Revista Română de Sociologie (Feb 2008)
New dimensions of the modern warfare
Abstract
The huge scientific and technologic progress made by mankind during the last century has had an obvious impact on the military phenomenon. It is a common place to say that the present day wars do not look like the previous ones at all. The military are not the same as the one in former days either, whatever their national insignia on various uniforms. Hence, some questions require a clear and imperative answer. How has the contemporary war been changed? How has the 21 Century military prophile evolved? Which is the trigger of all these changes? What are the new concepts of the modern warfare? To all those questions we are trying to get an answer based on our personal experience gained during a couple of NATO missions and on the respective military doctrines and policies. Why both the military and the politicians are trying to avoid the term „war" by placing instead the much more innofensive syntagm of „military operations" and what are the main characteristics of the 3rd Millenium officer? These are some of the topics of this essay. Quite new military concepts experimented by the most powefull armed forces of the world, such as Effect Based Operations Approach, Network Based Warfare, Information Operations and Psychologiocal Operations will be also examined as pillars of the modern warfare.
