Motto: “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic;
It takes sweat, determination and hard work.”

Colin Powell¹

PhD. Eng. Petru-Valentin GLOD^

Summary. The geostrategic context of the third millennium highlights the multiplication and increase in the severity of non-military risks to national security, against the backdrop of accelerating globalization trends and exceptional climate change, the development of scientific experiments with unpredictable effects such as the recent SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic and the diversion and blocking of legal and borderline legal economic activities that use, produce and trade dangerous substances, but also military risks such as the annexation of Crimea (2014) and the conduct of the Russian Federation – Ukraine war, increasing resilience becomes a central pillar of collective defense.

Keywords: Resilience, strategy, unconventional technologies, nanotechnology, mechanics, mecha-nical synthesis

It is important to analyze the geopolitics of the world and the types of hybrid warfare in parallel with the extremely rapid and uncontrolled development trend of unconventional technologies and nanotechnologies, at a global level.

Unconventional technologies (for example, the LASER beam), nanotechnolo-gies and hybrid warfare, bring fundamental changes in the conception of the doctrinal framework and implicitly of the planning of military operations at a strategic level.

Industrial and technological development challenges the equipment of modern armies with new but also the achievement of human adaptability to ultra-technologies, methods and actions still unsuspected.

INTRODUCTION

Looking at the geostrategic context of the first 25 years of the third millennium, the multiplication and increase in the severity of non-military risks to national security are highlighted, against the backdrop of accelerating globalization trends and excep-tional climate change, the development of scientific experiments with unpredictable effects such as the recent SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic and the diversion and blocking of legal and borderline legal economic activities that use, produce and trade dangerous substances, but also military risks such as the annexation of Crimea (2014)

and the conduct of the Russian-Ukrainian war, increasing resilience becomes a central pillar of collective defense, which contributes to reducing security risks and maintaining state cohesion, independence and national security and that of the members of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO).

Resilience represents the set of activities and measures carried out at national level by central public authorities and institutions, public institutions and economic operators, hereinafter referred to as responsible institutions, whose areas of activity include ensuring the continuity of governance, providing essential services and main functions to deal with crisis situations that may affect the national response capacity and bringing it back to normal.

It is more than necessary to analyze the geopolitics of the world and hybrid warfare in parallel with the extremely rapid and uncontrolled trend of unconventional technologies and nanotechnologies, globally. Unconventional technologies are new technologies, less known and applied on a smaller scale, which use as a “tool”, con-centrated energies in various forms. In a broad sense, nanotechnologies represent any technologies whose final results are of the nanometric order: fine particles, chemical synthesis, advanced microlithography, controlled power. In a narrow sense, nanotechnology is defined as any technology that is based on the ability to build complex structures respecting specifications at the atomic level and using mechanical synthesis.

 Photo: https://armed.mapn.ro/4576_exercitiul-stdt-25

The modernization of the structures of the forces intended for the preparation and conduct of military actions at the strategic level, implies a constant and compre-hensive effort in the development of new concepts regarding the engagement of large units and the structures of force groups from the three categories of forces of the national army in military operations at the strategic level or in multinational operations. The advanced technologies that have emerged especially in the last two decades have radically changed the means and methods of military action, consequently modifying the character of armed confrontations. Thus, unconventional technologies (for example, the LASER beam), nanotechnologies and hybrid warfare, bring funda-mental changes in the conception of the doctrinal framework and implicitly of the planning of the operation at the strategic level.

In military terms, “confrontation” in the competitive sense of deterrence ma-nifests itself in at least two areas: the technological one, which offers high-performance combat and weapon systems, and the theory of military art, which offers norms, principles, rules and procedures for using operational structures in military actions at the tactical, operational and strategic levels. Considering the type of actions carried out in recent military actions, the force structures involved, but especially the results obtained, can frame these actions as “of a hybrid war determined by the industrial and information explosion”. Industrial and technological development challenges the modern army to equip itself with new things but also to achieve human adaptability to ultra-technologies, methods and actions.

Moreover, the typology of conflicts waged after the Cold War clearly demon-strates that “the model of large-scale war, of continental or global scale, in which opposing military blocs are engaged, having a mass army, based on the massive use of aviation and numerous tank groups, is completely obsolete”².

Adding to this finding the existence of other dangers such as ethnic and religious extremism or international terrorism and the illegal and unprovoked war of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, one can seek an answer regarding the type of war that could take place on the borders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in the near or more distant future.

