RAND

A table showing ten prominent cases of netwar that took place from 1994-2000. In these cases, five netwars achieved substantial success and three achieved only limited success. 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.

	Thinking Point
	Why is it important to study netwar actors? Can this information teach civil society actors how to successfully use information-age tools to help further their agendas?

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.