.
R

adical War” by Matthew Ford and Andrew Hoskins, is one of the most intellectually challenging and thought-provoking books I have read this year. The underlying premise—simplified, of course—of “Radical War” (a copy of which was kindly provided by the publisher) is that the digitization of the world and its cumulative effects have rendered our understanding of war and peace wholly obsolete.

Radical War: Data, Attention and Control in the Twenty-First Century | Matthew Ford & Andrew Hoskins | Oxford University Press

In the authors framing, while the digital world is in a near continual state of evolution, our understanding of war is irrevocably locked in the—at best—Napoleonic-era, with minor tweaks for the industrial and information ages. As a consequence, the intellectual foundation crafted by Carl von Clausewitz is twisted to incorporate technological changes or adjusted to include things outside the binary conception of war and peace—a concept the authors find to be wholly inappropriate for the present era.

This is an interesting intellectual starting point. If one were to strip away all that one knows about war and peace, and seek to craft a new concept of war in today’s environment, what would it look like? How would it incorporate the changes that have happened and are underway? What would a conceptual framework for organized violence look like? Would the objective of war and violence remain the same? How would it accommodate non-state actors? What about social media and other technologies? Would there be a new trinity to replace the people, the government, and the military? Would it even be a trinity at all or perhaps a tetrarch or something else?

The authors spend a good bit of time deconstructing the old model of war—Clauswitzians they are most certainly not. Having done so, they then seek to replace it with their conception of “radical war” or: “the immediate and ongoing interaction between connected technologies, human participants, and the politics of violence.” It is “no longer about compelling enemies to do the will of the state,” but “about managing the attention of populations…where the will of the public is a constantly churning spectacle of opinions and perceptions that spill out and feedback into one another.”

There is much to agree with if one looks at the constituent parts of “Radical War” in isolation. It is easy to agree that our understanding of war and peace is outdated—leading to the proliferation of alternative concepts, such as gray zone war or hybrid war, to describe things that fall outside the binary framework. In trying to capture everything, the theory seems to capture nothing. Information is too often seen as an ancillary domain of operations and not a consistent, or critical, domain in and of itself. The West, in particular, struggles with waging (offensively or defensively) information operations. Clearly then taken together, the West’s understanding of war needs to change.

Thus far, the disassembled parts of the argument are well grounded. The challenge is found in the authors’ attempts to craft a new understanding of war from these individual pieces. Most strikingly, they suggest that digitization has eroded distinctions between perpetrator and victim, and the between those party to the violence and everyone else. In their framing, everyone is a party to war, whether pulling a trigger, on the receiving end, or whether watching the violence on YouTube or commenting on Twitter.

In a purified form, there is, perhaps, some truth to this—if everyone is online all of the time, they are potentially a vector for political warfare or information operations, or potentially can influence the behavior of their nation-state—the difference between a civilian and non-combatant therefore becomes exceptionally fluid, if non-existent. There are, however, dramatic differences in the degree of participation. A uniformed combatant is, clearly, much more of a participant than someone merely watching a TikTok—one can switch off whereas the other cannot.

The authors also often appear to treat levels of military conduct as one fluid zone of activity—there is relatively little distinction between the tactical and the strategic. Mobile phones can certainly be used to achieve tactical effects. Tracking signals on the battlefield can and indeed do help triangulate artillery fire—something demonstrated on the battlefields of Ukraine. This is, however, markedly different than the Internet Research Agency buying ads on social media to attempt to influence America’s 2016 and 2020 elections—arguably attempting to achieve a strategic effect.

The authors seem to treat the information space as one without gradations or distinctions for audiences, agency, medium, or desired effects. Not all consumers are the same. The member of Gen Z may find a TikTok influencer’s video to be a far more trustworthy than the Boomer’s trusted anonymous Facebook page. A citizen of central Africa may not have access to traditional news sources and only gets their information via mobile apps—content for which is churned out by “digital influence mercenaries.” Moreover, just because these individuals are exposed to the media of war does not mean they will act upon it monolithically—or at all.

Here, the algorithmic gatekeepers designed to keep our attention are exacerbating pre-existing logical weaknesses—it is confirmation bias on steroids. The war in Ukraine is a vivid illustration. The West laughs at Russia’s “Z” propaganda, but misses the fact that it is not intended for its consumption, but rather for Russian domestic audiences and to support its narrative in the Global South. Reading social media, one would be forgiven for assuming that the world is united in standing against Moscow’s “special military operation,” yet, if one goes to Latin America, the Middle East, or Asia, one would see a dramatically different picture. The digital networks that enable Ukraine to sustain its fight are also spreading Russian propaganda—the West is only seeing one-side of the battle.

