Defence challenges and future conflict focus of Abu Dhabi conference

The Leaders Conference: War in the 21st Century was organised by the Ministry of Defence

A two-day conference focused on 
security and defence challenges as well as future regional and global conflicts started in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
The Leaders Conference: War in the 21st Century, organised by the Ministry of Defence, aims to address strategic issues including the changing character of war in the 21st Century, governmental strategies needed to confront threats and challenges and the importance of strategic speech.

It kicked off on Sunday at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research and the Rabdan Academy in the capital.
"A number of factors are now rapidly overlapping and have a complicated and grave strategic impact," said Mohammed Al Bowardi, Minister of State for Defence Affairs. "Wars of the future now target world communities with non-military tools. All of these wars are being waged in a non-centralised way and through allies that include states, groups and armed organisations as well as state armies and companies that support criminal networks that have their own subversive impact."

Read more: Call for joint Arab defence forces in war against terror

He spoke of the so-called "black economy," which is now dominating the world economy and works in a non-traditional way, making it difficult to identify. "There are now new concepts for non-traditional wars, like hybrid wars, and their scope has expanded to include economic and financial, cyber and information wars as well as environmental and psychological," he said. "These new concepts of war target strategic capabilities and are meant to destroy critical infrastructure and national resources."
He said the event was organised out of the need to ensure an integrated position on security and strategy.