The status of full NATO membership has forced Romania to develop policies to deal with new risks and threats to national security such as the expansion of the terrorist phenomenon, religious radicalization, the emergence of state or non-state entities capable of acquiring some capabilities for producing weapons of mass destruction and the maintenance of a high level of instability and insecurity in the Black Sea area (the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the war of the Russian Federation in Ukraine).

The repositioning of spheres of influence in the Central and Eastern European area (see the actions in the states located in the immediate vicinity of the national borders), does not exclude the possibility that in the medium and long term, hostile forces will launch military actions on the national territory. No one can confirm (based on analyses) with yes, no or probably, and no one can guarantee the exclusion of military actions on the national territory.

In this context of present events and in the near future, the following types of wars are taking place and may take place:

• of the type “one state” (or a coalition / alliance) against another state (coalition / alliance) – classic model, but in a modernized version with specific elements imposed by new technologies;

• of the anti-terrorist type in which special forces and intelligence play an im-portant role;

• of the type “response to an attack” executed with weapons of mass destruction, where the primary role will be played by response capabilities;

• of the “hybrid” type in which conventional war actions are combined with unconventional war actions, and supported by cyber warfare.

The modernized version of the classic war will be governed by the application of the operational concepts: decisive maneuver, selective precision engagement, multidimensional protection of one’s own troops and logistical concentration. The logistical management of defense resources is extremely sensitive and defining. To always buy modern weapons without researching ultra-industrial technology and without necessarily producing modern weapons or decisive constructive compo-nents, over time, erodes military capabilities, but above all considerably diminishes deterrence.

Strengthening resilience through civilian training is an important part of (NATO) long-term adaptation to the current security environment and is a central element for the ability of NATO and the Allies to counter all existing threats and challenges, including hybrid warfare.

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CONTEMPORARY MILITARY PHENOMENON

Motto: “If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be in danger even in a hundred battles.”

Sun Tzu

After 1989, a new strategic situation with a high degree of complexity was defined in the world and from this point of view, the issue of military actions is analyzed from different angles and different benchmarks, under multiple aspects, trying to highlight more the lessons learned from the conduct of older or more recent wars, lessons that can form the basis for deciphering the legislation and regulations to be taken into account in current conflicts, the analysis of current conflicts and especially future conflicts, in order to achieve success against the enemy. The military conflicts near NATO’s eastern flank show new details of the definition of wars in the 21^st century.

In the first 25 years of the third millennium, new concepts of conducting military conflicts are highlighted. The modern military phenomenon has demonstrated that the use of all means in an armed confrontation increasingly clearly defines a new physiognomy of combat and operation (see the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar).

The modern military confrontation will have an increasingly hyperdimensional, integrative and complementary aspect, the battlefield being characterized by new dimensions and features that are found in other types of fronts, rapidity in organizing, planning and executing maneuvers, the simultaneous engagement of objectives both on contact and in depth, the identification and hitting of air and naval targets in their immediate launch position. The rise of the ultra-improvement of military tech-nology is a consequence and, at the same time, a kind of continuation of the defining requirements in the military field and of the ultra-improvements of techniques and technologies in the natural sciences: modern physics, mechanics, applied mathematics, astrology, chemistry, cybernetics, electronics and other sciences that have found specific applications in the military field.

Therefore, the war of the future based on the hybrid dimension, unconventional technologies and nanotechnologies, certainly offers the ultra-perfecting of categories of weapons systems with great destructive power, capable of operating in the four confrontation environments, to hit targets at very long distances, in a short time and extremely surprisingly, with maximum precision, in any time, season and weather conditions.

The trends³ The military phenomenon is given by the law of violence to manifest itself without limits, in fact “the use of physical violence – Carl von Clausewitz stated – in its entirety (…) must obtain superiority, if the opponent does not do so. By this he imposes his law on the other and, thus, both outbid each other to the extreme, without there being any other limitations than those of the inherent counterweights”⁴.

At certain stages and at certain moments, expectations are materialized in facts and events as qualitative times that the military phenomenon wears in its evolution. Facts and events are of a political, economic, scientific, social nature, etc. This makes the way the phenomenon manifests itself at a certain stage or moment of action no longer identical to a past or future stage.

Complete analyses regarding strategic research must include political analysis, economic analysis and political-military analysis of recent and present times. History no longer helps us to logically describe the facts that will follow.

