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Hyperwar or the state of Hyperwarfare is the logical conclusion of the 21st Century Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) initially prognosticated and spurred by the American Department of Defense. In short, it is the confluence of a maturated Precision-Strike regime coupled to developments within the field of Artificial Intelligence and Network theory enabling a broader and deeper dispersion of lethal systems.

Origin
The word hyperwar is an admixture of the ancient Greek word  meaning above and war, aptly defined as "organized, large-scale, armed conflict between countries or between national, ethnic, or other sizeable groups, usually involving the engagement of military forces."

This phraseology can be found within military/defense circles reaching back to the Second World War, when faced with the sheer globe-trotting scale of that conflict soldiers needed to a new word describe it. A popular history of the Second World War that capitalized on the dawn of the Internet Age and the term, called the HyperWar Project has also been created.

Modern Usage
The term Hyperwar reached a new short vogue in the aftermath of the Gulf War, when faced with the rapid annihilation of the Iraqi army, some military thinkers such as Colonel John Warden believed that air power had become the predominant weapon of warfare.

The Gulf conflict was also the first example of "hyperwar"— one that capitalizes on high technology, unprecedented accuracy, operational and strategic surprise through stealth, and the ability to bring all of an enemy's key operational and strategic nodes under near-simultaneous attack. Hyperwar is very difficult to defend against or to absorb, which means that the offense again has clearly assumed the dominant position in warfare. Thus, the premium for striking first is higher than ever. ~ John Warden'''

The term gradually fell into disuse with the general decline of professional interest in RMA resulting from a necessary intellectual pivot toward the study of counter-insurgency (COIN). Since 2017, the chief and inarguably most prominent proselyte for the onset of a new era of hyperwarfare has been General John Allen, president of the Brookings Institute ostensibly the number one think tank in the world.

Technologies such as computer vision aided by machine-learning algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered autonomous decision making, advanced sensors, miniaturized high- powered computing capacity deployed at the “edge,” high-speed networks, offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, and a host of AI-enabled techniques such as autonomous swarming and cognitive analysis of sensor data will be at the heart of this revolution. The major effect/result of all these capabilities coming together will be an innovation warfare has never seen before: the minimization of human decision making in the vast majority of processes traditionally required to wage war. ~ John Allen'''

Allen hypothesizes that with sizeable developments in the field of artificial intelligence and bounding leaps in the creation of drone technology, human actors in the near future might find themselves almost entirely removed from the artifices of warfare. At the very least, one can expect momentous increases in the individual lethality of warfighters as well as a precipitous decline in required labor for combatants. Put succinctly, the dawn of hyperwar suggests the first era in human history of purely technological conflict.

In popular culture

 * Other apostles of the era of hyperwarfare include the authors of the popular novel Ghost Fleet, P. W. Singer and August Cole.