00:37:27,940 --> 00:37:31,720 So what is what are the consequences of this state of affairs? 299 00:37:31,720 --> 00:37:41,740 For the defence industrial base, for example, China has long pushed for what they call civil military fusion in the arms industry. 300 00:37:41,740 --> 00:37:47,770 What exactly does that entail, including for Western India, for western countries? 301 00:37:47,770 --> 00:37:59,410 What does it mean for traditional defence companies, which are still focussed on developing advanced platforms of jet fighters, frigates, whatever? 302 00:37:59,410 --> 00:38:03,070 When you have companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, 303 00:38:03,070 --> 00:38:14,380 which invest billions in R&D investments that states themselves Muslim most of the time, not much, but apart from the United States. 304 00:38:14,380 --> 00:38:20,560 But the French R&D is less than what Amazon's investing are. 305 00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:24,300 The same goes for. For the UK, 306 00:38:24,300 --> 00:38:37,020 also something which I think is interesting is that most of the technologies I've been talking about rely on one way or the other on data management, 307 00:38:37,020 --> 00:38:49,950 data storage, data use data management doesn't is our 20th century model of a state sponsored platform development appropriate when 308 00:38:49,950 --> 00:38:58,200 what makes actually user platform work is how we are going to handle and all the data what what full states invest in, 309 00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:02,310 what kind of companies will deliver us at the end. 310 00:39:02,310 --> 00:39:11,370 And that was the last thing it said. How do those technologies, which are data driven, are going to fluctuate because data is very easy to exchange? 311 00:39:11,370 --> 00:39:20,100 So I think there is a number of issues here in terms of what our defence industrial base is going to look like. 312 00:39:20,100 --> 00:39:29,970 What is the shape of it? What are the borders or the limitations of the defence industry? 313 00:39:29,970 --> 00:39:43,050 And we need to have a much more open thinking about what we are going to include in in our definition of defence industrial base. 314 00:39:43,050 --> 00:39:54,120 Third issue very quickly. What does that mean for arms control when most of the technologies are going to develop rely on software, 315 00:39:54,120 --> 00:40:02,490 which is by definition difficult to observe and analyse because you cannot do bean counting, 316 00:40:02,490 --> 00:40:06,360 you cannot count the number of tanks or frigates or whatever. 317 00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:13,380 Right? How do you do arms control with cyber weapons when it's a line of code? 318 00:40:13,380 --> 00:40:22,830 But if the one of the main tools we had to do or to develop strategic stability, 319 00:40:22,830 --> 00:40:29,520 which is arms control, is becoming obsolete because we cannot actually control the arms. 320 00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:35,760 What does that mean for strategic stability in the future? And how do we standardise strategic competition? 321 00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:41,940 I think it's it's a very important issue to to to to deploy force. 322 00:40:41,940 --> 00:40:50,850 And lastly, something interesting to look at is how do the armed forces shape those changes? 323 00:40:50,850 --> 00:41:01,200 Because the agency in it, but also at the adapt to those changes, I think we need more empirical research in that area. 324 00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:08,160 I think an interesting issue will be to look at the future of interoperability in an alliance such as Neato. 325 00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:13,920 It's not a new issue, but it's I mean, you talked about it's basically the story of Ningo. 326 00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:24,960 But I mean, it has taken a new shape now that not only do we need to coordinate our doctorates, but we also need to do much better, 327 00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:35,400 integrate our systems so that we can communicate with each other much more than just with June 16 and lacks the technologies we have. 328 00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:39,720 We have at the moment, also an issue of recruitment. 329 00:41:39,720 --> 00:41:44,970 How do we recruit and train soldiers in the future? 330 00:41:44,970 --> 00:41:51,000 How do we train cyber soldiers? Do we need to send them to bootcamp? Do they need to have haircuts regulations? 331 00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:55,620 Do they need to wear a uniform? I don't know. 332 00:41:55,620 --> 00:42:03,210 But I think it's a legitimate debate if we are going to start changing the bodies of our soldiers. 