Netwar is a term developed by RAND researchers John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt to describe an emergent form of low intensity conflict, crime, and activism waged by social networked actors. Typical netwar actors might include transnational terrorists, criminal organizations, activist groups, and social movements that employ decentralized, flexible network structures.

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The high flexibility and reconfigurability inherent in the network structure creates a challenge in maintaining its effectiveness. Arquilla and Ronfeldt identify four areas that affect the strength of a network:

• Organization – what type of network is employed, and to what extent are the actors networked?
• Doctrine – what motivates the use of the network form, what keeps it from falling apart, and how does the organization operate without central leadership?
• Technology – what communication technology is being used, and how?
• Social ties – how much interpersonal trust exists within the network?

With this rubric, the strength of a netwar actor corresponds to how highly networked it is, whether its doctrine sustains the network and guides its members, how effectively technology is used to maintain the network, and how much interpersonal trust there is between nodes in the network.

Networks with many leaders, or no leader, may maintain coordination through a combination of powerful doctrine, ideology, shared beliefs, and/or common interests. This allows all the members of the network to maintain a common objective despite great personal or group autonomy. In other words, this provides an “ideational, strategic, and operational centrality that allows for tactical decentralization.”

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The following are several examples used to support the argument that there is in fact an emergent netwar.

• Terrorism

Terrorist groups, in the Middle East especially, seem to be adopting flexible, decentralized network structures as part of a shift away from “formally organized, state-sponsored groups to privately financed, loose networks of individuals and subgroups that may have strategic guidance but that, nonetheless, enjoy tactical independence”.

Past terrorist groups did incorporate autonomous cells, but they were largely coordinated in a non-networked manner. Newer terrorist movements, such as al-Qaeda employ less hierarchical, loosely interlinked organizational models. Rather than the rigid bureaucratic structures and nationalist agendas of old terror groups, these new operatives are networked, relying on decentralized decision making with flexible ties between other individuals and radical groups sharing common values.

• Zapatistas

The Zapatista movement began as a seemingly traditional, hierarchical insurgency, but was transformed into an information-age conflict. It has benefited from a diverse network of actors, made up of indigenous communities, non-indigenous middle-class guerilla leaders, and a range of local and transnational NGOs sympathetic to the Zapatista cause. Numerous transnational NGOs networked with local Mexican NGOs that were involved with the marginalized indigenous community and the Zapatista guerillas.

Following setbacks in battle, the guerillas switched tactics and began to exploit the network form, taking advantage of the NGOs connections to mobilize global awareness and support for their reform movement, while putting pressure on the Mexican government. These diverse groups of activists and issue organizations were united by common values and shared goals. The internet, which was in its infancy at the time, also became a key space for networking various groups from around the globe with the Zapatista movement.

• Transnational Criminal Organizations

Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) are empowered by the network form in the sense that it heightens their mobility, adaptability, and their ability to operate transnationally. These transnational networks pose a problem for states operating in a conventional, inwardly focused manner. For instance, cartels in Colombia draw power from their extended transnational network resources, making it difficult for the Colombian government to fight the cartels within the confines of its national boundaries. Thus, networking allows TCOs to easily operate across jurisdictions, evading national law enforcement agencies. Networks also make it more difficult to dismantle a criminal operation, given that there is less emphasis on rigid, central leadership.

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Inside the rush to recruit, train, and deploy a new generation of cybersecurity experts to protect and defend our digital borders.

• Urgent warnings have been circulated throughout Nato and the European Union for secret intelligence material to be protected from a recent surge in cyberwar attacks originating in China.
• The attacks have also hit government and military institutions in the United States, where analysts said that the West had no effective response and that EU systems were especially vulnerable because most cyber security efforts were left to member states.
• Nato diplomatic sources told The Times: “Everyone has been made aware that the Chinese have become very active with cyber-attacks and we’re now getting regular warnings from the office for internal security.” The sources said that the number of attacks had increased significantly over the past 12 months, with China among the most active players.
• In the US, an official report released on Friday said the number of attacks on Congress and other government agencies had risen exponentially in the past year to an estimated 1.6 billion every month.
• Robert Mueller, FBI Director, has warned that, in addition to the danger of foreign states making cyber-attacks, al-Qaeda could in the future pose a similar threat. In a speech to a security conference last week, Mr Mueller said terrorist groups had used the internet to recruit members and to plan attacks, but added: “Terrorists have shown a clear interest in pursuing hacking skills and they will either train their own recruits or hire outsiders with an eye towards combining physical attacks with cyber-attacks.”
• He said that a cyber-attack could have the same impact as a “well-placed bomb”. Mr Mueller also accused “nation-state hackers” of seeking out US technology, intelligence, intellectual property and even military weapons and strategies…
• Dr Lewis said that neither the US nor any of its Western allies had formed an effective response to the Chinese threat, which has its origins in a massive boost to Chinese technology ordered by Deng Xiaoping, the late Chinese leader, in 1986. The West’s own cyber offensives have so far been directed largely at terrorists rather than nation states, giving China virtually free rein to penetrate Western systems with its own world-class hackers and increasingly popular Chinese-made components. “You almost have to admire them,” Dr Lewis said. “They have been very consistent in their goals.”

Related:

e9/11 Preparation: Bush Officials Plan Simulated Cyber-Attack

• The 11th annual “Mad Scientist” Future Technology seminar from 20 – 23 January 2010 addressed the challenge of blended S&T surprise. Specifically, it brought together a dynamic group of scientists, science fiction writers, futurists, academicians and students from the private sector and government to look into the future and explore ideas about the “blending” of science and technology in ways that might challenge the United States. This executive summary provides an overview of the judgments, insights and implications from that seminar.

