Military And Internet
The Internet has changed the way we produce and consume, how we socialize, even how we organize ourselves. I suppose I should have been ready for the idea that it could change war too.
“Business as warfare” is a false and reckless metaphor, but it would be equally foolish to ignore the trends Smith sees affecting his trade. One of the great changes to the battlefield, he writes, is the way conflicts end–not with the capture of a city, but in the creation of conditions so that a desired social outcome might take place. The example he cites is how violence against Serbia made possible the Dayton peace accords. Another might be our recent war in Iraq, a conflict many thought was finished with the capture of Baghdad, but which had more durable strategic outcomes with the so-called “Anbar Awakening,” a social change with military consequences.
As Smith puts it, “establishing a condition may be deemed a hallmark of a new paradigm of war.” Or, as Drucker might have it, the goal is to affect perceptions of what a workable ecology might be, and give people a way to envision themselves in it.
Another hallmark of modern war, to Smith, is the way in which it is fought within the media. Military leaders must continually assume their moves are being broadcast, and the “story” of why they are fighting must cohere within an overall narrative of the country’s politics, history and aims. There has always been room in a campaign for propaganda, or public relations, of course–the difference now is how picked-apart one’s story is by all sorts of players and media outlets, and how little control an organization can assume.
As with force itself, the goal is to create conditions that will enable others to create something like your desired outcome. For leaders, this means a continual (perhaps even dangerously avid) awareness of what your audience is seeing and feeling about a topic. For strong players, a consistency of purpose is required (what publicists might call “staying true to your story”) so you are not re-explaining your reasons for action. For powerful players, restraint of action becomes as important as force itself; the violence is often less effective than a visible presence, surveillance or propaganda efforts.
Weaker players aim for sensational images that will travel over the media faster than an F-14, or vigorous disruptions in the existing social ecology–hence, suicide bombings. Often these players cannot posit a workable system of governance, but they can negate dominant perceptions as a strategy.
Smith is not saying that state-owned militaries are going away. Like Drucker, however, he is saying that something fundamental shifted around 1945, and its full implications are only starting to be understood. For him, this means the rise of non-state actors in positions of power that can equal those of a state. For Drucker, it amounted to a new type of society, likewise enabled by cheap technology, in which organizations would take new forms. For all of us, it implies a need for openness to remake our ideas about how the world works.
The Web has changed business and society–why not the concept of victory?