Features of the contemporary military phenomenon

Regardless of the qualitative moments that the military phenomenon takes on, from one period or another, the general trends are the same. A general look at the military phenomenon highlights the fact that⁵:

• the natural tendencies of absolute war are opposed by a series of factors (po-litical, economic, moral, religious, etc.) which, depending on the situation and circumstances, oppose the elevation of armed struggle to the level of extreme violence;

• the subordination of the military phenomenon to the political goal: violence, brute force, as the main element of power, was, is and will be in the future an instrument for promoting and imposing the political goal;

• the military phenomenon is manifested, mainly, through armed struggle which represents a specific type of social action that aims to disorganize the enemy’s system of actions, capture or destroy it;

• the use of violence in its full extent requires, in order to gain superiority over the opponent, the use of intelligence, that is, a high rationality of action, which presupposes the invention of increasingly “intelligent” instruments and an appropriate standardization, so as to minimize the direct intervention of the fighter in the armed struggle, transforming him into an “interventionist supervisor of the struggle” with the aspiration towards “pure supervision”.

The year 2025 clearly shows that the syndrome of insecurity is moving from the exclusively military to the economic area. Resources – raw materials, primary sources of energy, food, water, public utility services, mobility, etc. – are becoming essential within national security strategies, but especially in regional or global ones. The military phenomenon will continue to remain a potential and real vector of power in the implementation of national, regional and global security strategies.

War is a specific type of social conflict

The end of World War II and the beginning of a new period in human history brought unprecedented military requirements to the military phenomenon and defined new military roles. The emergence of nuclear weapons and their provision with means to deliver them to the target (intercontinental missiles, cruise missiles, bombers, submarines, space platforms), the acceleration of the growth rates of military spending with the launch of programs on the basis of which new weapons will be developed and introduced, the massive militarization of science and technology, etc. created opportunities to expand the spectrum of war scenarios.

Nuclear weapons began to be judged as “weapons of war”, and their functioning to be defined in the doctrinal-strategic conceptions, directly related to the development and winning of the confrontation. The war was expected to continue until today, and the post-war military conflicts took place under the umbrella of the “equilibrium of theory” (the strategic concepts “Massive Reprisals”, “Graded Retaliation”, “Controlled Response”, “Mutually Assured Destruction”, “Limited Nuclear Options”, “Essential Equi-valence” etc.), of nuclear deterrence, a trend that was also manifested at the end of the 20th century, but also in the first 25 years of the 21^st century. The technological improvement – including the typological diversification – of nuclear weapons, determined military theorists and political scientists to consider the use of nuclear weapons for crisis management and the violent resolution of international disputes to be less viable. “The new weapons were so destructive,” says Professor Steven J. Zolga – that it seemed inconceivable that any city or people could withstand the ravages they caused in a life-and-death war. In less than a century, weapons had evolved from breech-loading cannons, which aimed from a few yards and destroyed everything within a few yards of impact, to thermonuclear missiles, capable of hitting thousands of miles and destroying entire cities. The effect of attacking cities was that civilians could now be as much victims of the new technologies of warfare as soldiers.⁶

The massive militarization of science, both those that study substance and those that study human social behavior, led to the “industrialization of war.” It increased the vital role of military industries in creating and sustaining military power and transformed the enemy’s economic centers into prime targets for the new weapons. While there are still differences of opinion today about the importance of the role played by the bombing of industrial targets in winning World War II, the development of nuclear weapons ended the dispute about the ultimate effectiveness of strategic air supremacy.

The technological leaps whose beginnings are represented by the launch, for the first time in outer space, of an artificial satellite by the Soviets – the Sputnik satellite, on October 4, 1957, – a moment that for the authors “The assault on space began”, and for the USA represented a kind of technological “Pearl Harbor”, have extended the war into Cosmos. It is recognized that in outer space there is no national sovereignty and, at the same time, the race for invulnerability has acquired new qualitative three-dimensional dimensions.

Science has served and continues to serve increasingly high military require-ments; in other words, the militarization of science has given rise to a new feature of post-war military conflicts: the cumulative feature. The post-war period brought with it a true “confusion” between peace and war, an ambiguity of the state that was once defined by the “silence of weapons”. In times of “peace”, humanity was confronted with the massive use of force and there was more explicit talk, for example, of psychological warfare, economic, ideological, social, informational warfare, etc. This is a real phenomenon of the proliferation of war, of the multiplication of violence, of armed violence in social life and in relations between states.

