War Without Borders: The Ontological Shift in Modern Warfare

Strategic Argument and Areas of Debate

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence, algorithmic targeting, and cognitive manipulation into modern military doctrines has fundamentally shifted warfare from securing physical territory to dominating ontological security and global epistemological narratives. This transformation exposes a critical strategic dilemma wherein hyper-advanced technological warfare paradoxically erodes the ethical boundaries and normative legal frameworks that traditionally distinguish war from peace.

Executive Summary

Modern conflict has undergone a profound ontological transformation where state and non-state actors, including the United States, China, Russia, and the European Union, increasingly prioritise cognitive warfare, data sovereignty, and algorithmic dominance over traditional battlefield victories. Driven by advanced technological integration, initiatives such as the United States’ Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), China’s “Intelligentized Warfare”, and Russia’s Gerasimov Doctrine actively target public perception, collective memory, and societal continuity. The deployment of AI systems like Israel’s Habsora and the geopolitical influence of Türkiye’s defence technologies such as the Bayraktar TB2 highlight a shifting paradigm where victory is determined by epistemic control and the systemic erosion of traditional international legal frameworks. Ultimately, comprehensive legislation like the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) represents a necessary institutional response to this new era of perpetual, perception-driven warfare.

Analytical Framework and Key Drivers

• Ontological Security and Cognitive Dominance: Modern conflicts actively weaponise memory, cultural identity, and societal narratives to disrupt an adversary’s collective sense of self and historical continuity. By targeting public consciousness, state actors transform perception management into a primary strategic objective, moving beyond traditional physical warfare paradigms.
• Algorithmic Warfare and Epistemic Violence: The integration of artificial intelligence into decision-making processes, exemplified by systems like Israel’s Habsora, shifts battlefield authority from human ethical subjectivity to machine logic. This reliance on autonomous algorithms fundamentally alters the nature of warfare, creating a new form of epistemic violence devoid of traditional accountability.
• Multi-Domain and Intelligentized War Doctrines: The United States’ Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) and China’s “Intelligentized Warfare” frameworks reconceptualise conflict as a continuous struggle across cyber, cognitive, and electromagnetic spectrums. These doctrines require the total mobilisation of state infrastructure, civilian technology companies, and data networks to secure systemic supremacy.
• Asymmetric Influence and Hybrid Operations: Russia’s Gerasimov Doctrine, published in 2013, asserts that modern warfare occurs predominantly in the information space rather than the physical battlefield. By leveraging disinformation campaigns and private military proxies like the Wagner Group, actors can achieve high-impact strategic disruption while maintaining plausible deniability.
• Normative Restraint and Digital Sovereignty: The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) of 2024 and the cybersecurity strategies managed by the European Cybersecurity Agency (ENISA) represent institutional attempts to establish ethical boundaries for dual-use technologies. These regulatory frameworks acknowledge that modern sovereignty is intrinsically linked to data protection, digital rights, and the mitigation of cognitive warfare threats.

Strategic Assessment & Empirical Findings

• The United States allocated $849.8 billion for its 2025 defence budget, heavily prioritising AI-assisted decision-making systems, space-based sensor networks, and cognitive warfare strategies to sustain its Multi-Domain Operations.
• China’s 2025 defence budget of 1.78 trillion yuan (approximately $249 billion) actively funds its “civil-military fusion” policy, explicitly targeting electromagnetic spectrum superiority and the global expansion of its Digital Silk Road infrastructure.
• Russia increased its 2025 defence budget to 13.1 trillion Rubles (approximately $145.9 billion), focusing extensively on asymmetric capabilities, cyber warfare, and private military companies like the Wagner Group to execute its hybrid warfare objectives.
• Türkiye’s defence exports surged by 200%, reaching $7.1 billion over three years leading to 2025, with the global distribution of technologies like the Bayraktar TB2 to over 180 countries reinforcing its normative soft power and geopolitical manoeuvrability.
• The European Cybersecurity Agency (ENISA) reported the prevention of over 30,000 cyberattacks across the European Union in 2023, demonstrating the escalating threat to critical infrastructure and public trust posed by modern cognitive and digital warfare.
• The deployment of algorithmic targeting frameworks, such as the AI-powered Habsora system in Gaza, establishes a highly controversial “new impunity regime” where automated life-and-death calculations continuously bypass established international law.