The authors are right to highlight the fact that news digitization and the proliferation of social media have eroded both the ability of the state and mainstream media to control or shape narratives. The democratization of social media led to the “post-truth” era and Tom Nichols’s death of expertise. Taken together, the ability of states to act is both challenged and enhanced. The claims of governments are easily and swiftly debunked, or even scooped—the raid targeting Osama bin Laden was nearly live tweeted by a resident of Abbottabad. On the other hand, advances in technology and digital archives means that authoritarian regimes can better control what citizens see.

Both are valid points, but the authors’ extension of the implications of those trends misses the mark. The authors suggest that states are accelerating war to get inside the narrative loops of adversaries is not wholly accurate. Narratives do matter, but states are accelerating war because the pace of war itself is accelerating. Kill chains are closing more swiftly and the time from identification to kill is shortening. It is estimated that Russian counter-battery fire in Ukraine can, using traditional fire detection means, respond within 30 minutes. Using a remotely piloted drone, those same forces can respond in under five. In the digital era and using cyber weapons, to say nothing of nascent hypersonic weapons, that kill chain could become near instantaneous.

“Radical War” very much reads as two books in one, which do not seem to align with each other. There are expansive digressions into media studies, information theory, the manipulation of history, and other subjects that, while interesting, obscure the core subject matter—the nature of war. The authors are to be credited with trying to marry these subjects, but one wishes they had focused more on building the strong conceptual foundation they offer at the outset.

In the end, the authors produce a fascinating alternative intellectual framework for understanding war and peace. In reading “Radical War” one cannot help but feel that elements of the Clausewitzian framework remain intact—the nature of war is immutable, but its character is in a constant state of change. “Radical War” is a challenging and welcome contribution to the debate about the intellectual framework of war that helps better bound the debate, but the exam question has yet to be answered.

About
Joshua Huminski
:
Joshua C. Huminski is the Senior Vice President for National Security & Intelligence Programs and the Director of the Mike Rogers Center at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.

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www.diplomaticourier.com

Reimagining War for the Digital Age

Photo by Warren Wong via Unsplash.

August 27, 2022

"Radical War," by Matthew Ford and Andrew Hoskins, follows the digitization of the world and its effects that have rendered our understanding of war and peace obsolete. Joshua Huminski writes that it is one of the most intellectually challenging and thought-provoking books he has read this year.

R

adical War” by Matthew Ford and Andrew Hoskins, is one of the most intellectually challenging and thought-provoking books I have read this year. The underlying premise—simplified, of course—of “Radical War” (a copy of which was kindly provided by the publisher) is that the digitization of the world and its cumulative effects have rendered our understanding of war and peace wholly obsolete.

Radical War: Data, Attention and Control in the Twenty-First Century | Matthew Ford & Andrew Hoskins | Oxford University Press

In the authors framing, while the digital world is in a near continual state of evolution, our understanding of war is irrevocably locked in the—at best—Napoleonic-era, with minor tweaks for the industrial and information ages. As a consequence, the intellectual foundation crafted by Carl von Clausewitz is twisted to incorporate technological changes or adjusted to include things outside the binary conception of war and peace—a concept the authors find to be wholly inappropriate for the present era.

This is an interesting intellectual starting point. If one were to strip away all that one knows about war and peace, and seek to craft a new concept of war in today’s environment, what would it look like? How would it incorporate the changes that have happened and are underway? What would a conceptual framework for organized violence look like? Would the objective of war and violence remain the same? How would it accommodate non-state actors? What about social media and other technologies? Would there be a new trinity to replace the people, the government, and the military? Would it even be a trinity at all or perhaps a tetrarch or something else?

The authors spend a good bit of time deconstructing the old model of war—Clauswitzians they are most certainly not. Having done so, they then seek to replace it with their conception of “radical war” or: “the immediate and ongoing interaction between connected technologies, human participants, and the politics of violence.” It is “no longer about compelling enemies to do the will of the state,” but “about managing the attention of populations…where the will of the public is a constantly churning spectacle of opinions and perceptions that spill out and feedback into one another.”

There is much to agree with if one looks at the constituent parts of “Radical War” in isolation. It is easy to agree that our understanding of war and peace is outdated—leading to the proliferation of alternative concepts, such as gray zone war or hybrid war, to describe things that fall outside the binary framework. In trying to capture everything, the theory seems to capture nothing. Information is too often seen as an ancillary domain of operations and not a consistent, or critical, domain in and of itself. The West, in particular, struggles with waging (offensively or defensively) information operations. Clearly then taken together, the West’s understanding of war needs to change.

