Since we first wrote about netwar in 1992, there have been at least 10 prominent (i.e., front-page) instances of its employment, in conflicts ranging from social activist campaigns to violent ethnic insurgencies (see Table 1.1). The netwar record has been generally successful. In these ten cases, which feature networked non-state actors confronting states or groups of states, five netwars have achieved substantial success. Three have achieved limited success, while one (Burma) has yet to prove either a success or failure, and another (Chechnya) must be judged, currently, as a failure.
It is important to assess the conditions under which netwar cases are likely to succeed or fail, in order to better understand the dynamics of netwar.
The limits on some successes and the one failure imply a need to take a balanced view of netwar, analyzing the conditions under which it is most likely to succeed, fail or fall somewhere in between. Clearly, there is enough success here to make netwar worth examining more closely. But it is important not to "tout" netwar, as Robert Taber (1970) once did guerrilla war. He was sharply rebutted by Lewis Gann (1970), who pointed out that guerrillas, far from being unstoppable, have often been defeated. Netwar will also have its ups and downs. Our purpose is to uncover and get a deeper understanding of its dynamics.
In Table 1.1, the cases are divided into those conflicts that were or have been drawn out, and those focused on specific crises--a useful distinction often made in studies of conflict. Interesting insights emerge. For example, the two most successful protracted campaigns were waged violently by ethnonationalists and criminals who sought freedom from state controls. The short-duration successes also included some use of violence (in two cases), and a global civil society reaction (that threatened a forceful response) to state violence in the other. And, though more muted, most of the other cases have violent aspects.
The table distributes netwars by type along a spectrum ranging from those that are globalist in orientation (e.g., the anti-landmine campaign), to those that are autonomist at the opposite end (e.g., the 1994 Chechen effort to secede from Russia). In the middle lie mixed cases where the objective is to gain power locally, but these netwars depend on the protagonists being able to open their societies to democratic, globalist influences.
The two unsuccessful netwar campaigns (in Russia and Burma) have featured networks confronting hierarchical authoritarian governments that have been willing to use substantial force to assert--in the case of Russia, to reassert--their hold on power. These networks' losses to hierarchies, combined with the fact that the principal successes to date have been gained by violent "uncivil society" actors, suggest being cautious about the claims for netwar. That said, the nonviolent International Campaign to Ban Landmines and the Greenpeace effort to curb nuclear testing both achieved reasonable measures of success without engaging in any violence whatsoever. This is a hopeful sign. And, while the civil society campaign to free Burma from authoritarian rule is a partial failure to date, this is a continuing campaign whose ultimate outcome is yet unknown.
Finally, these netwar conflicts feature an uneven split between those about globalist issues--aimed at fostering the rise of a rights- and ethics-based civil society--and the more frequent, somewhat darker "autonomist" variety of netwar, featuring nonstate actors trying to get out from under state controls. Most of the limited successes that have been achieved thus far are globalist in orientation, while most of the substantial successes (save for the Battle of Seattle and Serbia) have been autonomist. It will be interesting, as the instances of netwar increase over time, to see whether this pattern holds. The outcomes of the globalist cases suggest the prevalence of negotiated solutions, while the autonomist conflicts may, in general, have a much more inherently desperate character that drives them to greater violence and less willingness to reach accommodation. All this we will watch in the years to come. For now, these early cases have helped us to develop this taxonomy of netwar, further refining the concept.
Will netwar continue to empower nonstate actors, perhaps reducing the relative power advantage enjoyed by nation states? Civil society networks have already made much use of social netwar as a tool for advancing a globalist, ethics-based agenda focused on broadening and deepening human rights regimes--often in the context of an ongoing effort to foster movement from authoritarian rule to democracy (e.g., Burma). But there is another side of nonstate-actor-oriented netwar, characterized not by globalist impulses, but rather by the desire to avoid state control of a network's criminal, terrorist or ethnic-separatist agenda (e.g., Hamas and Chechens). While the globalist netwars seem devoted to nonviolent tools of struggle, the autonomists may employ both means of engagement--often with a greater emphasis on violence.
