Hyperwar

Hyperwar or the state of Hyperwarfare is the logical conclusion of the 21st Century Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) initially prognosticated and spurred on by the American Department of Defense. In short, it is the confluence of a maturated Precision-Strike regime coupled to developments within the field of Artificial Intelligence and Network theory enabling a broader and deeper dispersion of lethal systems.

Part of a series on
War
History Prehistoric Ancient Post-classical Early modern Late modern industrial fourth-gen
Battlespace Air Cyber Information Land Cold-region Desert Jungle Mountain Urban Sea Space
Weapons Armor Artillery Biological Cavalry Chemical Conventional Cyber Denial Electronic Infantry Nuclear Psychological Unconventional
Tactics Aerial Battle Cavalry Charge Counterattack Counter-insurgency Cover Defeat in detail Foxhole Guerrilla Morale Siege Swarming Tactical objective Target saturation Trench
Operational Blitzkrieg Deep operation Maneuver Operational manoeuvre group
Strategy Attrition Counter-offensive Deception Defensive Goal Naval Offensive
Grand strategy Containment Economic Limited Science Philosophy Political Religious Strategic Technology Theater Theory Total war
Organization Command and control Doctrine Engineers Intelligence Ranks Technology and equipment
Personnel Military recruitment Conscription Recruit training Military specialism Women in the military Children in the military Transgender people and military service Sexual harassment in the military Conscientious objection Counter recruitment
Logistics Arms industry Materiel Supply chain management
Related Asymmetric warfare Broken-Backed War Theory Court-martial Cold war Deterrence theory Horses in warfare Irregular warfare Law of war Mercenary Military campaign Military operation Network-centric warfare Operations research Principles of war Proxy war Security dilemma Tripwire force War crime War film War game War novel Wartime sexual violence Women in war World war Colonial war Endemic warfare
Lists Battles Military occupations Military tactics Operations Sieges War crimes Wars Weapons Writers

Overview

Origin

The word hyperwar is an admixture of the ancient Greek word ὑπέρ (hupér) meaning above and war, aptly defined as "organized, large-scale, armed conflict between countries or between national, ethnic, or other sizeable groups, usually involving the engagement of military forces."

This phraseology can be found within military/defense circles reaching back to the Second World War, when faced with the sheer globe-trotting scale of that conflict soldiers needed to a new word describe it.

Modern Usage

The term Hyperwar reached a new short vogue} in the aftermath of the Gulf War, when faced with the rapid annihilation of the Iraqi army, some military thinkers such as Colonel John Warden believed that air power had become the predominant weapon of warfare.

“ The Gulf conflict was also the first example of "hyperwar"— one that

capitalizes on high technology, unprecedented accuracy, operational and strategic surprise through stealth, and the ability to bring all of an enemy's key operational and strategic nodes under near-simultaneous attack. Hyperwar is very difficult to defend against or to absorb, which means that the offense again has clearly assumed the dominant position in warfare. Thus, the premium for striking first is higher than ever. ~ John Warden

”

The term gradually fell into disuse with the general decline of professional interest in RMA resulting from a necessary intellectual pivot toward the study of counter-insurgency (COIN). Since 2017, the chief and inarguably most prominent proselyte for the onset of a new era of hyperwarfare has been General John Allen, president of the Brookings Institute.

“ Technologies such as computer vision aided by machine-learning algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered autonomous decision making, advanced sensors, miniaturized high- powered computing capacity deployed at the “edge,” high-speed networks, offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, and a host of AI-enabled techniques such as autonomous swarming and cognitive analysis of sensor data will be at the heart of this revolution. The major effect/result of all these capabilities coming together will be an innovation warfare has never seen before: the minimization of human decision making in the vast majority of processes traditionally required to wage war. ~ John Allen ”

Allen hypothesizes that with sizeable developments in the field of artificial intelligence and bounding leaps in the creation of drone technology, human actors in the near future might find themselves almost entirely removed from the artifices of warfare. At the very least, one can expect momentous increases in the individual lethality of warfighters as well as a precipitous decline in required labor for combatants. Put succinctly, the dawn of hyperwar suggests the first era in human history of purely technological conflict.

References

This article "Hyperwar" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

This page exists already on Wikipedia.

📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• World War II
• Battle of Bakso
• Revolutions in autocracies after military defeats
• Direct conflict deaths
• First Anglo-Ghadar War
• World War III (2025)
• Autocratic regime survival after a military defeat

---