Info Weapon Contest

Abstract

One of the current paradigms on ‘war’ is the solubility of the frontlines and territory in general. Since the Second World War we have been living in the age of ‘total war’ or ‘pure war’, as Paul Virilio has called it. Many theorists ever since have pointed at the intrinsic relationship between the invention of the atomic bomb, the computer and the rise of mass media and television in particular. This historical configuration of technologies has dominated the entire post-war/cold war era. Guerilla movements, terrorism and civil uprises have not been able to change the basic parameters of warfare defined by the world powers. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin wall has changed the political maps of entire continents but has not brought a similar downfall of the technological war paradigm. Quite the opposite, ‘1989’ has only intensified the invisible and ‘remote’ mode of warfare. This is the background of ‘Info War’. We witness the rise of a ‘military electronic complex’ (miniature tactical weapons), combined with sophisticated forms of propaganda and manipulation, on all sides, of the global media and communication systems (the ‘CNN effect’).