Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy

[Matthew Gaylor]

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The Growing Power of Networks

The tragic events of September 11th made brutally clear that the 
fight for the future is not between the armies of leading states, nor 
are its weapons those of conventional armed forces. Rather, today's 
combatants come from terrorist groups like Osama bin Laden's 
al-Qaeda, or drug smuggling cartels like those ravaging Colombia and 
Mexico. On the positive side are non-violent, civil-society activists 
fighting for the environment, democracy and human rights. What all 
have in common is that they operate in small, dispersed units that 
can deploy nimbly-anywhere, anytime. They know how to penetrate and 
disrupt, as well as elude and evade. They all feature network forms 
of organization, doctrine, strategy, and technology attuned to the 
information age. And, from al-Qaeda to the Intifadah to the drug war, 
they are proving very hard to beat...

<http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1382/>

Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, by 
John Arquilla and David F. Ronfeldt, Editors, (RAND, 2001) examines 
this new spectrum of conflict emerging in the wake of the information 
revolution. Netwar includes conflicts waged, on the one hand, by 
terrorists, criminals, gangs, and ethnic extremists; and by 
civil-society activists (such as cyber activists or WTO protestors) 
on the other. What distinguishes netwar is the networked 
organizational structure of its practitioners-with many groups 
actually being leaderless-and their quickness in coming together in 
swarming attacks.

Completed shortly before terrorists attacked New York and Washington, 
the volume includes an Afterword analyzing the Attack on America. The 
events of September 11, 2001, tragically reinforced Arquilla and 
Ronfeldt's conclusion that in order to confront this new type of 
conflict, it is crucial for governments, military, and law 
enforcement to begin networking themselves.

"Just as a half century ago, researchers at RAND sought to understand 
the profound changes in strategy brought about by nuclear weapons and 
intercontinental ballistic missiles," says Brian Michael Jenkins, one 
of the world's foremost experts on terrorism and crime, "Arquilla and 
Ronfeldt explore the strategic implications of new information 
technologies in the latest installment of their seminal work... 
Networks and Netwars obliges us to think in new ways."

In Networks and Netwars, the editors and their colleagues examine the 
major instances of netwar that have occurred over the past several 
years-from Osama bin Laden's networked terrorists to the Battle of 
Seattle's social activists-and find, among other things, that netwars 
have generally been successful from the protagonists' perspective.

The authors also find that, despite their diversity, all networks 
built for waging netwar may be analyzed in terms of a common analytic 
framework. There are five critical levels of theory and practice: the 
technological, social, narrative, organizational, and doctrinal 
levels. A netwar actor must get all five right to be fully effective. 
The most potent netwarriors will not only be highly networked and 
have the capacity for mounting "swarming" attacks, they will also be 
held together by strong social ties, have secure communications 
technologies, and project a common "story" about why they are 
together and what they need to do. Like Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda, 
these are the most serious adversaries. But even those networks that 
are weak on some levels may pose stiff challenges to their 
nation-state adversaries.

With this in mind, it is necessary to go beyond simply diagnosing the 
nature of the networked nonstate opponent in a given conflict. "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," Arquilla and Ronfeldt explain in the 
Afterword. "U.S. 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."

Writers who focus on the technological aspects of netwar often miss 
the point. As the editors point out, "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."

Nathan Gardels, editor of New Perspectives Quarterly, and author of 
The Changing Global Order, says "Arquilla and Ronfeldt are a rare 
breed: strategic thinkers of the information age. In Networks and 
Netwars they grasp an emerging reality still lost on those 
preoccupied with the geostrategic balance of power: War in the future 
will be waged by leaderless networks that can come together quickly 
out of cyberspace to 'swarm' an opponent. Like few others, they 
recognize that the flipside of the celebrated global civil society 
born of the Internet is the 'uncivil society' of terrorists and 
criminals who will use the same means to spread havoc and 
instability."

