Liquid warfare

The project team examines how the proliferation of modern military technology on remote warfare—including ballistic missiles, precision-guided munitions or drones—transforms war and warfare practices of autocratic states and non-state armed actors.

Based on the thoughts of Zygmunt Bauman on the reduced role of territory in ‘liquid modernity’, the project develops a typology of solid (territory-focused) and liquid (target-focused) warfare in interplay with each other. Democratic states exhibit a tendency towards the latter, as research on specific ‘Western’ practices of warfare has already demonstrated. The team, therefore, asks whether we can observe similar developments with regard to autocratic states and non-state armed actors if they have the respective military technology at their disposal. In this regard, the project team analyses the development of warfare practices of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates since the early 1990s, as well as the warfare of the Houthi in Yemen and the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq. In the second phase (December 2023–March 2025), the focus will shift to Russia, China and Turkey.

The findings of the research will be disseminated primarily as articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals.