Imagine a life of virtual reality -- a childhood contained in a controlled environment, with no human contact or experiences outside of the world of computer-generated images. Corgan has been genetically engineered by the Federation for quick reflexes, high intelligence, and physical superiority. Everything Corgan is, everything he has ever seen or done, was to prepare him for one moment: a bloodless, computer-controlled virtual war. When Corgan meets his two fellow warriors, he begins to question the Federation. Now Corgan must decide where his loyalties lie, what he's willing to fight for, and exactly what he wants in return. His decisions will affect not only these three virtual warriors, but all the people left on earth.

"Virtual War" describes the latest phase in modern combat: war fought by remote control. Kosovo was such a virtual war, a war in which US and NATO forces did the fighting but only Kosovars and Serbs did the dying. Ignatieff raises the troubling possibility that virtual wars, so much easier to fight, could become the way superpowers impose their will in the century ahead.

Virtuous War is the first book to map the emergence and judge the consequences of a new military-industrial-media-entertainment network. James Der Derian takes the reader from a family history of war and genocide to new virtual battlespaces in the Mojave Desert, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and American universities. He tracks the convergence of cyborg technologies, video games, media spectacles, war movies, and do-good ideologies that produced a chimera of high-tech, low-risk ‘virtuous wars’. In this newly updated edition, he reveals how a misguided faith in virtuous war to right the wrongs of the world instead paved the way for a flawed response to 9/11 and a disastrous war in Iraq. Blinded by virtue, emboldened by technological superiority, seized by a mimetic terror, the US blundered from one foreign fiasco to the next. Taking the long view as well as getting up close to the war machine, Virtuous War provides a compelling alternative to the partisan politics, instant analysis and technical fixes that currently bedevil US national security policy.

Digital War offers a comprehensive overview of the impact of digital technologies upon the military, the media, the global public and the concept of ‘warfare’ itself. This introductory textbook explores the range of uses of digital technology in contemporary warfare and conflict. The book begins with the 1991 Gulf War, which showcased post-Vietnam technological developments and established a new model of close military and media management. It explores how this model was reapplied in Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), and how, with the Web 2.0 revolution, this informational control broke down. New digital technologies allowed anyone to be an informational producer leading to the emergence of a new mode of ‘participative war’, as seen in Gaza, Iraq and Syria. The book examines major political events of recent times, such as 9/11 and the War on Terror and its aftermath. It also considers how technological developments such as unmanned drones and cyberwar have impacted upon global conflict and explores emerging technologies such as soldier-systems, exo-skeletons, robotics and artificial intelligence and their possible future impact. This book will be of much interest to students of war and media, security studies, political communication, new media, diplomacy and IR in general.

War virtually -- Requiem for a robot -- Pentagon West -- The dark arts -- Juggernaut -- Precogs, Inc. -- Postdata -- Acknowlegements -- Appendix : sub-rosa research.

If the practice of war is as old as human history, so too is the need to reflect upon war, to understand its meaning and implications. The Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus asserted in 600BC that War (polemos) is justice, thus inaugurating a long philosophical tradition of consideration of the morality of war. In recent times, the increased specialisation of academic disciplines has led a to a fragmentation of the thematic of war within the academy - the topic of war is as likely to be addressed by sociologists, cultural theorists, psychologists and even computer scientists as it is by historians, philosophers or political scientists. This diversity of disciplinary approaches to war is undoubtedly fruitful in itself but can lead to an isolation of respective disciplinary analyses of war from each other. In July 2002, at Mansfield College, Oxford, an inter-disciplinary conference on war (entitled 'War and Virtual War') was held so as to redress some of this disciplinary isolationism and to forge an integrative dialogue on war, in all its facets. The papers in this volume were nominated by delegates as the most paradigmatic of the ethos of the original project and the most successful in achieving its aims of inter-disciplinarity and critical dialogue.

Shell shock, combat fatigue, Vietnam Syndrome--whatever the name, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been with us since ancient Greece. With 20 percent of the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq exhibiting PTSD symptoms, the United States military has a strong interest in combating the condition. Navy psychiatrist Robert N. McLay has been at the forefront of these efforts, using virtual reality to treat service members and veterans with PTSD. So far, the virtual reality program shows more promise than traditional therapies. Several years into the project, McLay recounts openly and with bleak honesty the successes, failures, and limits of virtual reality treatment--but his experiences hold out hope.--From publisher description.