The Advent of Netwar

The term Netwar refers to societal conflict and crime, short of war, in which the protagonists are organized more as sprawling leaderless networks than as tight-knit hierarchies. The emergence of netwar raises the need to rethink strategy and doctrine to conduct counternetwar.

The term Netwar refers to societal conflict and crime, short of war, in which the protagonists are organized more as sprawling leaderless networks than as tight-knit hierarchies. The emergence of netwar raises the need to rethink strategy and doctrine to conduct counternetwar.

David F. Ronfeldt (Ph.D., Political Science, Stanford University) is a Senior Social Scientist at RAND whose research focus includes information revolution, netwar, cyberocracy, strategic swarming and the rise of transnational networks of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).