The Nature and Content of a New-Generation War

1 The Nature and Contentof a New-Generation WarCol. CHEKINOV (Res.),Doctor of Technical SciencesLt. Gen. BOGDANOV (Ret.),Doctor of military authors make an analysis of print publications put out bythe russian Ministry of defense and other sources devoted to the country ssecurity today and offer an insight into the Nature and Content of a new-gen-eration :mobile joint forces, age of high-tech warfare, informationsuperiority, information and psychological warfare, reconnaissance and sub-versive home-ground military experts writing in print publications put out thisyear by the russian defense Ministry and elsewhere in the national press offertheir own visions of how this country can be made secure militarily, the kind offuture warfare they call a New-Generation war, and, perhaps the most puzzlingissue, what the russian Armed Forces makeup must be.

2 Many of them insist thata future war will in no way look like wars of the past century, and even warsfought only recently. some of them are justified in their views that the russianArmed Forces weapons system does not fit completely the role it will have toplay in future wars and that, for this reason, it must be restructured and its make-up a standout among them all is an article by the Chief of the russianArmed Forces general staff who writes that .. the rules of war themselveshave changed significantly. nonmilitary options have come to play a greater rolein achieving political and strategic goals and, in some situations, are greatly supe-rior to the power of weapons.

3 The role of mobile joint forces operating in anintegrated reconnaissance and information environment is risingthrough theuse of new opportunities now available to control and logistic systems. new infor-mation technologies have reduced appreciably the distance physical, temporal,and informational between the troops and their superiors. remote engagementMilitAry thought12of the enemy at arm s length is turning into the principal tactic to achieve thegoals of a combat action or an operation. Adversary targets are now attacked atany point of enemy territory. differences between strategic, operational, and tac-tical actions, and between offense and defense are leveling off.

4 High-precisionweapons are used on a growing scale. Weapons based on new physical princi-ples and robot-controlled systems are going into service in large quantities. 2 Fitting well into this context is an article by Army general gareyev,president of the Academy of military sciences, who writes: nations havealways struggled with one another with the use of armed forces and warfarecapabilities, including intelligence and counterintelligence, deception and strata-gems, disinformation, and all other refined and devious stratagems the adver-saries could think up. it has always been held that any confrontation withoutresort to arms is struggle and pursuit of policies by physical force and armed vio-lence is war.

5 Some of our .. philosophers, though, maintain that all nonmilitarypractices are a contemporary development and suggest, on this assumption, thatfollowing these practices is nothing short of war. gorbachov s article titled Cyberwar is Already on 4merits specialmention here. the author believes that rapid development of information tech-nologies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and widespread use of informa-tion in society and the leading countries armed forces have changed significantlythe Nature , methods, and techniques used by state and government political andeconomic agencies, affected social relationships and the Nature , methods, and tech-niques of military operations, and created new information threats and reference to publications by military experts in the military Thoughtjournal, gorbachov argues that the latest information technologies, modernweapons and equipment.

6 And the potentialities of intelligence and electronic war-fare technologies, automated control systems, and communications facilities havehad a strong effect on troops employment options and conduct of military opera-tions in our day. the new Content and character of armed warfare derive today fromthe network-centric environment in which military operations are controlled information and electronically guided fire operations (transformed eW and com-puter network operations) are conducted along with aerospace operations, and airforce operations that follow a systemic pattern. No goal will be achieved in futurewars unless one belligerent gains information superiority over the of gorbachov s statements that has not escaped our attentionis that the growing significance of struggle for information superiority makesemployment of joint forces specific in many ways.

7 Formerly fought in a three-dimensional environment, armed struggle has expanded from the ground, sea,and aerospace into an entirely new environment information. the outcome ofa war and, accordingly, the decisive role of any one of these environments willdepend on the developments in the battlespace and the belligerents the mid-1990s, russian military experts displayed enormous interest inseveral points argued by slipchenko in his famous book on sixth-generationThe Nature and Content of a New-Generation War13wars. the main objective of sixth- generation wars, the researcher writes, is to destroy the enemy s economic potential .., and keeping the man outside of thebattlespace is what makes future wars and armed struggle cardinally different.

8 5An analysis of publications by russian military experts writing on nationalsecurity and the character and Content of New-Generation warfare, and the expe-rience of military conflicts of the last few decades, including those associatedwith the Arab spring revolutions in north Africa and the Middle east, offerenough evidence that the early 21st century is really the beginning of a new military age for humanity an age of high-tech view is shared by Vice premier dmitry rogozin who writes that .. sobig a country is difficult to defend with what it has now if traditional approach-es are taken to developing weapons and military and specialized equipment.

9 Newapproaches have to be applied robotics, automated weapon control systems,effective intelligence and communication systems, and much else besides. 6We know from the history of wars and military art that new weapons andspecialized and general-purpose military equipment have always had a signifi-cant impact on the Content of armed struggle in wars and military conflicts and,in the first place, on the need to address new operational tasks. Attainment ofoperational objectives in New-Generation warfare will be influenced significant-ly by efficient new military technologies and weapons based on new physicalprinciples. new weapons that are expected to be developed will have a greaterkilling power, range, accuracy, and speed, and intelligence, reconnaissance, con-trol, communications, and information warfare will have greater to the battlespace, they will alter radically the character and Content ofarmed struggle in New-Generation fire strikes against seats of national and military power, and alsomilitary and industrial objectives by all arms of the service, and employment ofmilitary space-based system, electronic warfare forces and weapons, electro-magnetic, information, infrasound, and psychotronic effects.

10 Corrosive chemicaland biological formulations in New-Generation wars will erode, to the greatestextent possible, the capabilities of the adversary s troops and civilian populationto is also expected that untraditional forms of armed struggle willbe used to cause earthquakes, typhoons, and heavy rainfall lasting for a timelong enoughto damage the economy and aggravate the sociopsychological cli-mate in the warring effects will certainly modify the character of tactical, operational, andstrategic actions and give rise to new, and alter the Content of existing, operationson every scale. new forms and methods of employing joint forces in operationsand engagements will forms and methods of combat were first used by the armed forcedin the early 1990s during the war against iraq when they gave practical contentto the global scale, global power concept.