333 00:42:03,210 --> 00:42:07,500 How do we motivate them? Do we need to campaign in such a way? 334 00:42:07,500 --> 00:42:15,430 That's OK. You have poor eyesight from the military. You will have, you know, when you knew it was OK to become a cyborg. 335 00:42:15,430 --> 00:42:21,390 And so, you know, basically from the military to improve your physical conditions. 336 00:42:21,390 --> 00:42:33,330 I don't know totally changes the way we think about the people we want to have in the armed forces or very few, if that's OK. 337 00:42:33,330 --> 00:42:42,450 How do those new technologies change from this threat to social status within the armed forces? 338 00:42:42,450 --> 00:42:48,030 I mean, we all know that historically speaking, there are armies, of course, 339 00:42:48,030 --> 00:42:54,630 that are more prestigious than others, and they have a vested interest in resisting change. 340 00:42:54,630 --> 00:43:04,260 Well, history of cavalry resisting the introduction of tanks because cavalry was so prestigious arms in most European countries. 341 00:43:04,260 --> 00:43:15,570 Jet fighter pilots are resisting the introduction of drones because it challenges their prestige as they have in the air forces. 342 00:43:15,570 --> 00:43:22,380 So who will the apex predators if you want? 343 00:43:22,380 --> 00:43:29,160 Beams the future and what are the prestige positions going to be? 344 00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:39,420 I think we need to think about that because the introduction of this new technologies is going to change the social status within the armed forces. 345 00:43:39,420 --> 00:43:46,770 And that's the issue is how do we educate our military leaders in the in this environment? 346 00:43:46,770 --> 00:43:56,850 We have a system of professional military dictation that basically followed this incredible complex ification of warfare with 347 00:43:56,850 --> 00:44:08,880 the initial training or school for officers going through initial training being developed in the 18th early 19th century. 348 00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:09,660 So basically, 349 00:44:09,660 --> 00:44:22,770 when you had to train your students to come and command a battalion from the mid-19th century onwards with incredible complex information warfare, 350 00:44:22,770 --> 00:44:29,010 warfare and the need to command units that were set were much larger, 351 00:44:29,010 --> 00:44:36,870 the system of the war college developed so inspired from the Second Army in Germany. 352 00:44:36,870 --> 00:44:47,500 But it basically spread throughout the world in the 19th century because the size of the armed forces led to the development of stuff. 353 00:44:47,500 --> 00:44:55,710 So and we had, we felt the need to train officers to work in a tough environment. 354 00:44:55,710 --> 00:45:00,420 And there's a third layer, which will be the Royal College of Defence Studies, 355 00:45:00,420 --> 00:45:10,800 was created at the early 20th century to better integrate civilian and military leadership because the scale of warfare now involved, 356 00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:19,860 the entire political leadership and war will not be removed from the broader conduct of political affairs anymore. 357 00:45:19,860 --> 00:45:28,830 Therefore, if you serve me your professional military vocation to bring together civilian and military leadership, 358 00:45:28,830 --> 00:45:40,230 is it still appropriate this three level education in a context where new technologies change social relations? 359 00:45:40,230 --> 00:45:44,040 And what do we need to teach to our military officers? 360 00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:50,550 Again, it's an open question. I think we need empirical work on this topic. 361 00:45:50,550 --> 00:45:51,870 I'm going to stop here. 362 00:45:51,870 --> 00:46:01,710 I think there is a lot of exciting projects, too, to think about in these broad frameworks of changes in the perceptions of time and space himself, 363 00:46:01,710 --> 00:46:09,360 which outlines and it's likely that the changes in our political and social 364 00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:17,130 orders will not be as drastic as what I exposed here or just outlined here, 365 00:46:17,130 --> 00:46:21,120 because in the end, technology is what we make of it. Right? 366 00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:31,050 But to make sure that decisions about the use of technologies are not made for us, I think we should at least think about it. 367 00:46:31,050 --> 00:46:39,631 So thank you for your attention and we were happy to try to answer your questions.