Hybrid Wars Patch Notes — August 26, 2016
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
PART 3/3
One by one, networks are covering our world: first the transport networks, then the energy networks, and finally—the information networks. With each passing year, they become more indispensible, more prevalent, more integrated and less noticeable. They cover the Earth in a transparent cocoon, watching us from above with a thousand eyes, and creeping silently under our feet with millions of hidden cables. Inside this cocoon, the awkward caterpillar of old geopolitical divisions is evolving into a new world order butterfly. It remains to be seen if this butterfly is beautiful or not.
The top of the world's food chain still belongs to powerful nation states and their military-political power bases. These superpowers are engaged in a vast geopolitical game of maintaining spheres of influence, obtaining natural resources, and cultivating the brightest minds.
A distinctive feature (and advantage) of a superpower in this new world is self-sufficiency. In particular, self-sufficiency in war, where those who rule have the ability to acquire and endlessly produce a full range of armament. The greatest military blocs naturally possess weapons of mass destruction. Each of these large countries has its own internal and external intelligence service, deep ocean navy, armed space forces, and advanced ballistic missile defense systems. Though lesser, ordinary countries have both manned and unmanned combat and transport aviation, the big game is played only by those who have such advantages as high altitude-hypersonic bombers, cruise missiles, and combat walkers—the new elite of modern warfare.
Some of these states have been accumulating and upgrading their arsenals for generations, while others have rapidly built their armaments and weapons more recently during the recent decade in order to protect their interests.
How do superpowers oppose each other? First of all, they favor conducting covert or low intensity operations. Traditional wars have been replaced with so-called "hybrid conflicts" that take place without formal declarations of war, and are implemented simultaneously across information networks, through the stock markets, and, finally, on battlefields. The latter involves private military companies who contract both mercenaries and professional soldiers. These combat personnel are officially listed as volunteers who "rent" their combat vehicles from the client state.
Of course, superpowers do have the right to declare total war against each other, but the ruling elite find this a pointless act. There is no sense in putting their territory, population, and vitally important infrastructure at risk if the conflict can be resolved elsewhere, far from your own borders. There is no point in managing every component of warfare, especially if this job can be done by automatic electronic expert systems. Yesterday these analytical systems were used to trade precious metals at stock exchanges, today they design plans for the hostile acquisition of metal deposit ownership. These systems do not care whether there is a military component attached to the plans, and few would care if it did.
The United Nations continues to exist, although it dismissed its Security Council due to the constant mutual "vetoes" of the permanent members. The organization was nearly disbanded, but was preserved by powerful non-superpower players who had their own reasons to act via the UN. Countries belonging to what was once known as the "Third World" managed to increase the power and prestige of the UN beyond even its status at the dawn of the century. As a result, UN peacekeepers (Blue Helmets) have become increasingly active all over the world.
Relations between the UN and the superpowers are quite complicated, and have included armed clashes between peacekeepers and mercenaries. Nevertheless, the UN remains an important security force and mediator in negotiations. It reserves the ideological right to speak on behalf of humanity and has the power to declare certain political regimes or movements as enemies of the international community. It can be said that the UN plays the same mediating role that the Christian church played between kingdoms in medieval Europe.
However, a territory and a national flag is no guarantee of security or sovereignty. The only real players that can match the superpowers in terms of financial and military capabilities are the multinational mega-corporations. Among other methods, these corporations profit from asset allocation and research projects in territories that are out of the jurisdiction of large states. These corporations seek profits from conflicts waged among the superpowers; they serve only their own interests, and maintain highly trained and equipped security forces that can match the strongest of armies.
Development of the oceans, near-Earth space, and the never ending search for new frontiers—these are the highest priorities among the various private corporations.