Thus far, the disassembled parts of the argument are well grounded. The challenge is found in the authors’ attempts to craft a new understanding of war from these individual pieces. Most strikingly, they suggest that digitization has eroded distinctions between perpetrator and victim, and the between those party to the violence and everyone else. In their framing, everyone is a party to war, whether pulling a trigger, on the receiving end, or whether watching the violence on YouTube or commenting on Twitter.

In a purified form, there is, perhaps, some truth to this—if everyone is online all of the time, they are potentially a vector for political warfare or information operations, or potentially can influence the behavior of their nation-state—the difference between a civilian and non-combatant therefore becomes exceptionally fluid, if non-existent. There are, however, dramatic differences in the degree of participation. A uniformed combatant is, clearly, much more of a participant than someone merely watching a TikTok—one can switch off whereas the other cannot.

The authors also often appear to treat levels of military conduct as one fluid zone of activity—there is relatively little distinction between the tactical and the strategic. Mobile phones can certainly be used to achieve tactical effects. Tracking signals on the battlefield can and indeed do help triangulate artillery fire—something demonstrated on the battlefields of Ukraine. This is, however, markedly different than the Internet Research Agency buying ads on social media to attempt to influence America’s 2016 and 2020 elections—arguably attempting to achieve a strategic effect.

The authors seem to treat the information space as one without gradations or distinctions for audiences, agency, medium, or desired effects. Not all consumers are the same. The member of Gen Z may find a TikTok influencer’s video to be a far more trustworthy than the Boomer’s trusted anonymous Facebook page. A citizen of central Africa may not have access to traditional news sources and only gets their information via mobile apps—content for which is churned out by “digital influence mercenaries.” Moreover, just because these individuals are exposed to the media of war does not mean they will act upon it monolithically—or at all.

Here, the algorithmic gatekeepers designed to keep our attention are exacerbating pre-existing logical weaknesses—it is confirmation bias on steroids. The war in Ukraine is a vivid illustration. The West laughs at Russia’s “Z” propaganda, but misses the fact that it is not intended for its consumption, but rather for Russian domestic audiences and to support its narrative in the Global South. Reading social media, one would be forgiven for assuming that the world is united in standing against Moscow’s “special military operation,” yet, if one goes to Latin America, the Middle East, or Asia, one would see a dramatically different picture. The digital networks that enable Ukraine to sustain its fight are also spreading Russian propaganda—the West is only seeing one-side of the battle.

The authors are right to highlight the fact that news digitization and the proliferation of social media have eroded both the ability of the state and mainstream media to control or shape narratives. The democratization of social media led to the “post-truth” era and Tom Nichols’s death of expertise. Taken together, the ability of states to act is both challenged and enhanced. The claims of governments are easily and swiftly debunked, or even scooped—the raid targeting Osama bin Laden was nearly live tweeted by a resident of Abbottabad. On the other hand, advances in technology and digital archives means that authoritarian regimes can better control what citizens see.

Both are valid points, but the authors’ extension of the implications of those trends misses the mark. The authors suggest that states are accelerating war to get inside the narrative loops of adversaries is not wholly accurate. Narratives do matter, but states are accelerating war because the pace of war itself is accelerating. Kill chains are closing more swiftly and the time from identification to kill is shortening. It is estimated that Russian counter-battery fire in Ukraine can, using traditional fire detection means, respond within 30 minutes. Using a remotely piloted drone, those same forces can respond in under five. In the digital era and using cyber weapons, to say nothing of nascent hypersonic weapons, that kill chain could become near instantaneous.

“Radical War” very much reads as two books in one, which do not seem to align with each other. There are expansive digressions into media studies, information theory, the manipulation of history, and other subjects that, while interesting, obscure the core subject matter—the nature of war. The authors are to be credited with trying to marry these subjects, but one wishes they had focused more on building the strong conceptual foundation they offer at the outset.

In the end, the authors produce a fascinating alternative intellectual framework for understanding war and peace. In reading “Radical War” one cannot help but feel that elements of the Clausewitzian framework remain intact—the nature of war is immutable, but its character is in a constant state of change. “Radical War” is a challenging and welcome contribution to the debate about the intellectual framework of war that helps better bound the debate, but the exam question has yet to be answered.

About
Joshua Huminski
:
Joshua C. Huminski is the Senior Vice President for National Security & Intelligence Programs and the Director of the Mike Rogers Center at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.