Future of War series: David Kilcullen and Ian Langford: the Future of Australia's Defence Strategy and the Indo-Pacific

Law and the Future of War

Recorded in early September 2023, this episode continues our futures mini-series, where we speak with Dr Ian Langford and Professor David Killcullen about the future of war in the Indo-Pacific region. In this episode we will be getting a download on what the change in geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific means for Australia, and how that might impact choices relating to technology, acquisitions and their subsequent use and regulation; as well as discussing what the future of proxy warfare and modern counterinsurgency might look like.
Dr Ian Langford, DSC and Bars, is a member of a member of UNSW’s Future Operations Research Group and is a strategic adviser with UBH Group, a leading Sovereign Information Domain (SID) company. Dr Langford is a regular contributor to the Australian Army Research Centre, and in addition to being a Distinguished Graduate of the United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College and the School of Advanced Warfighting, he has recently retired from the Australian Army as a Brigadier where he filled multiple senior roles including – relevant to our discussion today – as the Army’s Director General of Future Land Warfare and the Head of Land Capability.

Dr David Kilcullen is a former soldier and diplomat, and a scholar of guerrilla warfare, terrorism, urbanisation and the future of conflict, who served 25 years for the Australian and United States governments. During the Iraq War, he served in Baghdad as a member of the Joint Strategic Assessment Team, then as Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor, Multi-National Force Iraq in 2007, before becoming Special Advisor for Counterinsurgency to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on counterinsurgency; and in addition to holding senior academic roles across a number of institutions, he has written six books on counterinsurgency.
Additional resources:
- Australian Defence Strategic Review
- USMC Stand-In Force Concept
- UK Future Commando Force Concept