THE NEXT WORLD WAR
The next world war will not look like the last one. No beaches stormed, no trenches dug. Instead, imagine soldiers rewired with bionic enhancements, drone swarms replacing battalions, satellites weaponised, viruses engineered, and misinformation deployed as a first strike. In this future, the battlespace has no edges and the rules, written for a world that no longer exists, have no place.
What happens when the soldier is no longer fully human, the weapon is invisible, and the Geneva Conventions were written before any of this was possible?
Amy Hestermann-Crane
Amy Hestermann-Crane CSC is an ethics researcher of the International Space Ethics Collaborative Research Team and a flight sergeant currently serving as an analyst in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). In 2020, Amy became the first enlisted RAAF space analyst within the Australian Space Operations Centre. She was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross for her efforts in 2023. Amy has also served on the ACT Ministerial Advisory Council for Veterans and Their Families and the RAAF Women’s Integrated Networking Group where she has focused on influencing policies that improved veteran and family life within the ACT, promoted and provided educational opportunities, mentoring, and encouraged RAAF and broader community engagement.
Rain Liivoja
Rain Liivoja is an international lawyer whose work focuses primarily on military uses of science and technology. He has taught, written and consulted on general international law, the law of armed conflict, arms control law and human rights law. He is a Professor at the University of Queensland and a Director of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Law and Security.
Paul Symon
Paul Symon was the 12th Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (2017-2022), Australia’s foreign intelligence service. Prior to 2016, Paul served in the Australian Army, attaining the rank of Major General. He has served on operations in the Middle East, in Timor Leste and in the Solomon Islands. He was appointed Deputy Chief of the Army in 2009 and Director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation in 2011. He specialises in a wide range of geopolitical and national security issues.
Ed Coper
Ed Coper is a pioneer of politics in the digital age, and the author of Angertainment: How Social Media Outrage Ruined Everything and Facts and Other Lies: Welcome to the Disinformation Age. He has been behind the scenes of many of the last two decades’ most prominent social movements, and has advised high-profile changemakers from Malala to Greta. Ed founded the New York-based Center for Impact Communications and was a key strategist behind Australia’s historic ‘Teal’ movement.
We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation - the custodians of the country on which we meet - and acknowledge their Elders, past and present.
The views and opinions expressed by the Festival participants are not necessarily the views of The Ethics Centre and our partners.