Diffused Warfare: The Concept of Virtual Mass

Yedidia Groll-Yaari and Haim Assa

2007

Shaped by the events of September 11, 2001, and the joint actions that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq, the first decade of the twenty-first century is becoming a dangerous historic crossroads. Further attacks by extreme Islamic international terrorism are to be expected. Terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah are becoming a military extension of nation-states’ armed forces, combining an asymmetric entity with nation-state firepower. The challenges before the international community cannot be overstated.

The core dilemma is the incapacity of current military practice to overcome and contain asymmetric threats effectively. There has to be a way to reshape the advantage of modern military forces over their under-equipped, diffused adversaries so that a meaningful victory becomes attainable within the existing constraints on the use of force.

Diffused Warfare, through the notion of Virtual Mass and its ‘molecular mindset’, is better equipped to meet such challenges and to devise adequate solutions to these new threats. For better or for worse, that is the name of the game today.