Modern warfare
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Modern warfare is a complex affair, involving the widespread use of highly advanced technology. As a term, it is normally taken as referring to conflicts involving one or more first world powers, within the modern electronic era. However, this is not to say that third world countries do not also engage in war, although they are more prone to the use of low-tech weaponry and guerilla tactics.
Nature of war
Aerial warfare
- Main article: Air warfare
Aerial warfare is one of the most efficient ways to destroy enemy combatants with minimal risk. Modern combat aircraft are very advanced technology, usually making use of onboard computers, including electronic targeting devices. Military aircraft are usually built to perform a specific role, such as bombing raids, air-to-air combat against other aircraft, or submarine hunting at sea. There is practically a different type of plane for every role. Some aircraft are capable of multiple roles, such as the F/A-18 Hornet, which is a fighter-bomber. This means the Hornet is capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. Another important aspect of aerial warfare is the helicopter. Helicopters have the important ability to take off and hover. This makes them nearly indispensable for close air support. Some helicopters also have special roles, such as submarine hunting, or rescue missions. There are some aircraft, such as the Harrier, which have the special ability to perform Vertical Take-Off and Landing, or VTOL.
Asymmetric warfare
- Main article: Asymmetric warfare
Asymmetric warfare is a military term describing warfare in which the two belligerents are mismatched in their military capabilities or their accustomed methods of engagement. In such a situation the militarily disadvantaged power must press its special advantages or effectively exploit its enemy's particular weaknesses if the disadvantaged power is to have any hope of prevailing.
Biological warfare
- Main article: Biological warfare
Biological warfare aka 'Bio warfare' aka 'Germ warfare' is the use of any harmful micro-organisms or biological products as weapons meant to incapacitate or kill an adversary. This would include the use of bacteria, viruses, toxins, etc., to disable or destroy people, domestic animals and agriculture.
Network-centric warfare
- Main article: Network-centric warfare
Network-centric warfare is essentially a new military doctrine made possible by the Information Age. Weapons platforms, sensors and command and control centers are being connected through high-speed communication networks. The doctrine is related to the Revolution in Military Affairs debate.
The overall network which enables this strategy in the United States military is called the Global Information Grid.
Chemical warfare
- Main article: Chemical warfare
Chemical warfare is the employment of the toxic or noxious properties of chemical substances to kill, injure or incapacitate. The various chemical agents are classified as Blister agent, Blood agent, Nerve agent, Pulmonary agent. The chemical actions could cause a variety of effects including but not limited too asphyxiation, poison and corrosion.
Electronic warfare
- Main article: Electronic warfare
Electronic warfare refers to mainly non-violent practices used chiefly to support other areas of warfare. The term was originally coined to encompass the interception and decoding of enemy radio communications, and the communications technologies and cryptography methods used to counter such interception, as well as jamming, radio stealth and other related areas. Over the latter years of the twentieth century and early years of the twenty-first century this has expanded to cover a wide range of areas: the use of, detection of and avoidance of detection by Radar and Sonar systems, computer hacking, Space warfare etc.
Fourth Generation War
- Main article: Fourth Generation War
Fourth Generation War (4GW) is a concept defined by William S. Lind and expanded by Thomas X. Hammes, used to describe the decentralized nature of modern warfare. The simplest definition includes any war in which one of the major participants is not a state but rather a violent ideological network. Fourth Generation wars are characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, soldier and civilian, peace and conflict, battlefield and safety. While this term is similar to terrorism and asymmetric warfare, it is much narrower. Classical insurgencies and the Indian Wars are examples of Pre-Modern War, not 4GW. Fourth Generation warfare usually has the insurgency group or non-state side trying to implement their own government or reestablish an old government over the one currently running the territory.
Ground warfare
- Main article: Ground warfare
Ground warfare involves three distinct types of combat units, Infantry, Armour and Artillery.
Infantry in modern times would entail Mechanized infantry and Airborne forces.
Armoured warfare in modern times involves a variety of Armoured fighting vehicles for the purpose of battle and support.
Artillery in contemporary times, is distinguished by its large calibre, firing an explosive shell or rocket, and being of such a size and weight as to require a specialized mount for firing and transport. Weapons covered by this term include "tube" artillery such as the howitzer, cannon, mortar, and field gun and "rocket" artillery. The term "artillery" has traditionally not been used for projectiles with internal guidance systems, even though some artillery units employ surface-to-surface missiles. Recent advances in terminal guidance systems for small munitions has allowed large calibre shells to be fitted with precision guidance fuses, blurring this distinction.
