Politische Kriegsführung

Modern Political Warfare is the employment of all overt and covert means by a nation state to achieve its objectives and consists of the intentional use of one or more forms of power -diplomatic/political, information/cyber, military/intelligence, and economic- to affect the political composition or decision-making in another state. This is ranging from psychological measures up to short of war-activities. The concept was developed in the United States, but similar approaches are also used by other countries. The renaissance of political warfare coincides with increasing difficulties to use large-scale military power and the decreasing efficacy of soft power in times of increasing global tensions.The paper presents the definition, historical background, the methods and objectives. Special attention is paid to the theory and practice of Special Operation Forces and to the modern Support-to-Resistance (STR) concept. Finally, the relations between US and Russia and China are presented as case studies