ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to discuss some of the developing theory behind what could be called ‘information warfare’, ‘neocortical warfare’, ‘psycho-informational warfare’, or simply ‘neurowarfare‘. The main argument is that future wars are unlikely to be won by traditional weapons systems that dominated twentieth century warfare, namely tanks, bombers and aircraft carriers. The entire mode of conducting hostility is shifting from the physical realm to the informational and psychological realm, marking also a shift from ‘hard power’ and geopolitics (the control of territory) to ‘soft power’ and biopolitics (the control of life itself). It is argued that the objective of war is no longer destroying enemy forces and seizing territory, but shaping perceptions and beliefs and this way gaining political and social control over populations, including the use of populations as new WMD. In these new types of conflicts that are already beginning to unfold, traditional military strength is meaningless since attacks on the enemy’s mind skips the battlefield or rather make’s the enemy’s society the main battlefield by turning the own citizens against their government or by turning the government against their people. Neuroweapons and neurowarfare may even make in some more distant future physical violence unnecessary altogether. The chapter will rely largely on Soviet/ Russian ideas of political warfare and information warfare in order to develop some key concepts and possible approaches to future neurowarfare since Western strategic thought has devoted little attention to the whole concept of politically and culturally subverting societies as a method of war.
