Concepts of the visible and invisible enemy as antagonistic components determining the success of military confrontation (using optical devices as an example)

The emergence of remote weapons and the improvement of their tactical and technical characteristics geographically distanced the warring parties from each other, which made it possible to consider the concept of remote warfare involving the visible/invisible enemy and detect/hide dichotomies. The object of the research is the phenomenon of (non)visibility of combatants and military equipment during combat operations. The subject of the study is the practice of detecting the enemy and hiding their units by combatants in military operations based on the application of the laws of optics. The concepts of the visible and invisible enemy have been widely studied within the framework of modern technical warfare, at the same time, the processes of transition from a state of visibility to a state of invisibility and back by direct participants in military operations based on the application of the laws of optics are currently not fully understood. As a methodological basis for conducting a systematic study, the following can be used: historical and philosophical reconstruction, the concept of simulacrum of Baudrillard and the panopticism of M. Foucault. The novelty of the research consists in identifying and describing the concepts of a visible and invisible enemy as antagonistic components that determine the success of military confrontation (using optical devices as an example). The border of (non-)visibility is not stable, its deviant nature determines both the level of development of military art and weapons, as well as the natural and geographical features of the military operations. For this reason, the success of conducting an armed confrontation is actively shifting towards outstripping the enemy in implementing practices to transform his invisible objects into visible, open and calculable ones. Optical devices have certainly enhanced human vision, allowing within certain limits to destroy the boundaries of the perceptual inaccessibility of the enemy, but at the same time, knowledge of the laws of light propagation and refraction can significantly complicate the spatial identification of search objects. The surveillance process in modern warfare has become not only continuous and comprehensive, but has also transformed into a decentered, dynamic and panoptic surveillance aimed at timely detection of threats and their preventive elimination.

the kill box concept, disguise, the invisible enemy, optical device, panopticism, retroreflectum, the simulacrum, the theory of countershading, a technical war, photo analysis