The advent of netwar

Abstract

In our view, the information-age conflict spectrum looks like this: What we term cyberwar will be an ever-more-important entry at the military end, where the language is normally about high-intensity conflict (HIC) and middle-range conflict (MRC). Netwar will figure increasingly at the societal end, where the language is normally about low-intensity conflict (LIC) and operations other than war (OOTW a broader concept than LIC that includes peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations). Whereas cyberwar will usually see formal military forces pitted against each other, netwar is more likely to involve nonstate, paramilitary, and other irregular forces. Both concepts are consistent with the views of analysts like Van Creveld (1991) who believe that a transformation of war is under way, leading to increased irregularization. The terms above reflect two assumptions (or propositions) about the information revolution. One is that conflicts will increasingly depend on, and revolve around, information and communications cyber -matters, broadly defined. Indeed, both cyberwar and netwar are modes of conflict that are largely about knowledge about who knows what, when, where, and why, and about how secure a society,

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