The scientific and technological progress we are witnessing today in every field is not necessarily in favour of humanity. There are developments in wars and conflicts, such as the fourth generation of wars, or hybrid wars, which involve integrated strategies to weaken adversaries, destabilize states, create chaos, and engage in cyber warfare, artificial intelligence-based weapons, and space wars.
These are used by superpowers in their conflicts as well as ambitious powers around the world seeking to impose dominance and expand influence.
Such advanced wars have multiple dimensions and different domains. They are not limited to the military realm alone; but encompass economic, cultural, religious, commercial, media, and cyber domains.
In these wars, ideologies, identities, races, and sects intertwine, and they incite people, attract groups and parties to strike at the stability of nations and disintegrate societies.
Methods of this kind do not replace traditional wars but reduce their burdens and lay the groundwork for them by weakening adversaries, exhausting states, destabilizing them, and undermining national unity.
Armed militias, terrorist organizations, and political Islamist groups are all tools in these new and sophisticated wars. Regardless of the discourse they adopt, they are ultimately used to target homelands, and one can easily recall several examples; the crises witnessed in the Middle East, namely Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, are evidence enough.
Furthermore, the crises in Libya, Sudan, Tunisia, and Ethiopia confirm the same idea and point to the same approach.
This imbalance in the balance of power does not threaten only the countries of the region or Arab states; it is much broader and more significant.
The concerns of countries caught between Russia and Europe or on their peripheries are evident and covered in detail by the media.
Moreover, Japan and the countries bordering the Indian and Pacific Oceans are evidently concerned about China and North Korea’s influence conflicts there.
This also applies to the crises in Africa and South America, meaning that these are comprehensive and major imbalances, not limited to a specific region.
In conclusion, reading such imbalances in international and regional power dynamics and monitoring the developments of fourth-generation wars, cyber warfare, or similar phenomena is crucial for observation, understanding, and analysis.
