IB Digital Society 5.2A Conflict, Peace, and Security Notes

5.2A Conflict, Peace, and Security

Conflict as a Global Challenge

1. HL-only extension sub-topic: covers how digital systems change how wars are fought, how harm spreads, and how peace and accountability are pursued.
2. Conflict is a challenge because it spreads. A cyberattack or false video crosses the world in seconds. Technology keeps changing how wars are fought, but ending them is as hard as ever.
3. Anchoring concepts: power and values and ethics (who can do harm, and responsibility and proportion), plus space as conflict reaches into cyber and information domains, not just physical ground.

War in the Digital Domain

1. Cyberwarfare: digital attacks by states or proxies on an adversary's networks, aimed at systems a society depends on (power grids, hospitals, banks, transport).
2. One breach can cascade and disrupt civilian life without a shot fired; ransomware and sabotage now sit alongside missiles as tools of pressure.
   1. Through power a state projects force without crossing a border; through systems, interdependent infrastructure means one breach spreads far beyond its first target.
   2. Impacts vs implications: attacks weaken enemies with less bloodshed, but civilians bear the harm, attribution is often impossible (hard to deter), and escalation is hard to control.

Information Warfare

1. Disinformation, propaganda, and deepfakes spread through networks to sway opinion, demoralise an enemy, or justify action; the information battle runs alongside the physical one.
2. A single fabricated video or flood of false posts shapes how a war is understood faster than the truth can catch up, so verification becomes part of the fight.