War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century

by David Patrikarakos

A leading foreign correspondent looks at how social media has transformed the modern battlefield, and how wars are fought

Modern warfare is a war of narratives, where bullets are fired both physically and virtually. Whether you are a president or a terrorist, if you don't understand how to deploy the power of social media effectively you may win the odd battle but you will lose a twenty-first century war. Here, journalist David Patrikarakos draws on unprecedented access to key players to provide a new narrative for modern warfare. He travels thousands of miles across continents to meet a de-radicalized female member of ISIS recruited via Skype, a liberal Russian in Siberia who takes a job manufacturing "Ukrainian" news, and many others to explore the way social media has transformed the way we fight, win, and consume wars-and what this means for the world going forward.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, War, Military Fiction, History, Russia, Technology

320 pages, Hardcover

First published November 14, 2017

Reviews

[Ярослава]

Дослідження того, як змінилися висвітлення, та й сам перебіг війни з перетворенням соціальних мереж на серйозний фактор:
* боротьба за симпатії зовнішньої аудиторії всякими емоційними людськими історіями (на прикладі Фари Бакер, дівчини-підлітка з сектору Газа, яка активно твітила під час останньої війни в дусі “Ізраїль обстрілює цивільне населення, ХАМАС не використовує нас як живий щит” й доклалася до анти-ізраїльських сантиментів за кордоном, хоча навряд чи вона могла знати, де там стоять установки ХАМАСУ і чи використовують її як живий щит);
* формування проміжного класу між комбатантами й мирним населенням – людей, які не є безпосередньо комбатантами, але за допомогою соціальних мереж впливають на перебіг бойових дій, забезпечуючи армію потрібним, впливаючи на публічну опінію і таке інше (це якраз на прикладі українських волонтерів);
* про роль civic journalists-розслідувачів (на прикладі Bellingcat, очевидно);
* як відбувається радикалізація й вербування до терористичних організацій через соцмережі (на прикладі вербування alienated французьких етнічних меншин в ІДІЛ);
І т.д., і т.і. Нічого ніби радикально нового, але кейси цікаві й ілюстративні. При цьому переклад, на жаль, поганий - навіть не можу сказати “невичитаний”, тому що переписувати треба буквально кожне речення. Тут і кальки англійського синтаксису, і лінощі погуглити (скажімо, перекладачка пише про Нафталі Беннетта в жіночому роді; пише, що якась солдатка “вдень у бойовій втомі, а ввечері у спідниці й на підборах”, бо полінувалася погуглити, що battle fatigues – це просто військова форма; Маклюена називає то Маклуганом, то Маклуханом, хоча в нас він увійшов в обіг у геть іншому написанні; і т.д,), і хибні друзі перекладача (пише, що вікілікс “украли 230 тисяч кабелів" у Клінтон – cables тут не кабелі, а листи; militia у ДНР/ЛНР – це не “міліція”, а “ополченці”, і т.д.). У другому виданні це добро виправлятимуть, тож раджу дочекатися другого видання, а не ламати очі об оце.

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty solid look at how social media enables information warfare during conflict, particularly through the empowerment of civilian actors. The book analyzes a number of case studies, including Operation Cast Lead, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the online recruitment campaigns of Islamic State. The most important lesson is that the "war" as a concept is becoming increasingly murkier, with the lines between politics, media and armed conflict blurring into one phenomenon. Marshall McLuhan's prediction of a global information war seems pretty accurate, and so far this is the best book that I've come across that attempts to explain this phenomenon. Will be writing a more extended review later on.

[Sarah Bierle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Journalistic-style reporting, interviews, and well-thought conclusions make this book a must-read for those interested in military history and the direction of warfare's future.

[Taryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good read on the social media narrative that is key in war times. It was published before the rise of TikTok so it would be interesting to see an updated version but I think a lot of principles would be similar.

It was sad to see how wars haven't changed either, Israel/Palestine, Ukraine/Russia, Syria. Heartbreaking.

