Why Today’s Wars Are Nothing Like the Past

In the past, wars were fought using machines that were built for the purpose of harming others. It was a bloody and tragic mess, but humankind has learned a lot since those darker days.

While conflicts today aren’t as forceful as they were in the past, technology has made it possible to inflict more damage than a gun ever could. Wars are still being fought today, only it’s no longer on the battlefield–it’s happening over the internet.

The age of digital espionage

Espionage is defined as the practice of spying or using spies in order to gain some kind of advantage over your competition. It could be for political reasons, military reasons or even business reasons.

In the past, spies were physically required to infiltrate a country or business in order to gain information. These days, the internet is the weapon of choice.

Hacking has become a major problem that could potentially cause more damage than wars in the past ever did. For instance, the theft of trade secrets and intellectual property could have drastic long-lasting effects on a country’s economy. In addition, the always-on connectivity that we have today could easily be infiltrated by trained hackers, causing everything from autonomous cars to defense systems to be brought down and rendered useless.

It’s quickly becoming a modern cold war, only this time the battlefield is the internet and not a physical location. To help you understand more about this topic, we’ve included an infographic below that discusses the way nations use digital espionage against each other.

Infographic: Norwich University