Most people still think of war as tanks, missiles, soldiers and now - drones.

Michael Yon thinks that's the least interesting part.

In our latest conversation, he started listing the other forms of warfare he watches:

Water.

Food.

Migration.

Language.

Demographics.

Intoxicants.

Information.

Once you start looking at the world that way, a lot of things begin to look different.

Michael spent a long time explaining what he calls hydraulic warfare.

His example was Egypt.

Almost the entire country depends on the Nile. Most Egyptians live along it. Egypt's food production depends on it.

Upstream, Ethiopia now controls the massive GERD dam on the Blue Nile.

Michael's point was not that some particular attack is definitely coming. It was that control of water itself creates enormous strategic power.

"Every war is about routes, resources, and ideology."

Then we moved to language.

Michael described language itself as something that can unite a country or break it apart.

Get everyone speaking the same language and it becomes a binding force.

Encourage groups to separate linguistically and you can push them in the opposite direction.

I had heard him talk about this before, but this time it clicked.

It's the same basic idea behind migration warfare, demographic warfare and information warfare.