"Rushing into an increasingly complex world, we need ways to probe 
the road ahead, to find the quicksand and pitfalls before falling 
in," says David Brin, author of The Postman, Earth, and The 
Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between 
Privacy and Freedom? "Arquilla and Ronfeldt have taken on this hard 
task, searching for technological threats to a society that has grown 
reliant on data-based infrastructure... In this collection of cogent 
articles, by experts in the field of netwar, they clarify some of the 
dangers that await us-and reveal possible ways to avoid them. It's 
obviously an important and seminal work. I especially like their 
analysis of the key features that enable groups to be effective in 
this new arena of conflict."

Contents: Summary 7 The Advent of Netwar (Revisited) (John Arquilla 
and David Ronfeldt) 7 The Networking of Terror (Michele Zanini, Sean 
J.A. Edwards) 7 Transnational Criminal Networks (Phil Williams) 7 
Gangs, Hooligans, and Anarchists (John P. Sullivan) 7 Networking 
Dissent: Cyber Activists Promote Democracy in Burma (Tiffany Danitz, 
Warren P. Strobel) 7 Emergence and Influence of the Zapatista Social 
Netwar (Ronfeldt, Arquilla) 7 Netwar in the Emerald City: WTO Protest 
(Paul de Armond) 7 Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism (Dorothy 
E. Denning) 7 The Structure of Social Movements: Environmental 
Activism (Luther P. Gerlach) 7 What Next for Networks and Netwars 
(Ronfeldt, Arquilla) 7 Afterword (September 2001) (Arquilla, Ronfeldt)

About the Editors:

John Arquilla is associate professor of defense analysis at the Naval 
Postgraduate School and a consultant to RAND.

David Ronfeldt is a senior social scientist working in the 
International Policy and Security Group at RAND. Their publications 
include In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information 
Age (RAND, 1997), The Zapatista "Social Netwar" in Mexico (RAND, 
1998), The Emergence of Noopolitik (RAND, 1999), and Swarming and the 
Future of Conflict (RAND, 2000). They are also co-authors of numerous 
titles, including Countering the New Terrorism (RAND, 1999).

About the Contributors:

Paul de Armond is director of the Public Good Project, a research and 
education network based in Washington State that studies militant 
movements.

Tiffany Danitz is a journalist and a staff writer for stateline.org, 
an on-line news service that covers politics in the state 
legislatures. Earlier, she wrote extensively about national and 
international politics as a staff writer for Insight Magazine and The 
Washington Times.

Dorothy Denning is professor of computer science at Georgetown 
University and author of Cryptography and Data Security and 
Information Warfare and Security.

Sean Edwards is a doctoral fellow at the RAND Graduate School and 
author of Swarming on the Battlefield: Past, Present, Future.

Luther Gerlach is professor emeritus of anthropology at the 
University of Minnesota. He is co-author of People, Power, Change: 
Movements of Social Transformation and has written numerous articles 
on social movements and environmental risks.

Warren Strobel is a journalist who has worked at The Washington 
Times, U.S. News and World Report, and is currently with the Knight 
Ridder News Service. He has written widely about international 
affairs.

John Sullivan is a sergeant with the Los Angeles Sheriff's 
Department. A specialist in terrorism, conflict disaster, urban 
operations, and police studies, he is editor of Transit Policing and 
cofounder of the Terrorism Early Warning (TEW) Group.

Phil Williams is professor of international affairs at the University 
of Pittsburgh and director of the Ridgway Center for International 
and Security Studies. He is a leading authority on transnational 
criminal networks.

Michele Zanini is a doctoral fellow at the RAND Graduate School and 
has written about information-age terrorism, NATO strategy in the 
Balkans and Mediterranean, and European defense planning.

Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy
John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Editors
380 pages 7 paperback 7 ISBN: 0-8330-3030-2 7 $25.00
PUBLICATION DATE: November 2001
Available at bookstores; from National Book Network (800) 462-6420; 
or directly from RAND. Call RAND at (310) 451-7002, or toll free 
(877) 584-8642 in the U.S. Website: www.rand.org.

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