by Raphael Machado, Strategic Culture:
In the contemporary world, as we all know, conflicts have lost the linear character of kinetic clashes between opposing armies. This phenomenon hasn’t disappeared, but it has ceased to constitute the primary part of confrontations between opposing forces. In fifth-generation conflicts, even when there are clashes between armed forces, they are always preceded and accompanied by a myriad of other types of operations—psychological, cyber, and others—which facilitate the achievement of objectives by conventional forces. These other operations can even replace conventional forces when psychological operations achieve absolute success.