Netwar and Network Dynamics
The high flexibility and reconfigurability inherent in the network structure creates a challenge in maintaining its effectiveness. Arquilla and Ronfeldt identify four areas that affect the strength of a network:
- Organization – what type of network is employed, and to what extent are the actors networked?
- Doctrine – what motivates the use of the network form, what keeps it from falling apart, and how does the organization operate without central leadership?
- Technology – what communication technology is being used, and how?
- Social ties – how much interpersonal trust exists within the network?
With this rubric, the strength of a netwar actor corresponds to how highly networked it is, whether its doctrine sustains the network and guides its members, how effectively technology is used to maintain the network, and how much interpersonal trust there is between nodes in the network.
Networks with many leaders, or no leader, may maintain coordination through a combination of powerful doctrine, ideology, shared beliefs, and/or common interests. This allows all the members of the network to maintain a common objective despite great personal or group autonomy. In other words, this provides an “ideational, strategic, and operational centrality that allows for tactical decentralization.”
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