THE fifth-generation warfare is a challenge to many nations. Pakistan, especially, is a victim here owing to its neighbour and some powers hostile to our country.

Social networks distribute key information, provide a source for relevant material, and constitute a field from which the managers recruit volunteers. In this warfare, there is no physical violence or boots-on-the-ground aggression because it blends the kinetic and the non-kinetic elements together to create destruction that was never imagined in the conventional formats. The media is used to brainwash people, and social media demoralises state institutions by using propaganda against them.

An example of fifth-generation warfare would be the restriction of communication and media by New Delhi in the Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir to cover up the real situation.

A recent example of fifth-generation warfare is the Arab Spring that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and lasted for two years, engulfing more than 10 Arab countries. It led to regime change in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and its repercussions are still being felt a decade later. The region still bears the scars and it shows the destructive powers of fifth-generation warfare. Another example — at least allegedly — is of the possible Russian interference in the 2016 American elections.

For these reasons, it is important that defence security analysts and state institutions draft national security policies that may protect the country from all internal, external, tangible and intangible threats.

Mehrul Mannan Abbasi
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2020