Kriegsbilder und Kriegserwartungen: Nachdenken über die Konflikte der Zukunft
From October 27th to 29th, 2026, the Bundeswehr Centre of Military History and Social Sciences (ZMSBw), in cooperation with the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS), will hold its 65th International Conference on Military History (ITMG) in Berlin. Against the backdrop of the fundamentally changed security policy situation in the world, this year’s conference is entitled: “Images of War and Expectations of War: Past and Imagined Futures of ‘Future War( fare)‘”.
On Day 2 of the conference, October 28, HCSS Director of Research Dr. Tim Sweijs will give a Keynote Address followed by a discussion on “The Use and (f)Utility of Imagining Future War”, moderated by Prof. Dr. Dr. Alaric Searl, Senior Scientist and Head of the Research Department at the Bundeswehr Centre for Military History and Social Sciences, Potsdam.
About the Conference
After the end of the Cold War, it quickly became clear that the hoped-for “peace dividend” had failed to materialize: power-politically motivated interstate wars are still on the global political agenda.
However, this warfare is no longer conducted in a purely conventional manner. Under the heading of “hybrid warfare,” numerous variations of attacks, some military and some non-kinetic, can be found. These include the agitational and practical exploitation of policy areas such as migration, the dissemination of narratives that threaten democracy without a factual basis, as well as sabotage attacks on civilian infrastructure and the civilian population, and even state-ordered assassinations of undesirable individuals abroad. Finally, there is a resurgence of nuclear thinking, which on the one hand stands in the tradition of the Cold War, and on the other hand, as a threat, is itself part of hybrid warfare.
The return of interstate warfare to Europe provides an opportunity to examine, historicize, and shed light on current thought patterns regarding war, warfare, and the expectation of war. With the ITMG 2026, the Bundeswehr’s Center for Military History and Social Sciences is therefore addressing the academic discussions on war and warfare of the future in an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective.
Source: ZMSBw, translated with AI
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