Networks versus hierarchies The observations and case studies presented in our full volume, Networks and Netwar: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy (RAND 2001), lead to four policy-oriented propositions about the information revolution and its implications for netwar and counternetwar (Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 1993, 1996):
Hierarchies have a difficult time fighting networks. There are examples of this across the conflict spectrum. Some of the best are found in the failings of many governments to defeat transnational criminal cartels engaged in drug smuggling, as in Colombia. The persistence of religious revivalist movements, as in Algeria, in the face of unremitting state opposition, shows both the defensive and offensive robustness of the network form. The Zapatista movement in Mexico, with its legions of supporters and sympathizers among local and transnational NGOs, shows that social netwar can put a democratizing autocracy on the defensive and pressure it to continue adopting reforms.
It takes networks to fight networks. Governments that want to defend against netwar may have to adopt organizational designs and strategies like those of their adversaries. This does not mean mirroring the adversary, but rather learning to draw on the same design principles that he has already learned about the rise of network forms in the information age. These principles depend to some extent on technological innovation, but mainly on a willingness to innovate organizationally and doctrinally, perhaps especially by building new mechanisms for interagency and multijurisdictional cooperation.
Whoever masters the network form first and best will gain major advantages. In these early decades of the information age, adversaries who are advanced at networking (be they criminals, terrorists or peaceful social activists, including ones acting in concert with states) are enjoying an increase in their power relative to state agencies. While networking once allowed them simply to keep from being suppressed, it now allows them to compete on more nearly equal terms with states and other hierarchically oriented actors. The histories of Hamas and of the Cali cartel illustrate this; so do the Zapatista movement in Mexico and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Counternetwar may thus require very effective interagency approaches, which by their nature involve networked structures. It is not necessary, desirable or even possible to replace all hierarchies with networks in governments. Rather, the challenge will be to blend these two forms skillfully, while retaining enough core authority to encourage and enforce adherence to networked processes. By creating effective hybrids, governments may become better prepared to confront the new threats and challenges emerging in the information age, whether generated by ethnonationalists, terrorists, militias, criminals or other actors. (For elaboration, see Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 1997, Ch. 19.)
However, governments tend to be so constrained by hierarchical habits and institutional interests that it may take some sharp reverses before a willingness to experiment more seriously with networking emerges. The costs and risks associated with failing to engage in institutional redesign are likely to be high--and may grow ever higher over time. In the most difficult areas--crime and terrorism--steps to improve intra- and international networking are moving in the right direction. But far more remains to be done, as criminal and terrorist networks continuously remake themselves into ever more difficult targets.
: The deep dynamic guiding our analysis is that the information revolution favors the rise of network forms of organization. The network appears to be the next major form of organization--long after tribes, hierarchies and markets--to come into its own to redefine societies, and in so doing, the nature of conflict and cooperation. As noted in the first session, the term netwar calls attention to the prospect that network-based conflict and crime will be major phenomena in the years ahead.
Changes for the better
The rise of networks is bringing many changes for the better. Some hold out the promise of reshaping specific sectors of society, as in writings about the promises of "electronic democracy," "networked corporations," "global civil society," and even "network-centric warfare." Other likely effects are broader and portend the reshaping of societies as a whole, such that writers herald the coming of "the network society," "the network age," and even the redefinition of "nations as networks" (Kelly: see endnotes for references to critical works). In addition, key academic studies of globalization revolve around observations about the growth of global networks and their interconnection with networks at local levels of society (Held and McGrew: see endnotes for references to critical works). Many writings are speculative, but others, particularly in the business world, are usually quite practical, inquiring into exactly what kinds of network structures and processes work, and which do not.
At a grand theoretical level, age-old ideas about life as a "great chain of being" or as a progression of nested hierarchies are giving way to new ideas that networks are the key to understanding all of life. Here, theorists argue that hierarchies or networks (or markets, for that matter) are mankind's finest form of organization, and that one or the other design underlies essentially all order in the world. In the social sciences, for example, some key 1960s writings about general systems theory (e.g., Bertalanffy, 1968) and social complexity (e.g., Simon, 1969) took stances lauding the roles of hierarchy in many areas of life.
But since the 1970s, and especially in the 1990s, ideas have come slowly to the fore that networks are the crucial design. Thus, it is said that "most real systems are mixtures of hierarchies and networks" (Pagels, 1989, p. 51; also La Porte, 1975), and that "the web of life consists of networks within networks," not hierarchies (Capra, 1996, p. 35; also Kelly, 1994). So many advances are under way in the study of complex networks that in the longer run, network thinking will become essential to all branches of science as we struggle to interpret the data pouring in from neurobiology, genomics, ecology, finance and the World Wide Web (Strogatz, 2001, p. 275).
