356 Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos Núm. 2 / 2013 STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION IN MODERN CONFLICTS: AFGANISTAN 1.New wars and communication The first time that the concept new wars appeared was during the Gulf War of 1991. The novelty of that conflict brought about technological and electronic advances that United States launched like: guided bombs, targeting of objectives via GPS, etc. At any rate these are technological advances. Then there was much talk of propaganda and use of information to achieve military objectives. What is certain is that this is far from being in itself a novelty. Since the existence of war, information and propaganda are essential elements of its development. Four hundred years before our era, Sun Tzu stated, “war is the art of fooling”. 1 Cesar magnified his victories in the Gallic Wars. Verdi’s opera “Don Carlo” based on the poem of Schiller did more for the image and the black legend of Spain’s Philip II then all the subsequent studies on Cesar. In the First World War, propaganda is already part and parcel of a systematic activity. 2 Carl von Clausewitz, the theoretician of war antonomasia, with his posthumous work created a school among all high command, which would play lead roles of the two world wars. He stated in his great treatise that “a large part of the information that is received in a war is contradictory, an even larger part of which is false and by far the largest portion is subject to considerable uncertainty.”3 War has evolved into an all-encompassing dynamism, almost uncon-trollable, based on the last consequences on the military genius of their leaders. Hence the importance given to the training of the military high commands, in the last years of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. What was the Gulf War the first one? The evolution of the concept until today does not seem to have been that way. Mary Kaldor establishes the concept of new wars as a by-product of internal conflicts in the Balkans and Africa. She warned changes in the following: the motivations, these are transformed from ideology to that of seeking 1 SUNZI. El arte de la guerra (3ª edición). Madrid: Trotta, 2003, p. 108. 2 PIZARROSO QUINTERO, A. Nuevas guerras, vieja propaganda (de Vietnam a Irak). Madrid: Cátedra, 2005, p. 31. 3 CLAUSEWITZ, C. De la guerra (unabridged version). Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2005, p. 69
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