Often overlooked in the exploration of future wars is what happens when conflicts end? How will veterans reintegrate back into American society? How will warzone civilians return to a peacetime existence? What technological genies will need to be put back in their bottles? Future wars will feature new technologies that will shape battlefields and combatants, yet enduring challenges about the relationship between warriors and civilians will only become more complex as the pace of change accelerates. Getting ahead of those changes, and having a conversation about the challenges that future veterans, civilians, and others will face, is crucial for the country.

With that in mind, the Art of Future Warfare project and Words After War will host a discussion entitled After the War: Veterans and Post-Conflict Issues of the Future at the Atlantic Council on November 12, the day after Veterans’ Day, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. It will feature a keynote address by Dr. Linda Spoonster Schwartz, the Department of Veterans Affairs Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning. After her address, she will join a panel of three prominent authors thinking through this problem. They are Elliot Ackerman, author of Green on Blue; Maxwell Neely Cohen, author of Echo of the Boom; and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of Ashley’s War.

The winner of the project’s “After the War” short story contest theme will also be announced at the event.

At the same time, the project will launch its first short-story anthology, War Stories From The Future. The collection features the project’s contest-winning fiction and art, new short stories from authors Madeline Ashby, Mat Burrows, August Cole, Ken Liu and Jamie Metzl, as well as fiction from Linda Nagata and David Brin.

The Art of Future Warfare project, housed in the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, aims to create a world in which artists—writers, illustrators, directors, videographers, and others— and creativity enjoy a valued place in the defense establishment’s planning and preparation for the future of warfare and conflict.
 

Follow the conversation on Twitter at @ACScowcroft using #ACFutureWar.

Date: November 12, 2015
Time: 9:30 - 11:00 a.m.