The leap in the development of nuclear weapons determined that the military action planned to take place in the main military theaters of action (especially in the theaters of military action in Europe) should be subordinated to the strategic nuclear doctrines developed by the two great military powers of the moment, the USA and Russia. Strategic technological programs brought substantial changes in the orga-nization and composition of the various categories of armed forces and weapons. The spectacular leap was also recorded in the way in which the decision-making act is carried out. Mathematization, mathematical simulation and cybernetization of the decision-making process determined the increase in the efficiency of actions, a high rationalization of the act of command both vertically and horizontally.

The focus on the adaptability and compatibility of the national army at NATO level has also led to some decisions considered late. Transport capabilities have been reduced by the abolition of some essential weapons and military specialties. The strategic management of the development of military education has also brought here some abolitions of traditional military education institutions.

The requirements for increasing military mobility are still unattainable on the national territory. The railway and railway infrastructure are underdeveloped. Multimodal transport and offers of new alternative road transport capabilities on the railway are not taken into account. River transport at the level of military mobility is underdeveloped or does not exist at all.

The War of the Future

The new dimension of the scientific and technical revolution changes the way of acquiring the material and spiritual values that define society. Knowledge becomes an inexhaustible source and, at the same time, the object of labor and the basis for the formation of values. The ability to acquire, generate, distribute and apply, strategically and operationally, knowledge becomes intangible values.

Against the background of fundamental transformations determined by know–ledge, the entire structure of power that has held the world together is disintegrating, and a new form of “extreme” power is emerging, different from the meaning of fundamental national and social values, a phenomenon that occurs at all levels of human society. Structural violence takes on other, more subtle forms of represent-tation, tending to become holistic in nature. At work, in the mall, at city hall, in churches, hospitals, schools, apartment buildings and condominiums, old patterns of power are fragmenting along strange lines. This breaking of old-style authority in business and everyday life is accelerating even now, when global power structures are disin-tegrating in turn. There is good reason to believe that the forces that are currently shaking power at all levels of the human social system will become more intense and omnipresent in the years immediately ahead.

From this massive reorganization and restructuring of power relations, similar to the actions of tectonic plates storing energy before an earthquake, will emerge one of the rarest moments in human history: a revolution in the very nature of power. A “powershift” is not simply a transfer of power. It transforms it⁷.

The military phenomenon, military force in particular, proves a capacity to increase the violence of military conflict. The gaps left by the destructuring of bipolarism are filled by other nations. These new nations have become much more interested in the acquisition of cutting-edge technology for the realization of ambitious programs to acquire powerful destructive capabilities. Installations for the production of nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons are being designed and built, as well as vectors for transporting weapons to the target, which determines that the identification of these weapons in the world cannot be fixed or stable.

The transformations in the global and regional power situation require a true revolution in military thinking, a revolution that reflects the new economic and technological forces developed by the Third Wave. Science / ultra-technologicalization and communication / artificial intelligence will be the engines of the 21^st century. Smart tools produce smart weapons. Nothing demonstrates this better than the way the Persian Gulf War unfolded in 1991, which can be characterized as a war of mind and spirit against matter.

War changes its physiognomy, namely: conception, typology, strategic paradigm, doctrines, actions (troop training, armament and equipment, leadership of combat actions, forms and procedures of combat, etc.). The theaters of military operations of the last decade of the 20^th century and the beginning of the 21^st century have become the expression of the leaps from mass armies to flexible force groups, and from classical systems to weapons systems in which the confrontation is not only of forces and means, but also of military systems and applied ultra-technologies.

THE RESILIENCE OF THE ROMANIAN GLOBAL SOCIAL SYSTEM
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CONTEMPORARY MILITARY PHENOMENON

Motto: “Those who are experts in the art of war subdue the enemy’s army without a fight. They conquer cities without besieging them and overthrow a state without prolonged operations.”

Sun Tzu

At NATO level, it is unanimously accepted that the resilience requirements⁸ and other practical tools identified for the implementation of the NATO Strategy to counter hybrid warfare represent key elements for the collective defense capability.

Since 2016, the urgent need to ensure an appropriate level of maintenance of the vital functions of society and the safety of citizens, by ensuring an acceptable level of resilience, has been seriously considered, as well as the fact that the failure to adopt such an emergency regulation could harm national security due to the significant impact generated by the inability to maintain the main functions.

Thus, the need to strengthen and develop resilience through civilian preparedness was emphasized, an action that constitutes an important part of the Alliance’s long-term adaptation to the current security environment and is a central element for NATO and Allies’ ability to counter all existing threats and challenges, including hybrid warfare.

