War

In this chapter, students will learn about the concept of war and how it continues to evolve in unpredictable ways. The chapter starts by providing an overview of different approaches to defining war before summarizing three prominent philosophies of warfare, described by Anatol Rapoport as the political, the eschatological and the cataclysmic. The chapter then examines the extent to which the processes of globalization have changed the character of warfare before briefly surveying the multiple domains in which war is now being waged. Historically, war has been waged principally by humans in particular geographical spaces. However, current trends see humans sharing these spaces and many war-related tasks with robots and forms of artificial intelligence. This is raising important questions about not just the strategies and tactics of war but also its nature and ethics. Finally, cyberspace and outer space are becoming more important domains of war as it continues to evolve.