Robot wars, out of control nanotech, EMP bombs/guns, dark webs, Mad Scientist futures, all the good stuff.

• WASHINGTON (AFP) – Former top US officials staged a digital doomsday simulation on Tuesday in which a huge cyberattack crashes cellphone networks, slows Web traffic to a crawl and plunges major cities into darkness.
• Dubbed “Cyber ShockWave,” the elaborate exercise was held in a Washington hotel room transformed for the day into the White House Situation Room, where the president and his advisers typically meet to address national emergencies.
• Former president George W. Bush’s Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff played the role of National Security Advisor as the “cabinet” sought to respond to a nightmare scenario drawn up by former CIA director Michael Hayden.
• As the “crisis” escalated, the officials discussed various actions including calling out the National Guard, nationalizing the utility companies and staging a retaliatory strike if the authors of the cyberattack become known.
• “If this is an attack on the United States the president, as commander in chief, has the authority to use the full powers at his disposal,” said former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, in her role as attorney general.
• “We’re in good shape from a command-and-control standpoint,” Charles Wald, a retired general acting as Secretary of Defense, reassured the team.
• “We can take action offensively if we know where to go,” said Wald, former deputy commander of US European Command. “Problematically, we don’t know where that is.”
• Three large video screens behind the participants displayed multi-color maps of the United States with a series of mock updates and a fictional television network, “GNN,” broadcast news reports on the cascading crisis.
• The simulated cyberattack was spread through a free application for smartphones about “March Madness,” the wildly popular annual US college basketball tournament.
• The “March Madness” malware contained video footage of the Red Army although a security adviser warned this may be a “red herring” and whether the attack was launched by a state, terrorists or criminals was not immediately clear.
• Launched from servers in Russia, it first crippled cellphone networks, then landlines, then the Internet and eventually the electricity grid in the entire eastern United States, exacerbated by a pair of bombings at power stations.
• New York, Philadelphia and Washington were plunged into darkness, airline traffic was disrupted and the financial markets ground to a halt.
• “This is a massive blow to the solar plexus of the economy,” said “Treasury Secretary” Stephen Friedman, former director of the National Economic Council.
• National Security Adviser Chertoff peppered the cabinet with questions.
• “If we were to shut a server down in Russia, would the Russians view that as an attack?” he asked. “If the attacker is either a state actor or a terrorist group what are our options for responding or retaliating?”
• Speaking after the scenario was over, Negroponte said it was fairly realistic. “None of it struck me as particularly outlandish,” he said.
• Former deputy CIA director John McLaughlin, who was bumped up to Director of National Intelligence for the cyber game, said Al-Qaeda would clearly “like to carry out something like this but we don’t know their capabilities.”
• “The Chinese and the Russians have the capability,” added Fran Townsend, Bush’s one-time Homeland Security advisor, who was promoted to Homeland Security secretary for the simulation.
• Wald, the Pentagon chief for a day, said: “I think the scenario we saw today is believable. I think we’re preparing for it. I don’t think we’re as prepared as we should be.”

(Read between the lines on this one…just “practicing”…)

• Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, said “there are at least 10 countries in the world whose internet capability is sophisticated enough to carry out cyber attacks … and they can make it appear to come from anywhere.”
• “The Internet is the biggest command and control centre for every bad guy out there,” he said.
• The head of online security company McAfee told another Davos debate Friday that China, the United States, Russia, Israel and France are among 20 countries locked in a cyberspace arms race and gearing up for possible Internet hostilities.
• Mundie and other experts have said there is a growing need to police the internet to clampdown on fraud, espionage and the spread of viruses.
• “People don’t understand the scale of criminal activity on the internet. Whether criminal, individual or nation states, the community is growing more sophisticated,” the Microsoft executive said.
• “We need a kind of World Health Organisation for the Internet,” he said.
• “When there is a pandemic, it organises the quarantine of cases. We are not allowed to organise the systematic quarantine of machines that are compromised.”
• He also called for a “driver’s license” for internet users.
• “If you want to drive a car you have to have a license to say that you are capable of driving a car, the car has to pass a test to say it is fit to drive and you have to have insurance.”
• Andre Kudelski, chairman of Kudelski Group, said that a new internet might have to be created forcing people to have two computers that cannot connect and pass on viruses. “One internet for secure operations and one internet for freedom.”

• The National Security Agency, whose job it is to protect national security systems, will soon break ground on a data center in Utah that’s budgeted to cost $1.5 billion.
• The NSA is building the facility to provide intelligence and warnings related to cybersecurity threats, cybersecurity support to defense and civilian agency networks, and technical assistance to the Department of Homeland Security, according to a transcript of remarks by Glenn Gaffney, deputy director of national intelligence for collection, who is responsible for oversight of cyber intelligence activities in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
• “Our country must continue to advance its national security efforts and that includes improvements in cybersecurity,” Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, said in a statement. “As we rely more and more on our communications networks for business, government and everyday use, we must be vigilant and provide agencies with the necessary resources to protect our country from a cyber attack.”
• The data center will be built at Camp Williams, a National Guard training center 26 miles south of Salt Lake City, which was chosen for its access to cheap power, communications infrastructure, and availability of space, Gaffney said. The complex will comprise up to 1.5 million square feet of building space on 120 to 200 acres, according to the NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City.