The modern media as a tool of the indirect approach

The presence of high-tech weapons has long shown that a «total war» as a method and a «victory» in it as a goal are currently outdated concepts. The process of increasing the destructive power of nuclear weapons to the extreme of «suicide» caused a revision of military strategy as a whole, which led to the rejection of the idea of influencing the enemy through brute force and to the transition to asymmetric methods, the use of which is facilitated by the wide distribution and availability of not only and not so much developed modern technologies as many ready-made dual-use technologies that can be employed for military purposes. At present, the media have ceased to be considered solely as an intermediary between the initial event and the recipient of this event, they have become recognized as an instrument for manipulating public opinion. The principle of the indirect approach was transformed into a philosophical concept by the English military historian Liddell Hart. This concept is currently understood as the art of complex influence on the political structure and sustenance of the population of the attacked state, with the subsequent aggravation of internal contradictions, the creation of a crisis situation and armed conflict, the redistribution of spheres of influence, the creation of «buffer zones» and «belts of instability», gaining of access to sources of raw materials and markets. The object of the study is the modern media, the subject of the study is the process of implementing the indirect approach through new media technologies. The purpose of the work is to determine the ways, scale, and consequences of media influence on modern society. As a methodological basis for conducting a systematic study, Liddell Hart’s theory of indirect approach can be used, making it possible to find a practical solution to any problem that arises as a result of a clear conflict of interests and inevitably leads to an armed conflict. The results of the study can be used to analyze the stages of preparation and conduct of «hybrid wars» in the context of using the media as an effective tool for indirect control of modern society for military purposes. At the moment, there are a number of standards, instructions, and agreements on the regulation of the development of biotechnology and bioengineering, on the prohibition of the production, storage and distribution of certain types of weapons, but at the same time there is not a single similar document in the field of media, which makes this field practically uncontrollable.