Bringing together military leaders and specialists in strategy, defence, security and technology, the workshop examined the lessons emerging from the Russia-Ukraine war since February 2022, the war in Gaza since October 2023, and the successive rounds of military confrontation involving Iran, Israel and the United States since June 2025.
Rather than treating these conflicts as separate cases, participants sought to identify the changes appearing across different theatres and to distinguish between innovations specific to particular battlefields and more fundamental shifts likely to shape future wars.
The workshop, titled “From Battlefields to the Warfare System: What Lessons Can Be Learned from Contemporary Wars?”, was organised against a regional and international strategic environment in which military experience is moving between theatres with unusual speed. Technologies and tactics demonstrated in one conflict can now be observed, tested and adapted elsewhere within a short period, while conventional military operations have become increasingly intertwined with cyber capabilities, information warfare, economic pressure and civilian technological infrastructure.
This accelerating exchange of battlefield experience formed one of the central themes of the discussions. Participants examined how new technologies can initially provide a substantial operational advantage, only for that advantage to diminish as adversaries develop countermeasures and modify their own tactics. The capacity to learn, adapt and institutionalise lessons during a conflict has consequently become an increasingly important element of military effectiveness.
Across three working sessions, the workshop addressed what has actually changed in the nature and conduct of war, which elements have remained constant, what tactical and strategic lessons can be drawn from current conflicts, and how those lessons could influence military planning for conflicts whose characteristics cannot yet be fully anticipated. Research papers presented by military, strategic and technical specialists ranged from broad assessments of changes in warfare to specialised examinations of land, air and naval operations and the technological systems supporting them.
The discussions challenged the assumption that technological innovation has produced an entirely new form of warfare. Despite major changes in weapons, surveillance, communications and operational tempo, participants stressed that political objectives, leadership, geography, national will and the capacity to sustain a prolonged conflict continue to determine strategic outcomes. Recent wars may therefore be understood less as evidence that the fundamental nature of war has disappeared than as demonstrations of how rapidly the relationship between its enduring principles and its changing instruments is being reorganised.
This distinction is particularly important when assessing the role of advanced technology. Precision weapons, drones, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and sophisticated surveillance systems can expand the range and effectiveness of military operations, yet technological superiority does not automatically produce strategic success. The ability to destroy targets or prevail in individual engagements remains different from the ability to achieve a defined political objective, particularly when a conflict lasts longer than anticipated and begins to consume military, economic and societal resources.
The experience of contemporary wars has consequently returned questions of endurance to the centre of strategic planning. Ammunition stocks, industrial production, supply chains, infrastructure, economic resilience and the capacity of institutions and societies to absorb sustained pressure can become as consequential as the performance of particular weapons systems. A state prepared for an intense but short confrontation may face a fundamentally different strategic challenge once a war develops into a prolonged contest of resources, adaptation and political will.
Participants also devoted considerable attention to the growing overlap between the military and civilian spheres. Communications networks, energy systems, technological platforms, industrial facilities, transportation infrastructure and other civilian assets increasingly contribute directly or indirectly to military operations. The distinction between civilian and military capacity has therefore become more complicated, affecting military preparedness, the protection of critical infrastructure, target assessment and the broader resilience of the state.
The workshop concluded that the civilian component of national power now carries greater weight throughout the entire cycle of conflict: in preparing for war, sustaining military operations and determining the ability of the state to withstand their economic and social consequences. Building military readiness increasingly requires attention to the resilience of the wider national system rather than the capabilities of the armed forces alone.
A similar convergence is taking place among the instruments through which states exercise power. Contemporary conflicts combine conventional and unconventional military operations with cyber activity, psychological and information warfare, economic pressure and technological competition. These instruments increasingly operate simultaneously, making the ability to integrate them around a coherent strategic objective a central requirement of modern conflict.
The workshop included Major General Staff Dr Ashraf Fares and Major General Staff Dr Mohamed Zaki El-Alfy, advisers at the Military Academy for Postgraduate and Strategic Studies. The Armed Forces Strategic Studies Centre was represented by its head, Brigadier General Dr Mourad Moatasem, and centre adviser Major General Dr Osama Ibrahim. Representatives of the Ministry of Defence and other relevant bodies also took part, alongside specialists in defence, security and technology.
The range of participants allowed the discussions to move from lessons concerning individual military branches and technologies towards the larger question of how states should understand warfare in an environment characterised by rapid technological change and strategic uncertainty. Participants considered whether developments visible in current conflicts are temporary responses to particular circumstances or indicators of deeper transformations that will influence the structure and conduct of future wars.
Among the principal conclusions was that the decisive advantage in future conflicts may increasingly depend on the ability to learn faster than an adversary. Technological superiority remains important, but its value can erode rapidly once an opponent develops ways to counter it. Military institutions therefore need not only advanced capabilities but also mechanisms capable of absorbing operational experience, revising assumptions and adapting doctrine and tactics while conflict is underway.
The experience of recent wars also underlines the difference between military achievement and strategic victory. Tactical superiority can alter the balance on a battlefield without necessarily resolving the political conflict behind it, while the capacity to inflict extensive damage does not in itself determine the political settlement that follows. Clear and attainable objectives, the integration of different instruments of national power and the resources required to sustain a prolonged confrontation remain essential to converting military performance into strategic results.
The broader lesson emerging from the workshop was therefore not that states can identify with certainty the weapons or tactics that will dominate the next war. Current conflicts instead demonstrate the risks of preparing for future warfare by reproducing the experience of the most recent battlefield. The more durable requirement is to build military and national institutions capable of recognising change early, learning from unfamiliar conditions and adapting before an adversary turns a temporary advantage into a lasting one.
In that sense, contemporary wars have altered many of the means through which force is exercised without eliminating the enduring questions surrounding its purpose. Technology can make military power faster, more precise and more extensive, but it cannot by itself define political objectives, guarantee endurance or determine the behaviour of an adversary. The central challenge for strategic planners is therefore not simply how to fight the next war with the weapons available today, but how to prepare for a conflict whose rules may only become clear once it has already begun.
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