Understanding modern war

Every war, ancient to modern, has always had the same set of targets: enemy forces, infrastructure, economy, population and leadership. Almost in the same order. The coup de grace is making the enemy leadership submit to the will of the victor. Not all wars had to go through the entire gambit of neutralising each target set, many gave in simply when someone threatened a war, or when the forces were defeated and dissolved, or when enough had been lost and broken and the economy melted. Wars rarely reached populations in the manner of their absolute elimination, though massacres were frequent. The kings or leaders normally surrendered much before that moment.

Modern conflict is measured to the purpose – coercive, punitive, or retributive. More specialised lexicon further explains the terms in strategic objective or purpose, orientation, and the desired end-state. Essentially the purpose of war has always been the same: to make an enemy conform to your will, or to destroy it to annihilate it, or a combination of something in between. What has changed over time then? Answer: the tools of war. And that gives various forms to warfare – conventional, unconventional, sub-national, regular, irregular and a litany as you please. The various generations of war identify the tools of war used in particular eras and the changing nature of warfare. Changing tools alter the manner of prosecution of war.

When the tools of war were limited in reach and effect, it needed a longer time and greater intensity in prosecution before certain interim objectives were achieved. Reach and effect of the tools used in war therefore have always been critical to the nature of war. The first line of defensive forces needed to be breached to reach the follow-on forces in depth. Behind the follow-on forces were the riches of value to a people and the state. This is where the economy and population centers were lain. Typically these led to the capital and the King where formalities of surrender were undertaken. This was a typical out-to-in sequential nature of war restricted by the tools and the layout of the battlefield. Airpower brought in the ability to overfly each of these hurdles and reach depths even as forces at the outer periphery were still being engaged. This changed the nature, the duration and the sequential restrictions of war. The 1990 Gulf War was famously won in the first 100 hours even as land forces took 100 days to reach Baghdad.

A modern theorist and strategist, John Warden, developed the notion of ‘Parallel’ war in 1989. He envisaged simultaneous engagement of all target sets enabled by the unrestricted reach of airpower and technology. This brought infrastructure, economy, population and leadership into the crosshairs as early as a conventional war began.

A bit of detail will help explain a target system better. Leadership is not only the person of the leader or his circle of close aides but also the information – factual, digital, anecdotal, informational – which helps make key decisions. If this data is corrupted or falsified through targeted intervention, it can malign the process and force erroneous decision-making. Similarly are the means moving this data through nodes and servers which when hacked and manipulated with false information will force erroneous decisions. Direct attack if possible of towers of communication by saboteurs and fifth columnists or airborne attack or electronic-warfare platforms can simply deny the transmission of information. Together these constitute leadership and the affiliated command and control as a target system. Interference anywhere can slow, deny, mislead, falsify and accrue wrong decisions with disastrous consequences for a side.

Ditto the population. From wide-scale massacres to occupation and subjugation delivered a population to the victor. Fifth columnists and saboteurs either destroyed infrastructure or mongered rumours and disinformation to sow dissent or disaffection among the masses. Rumours of an impending defeat, a major military loss, receding forces, the King thinking of giving up and abdicating was how a people could be demoralised into submission. It spread with the word of mouth and aimed to break the will of the people even before their forces had lost. If ever there was a complexity in scheme it was in reaching the people with the intended malfeasance.

Enter the age of Information Technology and its universal reach. It enabled instant reach to intended recipients. Its universal spread enabled universal reach. Its pervasive use provided pervasive opportunity to deliver the message or misinform, misguide and falsify. No warplanes were required nor a sequential engagement of enemy forces spread over hundreds of miles in depth to reach the people. Its reach was instant. That is when information began to be manipulated to achieve nefarious purpose. Information became a tool of leaders or groups or change agents, good or bad, to impact the minds of the unsuspecting populace. Nations began using it as a tool of information war and psychological conditioning of a people. It also had a name – Psychological Operations (Psy-Ops). Everyone potentially was either a fifth columnist or an intended target of it. This was the advent of the fifth generation warfare.

Information operations aim at sowing doubts about a government or its leadership or creating fissures between the state and its people, or deepening the existing fault-lines on the basis of religious sects, economic disparity, provincial or nationalist disenchantment, or institutional tiff by falsifying information and instituting fake news. These are clothed in partial truth to appear credible or reinforce perceptions. Where perceptions already exist these deepen divisions creating fissures and fractures in a society. Smartphones with instant digital reach are literally a loaded weapon fused to explode the minds that will receive a message ranging from entirely innocuous and playful to outright injurious and destructive. What earlier needed a long war to access the intended population to weaken its resolve is now at the fingertips of keyboard warriors. This war is perpetual, pervasive and prevalent.

When all sets of targets or most are under assault in parallel with tools relevant to the purpose, it makes for a hybrid war. When tools of psychological subversion are used by the enemy to impact a society and sow divisions or hate or venom within segments or against targeted institutions, it is the fifth generation war. Unsuspected and unimpeded reach of the enemy to the targeted segments makes it the most effective form of war. Defence against it is as complex as the make-up of a society is. Freedoms and liberties compete against a government’s needs to monitor, surveil to keep societies and states safe from malignant intentions even as it must ensure provision of civil liberties and access to information. Information wars are far more technical and interleaving and need an informed nation to survive the malice that a belligerent will target at them. Technical surveillance, timely intervention and a supportive, informed society willing to sacrifice minor curbs can help defend in a modern war where the enemy is subtle in his ways but deadlier than imagined. He is out to win without firing a shot. We need to know the war we are in.