[Alexandros Potapidis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The information aspect of every battlefield has always had its political echoes via the controls and flows of communication. Most prominent was the role of propaganda and how the governments' control of information shaped the hearts and minds of its people and obtained their undisputed loyalty. What is new at the beginning of the 21st century is the revolution in information technology and how the flow of information has seased to be the sole monopoly of the state. Patrikarakos' claim is that the ubiquity and popularity of social media has empowered private actors, such as citizens, to endeavour to shape the war discourse in unique ways that were unimaginable a few years ago. He calls this new breed of active fact and opinion maker, Homo Digitalis. His argument is not a novel or elaborate. What is compelling in his narrative are the original stories he presents, based on interviews during his journalistic work. These stories are appealing because they reveal how individuals that would never have come to the forefront of physical and virtual wars, used (or were used by) social media in order to shape the outcomes of the information wars. Patrikarakos' main argument evolves around the powerful effect of social media and how "states can win the physical battle on the ground but lose the war." (p. 43). For him, the changing nature of the modern warfare, with its unspecified objectives and unclear demarcations of what constitutes a victory and what a defeat, promotes the centrality of politics. And politics is all about persuasion, negotiation, exchange of passions and opinions that may not have a grounding onto reality and facts. In a post-modern world, where "facts are less important than narratives" (p. 264), where tribalism and populism can distort facts and reality, where McLuhan's echo of "the media is the message" strongly resonates with today's social media, conflicts are "less about whose army wins than about whose story wins." (p. 21).

At the first glance, it is a compelling argument. It has its merits and Patrikarakos deploys an elegant and convincing language. But the argument is convincing only when it is seen out of the wider historical context. It is indeed this ahistorical view, but with beautifully shaped narratives, that makes the book something of a minor blockbuster in the realm of popular sociology. Societies were always tribal, perennially divided. The return of indentity politics is not a return at all; it is a continuation of a social coexistence that shaped the human history. The Self and Other never seased to exist, it was only subdued after the Second World War. It was the submission of human divisions for a peaceful and prosperous world that gave birth to wider global interconnectedness, and its subsequent technological evolutions and revolutions helped to magnify the division and the unity of human coexistence. In this sense, social media is a medium that reflects the world, it does not re-shape it or re-create it. Patrikarakos' over-emphasis on individuals and their abilities to shape the narrative is not a new development. History is full of individuals who shaped the world in small, but also in significant ways. Unfortunately they did not have Facebook and Twitter to make their stories and achievements known instantly on the other side of the globe. Additionally, every revolution in media that promoted mass communication created its own reality and spread its own political messages. The mass production of Bible that followed the invention of typography created the space for the spread of heretic versions of Catholic Christianity and led to the Reformation. His tool was not Twitter or YouTube, but typography. Patrikarakos argues that the social media are posing a threat to the idea of the nation-state (p. 258-9). It is a premature suggestion that does not take into account the historical context. In a polarising era where identity politics are at the forefront of every online discussion, the idea of nation-state becomes more relevant and alive. The power of a few individuals to shape global discussions with the help of social media can not undo the instilled ideological prominence of the nation-state. Overall, the book is a thought-provoking and well researched narrative of the role of social media in today's conflicts and it is worth reading.

[Inna Varenytsia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“По опыту предыдущих войн...» - с этой фразы начинались занятия для подготовки офицеров запаса в одном из харьковских университетов. Под «предыдущими войнами» имели в виду первую и вторую мировую. Опыты более современные в неповоротливом минобороновском украинском сознании и пространстве просто «выпали». Как не учитываются уже сейчас опыты важных боев (например, для медиков - Иловайск, Дебальцево и ДАП - это три разных опыта, которые важно описать, которыми нужно обменяться и учитывать в подготовке следующих групп военных медиков).
Не учитывать «опыт предыдущих войн» - это скорее традиция для разных подразделений разных армий мира. Но кто-то же когда-нибудь и это напишет. Потому в книге есть эти вопросы и немного больше:
Почему своевременная реакция на сообщения и пояснять жителям страны, что происходит, - важно? Почему социальные медиа и гражданская журналистика не заменят настоящую?
Что связывает три разные войны и почему успех военный и информационный теперь - отдельные поля битвы?

