Any Time, Every Place: The Networked Societies of War Fighters in a Battlespace of Flows
Abstract
In a hypothetical retelling of any of 100 recent battlefield encounters, two networks coalesce around a compound of buildings at the western border of a nation at war with itself. On one side, a disparate assemblage of fighters drawn from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Asia attempts to enter a country at war using an amalgam of ancient trade routes and modern commercial navigational and communications technology. Their stories are as diverse as their backgrounds for one, an Internet web magazine linked them to a religious leader they once knew personally; for another, they come to avenge a brother or an uncle; a third comes for the prospect of adventure, as advertised by other fighters on streaming video. In a previous war, fighters might have brought with them their preferred printed propaganda piece, perhaps even a signed copy. In this war, those authors are very much present and part of the conversation, linked to their progeny by way of e-mail and voice over Internet protocol. The financiers are just as present, relationally linked to the real-time consequences of their donations. This force exists in many spaces at once; it is anchored in relational space but flexible in physical space. The flexibility allows it to coalesce at a time and place of its choosing, achieve fleeting objectives, and disperse before an enemy can respond. This strategy works remarkably well against a conventional adversary, bound by physical areas of operation and beholden to fixed-response timelines.1
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2015
- Accession Number
- ADA624207
Entities
People
- Dave Blair
Organizations
- Air and Space Power Journal