Socio-political technology of war and armed conflict: Some aspects of history and modernity

Abstract

The theme of war worries everyone in the modern world, it is the most dangerous and large-scale socio-political conflict that has the prospect of developing to the level of a global catastrophe, characterized as the “third world war”, “nuclear war”, “war with weapons of mass destruction”, etc. Furthermore, the theme includes the whole complex of knowledge and events that affect all spheres of social life and the scientific knowledge. Owing to its pervasive and multidimensional nature, war is studied simultaneously within the framework of military history, economic and the managerial paradigms, political-legal and the psychological realms of research. At the same time, there is almost no serious and detailed study of this type of conflict within conflictology, aimed at presenting an integrated and an interdisciplinary approach to the most dangerous form of a large-scale conflict. The article is an attempt to understand the essence and nature of war, its types and the forms of its manifestation, the foundations of war, technology for the development of this violent social-political conflict and the goals and functions it performs. The methods of theoretical analysis of a specific conflict situation, war and armed conflict, abstraction, specification, analysis, classification, procedure of terms and data operationalization and interpretation are used. Applied research methods are also used (document analysis, observation, etc.). As a result, a socio-political model for analyzing the technology of war is proposed, which characterizes its base, structural elements (tools, methods, procedures, techniques, operations), and algorithm. In conclusion, derivative knowledge about the main socio-political methods and technologies for study, analysis of modern wars and armed conflicts, their peaceful regulation and peacekeeping is proposed.