Geopolitical Trajectories & Policy Risks

• The European Union faces severe ontological and systemic vulnerabilities if it fails to secure independent energy infrastructure, making initiatives like REPowerEU essential to mitigate the politicised energy dependency exploited by Russia.
• The United States’ deep structural reliance on commercial technology conglomerates, such as Palantir Technologies and SpaceX’s Starlink, actively delegates critical national security responsibilities to private actors, weakening traditional state-centric command structures and sovereign accountability.
• Global adherence to international humanitarian law is acutely threatened by the normalisation of autonomous targeting algorithms, such as those deployed by the Israeli military, generating an unregulated algorithmic impunity regime that fundamentally challenges the authority of the United Nations.

Critical Policy Questions & Responses

Question 1 How does China’s “Intelligentized Warfare” strategy utilise civil-military fusion to challenge Western data sovereignty and geopolitical dominance?

Answer: By aggressively integrating the capabilities of civilian technology conglomerates like Huawei and DJI with military objectives, China transforms digital infrastructure into a potent mechanism for epistemic and strategic power projection. This “civil-military fusion” enables initiatives like the Digital Silk Road to establish deep-rooted surveillance and data networks across the global south, fundamentally undermining the United States’ traditional technological hegemony.

Question 2 Why do the European Union’s regulatory frameworks, such as the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), function as critical mechanisms for modern ontological defence?

Answer: Enacted in 2024, the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) serves to construct stringent ethical and transparency boundaries around high-risk, dual-use technologies that are frequently weaponised in cognitive warfare. By proactively standardising algorithmic accountability, the EU strategically shields its democratic institutions and public trust from the destabilising epistemic violence routinely deployed by state actors like Russia.

Question 3 What are the long-term strategic consequences of the United States and NATO adopting Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) doctrines?

Answer: The explicit transition toward Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) fundamentally reshapes the United States’ and NATO’s combat parameters by officially elevating the electromagnetic spectrum, cyberspace, and cognitive domains to the same critical status as physical frontlines. This structural shift, backed by a $849.8 billion U.S. defence budget in 2025, ensures that future conflicts will be perpetual and perception-based, decisively blurring the traditional legal thresholds distinguishing war from peace.

Question 4 How has Türkiye strategically leveraged its indigenous defence technology sector to construct an independent geopolitical narrative?

Answer: Türkiye has systematically weaponised its rapidly expanding defence industry, driving a 200% increase in exports to $7.1 billion by 2025, to project an image of non-Western technological self-reliance and regional authority. The global proliferation of assets like the Baykar Teknoloji Bayraktar TB2 drone not only enhances Türkiye’s military deterrence but serves as a powerful diplomatic instrument that actively expands its normative influence across over 180 countries.

Key Actors and Systemic Dynamics

• United States → Depends on → Multi-Domain Operations (MDO)
• China → Expands influence through → Digital Silk Road
• European Union → Regulates → Dual-use AI technologies
• Russia → Weaponises → Information space and cognitive domains
• Türkiye → Strengthens geopolitical influence via → Bayraktar TB2 exports
• Israel → Accelerates epistemic violence through → Habsora AI system
• Wagner Group → Enables → Russian asymmetric hybrid warfare
• Palantir Technologies → Supports → U.S. and Ukrainian AI-assisted targeting
• ENISA → Responds to → European cognitive and cyber threats
• REPowerEU → Mitigates → Russian energy dependence vulnerabilities
• Starlink satellite infrastructure → Secures → Ukrainian digital command networks