358 Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos Núm. 2 / 2013 Information technology had transformed the nature of military power, weapons systems and laser-based information processing. Satellites and data processing had established the power of information and deterrence via nuclear power, thus replacing the previous era. Televisions global reach as CNN, BBC World, Al-Jazeera or Star TV had incorporated a policy of portraying images and public diplomacy to what it was before mere power politics and secret diplomacy. The combination of the action of NGOs and interactive technologies, through Internet, was leading to a global civil society wherein pressure groups such as Amnesty International or Greenpeace, acted as new participants in international relations. Al Jazeera began to play a unifying role on people. The Arab society, world wide, was discontent. Al Jazeera through its emissions got first hand information. Logically, the intifada of 2000 was followed in real time, much like what happened with CNN in the Gulf War. Since then, we can speak of a certain “Al Jazeera effect.” Once they began to have a critical mass of audience, the satellite news channels influenced politics. The news of an event like the 2000 Intifada able to reach the Arab audience, without having to go before the perception of western views or governmental censorship. As the Israelis warned that the political climate was fast deteriorating in countries around them.7 A good example was the reactions to the cartoons of Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper in 2006. The Muslim religion prohibits physical representation of the prophet, in general, any iconic representation of him. The news was broadcasted on Al Jazeera, and the reaction had a global reach. Naturally, Internet also helped to spread the news. The protests went as far as Indonesia, Malaysia, Palestinian territories and Iraq. In Syria, Danish and Norwegian embassies were burned. All in all, some 24 people died in these riots worldwide.8 The outlook was changing, and with it, the nature of conflict. Was it because of the use of the information? No, because it was used in ancient times. The key is that it could be virtually available to everyone in real time. Its multiple of platforms, trans-mitting messages, conditioned the use of gray area or explicit propaganda. Were the new technologies actually found in the field of battle? In a way, yes, because they be-gan to forge a kind of “virtual war”, the first example was the Kosovo intervention. The Arcady of “war without any casualties”, where the infantry was forgotten altogether, makes these new concepts be considered as surgical operations. Almost all ground operations, if I maybe allowed using the parallelism, were developed in the newsroom, the front pages of newspapers and television worldwide. In this area the first truly global bombing took place on September 11, 2001. After the attacks, the philosopher André Glucksmann wrote: 7 SEIB, P. The Al Jazeera Effect. How the New Global Media Are Reshaping the World Politics, Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, 2008, p. 7. 8 SEIB, P. op. cit., p. 5.
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