ABSTRACT
Both the violent and the peaceful proponents of netwar – a term we coined to
call attention to the rise of a new mode of conflict that relies on network forms
of organization, strategy and technology attuned to the information age – have
grown stronger and spread farther since we first published Networks and
Netwars at RAND in 2001. That book develops more fully the netwar concept
that we fielded initially in 1993 and expanded upon in our 1996 RAND
monograph, The Advent of Netwar. Today, in 2004, sprawling networks of
non-state actors are assailing US policies on multiple fronts. One major front
consists of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, which keep striving to mount
catastrophic terrorist attacks. Another front features civic-action networks
around the world that have banded together in (mostly) peaceful efforts to
constrain US power – particularly the application of American military
power. Both types of netwar actors pose serious challenges to US policy and
strategy, and to US-European relations. The former – the terrorists –
continue to endanger US and European security. But, over the long term, the
emergence of a globally networked civil society should prove the more
powerful, enduring, and transformative development. These are the themes we
emphasize in this article, which updates some of the key points that we made
in the 2001 edition of our book and in the foreword to the 2003 Spanish edition
of Networks and Netwars (Redes y Guerras en Red).
