Is war becoming liquid?Consequences of the proliferation of modern military technology for the warfare of autocratic states and non-state armed groups

该项目名为“在通往液体战争的道路上？”，该项目自2020年10月开始运行，已获得批准为期三年，研究了用于远距离战争的现代军事技术（如弹道导弹、精确炸弹和无人机）的扩散如何改变专制国家和非国家武装团体的战争。借鉴Zygmunt Bauman对“流动现代性”中领土意义丧失的思考，该项目开发了一种固体（以领土为中心）和液体（以目标为中心）战争的类型学，并特别研究了沙特阿拉伯和阿拉伯联合酋长国（阿联酋）的战争，以及胡塞武装和伊斯兰国（IS）的战争。作为一个重要的第一个结果，该项目已经能够表明——与主流的战争文献与民主（主要是西方）国家的远距离联系相反——高度专制的海湾君主国沙特阿拉伯和也门的胡希也依赖于液体战争的实践。这里要求的延续项目扩展了基本研究问题“远距离战争中现代军事技术的扩散如何改变专制国家战争的空间维度？”，另外三个国家：a)俄罗斯；b)土耳其;c)中国。这将把在项目中获得的见解放在更广泛的经验基础上，以便可以得出关于专制战争的“清算”论点范围的结论。继续项目的核心成果将以一篇文章的形式发表在同行评议的英语期刊上，作为“专制战争”专题的一部分。

The project 'On the road to liquid warfare?', which has been running since October 2020 and has been approved for three years, examines how the proliferation of modern military technology for warfare at a distance - e.g. ballistic missiles, precision bombs and drones - transforms the warfare of autocratic states and non-state armed groups. Drawing on Zygmunt Bauman's reflections on the loss of meaning of territory in 'liquid modernity', the project has developed a typology of solid (territorially-focused) and liquid (target-focused) warfare, and has examined in particular the warfare of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as the Huthi and the Islamic State (IS). As an important first result, the project has already been able to show that - contrary to the predominant association in the literature of warfare from a distance with democratic (mostly Western) states - the highly autocratic Gulf monarchy of Saudi Arabia and the Huthi in Yemen rely on practices of liquid warfare, too. The continuation project requested here extends the basic research question 'how does the proliferation of modern military technology for warfare at a distance change the spatial dimension of warfare by authoritarian states?' to three additional states: a) Russia; b) Turkey; and c) China. This will put the insights gained in the project on a broader empirical basis so that conclusions can be drawn about the scope of the thesis of the ‘liquidisation’ of autocratic warfare. The central results of the continuation project will be published in the form of an article in a peer-reviewed English-language journal as part of a special issue on the topic of ‘autocratic warfare’.