Contours of Conflict in the 21st Century

RUSSIAN LANGUAGE PERSPECTIVES: RESURGENT AND DIVERSIFIEDforces (SNF) and completely eliminate the use of tactical nuclearweapons – within a few minutes, then the attacker can assume the war islost’. 141Interestingly enough, we found no Russian studies that think that conflictsmight last for years or for hours. The underlying data show a weak trendtowards a view of shorter conflicts (lasting minutes).MeansFIGURE 42. RUSSIAN LANGUAGE PARAMETERS: PRIMARy MEANSMany Russian studies show high interest in the means that they see actorsusing in future conflicts. The most interesting finding here is the fact thatnon-kinetic means score significantly higher than the more traditionalphysical (kinetic) ones. Info- and psychological means are clearly seen asthe dominant means – also across time: ‘Instead of thinking in terms of141 M. Kalashnikov, A. Vladimirov, and M. Khodarenok, ‘Vozmozhnaja vojna mezhdu RF I NATO:verojatnye scenarii’ [Possible War Between the Russian Federation and NATO: LikelyScenarios], 2007, http://www.bratstvo.su/content/print.asp?sn=1338.HCSS Report 107