Information Age Terrorism

Introduction: Information Revolution and The Network Society

The term network society is one of many used in reference to ongoing technology developments in the US, Europe and Japan. The invention of the transistor, semi-conductor, micro-processor, personal computer, information transmission protocols, the Internet, and myriad others have led those attempting to understand it and its broad ramifications to brand it with numerous titles. These include the information revolution, the information economy, the information age, information super-highway, the digital era, and the network society. For some it is about the technology of computing, others about communication. For some it is about the movement from industrial to post-industrial, modern to post-modern, product-based economies to service-based economies. For others it is about the realization of globalization through the reduction of time and space. Most believe in this inevitable connection between the information technology revolution and globalization though much of the writing on the subject suggests that there are many different views on this (Gordon, 1999). The closest thing to a generic statement that sums up all of the thought is that technological change alters the "processes, relationships, and principles that govern the actions and interactions of individuals, firms, organizations, and states (Gordon).

Information Technology (IT) is shorthand for information and communication technology and services and encompasses production, distribution, and consumption of information across all media. The Information Revolution (IR) generally refers to the pace of change that has occurred as a result of the rapid growth and development of IT products that permeate most aspects of life today. Waters in "Globalization" (2001) defines it as "a social process in which the constraints of geography on economic, political, social and cultural arrangements recede, in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding and in which people act accordingly". Wilson (1998) simply refers to it as an increase in the transborder flow of ideas, things, and activities. Putting these together the globalization of IT might refer to the cross-border flow of information and the spread of hardware and software that produces, distributes, and consumes information. Information technology can also be regarded as media, as a factor of production, and as an instrument of organizational change (Wilson)

Manuel Castells in "The Network Society" refers to the new communication system as a universal digital language "integrating globally the production and distribution of words, sounds, and images of our culture, and customizing them to the tastes of the identities and moods of individuals." Castells believes that the information technology revolution can be traced to the 1970's, primarily in the US. He writes that it coincided with a restructuring of capitalism caused by the oil and financial crises of the 1970's, such that by the 80's and 90's capitalism and IT were inseparable. Castells concludes that long-term productivity is the source of wealth of nations and technology is the major productivity-inducing factor. Nevertheless, different results occurred in different countries "according to their history, culture, institutions, and their relationship to capitalism and information technology" as evidenced by the failures of modernization in countries such as Iran and Afghanistan (though Iran may now be back on the path to modernization).

Castells includes the network organization as one of five elements contributing to the formation of the network society. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt summarize the ramifications of the growth of network organizations on international conflict saying that conflict will be increasingly be fought by networks of non-state actors and not hierarchies.

The rise of network forms of organization--particularly "all-channel networks," in which every node can communicate with every other node--is one of the single most important effects of the information revolution for all realms: political, economic, social, and military. It means that power is migrating to small, non-state actors who can organize into sprawling networks more readily than can traditionally hierarchical nation-state actors. It means that conflicts will increasingly be waged by "networks," rather than by "hierarchies." It means that whoever masters the network form stands to gain major advantages in the new epoch. Some actors, such as various terrorists and criminals, may have little difficulty forming highly networked, largely nonhierarchical organizations; but for other actors, such as professional militaries that must continue to uphold hierarchies at their core, the challenge will be to discover how to combine hierarchical and networked designs to increase their agility and flexibility for field operations." From "In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age" (1997)