The dark side
Most people might hope for the emergence of a new form of organization to be led by "good guys" who do "the right thing" and grow stronger because of it. But history does not support this contention. The cutting edge in the early rise of a new form may be found equally among malcontents, ne'er-do-wells, and clever opportunists eager to take advantage of new ways to maneuver, exploit and dominate.
Many centuries ago, for example, the rise of hierarchical forms of organization, which displaced traditional, consultative, tribal forms, was initially attended, in parts of the world, by the appearance of ferocious chieftains bent on military conquest and of violent secret societies run according to rank--long before the hierarchical form matured through the institutionalization of states, empires and professional administrative and bureaucratic systems. In like manner, the early spread of the market form, only a few centuries ago, was accompanied by a spawn of usurers, pirates, smugglers and monopolists, all seeking to elude state controls over their earnings and enterprises (Ronfeldt: see endnotes for references to critical works).
Why should this pattern not be repeated in an age of networks? There appears to be a subtle, dialectical interplay between the bright and dark sides in the rise of a new form of organization. The bright-side actors may be so deeply embedded in and constrained by a society's established forms of organization that many have difficulty becoming the early innovators and adopters of a new form. In contrast, nimble bad guys may have a freer, easier time acting as the cutting edge--and reacting to them may be what eventually spurs the good guys to innovate.
The spread of the network form and its technologies is clearly bringing some new risks and dangers. It can be used to generate threats to freedom and privacy. New methods for surveillance, monitoring and tracking are being developed; and the uproars over the intelligence systems "Echelon," "Semantic Forests," and "Carnivore" manifest what will surely be enduring concerns. Critical national infrastructures for power, telecommunications and transportation, as well as crucial commercial databases and information systems for finance and health, remain vulnerable to computer hackers and cyberterrorists.
Furthermore, a growing "digital divide" between information "haves" and "have-nots" portends a new set of social inequities. All this places new strains on the world's democracies. Even worse is the possibility that information-age dictatorships will arise in parts of the world, based on the skillful exploitation of the new technologies for purposes of political command and control.
After September 2001: The Sharpening Fight for the Future
: Theory has struck home with a vengeance. The United States must now cope with an archetypal terrorist netwar of the worst kind. The same technology that aids social activists and those desiring the good of all is also available to those with the darkest intentions, bent on destruction and driven by a rage reminiscent of the Middle Ages.
Soon after we put the finishing touches on the full volume of Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, from which this seminar was excerpted, terrorists attacked New York and Washington. In doing so, they confirmed the warnings (in retrospect, too briefly stated) that information-age terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda might pursue a war paradigm, developing capabilities to strike multiple targets from multiple directions, in swarming campaigns that extend beyond an incident or two.
And, as we said was increasingly likely, these terrorists used In ternet email and Web sites for their communications, sometimes relying on encryption and steganography for security. The picture emerging of these terrorists' network(s), although still obscure, also substantiates our analysis, which discusses how criminal and other networks have cores and peripheries, with members playing varied, specialized roles.
Our book is suddenly much more pertinent than we had expected. If Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network is the principal adversary--as seems likely, although other possibilities, including sponsorship by a rogue state like Iraq, cannot be discarded yet--then it may prove useful to view the network from the perspective of the five levels of theory and practice: organizational, narrative, doctrinal, technological and social (Garreau: see endnotes for references to critical works).
For the United States and its friends and allies, one challenge will be to learn to network better with each other. Some of this is already going on, in terms of intelligence sharing, but much more must be done to build a globally operational counter-terror network. A particular challenge for the cumbersome American bureaucracy will be to encourage deep, all-channel networking among the military, law enforcement and intelligence elements whose collaboration is crucial for achieving success. US agencies have been headed in this direction for years--in the areas of counter-narcotics as well as counterterrorism--but interagency rivalries and distrust have too often slowed progress.
Regarding al-Qaeda, the organizational challenge seems to lie in determining whether this network is a single hub designed around bin Laden. If this is the case, then his death or capture would signal its defeat. However, the more a terrorist network takes the form of a multi-hub "spider's web" design, with multiple centers and peripheries, the more redundant and resilient it will be--and the harder to defeat. In a somewhat analogous vein, it is worthwhile to note that since Napster's activities were curtailed by legal action in the United States, more free music is being downloaded and shared by loose peer-to-peer networks. Also, note that, despite the dismantling of the powerful Medellín and Cali cartels during the 1990s, drug smuggling by a plethora of small organizations continues to flourish in Colombia. The risk is that small, more nimble networks may spring up as successors to a defeated large network.
