With “War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age” Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker provide an early assessment how regular military forces and insurgent organizations utilize emerging information technologies for their objectives to support military and political campaigns and develop new vectors of attack against their opponents.
One key thesis the authors examine throughout their book is the fact that the costs and necessary resources to attain and use new technologies have been significantly lowered in recent years, empowering irregular forces to utilize technology formerly only available to governments. But while this development makes the struggle against irregular forces harder and less predictable the same development allegedly empowered government forces better control over resources and the population and made it more resilient against irregular attacks. The ensuing stalemate thus resulted in prolonged struggles of low intensity in which complete defeat of the opponent has become less likely.
The authors examine different examples of the use of information technology by government forces to influence public perception and public opinion circumventing media channels and communicating via social media directly, looking at the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel. Here different national doctrines and different styles are identified and the effects on public opinion assessed. In contrast to this the media efforts of Hezbollah, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are also analyzed in comparison. Here again different styles and strategies can be identified with Hezbollah being able to utilize many conventional media outlets to completely engulf the Palestinian population in place and in exile with its propaganda. In comparison the Taliban had to develop media channels largely to address their international support base, whereas Al-Qaeda does not have a defined support base but tries to attract followers internationally with a variety of means.
The decentralized communications means of the internet do provide insurgent forces with a much more resilient means of internal communication as well as external propaganda channels. Although this allows for a greater operational tempo and more dislocated organization it also becomes harder for the organization’s leaders to control content and organizational quarrels. Al-Qaeda adapted to this with its wide array of semi-aligned cells, whereas Hezbollah and the Taliban still try to overcome these problems conventionally.
A second major thesis of the authors is the changing role of the population in an insurgency. As the insurgents are able to specifically address their desired target audience to recruit supporters and fighters, the need for widespread influence and control of the population has diminished. This will in turn support the development from classic population based insurgencies toward cell based terrorist organizations. But as these cells become more radical and have no need to appeal to the wider population they themselves limit their chances of success although becoming harder to defeat.
In summary this study of the interactions of modern information technology and insurgents and counterinsurgents is of great relevance and interest for the average reader as well as the professional, as it is clearly written, analytically sound and relates the known information infrastructure of social media well to current practices of insurgents and countersinsurgents.
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