Concepts and Doctrines of IW: Impact of Emerging Non-lethal and Less Lethal Technology Weapons on Limiting/Preventing Conflicts

The advent of the concept of the global village has brought in new dimensions to interstate and intersocietal conflicts. There has been growing international opinion against violence and collateral damage to property. Coupled with this human societies all over the globe are becoming more and more dependent on information, hence on information technology. A disabling or decapacitating power in conflicts is gaining more acceptance than killing power. The above aspects have been studied from the available literature on the subject. This article is an attempt to bring out the relevance of non-lethal (NL) and less lethal (LL) weapons in the prevail ing concepts and doctrines of Information Warfare (IW). The article does not bring out the official thinking on the subject. The views are of the authors in their personal capacity. No classified document is reviewed or reflected.