Guerrilla warfare
- Main article: Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is defined as fighting by groups of irregular troops (guerrillas) within areas occupied by the enemy. When guerrillas obey the laws of conventional warfare they are entitled, if captured, to be treated as ordinary prisoners of war; however, they are often executed by their captors. The tactics of guerrilla warfare stress deception and ambush, as opposed to mass confrontation, and succeed best in an irregular, rugged, terrain and with a sympathetic populace, whom guerrillas often seek to win over by propaganda, reform, and terrorism. Guerrilla warfare has played a significant role in modern history, especially when waged by Communist liberation movements in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.
Guerilla fighters gravitate toward weapons, which are easily accessible, low in technology and low in cost. A typical arsenal of the modern guerilla would include the AK-47, RPGs and Improvised explosive devices. The guerilla doctrines' main disadvantage is the inability to access more advanced equipment due to economic and accessibility issues. They must rely on small unit tactics involving hit and run. This situation leads to low intensity warfare and asymmetrical warfare.
Information warfare
- Main article: Information warfare
Information warfare is a kind of warfare where information and attacks on information and its system are used as a tool of warfare. Information warfare may include giving the enemy propaganda to convince them to give up, and denying them information that might lead to their resistance. Information warfare may also include feeding propaganda or even disinformation to one's own population, either to build support for the war effort or to counter enemy propaganda.
Information warfare may also mean a strategy for undermining an enemy's data and information systems, while defending and leveraging one's own information edge. This type of war has no front line; potential battlefields are anywhere networked systems can be accessed --oil and gas pipelines, electric power grids, telephone switching networks, etc.
Information warfare can take countless forms: trains and planes can be misrouted and caused to collide, stock exchanges can be sabotaged by electronic "sniffers" which disrupt international fund-transfer networks, and the signals of television and radio stations can be jammed and taken over and used for a misinformation campaign.
During the Gulf War, Dutch crackers stole information about U.S. troop movements from U.S. Defense Department computers and tried to sell it to the Iraqis, who thought it was a hoax and turned it down. In January 1999, U.S. Air Intelligence computers were hit by a coordinated attack, part of which appeared to come from Russian cracking.
Naval warfare
- Main article: Naval warfare
Naval warfare takes place on the high seas (blue water navy). Usually, only large, powerful nations have competent blue water or deep water navies. Modern navies primarily use aircraft carriers, submarines, frigates, and destroyers for combat. This provides a versatile array of attacks, capable of hitting ground targets, air targets, or other seafaring vessels. Most modern navies also have a large air support contingent, deployed from aircraft carriers. In World War Two, small craft (motor torpedo boats variously called PT boats, MTBs, MGBs, Schnellbooten, or MAS-boats) fought near shore. This developed in the Vietnam War into riverine warfare (brown water navy), in intertidal and river areas. Irregular warfare makes this sort of combat more likely in the future.
Nuclear warfare
- Main article: Nuclear war
Nuclear war is when nuclear weapons are used.
In general, the discussion can be broken down further into subgroups. In the limited nuclear war, sometimes attack or exchange, when only small numbers of weapons are used in a tactical exchange aimed primarily at opposing military forces. In a full-scale nuclear war large numbers of weapons are used in an attack aimed at an entire country with both military and civilian targets being considered as legitimate targets.
Psychological warfare
- Main article: Psychological warfare
Psychological warfare is the planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives.
Space warfare
- Main article: Space warfare
Space warfare is warfare that occurs outside the Earth's atmosphere. The weapons would include Orbital weaponry and Space weapons. High value outer space targets would include satellites and weapon platforms.
Total war
- Main article: Total war
Total war is a 20th century term to describe a war in which countries or nations use all of their resources to destroy another organized country's or nation's ability to engage in war. The practice of total war has been in use for centuries, but it was only in the middle to late nineteenth century that total war was recognized as a separate class of warfare.
The most identifiable consequence of total war in modern times has been the inclusion of civilians and civilian infrastructure as targets in destroying a country's ability to engage in war. The targeting of civilians developed from two distinct theories. The first theory was that if enough civilians were killed, factories could not function. The second theory was that if civilians were killed, the country would be so demoralized that it would have no ability to wage further war.
Modern wars
Lists
- Main article: List of wars
Major Modern Wars
- 1946 Vietnam War
- 1948 Arab-Israeli War
- 1950 Korean War
- 1956 Suez War
- 1967 Six Day War
- 1970 War of Attrition
- 1973 Yom Kippur War
- 1979 Soviet war in Afghanistan
- 1982 Lebanon War
- 1982 Falklands War
- 1990 Gulf War
- 1993 Oslo War
- 1998 Kosovo War
- 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
- 2001 War on Terrorism
- 2003 Iraq Warno:Moderne krigføring