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is certainly a relevant topic. The author does a commendable job profiling individuals who represent change using social media. But the book is repetitive, resembling more a lengthy magazine article. Interviews are revealing and the conclusions are alarming. I am not so sure the human race has evolved into " Homo Digitalis". That was a hard sell. The profiles were captivating, though.

[Athan Tolis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that, unlike its title, will survive the test of time.

Author David Patrikarakos is not only an intrepid journalist, but also an original thinker. He lectures you a whole lot and tends to hang on to the points he makes for far too long, but you forgive him, because he takes you places others haven’t. Literally and figuratively.

There are many themes here, of which the following struck me the most:

First on propaganda,

• once upon a time, the states were in 100% in command of the narrative; today they decidedly aren’t
• it’s not old media versus new media; rather, it’s about how you can create feedback between the two
• propaganda was once aimed at the civilian population of the enemy; today it’s aimed at the whole world

The point is also made that in a world of fixed borders –Crimea notwithstanding—the aim of war is often to send a message. The order of events no longer is 1. win on the battlefield 2. get your way with the arrangements for peace. The dynamic has been reversed.

Second, on military operations,

• in the case of procurement, social media can 100% act as an unofficial branch of the military
• for recruitment, social media trumps all previous technology
• for intelligence, the free information on the web, properly harnessed by networked civilians, has repeatedly been proven to be superior to traditional military intelligence

The author does not talk in bulletpoints. Instead, you follow him on a breathless and occasionally perilous tour of the battlefield, virtual or otherwise. He starts with a charming teenager in Gaza, moves on swiftly to the headquarters of her competition at the IDF, from there to a vigilante housewife who privately crowdsources and personally arranges for the delivery of supplies and military equipment the Ukrainian military, takes part in a delivery himself, moves on from there to St. Petersburg to interview a professional troll, introduces you to the crowdsourced forensic evidence regarding the downing of MH17 and interviews a mom who joined ISIS in Raqqa and lived to tell.

And he caps it all off with a tremendous concluding chapter, which ties all the strands together and could stand alone as some of the most compelling reading I’ve ever had the pleasure to enjoy. It’s cliché, but the conclusion alone is worth the price of purchase. Start with that, I say.

How does it compare with Zeynep Tufekci’s epic “Twitter and Teargas?” I loved it (him?) less, but it taught me more.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommend. It’s a quick read, and very timely. I don’t necessarily agree with some of the initial ideas on the inevitability of war and am not fully convinced by some of its conclusions on the conflicts it discusses, but this work offers compelling takes on the implications of social media and interesting stories to contextualize how they can play out.

This isn’t my area, so I’m not sure how unique its discussions are in the broader spectrum of social media analysis, but it was super accessible and interesting for anyone looking for an intro into this subject.

I particularly enjoyed the structure. It first lays out a framework for how social media has changed the platform of war, and the following chapters unpack these ideas using individual stories from the 2014 Israeli war on Hamas, the Ukrainian-Russian War, and Islamic State’s use of propaganda.
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For my own purposes, I’m logging my takeaways (notably, I omit the individual stories which really are a key part of this work):

1. The platform for war has changed. Rather than only combating on the battlefield, social media has created a space for informational warfare, which begets other non-militaristic warfare like economic sanctions, etc.

2. As a result, there are multiple wars to win: a physical war and political war. One can lose militarily, but win politically. Winning the political war may be more important long-term than winning on the battlefield, especially with the rise of wars as multi-national/global affairs.

3. Social media acts as “space,” where narrative battles can play out. The occupation of space in this social realm greatly impacts which narrative is heard, believed, sympathized with, and ultimately supported. The processing of narratives by the larger world and distribution of their sympathy/support is categorized as the discursive realm. When thinking about battles for space, I’d note that in the discursive realm, many narratives can/should be considered simultaneously and aren’t necessarily in conflict (or at war) with one another. For instance, one can take space both to sympathize with/address the struggles of one population while also making space to address inattention/concerns for others, as they are seperate, though likely intersecting, issues. Space, as a construct, can thus be expanded for multiple non-completing narratives to exist in tandem, meaning space shouldn’t be seen as an inherently fixed quantity. Yet, space seems to contract when narratives are in direct opposition (that is, when there are narratives and counter-narratives on a single issue), as space can be lost for one (or multiple) narratives when a winner prevails in the discursive realm.

