Out of the info loop: why information networks are crucial to modern warfare

Reason, June, 2004 by Bryan Alexander

The 2003 war in Iraq receives fuller treatment, with more detailed descriptions of the CIA's preparatory work. Several passages in particular suggest information operations of the sort that Berkowitz describes. But Kessler barely explores the ramifications of this transformation in warfare. Instead, tantalizing references alternate with passionate denunciations of the Hussein regime and reiterations of the Bush administration's casus belli.

Kessler's thinness of information is complemented by a light style. Portentous sentence-long paragraphs dot the text. ("There were lessons to be learned from 9/11, Peterson told the analysts.") Policy discussions have a tendency to slide into detailed descriptions of meals and sex habits. Passages contradict themselves or lose their way--one begins by asserting that North Korea was not much of a threat, then concludes that it's a threat after all. The book jumps frequently across the 20th century, not always coherently; useful details are dropped in odd locations.

Taken together, these books make an implicit argument for the importance of historically grounding information operations. Netwar theory proves a useful lens through which to view recent history. Institutional transformation, for example, becomes something more than internal careerism and budgeteering; instead we see complex organizations grappling with novel concepts. When Berkowitz narrates the growth of information warfare through the Cold War, the conflicts of the 1990s, and the war on terror, information operations emerge as one replacement for the Pentagon's Cold War-era hierarchical command structures.

Kessler covers a different institution with a shorter chronology, seeing the new paradigm appearing instead from the ruins of the CIA's decline during the years just before and after the Soviet Union's collapse. Both the Defense Department and the CIA mutate and survive, generating new forms: netwar teams, counter-terrorism centers. One open question is to what extent information warfare requires such creative structures, and how long they will last.

While Berkowitz emphasizes the universal utility of network warfare--he considers Al Qaeda's strikes a brilliant example of netwar--his primary focus is on America's use of it. Kessler is even more America-oriented, ignoring the intelligence agencies of U.S. allies and treating current enemies more as demons than as networks. Limitations of space, time, and institutional focus explain these omissions, but a more distributed sample would shed more light on the topic.

Netwar, after all, is a global tool, used by Serbian hackers and by Philippine protesters, by globalization activists and by transnational crime syndicates. The rapid growth of the I.O. model surely deserves attention, as does its role as one of the first truly global organizational structures.

The cultural framework behind networked warfare remains underexplored. Kessler makes a first pass at this, linking networked creativity to the American dream of economic advancement and innovation, arguing that each supports the other. But he fails to develop his analysis of I.O. enough to establish a connection. Berkovitz's account is more institutional on this score, focusing on the Pentagon's development (sometimes despite itself) of netwar. But we can go further. America's military tradition has long emphasized low-level initiative, and our libertarian tendency supports the free flow of information. American culture is a fertile ground for netwar teams and their rapid, nearly improvisational operations.