David Ronfeldt

Cyberwar is coming

Abstract The information revolution and related organizational innovations are altering the nature of conflict and the kinds of military structures, doctrines, and strategies that will be needed. This study introduces two concepts for thinking about these issues: cyberwar and netwar. Industrialization led to attritional warfare by massive armies (e.g., World War I). Mechanization led to maneuver predominated by tanks (e.g., World War II). The information revolution implies the rise of cyberwar, in which neither mass nor mobility will decide outcomes; instead, the side that knows more, that can disperse the fog of war yet enshroud an adversary in it, will enjoy decisive advantages. Communications and intelligence have always been important. At a minimum, cyberwar implies that they will grow more so and will develop as adjuncts to overall military strategy. In this sense, it resembles existing notions of “information war” that emphasize C3I. However, the information revolution may imply overarching effects ...

Cyberocracy is coming

Abstract The government world lags behind the business world in feeling the effects of the information technology revolution and related innovations in organization. But government may change radically in the decades ahead. This essay fields a concept— cyberocracy—to discuss how the development of, and demand for access to, the future electronic information and communications infrastructures (i.e., cyberspace) may alter the nature of the bureaucracy. Although it is too early to say precisely what a cyberocracy may look like, the outcomes may include new forms of democratic, totalitarian, and hybrid governments. Optimism about the information revolution should be tempered by a constant, anticipatory awareness of its potential dark side.

The Current Situation in Mexican Immigration

By 1988, the Mexican-origin population of the United States had grown to 12.1 million, largely from recent, sharp increases in immigration. The policy concerns raised by this phenomenon have been influenced by some perceptions that available research contradicts. Today most Mexican immigrants come to stay, about half are female, and they have increasingly less schooling compared to the native-born population and other immigrants. Nationally, they do not cause adverse economic effects for native-born workers and, across generations, their language and political assimilation is proceeding well. They put greater demands on education than on other public services. However, the Mexican-origin population affects the economy and public services more and differently in the areas where it is concentrated, primarily in the western United States and large urban areas. Further, the recent legalization of 2.3 million Mexican immigrants can be expected to increase the demand on public services, especially in those areas.

Netwar Revisited: The Fight for the Future Continues

This work continues to develop the ‘netwar’ concept that the authors introduced in 1993 and have expanded upon in their various RAND and other writings ever since. Deeper understanding of the nature, strengths and vulnerabilities of networks will prove useful in combating terrorism and transnational crime, but also in understanding militant social activism, both of the violently disruptive sort and that which aims at fostering the rise of a global civil society. This essay also assesses recent US performance in the terror war, and concludes by raising concerns over the possible rise of a new form of network-based fascism.

Preparing for information‐age conflict: Part 1 conceptual and organizational dimensions

Abstract Prevailing hopes for the peace‐enhancing tendencies of interconnectivity must be tempered by a realization that the information revolution augurs a new epoch of conflict, in which new modes of armed combat and social upheaval will emerge. We propose a four‐part vision to prepare for this new epoch. This article spells out the first two parts — the conceptual and organizational (a second article will convey the doctrinal and strategic parts). In our vision, preparing for information‐age conflict involves rethinking the very concept of ‘information’. This is achieved by adding to the dominant view, that information is largely about ‘information processing’, a less‐developed view that emphasizes the ‘structuring’ roles of information. In this latter view, embedded information is what enables a structure to hold its form; and this helps account for the successful functioning of all sorts of actors and systems, in peace as well as in war. The organizational dimension of our analysis holds that the inf...

Preparing for information‐age conflict: Part 2 doctrinal and strategic dimensions

Abstract Across the spectrum of Information‐Age conflict, from social activism at one end to active military operations at the other, ‘swarming’ is emerging as an optimal doctrine for actualizing the potential of small, dispersed, networked groups using new information technologies. Swarms will feature a capability for ‘sustainable pulsing’ ‐ manœuvring separately, while combining on a particular object or target simultaneously, from all directions. This will be found both on battlefields, where decentralized, networked command and control will unleash the power of a BattleSwarm ‐ a possible successor to the twentieth‐century blitzkrieg form of war ‐ and in ‘global civil society’ actions, as seen in the campaign to ban landmines and in the protracted information operations to deter the Mexican government from using force against the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas. Achieving the organizational and doctrinal shifts we discuss will require unprecedented levels of information sharing. At the level of grand strat...