By the middle of the twentieth century, the transformation was impossible to ignore. Conflicts increasingly took the form of ideological struggles. Capitalism versus communism. Democracy versus authoritarianism. Freedom versus security.
These battles were fought through narratives rather than direct military confrontation. Each side attempted to control how the world interpreted events. The winner of these conflicts was often not the side with the strongest military but the side that successfully shaped global perception.
This was the early stage of what would later become known as semantic warfare. Wars were no longer decided solely by physical victories. They were now decided by interpretation. And interpretation belonged to language.