Marko Palokangas
Military Professor (Military Theory and Warfare), Lieutenant Colonel
National Defence University
Finland
As we enter the 2020s, warfare has become increasingly widespread and affects us all. The distinctions between state, state-sponsored and non-state actors have become blurred. The diversity of security threats has also increased, as the flood of information, misunderstandings and incorrect presuppositions, unpredictability and countless other factors cause situations that are difficult to manage. However, the development is not linear. In a more complex environment, enemies and threats mix, different means and actors are combined in a new way and in a more multidimensional way than before, using, for example, conventional and non-conventional weapons together in the air, land, sea, space, cyber and information dimensions.
The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the bipolar world order in the 1990s created a completely new security policy situation in the world. At the same time, there was an opportunity to develop safety systems through mutual commitment and safety agreements. Defensive security solutions, an early warning system, an open inspection system, high-level command and control systems, and various negotiation mechanisms increased transparency and eased military tension between states. As a result, the probability of both a strategic nuclear war and a global war with conventional weapons decreased in the early 2000s.
Unfortunately, the security situation in Europe and partly in the whole world changed significantly at the latest on February 24, 2022, when Russia and its armed forces unlawfully attacked Ukraine. Since 2014, the war in Ukraine took a new turn, when the fog of war descended thickly over Ukraine and all of Europe. We have once again returned to the insecure everyday life marked by wars and other threats. In the light of the events of the beginning of the current century, the future could be characterized as a period of uncertainty after the Cold War, where change is the only certainty.
The Prussian general and war theorist Carl von Clausewitz introduced the world to the idea of the so-called fog of war in the 19th century. It refers to the difficulties of obtaining information and the uncertainty of information in a war situation. He also talked about the friction of war, which is closely related to the fog of war and means many and unexpected difficulties of warfare, which according to him, those who have not been to war cannot understand. Even if the difficulties or inconveniences are known and considered, due to the complexity and chaos of the war and the wider security environment, new and unexpected factors are always encountered that complicate decision-making.
Military threat images are also characterized by an increasing multidimensionality and scope, as well as their interface with each other. When combined with each other, they increase the intensity of the threat, whereby the global nature of threat images forces actors, especially states, to intensify their international cooperation in order to guarantee their own security. In a global world, national security cannot be built alone, nor can threats be fought only within national borders or by the actions of only one security authority. Security, national crisis resilience and citizens' responsibility are inseparable from each other and are therefore our common cause.
A research network consisting of professionals and experts from various fields was established in 2021 at the National Defence University, in connection with the Department of Warfare, to study the wide scope and change of warfare, whose main task is to use scientific research to try to dispel the haze that characterizes warfare. The overarching theme of the "Fog of War" research network is the integration and development of military theories and strategic thinking and intelligence. The Network forms a forum for the discussion of the implications of the latest results for the development of national military skills and for the analytical examination of changes in warfare.
In 2022, the Fog of War research network published the first book based on research articles called Fog of War – warfare in transition (only in Finnish). The new article collection Fog of War – wide-scale warfare (only in Finnish), which will be published in the summer of 2023, is a natural continuation of the network's publications, which at the same time serves as an opening for discussion with the topics covered and as a demonstration of the introduction of the research carried out at the National Defense University to a wide audience.