Storm Proofing: Preparing Armies for a Future War

“Storm Proofing offers a nuanced look at the current state of select Western European preparedness for future war. While it draws on some futurist speculation, it is rooted in solid research which provides a useful take on what can be done to safeguard the future of nations too long removed from the threat of war that until recently have shown little concern for the potential threats which are no longer merely existential.” – The NYMAS Review

The world is less safe than it has been for more than half a century - there is a storm coming.

The first duty of any nation's government is to secure the safety of its people, and therefore the first duty of any nation's army is to be ready to fight and win the nation's wars. It would be both naive and irresponsible to assume that anyone can accurately predict the nature, scale or timing of the security problems that are approaching, and war has been (mercifully) distant from the capitals of western officialdom. Economic circumstance combined with social demands have meant that increasingly little resource has found its way into nations' security preparations. But there are too many indicators and warnings that simply can no longer be ignored.

So, what is being done to be ready for the coming storm?

Storm Proofing offers the collected thoughts of fifteen experts - respected practitioners and academics from the UK, US and Europe. They consider what is being done, whether that is sufficient, and how we might think differently about our preparations for Twenty-first Century war on land. This is not a book about numbers of troops and equipment, it is rather more human than that. So, it is about how we approach war, how armies might structure themselves and align themselves to modern contexts, how soldiers should think and might feel and, how all of those very human things relate to the march of technology and artificial intelligence.

Andrew Sharpe left the British Army as a Major General. His service included operational commands across the globe. His final posts included Assistant Chief of Defence Staff for Concepts and Doctrine, and running the Chief of Defence Staff's Strategic advisory Panel. He holds an MA in International Studies from KCL and a PhD from Trinity College Cambridge in Strategic Leadership. He is the Director of the CHACR.

Andrew Stewart is a Senior Lecturer within the Defence Studies Department, King's College London, the academic component of the United Kingdom's Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC). Currently he is the Land Historian supporting the Higher Com

MATTHIAS STROHN, MSt (Oxon), DPhil (Oxon), FRHistS, is head of historical analysis at the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research and the British Army’s strategic think tank, visiting professor of military studies at the University of Buckingham, and a member of the academic faculty at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Matthias was educated at the universities of Münster (Germany) and Oxford. He holds a commission in the German Army and is a member of the military attaché reserve. He deployed to Iraq (with the British Army) and Afghanistan (with both the British Army and the German Bundeswehr). Matthias was awarded the highest German military decoration, the ‘Ehrenkreuz der Bundeswehr in Gold,’ and has published widely on 20th-century German and European military history; he has authored and edited over 20 books and numerous articles.