VISTAS OF WAR

The physical component of war is certainly the most nerve wrenching, the pictures go deep into the well-established and prudent psyche of no war. The coordinated efforts of army, air force and the navy have been delivering victories based on the strategy laid out for the same. Losses; human and material and devastation of different types have been defining wars for long. Vistas of war as we call it, have been changing and this is the vision we need to look into, to understand the depth of war and if calibrated in a different manner, may turn out to be the mainstream in the days to come. The Russia Ukraine war will turn out to be a watershed moment for a variety of reasons. Social media-based perception management across the globe by digital connectivity making us passive spectators on  the side walls of the theater of war and a Cyber War to boost the damage capabilities.

Perception plays a humongous role in war management. The world of social media changed the way we understand and perceive the real world. For the first time we got a tool which could change perceptions and create perceptions globally, by some snippets of information, or video or pictures pushed by design. Or the other way round, when the same video or information is repeated over and over again, it leads to a different impact. This is a huge battle that is ongoing between the social media / information / electronic media war machines of Russia and Ukraine. The underbelly of the media is the same. The western perception management machine has been working for their puppeteers, in full support of Ukraine. Social media now seems to have become an integral to the war machine, whosoever knows how to control its lever, can get an edge.

Disruption is an aim of war. Outside of the theatre of war, disruption can be created to be ahead of the enemy, make warring nation’s strength known to the world, or to augment the physical war effort through a well-established method; well-orchestrated cyber-attacks. Low key but heavy impact making attacks can happen and have happened through the Cyber-attack mode. These attacks happen independently as well and in so called peace time. Estonia faced a series of cyberattacks beginning 27th April 2007 amid its disagreement with Russia mainly about relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn. The Ukrainian power grid hack on 23rd Dec, 2015, took place during an ongoing Russian military intervention in Ukraine and it is attributed to Russian group ”Sandworm.”

Russia has been an old grandmaster. Cyber-attacks can be as deadly as you make it out to be. Tech Military Strategy is the name of the game now. Many parts of Europe were knocked off the internet after it encountered massive cyber-attacks at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  Orange reported that nearly 9000 subscribers of its subsidiary Nordent in France are without internet, following a cyber event on Feb 24 on Viasat. Bigblu’s one third subscribers were impacted in Europe. Head of France’s Space Command said there has been a cyber-attack talking about civilian network Viasat. Outages have impacted 5,800 wind turbines in Germany. Outbreaks of cyberattacks are feared, ”a Cyber Armageddon” with major consequences for civilians in Ukraine and Russia, but also globally, through a spillover effect.”

Sanjay Sahay