Rethinking Warfare in the 21st Century: The Influence and Effects of the Politics, Information and Communication Mix

ISBN-13: 9781009355230 / Angielski

Iulian Chifu; Greg Simons

Opis

This book seeks to critically review and evaluate the changes and consistencies in how warfare is interpreted and represented by academics, mass media outlets and political actors in the 21st century. The authors suggest that it is essential to understand the evolution and transformation of contemporary warfare's conceptualisation and practice in order to make sense of the current global geopolitical transformations that are in process, from a unipolar to multipolar global order. They therefore examine the various key actors in international relations from conceptual, theoretical and empirical perspectives through thematic chapters that demonstrate the increasingly central role played by intangible factors in the representation and management of contemporary armed conflict. The book stresses the need to reflect and rethink the potentially highly problematic trajectory of the global community within the framework of 21st century warfare's political and informational influence and effects.

Recenzje

'Iulian Chifu and Greg Simons have put together a critical review of the current state of politics, information and knowledge within the context of contemporary warfare. This is done simultaneously from complementary theoretical and empirical points of view, posing searching research questions in the introduction and answering them in the conclusion, bringing together a vast amount of information that then transforms into clear and coherent lessons. The conclusions are as revealing and illustrative as they are concerning.' Valentin Yakushik, Professor of Political Science, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics and Executive-in-Residence Fellow, Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Spis treści

1. Introduction: motivation, purpose and structure of the book; 2. Informational warfare: a theoretical approach; 3. Understanding political and intangible elements in modern wars; 4. The fourth generation of informational warfare; 5. The culture and language of contemporary armed conflict; 6. Different shades of information and communication in armed conflict: white, grey and black; 7. The effects of technological evolution and social media on the individual, society and politics; 8. Western hybrid warfare: crisis and subversion in regime change; 9. Geopolitics in the age of social media: the struggle for influence on Ukraine; 10. The Ukrainian and Syrian conflicts: civil wars or geopolitical Shatterbelts?; 11. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on man, society, politics and international relations: the role of social media and informational warfare; 12. Conclusions: summing up the knowledge and answering the questions.