CONCLUSIONS

The war of the future as a military phenomenon will evolve along with the evolution of postmodern society. The transition period will be marked by numerous conflicts in which armies with doctrines, structures and equipment specific to information societies will prevail. Asymmetric reactions to modern military actions and hybrid threats will probably last a long time, taking the place of classical military conflicts.

The contemporary military phenomenon has highlighted the integrated, air-land and naval character of military actions, demonstrating that the use of all weapons, specialties and military means in a modern confrontation leads to victory on the battlefield of the future.

It should be noted that one of the special implications of the evolution of the military phenomenon on the physiognomy of military actions is found in the speed of reaction and action required under current conditions. The high rate of change in the modern battlefield requires a shorter time for information, decision and action. This requirement presupposes the creation of complex research, surveillance and strike systems in which human intervention is minimal.

Increasing resilience is the essential subject and tributary to the provisions of Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which states that “in order to achieve their collective defense objectives, member countries, separately and together, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”. It is thus noted that the allies have agreed to a fundamental update in terms of practical approach in the dimension of resistance against security threats, including those of a hybrid nature whose origin is considered to be from the East.

“We are united in maintaining and developing our individual and collective capabilities to resist any form of armed attack. In this context, we undertake a commitment to strengthening our resilience against the full spectrum of threats, including hybrid threats, from any direction. Resilience is the essential foundation for credible and effective defense and deterrence,” the leaders said, according to a joint statement submitted by CaleaEuropeana.ro.⁹

PROPOSALS

1. Develop legislative norms (law, government decision) regarding increasing resilience at the national level that would regulate the entire effort of NATO member countries to “increase resilience to the entire spectrum of threats, in-cluding hybrid ones”.

2. Prioritization of essential national functions, respectively the essential functions of the central public institutions / agencies involved. The ministries / institu-tions / central public agencies have their own attributions established by their own legislation, which, through their fulfillment, ensure the orientation of the institutions towards the fulfillment of essential national functions in priority order.

3. Implement and maintain a robust system of procedures to ensure essential communications within and between government institutions / agencies, between them and critical service providers, as well as between government and civil society.

4. Establish criteria for prioritizing civilian and military needs and develop a framework training and exercise program that covers all resilience require-ments (e.g. increasing military mobility at the national level).

List of abbreviations

• resilience – characteristic quantity for the behavior of materials under shock loads, equal to the ratio between the mechanical work consumed for the bending fracture, by shock, of a specimen and the area of the cross-section in which the respective fracture occurred, Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language;

• resilience (psychology) – is frequently defined as the ability of human beings to adapt in a positive manner to adverse situations. However, since the 1960s, the concept has undergone numerous changes. At first, it was considered innate, then attention was directed towards both individual and familiar, social and cultural factors. 21^st century researchers consider resilience to be a social and cultural process, which can be explained using three models: “compensatory”, “protective”, “defiant”;

• resilience of national critical infrastructures (NCI) / European critical infrastructures (ECI) – its capacity to absorb the initial shock, to adapt following the occurrence of a hazard or threat and to recover from their occurrence in order to continue to ensure essential services to society;¹⁰

• security / protection of critical infrastructures – hereinafter referred to as PIC – the unitary set of processes and activities organized and carried out in order to ensure the functionality, continuity of services and integrity of ICN/ICE in order to deter, mitigate and neutralize a threat, risk or vulnerable point by identifying, implementing and maintaining security, organizational, technical, procedural and other measures resulting from the implementation of risk management processes.¹¹

• crisis management – the set of mechanisms, procedures and activities through which decision-makers, empowered by law, establish and implement the necessary measures to prevent and control crises as well as to eliminate their effects, in order to return to normality;

• essential services – those services, facilities or activities that are or could be necessary to ensure a minimum standard of living and well-being of society and whose degradation or interruption of their provision, as a result of the disruption or destruction of the basic physical system, would significantly affect the safety or security of the population and the functioning of state institutions;

• nanotechnology – is defined as any technology that is based on the ability to build complex structures respecting specifications at the atomic level and using mechanical synthesis;

• unconventional technologies – are technologies by which the removal of the machining allowance is done in the form of microparticles as a result of the interaction between the part and the semi-finished product of an erosive agent. The erosive agent is a complex physico-chemical or physico–mechanical system that transfers electrical, electromechanical, electrochemical, thermal, chemical, mechanical or radiation energy to the part.¹²

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