Cyber Civil War: American Political Network Theory and Function
Almost two decades ago, military strategists began describing conflicts around the world as 4th Generation or Network Warfare.
Iraq, the most famous example, began as a military operation between two nations and quickly formed into a network of insurgent groups. As the decades ticked by, the Iraqi networks adopted new internet-enabled tactics that were quickly observed and adopted by other powers and began the structure of conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and the United States.
The key insight of the network warfare model is that disrupting a social system is easier than disrupting a political system. Psychological warfare and propaganda tactics, however, were limited before the mobile internet and social media. Psyops and propaganda campaigns may take years to unfold using broadcast media.
With the internet creating a network of individuals with each person able to send and receive information, a new generation of warfare became viable for even the lowliest of upstart political movements or insurgent groups.
According to author and military strategist John Robb, Networked organizations are unique because they don’t have organizational structures or sophisticated strategic objectives. Like Wikipedia, these movements are open source and allow anyone to come in and move an objective forward.
Networks are powerful because they are distributed with no single individual or group holding all information or control, require almost no resources to maintain, and are capable of exponential growth. Networks can also be networked with other networks to form a super-network and the integration requires no formal coordination to scale.
Networks (not hierarchical organizations) now run our politics, and several factors make them unique.
Propogandic Consensus — Individuals inside networks compete for influence over the network by creating and propagating compelling messages typically in the form of memes or short videos. The most effective messages in these networks almost always employ propaganda techniques because longer-form rational messages are generally lost in the noise created by the network itself.
Ex) The sudden emergence of #DefundThePolice arose as a form of propagandic consensus about what to do after the Floyd killing.
Memetic Iteration — Once a message or action emerges as effective, the network begins creating variants and follows the same evolution as the humorous memes popular on social media. The iteration often leads to others, and even competing networks, adopting the same meme.
Ex) A very bizarre BLM support meme jingle from TikTok.
Emergent Activism — Political networks are laboratories of antagonism. Members of the network attempt various activism tactics (protests, hashtags, tag lines, doxing, harassment, boycotts, fireworks, etc.) of which most fail and garner no attention. When successful tactics are found, they are shared and replicated among other members of the network and are memetically iterated.
Ex) Several videos have surfaced recently of black people confronting white people on the street over perceived racial insults while recording the interaction. This began with the New York bird watcher scandal.
Plausible Promise — Since networks are unstructured, they require simple and generalized objectives. Author John Robb calls these “plausible promises” because they must also be realistic goals.
Each network can only accommodate one plausible promise, but people may be connected to multiple networks. As a result, belief incoherence is much higher in networked political movements than in traditional political organizations, which tend to have platforms.
Ex) The plausible promise of the modern racial justice movement is “Black Lives Matter”
Forced Alignment — Networks grow by aligning other networks and institutions with their plausible promise. When Networks have enough energy, they can generate intense pressure campaigns that force the alignment of neutral networks or institutions with their goal.
Ex) The wrongthink purge over the last month in American media and the massive money donated by corporate America to racial justice organizations.
Forking — When networks become split on goals, a divide in the network occurs. The network “fork” is a time when part of the network declares a new plausible promise and moves on its own path.
Ex) The wide-ranging list of demands from the Seattle CHOP protestors created a backlash from the strictly racially justice-focused BLM protestors.
Persistent Activation — Traditional organizations have periods of highly planned and resourced activity we call “campaigns.” Networks, however, are always activated and looking to uncover new tactics for their activism or memes to propagate their message. In times when the network lacks compelling consensus or potent memes, it will be drawn to the causes of connected networks that are experiencing success.
Since many networks exist, there are always at least a few networks in the throes of success, and therefore, it creates an impression of constant disruption among the public.
Ex) This is how public attentions rolled seamlessly from #NeverTrump, #MeToo, #BelieveAllWomen, #ImpeachTrump, and #BLM in just a few years and it’s also why politics commands so much attention.
These factors may sound similar to hierarchical organizations, but remember no one is in control of networks. They are organic and emergent like a hive mind. They can create significant leverage by harnessing the small investments of many people. Unlike street protests, networks can remain active constantly.
The danger is that one network, or supernetwork, may come to dominate all network access (think — the terms of services for all internet companies) leading to a “long night” of network oppression.
Note: Many of the concepts here are borrowed or adapted from John Robb’s work on networked organizations. Robb’s Patreon where his writing can be found is here.
