This reference work examines how sophisticated cyber-attacks and innovative use of social media have changed conflict in the digital realm, while new military technologies such as drones and robotic weaponry continue to have an impact on modern warfare. Cyber warfare, social media, and the latest military weapons are transforming the character of modern conflicts. This book explains how, through overview essays written by an award-winning author of military history and technology topics; in addition to more than 200 entries dealing with specific examples of digital and physical technologies, categorized by their relationship to cyber warfare, social media, and physical technology areas. Individually, these technologies are having a profound impact on modern conflicts; cumulatively, they are dynamically transforming the character of conflicts in the modern world. The book begins with a comprehensive overview essay on cyber warfare and a large section of A–Z reference entries related to this topic. The same detailed coverage is given to both social media and technology as they relate to conflict in the 21st century. Each of the three sections also includes an expansive bibliography that serves as a gateway for further research on these topics. The book ends with a detailed chronology that helps readers place all the key events in these areas.

"[E]xamines the former Congressman Melvin Laird's efforts to reconstitute the Department of Defense during the last years of the Vietnam war... Laird acted to mitigate the adverse effects of the Vietnam War on the department and to prepare the nation's armed forces for the future. Foremost was the transition from a conscripted military to an all-volunteer force, a fundamental policy shift that ended an unpopular and inequitable draft system."--from jacket.