Light-speed, contemporary war, and Australia’s national defence strategic review

Abstract

AbstractIn our hyperconnected contemporary world, military and civilian digital and cyber technologies rely upon uncontested and uncongested access to frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). This reliance enables light-speed signalic connectivity, interconnectivity, operability, and interoperability of the systems and devices that perpetuate twenty-first century modes of information, remote, hybrid, and digital warfare. Informed by cultural theorist Paul Virilio’s commentaries on speed, light-speed, and war, this article examines speed as an inflection that insidiously underpins the Australian Government’s 2023 National Defence: Defence Strategy Review (DSR) (public version). This is not an exhaustive study of light-speed or the DSR. Rather, this article aims to show how speed and light-speed, used as investigatory lenses, can provide critical insights into relationships between contemporary technology, and war. To this end, the article refers to US and UK defence and government electromagnetic spectrum policy statements, interpolating them into motivations for AUKUS, and the DSR’s positioning.