The Sir John Hackett Centre for Land Warfare Studies examines how land warfare is changing now and what armies must do to adapt. Its focus is the contemporary and future battlefield: how ground forces fight, and how they are designed, equipped, generated and sustained for wars that may come at short notice. It brings together academics, military practitioners and policy-makers to produce research that informs current decisions in Defence.

The character of land warfare is changing faster than at any point in a generation. In Ukraine, mass, attrition and industrial capacity have returned to the centre of military thinking, while cheap uncrewed systems, pervasive sensing, electronic warfare and long-range precision fires have made the battlefield more transparent and more lethal than ever before. In Gaza, dense urban and subterranean terrain has tested the limits of manoeuvre, protection and the law of armed conflict. For the British Army and its NATO allies, these are not abstract questions: they bear directly on force design, readiness, mobilisation and the credibility of deterrence on the Alliance’s eastern flank.

The Centre operates within the School of Security Studies at King’s College London and draws on members from the Departments of Defence Studies and War Studies. Through the Defence Studies Department’s role at the Defence Academy, Shrivenham, it has direct and sustained access to the officers who will lead the Army through this period of change.

Main research themes

• The transparent battlefield: drones, autonomy, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and the contest between sensing and concealment.
• Mass, attrition and sustainment: force generation, reserves, mobilisation, stockpiles and the defence industrial base.
• Land in the multi-domain fight: how land forces integrate with air, maritime, space, cyber and information effects, and with allies.
• The human dimension: command, leadership, training and education for soldiers operating under constant observation and threat.
• Complex terrain: urban and subterranean operations, civilian protection and the law of armed conflict.

Aims

The Centre aims to:

• Produce timely, policy-relevant research on contemporary and future land warfare for the British Army, wider Defence, allied and international audiences.
• Offer rapid, evidence-based commentary and analysis on current conflicts.
• Foster collaboration between academia, the British Armed Forces and policy-makers, and support greater understanding of the role of armies, particularly the British Army.
• Provide a forum for debate through regular seminars, workshops and high-profile lectures.
• Use battlefield studies and staff rides to test contemporary operational problems on the ground.
• Develop the next generation of scholars of land warfare.

Looking to the Future

The Centre is committed to bringing on doctoral students and early career researchers (ECRs) working on land warfare, including serving officers pursuing research alongside their careers. It will provide them with:

• A research home and network across the School of Security Studies.
• Opportunities to present work in progress at seminars and to chair and organise events.
• Mentoring from senior academics and experienced military practitioners.
• Routes to publication, including Centre research papers and co-authored work with established members.
• Access to practitioner audiences across Defence, so that their research reaches those who can use it.

In this way, the Centre aims to build a sustainable community of land warfare scholarship that will outlast the current conflicts it studies.

About Sir John Hackett

General Sir John Winthrop Hackett (1910-1997) had a distinguished military and academic career. He fought in North Africa and commanded a brigade at Arnhem during the Second World War. Pursuing an army career post-war, he eventually rose to the command of the British Army of the Rhine.

From 1968-1975 he served as the Principal of King’s College London. He also became a noted author, publishing the acclaimed The Third World War: August 1985. As a distinguished soldier, academic administrator and author, Sir John’s career represents the fusion and synergy of thinking about Land Warfare between military practitioners and academics we aim to achieve with the Centre for Land Warfare Studies.

Image credit: General Sir John Winthrop Hackett (1910–1997), Oosterbeek, September 1945. Nationaal Archief, the Netherlands, via Wikimedia Commons. CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.