Author: Dmitry Stevanovic
Researcher at the International Security Center of the Institute of World Economics and International Relations of Primakov, Moscow, interprets "Whether conflict will turn into war."
Picture source: Satellite Club
Experts believe that in the first half of the 20th century, people's understanding of the word " World War " was different from now on. Now a "true" war is impossible to happen because the war will lead to the destruction of all parties in the conflict. Currently, the term "war" has been used in official documents and speeches. This is because "war" is prohibited in the " United Nations Charter ". At the same time, the officials often use the phrases "armed conflict" and "military operations", but obviously, the nature of armed struggle has not changed.
Military science experts have pointed out that war has many important characteristics. For example, the country declares a wartime state and the various areas of domestic social life are shifting towards the military direction. In the international community, the main characteristics of war are that it usually ends with some well-documented solution, such as attending a peace conference, signing a peace treaty or surrender of one party. Most modern conflicts do not have these characteristics at present.
Before, any war would have a "declaration of war" step and would be carried out according to strict rules. And nowadays, "armed conflict" is a rather vague concept. From this perspective, the possibility of a military operation escalating into a world war of total destruction is low. Due to the existence of nuclear weapon , the possibility of a world war is zero.
Some experts believe that there will be a final transition from traditional "conventional war" to "technical war" in the near future. Now, conflicts between many countries will exist for a long time, but will not further evolve into "combat operations."
Information warfare, national liberation movement behind enemy lines and sanctions are important components of modern conflict, and these means are called "hybrid warfare." The definition of the concept of "hybrid war" is very vague, which also means that there is no very clear dividing line between "war" and "armed conflict".
Syrian crisis is a typical case of hybrid war. No Western country has officially declared war on the Syrian government, and even Türkiye , which is openly fighting in Syria , has never declared war directly. However, due to Syria's pressure on economic sanctions , the secret support of the so-called "moderate opposition" terrorists, Israel's regular attacks on Syria's territory, and individual combat operations, in fact, half of the earth has clashed with Syria.
The level of modern technology development makes "controllable conflict" possible and makes participants cautious about attacking enemy targets, which allows conflict to continue indefinitely without crossing the red line into a full-scale war between all parties "fighting until the last person". High-precision long-range weapons are no longer the privilege of a few technological powers, and non-state entities now have the potential to conduct precise strikes in deep enemy territory.
Stefanovic believes that this is a very big change compared to the traditional war model in the past, and in the long run, this will have a greater impact on the new architecture of global security, especially on the European security architecture. Simply put, the question is not how many tank legions of each party can go to the front line, but how many launchers and cruise missile can hit key targets on enemy territory.
Experts say that the existence of non-nuclear strategic weapons that can solve strategic problems is the main risk of causing nuclear conflicts. Because owners of non-nuclear strategic weapons will think that they can control the escalation of conflict.
On the one hand, politicians and military authorities understand that not every time a target is defeated with a non-nuclear weapon on their territory, it is necessary to respond by completely destroying the enemy. (Not every use of non-nuclear weapons requires the ultimate goal of completely destroying the enemy.) But on the other hand, no one pointed out that the enemy should not use the upgrade "red line" of nuclear weapons.
This also means that the enemy may not draw such a "red line" where you can see it.