In terms of doctrine, the al-Qaeda network seems to have a grasp of the nonlinear nature of the battlespace, and of the value of attack from multiple directions by dispersed small units. If this is indeed a war being waged by al-Qaeda, its first campaign was no doubt the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, followed by a sharp shift to Africa with the embassy bombings of 1998. In between, and since, there have been a number of other skirmishes in far-flung locales, with some smaller attacks succeeding, and others apparently having been prevented by good intelligence. Thus, bin Laden and his cohorts appear to have developed a swarm-like doctrine that features a campaign of episodic, pulsing attacks by various nodes of his network--at locations sprawled across global time and space where he has advantages for seizing the initiative, stealthily.
Against this doctrine, the United States has seemingly little to pose, as yet. Some defensive efforts to increase "force protection" have been pursued, and missile strikes in Afghanistan and the Sudan in 1998 suggest that the offensive part of US doctrine is based on aging notions of strategic bombardment. Needless to say, if our ideas about netwar, swarming and the future of conflict are on the mark, the former is not likely to be a winning approach; a whole new doctrine based on small-unit swarming concepts should be developed.
It is possible that the notion of "counterleadership targeting" will continue to be featured--this was tried against Moammar Qaddafi in 1986, Saddam Hussein in 1991, Mohamed Aidid in 1993, and against bin Laden himself in 1998. Every effort to date has failed, but that may not keep the United States from trying yet again, as this seems a part of its doctrinal paradigm. Besides, if bin Laden is the only hub of the al-Qaeda network--possible, though unlikely--his death, capture or extradition might turn the tide in this conflict.
At the social level, the al-Qaeda network features tight religious and kinship bonds among the terrorists, who share a tribal, clannish view of "us" versus "them." Al-Qaeda's edge in this dimension ties into its narrative level, with Islam being the pivot between the story of "holy war" against "infidels" and the network's ability to recruit and deploy hate-filled, death-bound strike forces who evince a singleness of mind and purpose. Against this, the United States faces a profound defensive challenge at the social level: How will the American people, despite the arousal of nationalism, react to the potential need to become a less open society in order to become more secure? If the Pearl Harbor metaphor--key to the American narrative dimension--holds up, and if US operations result in successful early counterstrikes, then there may be unusual public solidarity to sustain the "war against terrorism" at the social level. But something of a social divide may emerge between the United States and Europe over whether the response to the attack on America should be guided by a "war" or a "law enforcement" paradigm.
In summary, a netwar perspective on the various dimensions of the struggle with al-Qaeda--again, if this is indeed the key adversary, or one of the them--renders some interesting insights into both the context and conduct of this first major conflict of the new millennium. At present,
Knowledge Test
Now that you have completed this free seminar, see what you have learned by answering a few short questions on "Networks and Netwar: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy."
bin Laden and al-Qaeda seem to hold advantages at the social and doctrinal levels, and apparently in the organizational domain as well. The United States and its allies probably hold only marginal advantages at the narrative and technological levels. In terms of strategy, there appears to be less room for al-Qaeda to improve. However, its sound doctrinal and solid social underpinnings might be further enhanced--and a vulnerability removed--if it moved further away from being a hub network revolving around bin Laden. Indeed, this may be an optimal strategy for al-Qaeda, since it is delimited from waging an open "battle of the story" at the narrative level, its one other apparent strategic option.
For the United States and its allies, there is much room for improvement--most of all at the organizational and doctrinal levels. Simply put, the West must start to build its own networks and must learn to swarm the enemy, in order to keep it on the run or pinned down until it can be destroyed. The United States and its allies must also seize the initiative--including by applying pressure on any states that harbor or sponsor terrorists.
To be sure, the edge at the narrative level in the world at large must be maintained, but this should be achievable with an economy of effort. The crucial work needs to be done in developing an innovative concept of operations and building the right kinds of networks to carry off a swarming campaign against networked terrorists. Because, at its heart, netwar is far more about organization and doctrine than it is about technology. The outcomes of current and future netwars are bound to confirm this.