The concept of Hybrid Warfare has gained prominence in recent decades. It is a novel terminology, but the concept is detectable since antiquity: Ancient Chinese, Ancient Greeks and the Jews of Exodus were all well familiar, so well to have let us know. Similarly, bioagents have been used malevolently since always. What is novel is that these two, in the present context, are not only interfacing smoothly, but in an enhanced context: The Hybrid Warfare, which has now enriched its portfolio, from actions of provocation, insurgency, economic warfare, special operations, proxy warfare and social destabilization to the Residual domain, the cyberspace, while the conventional, 3D space expands. Now the Space and the Deep are included in the topography of the friction zone.
In this, the bio- factor becomes not only relevant but also an amplifier: using the technology malevolently, all the advances made to combat disease may be used to cause, further, or perplex and complicate disease. Improved or totally novel or even alien germs may replace explosives in bombs, shells or suicidal /kamimaze drones and taint bullets and fragments. Microrobots may deliver cancer cells to targeted individuals to foster cancer, or specific supergerms for an infection to rage unchallenged. And what happens if the mechanism of these cancers and infections is intentionally provided with an Abort signal? Global extortions would become probable, not just possible.
Far from Science Fiction, this dystopia becomes more probable by the day. The Artificial Intelligence simply makes it easier to occur. Technology allows manipulation and intervention in levels and extends only imagined in the Past, but the application of these capabilities is clearly of dual use, with the destructive potential leveraged by the complexity of the social and state structure. Within this book, we explore the "How" (occasionally the "What" also) in some of these instances. From cyber terrorists to aggressive bioindustrialists and "democratized" ballistic and cruise missile technology, it could be coined as "The Book of Modern Mayhem".
Manousos Kambouris: Born in Athens, Greece received a BSc in Biology in 1993, while working as a free-lance analyst for commercial defense-oriented publications. He served 23 months tour of duty (Special Forces/ Hellenic Army, 1993-5) and received PhD in Medical Molecular Mycology in 2000. Had a 23- month stay for Post-Doc research in the USA on human genomics and returned to Greece for the 2004 Olympics, whence he served as a Security Division consultant regarding chem/bio risks, residues and threats (2003-4). Since he engaged in publishing and teaching, both in defense-sponsored institutions (2009-13) and in five different universities. In mid-2010 he was for 2 years pro bono advisor to the Commanding Officer of the Joint NBC intervention company of the Greek General Staff. Since 2018 he leads the Special Projects of the LaPIT in the Dept of Pharmacy, Patras University, tackling Electromicrobiology, Culturomics, Biosecurity and expedient field-implementable, Point-of-Need molecular diagnostics. He has authored/edited three volumes on Microbiology and Biosecurity and five in Ancient Greek Warfare between 2020 and 2023.
