Today at Robertson House, within the grounds of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the Army’s Future Force Development Branch launched a three-day symposium entitled ‘Future Land Challenges’.
The Future Land Challenges Conference contributes to the continual development of the British Army’s Agile Warrior programme, which examines the current and emerging threats, trends and opportunities in order to identify innovative capabilities and creative solutions to challenges facing land forces in the future.
In an era of persistent competition, the UK faces threats from resurgent and developing powers, state and non-state actors and a continuing threat from violent extremism; a dynamic and fluid security context that will most certainly be affected by climatic changes. We move from an Industrial to an Information Age with a pace of technological change that is rapidly broadening and deepening the threat spectrum; big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence will further complicate the competition.
The British Army must evolve rapidly to address this new reality. To realise this philosophy, we must start to imagine the soldier as a platform and find new approaches to fight and win the nation’s battles, both in the old domains and in the new. Only an Army that is agile, fast, and innovative, will meet the demands of this fast-changing, increasingly competitive world.