Description
How states can, should, and are preparing for the challenges of an increasingly volatile, complex, and threatening environment? This panel holds that military transformation is an essential avenue of research to support and better equip actors facing these challenges. As such, it offers a variety of western and non-western
perspectives on military transformation and the changing nature of war in the view of developing the research field and offering a critical outlook on transformation choices and practices. The wide-ranging studies look at the following issues: the emergence of cyber wars as potential game changers; the integration of technology and collaboration in the French and British armies; the challenges of adopting military transformation across different settings in South America; a case-study of the Zambian forces to see why armed forces adapt dissimilarly despite using the same military practice; and finally, the effects of defence offsets in Turkey. The panel aims to demonstrate not only how each region chose to "be prepared" for emerging threats and issues from the international environment, but also what reinforces and hinders military transformation beyond the popular buzzword, as well as the changing character of war with the rise of the cyber domain.
