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FOREWORD

The Pandiá Calógeras Institute will hold the workshop “Future Wars: the

configuration of conflicts in 2045”. The event celebrates the 15th anniversary of the

Brazilian Ministry of Defense and will be held in Brasilia on December 8 and 9, 2014.

Discussions shall focus on the characteristics of future wars and on the

challenges current trends impose on South American countries, as well as on emerging

powers and on the structures of international politics. Ideally, participants will explore

prospective scenarios that help examine the main implications of those processes for

existing political arrangements and military capabilities.

Six main topics structure the event: (i) the actors that may engage in conflicts by

2045; (ii) the geopolitics of future wars; (iii) the economics of those wars; (iv) their morals;

(v) key technologies in future wars; and (vi) the implications of those trends to actors’

current strategic and tactical decisions.

Each of the six roundtables of the workshop will be 2:15m hours long, initiated

with three 15-20 minute presentations followed by debates. Discussions are expected to be

frank and open, under the Chatham House rule.

The workshop will gather a group of senior analysts with different backgrounds

(decision markers, military personnel, scholars, and entrepreneurs) from several countries.

The event is intended to produce information that may be useful to decision-makers in their

quest for planning the years ahead. It is based on the premise that preparations to acquire

adequate military and civilian personnel by 2045 require immediate planning and action.

It also presumes that a period of 30 years corresponds to the approximate life

cycle of key technologies, equipment and doctrines upon which strategies are designed and

founded. Within a generation, new actors emerge, countries form new military elites,

current allies occasionally become rivals - or even enemies, and new structures redefine

world society. Thinking about possible configurations of wars in 2045 thus requires both the

understanding of current realities and sociological imagination to figure out possible threats

and trends.

Some of the questions that will guide discussions appear in the tentative program

bellow. As a contribution to encourage provocative debates, the Pandiá Institute circulates,

jointly with this Program, a document with suggested readings, as well as the list of

confirmed participants.

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December, 08th 2014 When Key Topics Subtopics and questions that will guide the debate

08h30m 08h45m

Opening Remakrs

Antonio Jorge Ramalho, Pandiá Institute José Pompeu Brasil, Strategic Planning Unit, MoD

08h45m 11h00m

PANEL 1 Actors in

future wars

Who will engage in future wars – warriors, peoples,

communities, religions, cities, mercenaries, or all of them?

How important will states be in future wars?

How will states and non-state actors interact in future conflicts?

What roles will current great powers and emerging powers play in future wars?

Do regional alliances tend to become military alliances? If so, how important will they be in future wars?

Will insurgents be capable of rendering conflicts endless? How global – and organized - shall they become?

Assuming that individuals will remain targets in specific conflicts, how to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants?

Discussants

Henry Cancelado – Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia

Carlos Gutierrez – Centro de Estudios Estratégicos, Universidad ARCIS, Chile

Ong Weichong - S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore

11h00m 11h30m

Coffee break

(Enjoy the conversation!)

11h30m 13h45m

PANEL 2 The geopolitics of future wars

What kind of international system will frame future wars?

Will multipolarity prevail? If so, what will be the poles? Will they be able to stabilize the international system?

Will wars of territorial conquest still exist by 2045?

How important will the control of the seas be?

How significant will outer space & cyberspace be in future wars?

Will future wars’ effects spill over to the whole world or will they probably remain regional?

How pervasive will future conflicts be?

What will motivate future wars?

PROGRAM

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Discussants

Antonio Ruy de Almeida Silva – Brazilian Superior War College

Francisco Gouveia Garcia – Departament of Graduate Studies, The Military Academy of Portugal

Fabio Sahm Paggiaro - Ministry of Defense, Brazil

13h45m 15h15m

Lunch

15h15m 17h30m

PANEL 3 The Economics of future wars

What role will inequality between and within political communities play in future wars?

Which actors and groups will use future wars – and the preparation for war – as a source of income?

Do industrial complexes tend to adapt to the wars of the global information society?

How disruptive to interdependence will future wars be?

How important will national contents in war-related products be to maintain states’ autonomy in future wars?

How to build viable & legitimate economic opportunities to replace the war economies formed after long-standing conflicts?

Who will finance future wars?

Will different economies emerge to support high and low-intensity conflicts? If so, will these economies overlap?

Will states be able to keep the pace of innovation in their economies without defense-related industries?

Will insurgents & warlords free ride on and benefit from constant innovation promoted by states and firms?

Discussants

Luís Felipe Giesteira, Defense Products Secretariat, MoD

José Eduardo de Figueiredo Freitas, Brazilian Army

Luiz Martins de Melo, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

José Zeno Fontana, FINEP (Financer of Studies and Projects, Brazil)

19h30m

Van leaves for dinner

20h

Dinner at Coco Bambu Lago

(good food and spirits!!)

December, 09th 2014

When Key Topics

Subtopics and questions that will guide the debate

08h30m 10h45m

PANEL 4 The morals & regulation of future wars

Will the distinction between wars and armed conflicts still be relevant within a generation? If so, what will prevail?

Will jus in bellum still be meaningful in future wars?

What kind of norms and institutions will regulate wars between states & non-state actors?

Will international institutions play significant roles in future wars? How functional will they be in global governance?

When & how will states & non-states actors know that they are in war?

Under which conditions will states be able to end wars between them and against non-state actors?

What kind of parameters will indicate victory in future wars?

How will states regulate elemental violence in their future wars?

Will tax havens remain convenient for insurgents to run their operations?

Discussants

Larry Swatuk – University of Waterloo, Canada

William de Sousa Moreira –Naval War College, Brazil

Monica Herz – Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

10h45m 11h15m

Coffee Break (Enjoy the conversation!)

11h15m 13h30m

PANEL 5 Key

technologies in future wars

Which technologies will be crucial in future wars?

Will they serve directly individual combatants or unmanned platforms?

How redundant will technologies be to remain operational?

How crucial for victory will nano and biotechnologies be in future wars?

What role will technology play in combining speed and slowness in future wars?

Will individuals and small groups be capable of developing breakthrough technologies?

Will states & firms be able to maintain their key technologies secret, considering the degree of interdependence in current global value chains?

Will new technologies influence the way commanders, as well as soldiers, perceive their roles on the ground?

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Discussants

Luiz Tirre Freire – University of the Air Force, Brazil

Isabelle Sourbès-Verger – Centre Alexandre Koyré, France

13h30m 15h30m

Lunch (foreign participants will be taken to the bank)

15h30m 17h45m

PANEL 6 Implications for current

strategies and tactics

Will states adjust their strategies to the main drivers of future wars?

Will current military powers successfully adapt to future wars?

Will current structures that help settling conflicts through less violent means survive?

How to promote strategic coherence, reconciling ends, ways, and means in the long run, particularly in regard to personnel and investments?

How best to assure that decisions taken at highest levels will coherently shape behaviors downwards?

Are the Armed Forces prepared to adapt to new technologies and trends? Will the services keep their traditional roles?

How important will interoperability be in future wars? Which doctrines may help create genuine interoperability in the long run?

How will states balance large and flexible ground forces in the long run?

How should the Armed Forces adjust their training to the characteristics of future wars?

Will the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy become more similar to each other or will they stick to their traditional standards?

Which are the best theories and methods to evaluate current trends and the characteristics of future wars?

Discussants

Robert Farley – University of Kentucky, USA

Eric Thompson –Center for Naval Analyses, USA

Eduardo Migon – Meira Mattos Institute, Brazil

17h45m 18h30m

Closing remarks

Open discussions, future initiatives, and evaluation.