Contours of Conflict in the 21st Century

ENGLISH LANGUAGE PERSPECTIVES: VIBRANT AND ETHNOCENTRICbe fought though the minds of millions looking at computer and televisionscreens than on some modern equivalent of the Cold War’s North GermanPlain. Indeed some might argue the screen is our generation’s NorthGerman Plain, the place where future war will be won or lost’. 82But more futuristic outlooks on what conflict on the human terrain mayeventually come to encompass are also touched upon in the literature, inwhich the introduction of as of yet non-existing technologies would bringthe kinetic era to an end: ‘The new century will bring new weapons, andsome of those weapons will bring moral dilemmas. For example, supposethat discoveries in fields as seemingly diverse as evolutionary biology,neurology, complexity studies, advanced sonics, computerization, andcommunications allowed us to create a ‘broadcast weapon’ that couldpermanently alter human behavior without causing physical harm’. 83ExtensivenessFIGURE 26. ENGLISH LANGUAGE PARAMETERS: ExTENSIVENESS82 Ralph Peters, ‘The Culture of Future Conflict,’ Parameters (96): 18-27.83 Ibid.HCSS Report 75