4. Social media has many positive impacts on war, including increased power for civilian voices and access to information more broadly. Social media creates a platform where civilian journalists are no longer blocked by institutional/academic/monetary barriers to share their story. Yet the narratives that get listened to are often preferential to the types of content and people that traditional journalism has deemed “news worthy” or worth caring about. Furthermore, people are free to share their story, but to gain an active audience, they often require those with pre-established influence and power to amplify their voice. This creates a dynamic of needing to sell, or commercialize one’s story, to attract content consumers who will support it in the discursive realm (even already established voices, including nations, often can’t escape the need to cater to consumer market demands):

5. There are several ways to gain social media space and cater to consumer demand:

6. For individuals: seem a-political/unbiased, authentic, sincere, and, unfortunately, those who fit the standard look/characteristics that journalism has historically centered (euro-centric features, young, educated, english-speaking) may be listed to more readily (though appealing to these qualities only reinforces the racism and cultural biases of traditional journalism when we should be actively combating these problems). Emotions/vulnerability can also help gain sympathy in individual accounts of crisis. Exceptional characteristics also stick out: young children/elderly/etc.

7. For nations: cater content for both internal and external support, keep close connections with high profile news stations, allocate proper funding, don’t fall behind the information curve by failing to use social media to collect intelligence or distribute information/narratives, know that the gov-label on sm accounts can be limiting and create obstacles (such as not being able to engage on personal levels with their audience since they have a national audience and everyone wants to weigh in), recognize when a narrative (or counter- or alternative- narrative) would be better coming from within a target community itself rather than than the gov (esp when the target group distrusts gov institutions)

8. In general: post recent and frequent content (volume matters), keep it short, use eye-catching visuals, use catchy titles (questions work well), offer verifiable and third-party proof (ex. multiple videos/pictures from several accounts that are posting at the same time), cater to powerful audiences (discursive support from less influential countries does not go as far as those with more international power, and winning the discursive war among citizens may not be as powerful as winning among political elites, though disrupting support of the war from civilians on the opposing side, such as by showing deaths of their people, can help redirect support toward ending conflict).

9. Social Media also plays a key role in grassroots organization and mobilization, and, as a result, its impacts can reach the physical battlefield: it can be used to raise funds, send care packages, recruit volunteers, connect/transport/house participants and refugees, buy/obtain technology and weapons, get intel, and create networks of instant connection with expansive reach (not bound by bureaucratic steps/approvals/agendas). It essentially allows these processes to happen at a quicker pace than ever before.

10. For raising funds, organizers should have a clear outline for donors of what their money will contribute to and pictures/videos of the final outcome of their donations (ex. Images of soldiers receiving care packages, as depictions of gratitude goes much farther than numbers/stats in attracting donations). Social media thus offers a crucial platform to connect donors and organizers, and the significance of this increased access to resources should not be undervalued.
11. In connecting with donors, and using videos/images of soldiers, another narrative emerges: the voice of the soldiers themselves. And this offers a great opportunity to humanize them and have their stories considered, rather than merely seeing them as instruments of war and national agendas.

12. Yet it would be a mistake to only consider the liberating aspects of social media and classify it as a tool that inherently provides freedoms. Just as social media gives a voice to the “oppressed,” it gives one to the “oppressor” as well.

13. Social media has many dangers in war, especially the manipulation of information and intentional distribution of disinformation. “Social media has enabled a light to be shined on the powerless and voiceless. It has enabled the telling of stories that should be told. But through its ability to circumvent media’s traditional gatekeepers, it has also contributed to the spread of misleading and outright fake news that is able to reach wide audiences to a degree unprecedented in modern history.”

14. Some examples include obvious manipulation, such as curating false identities online by pretending to be news outlets, independent bloggers, and civilians in different cities, and then colluding with each other (using other fake accounts as sources). Such accounts target a range of audiences: fellow countryman to fuel hatred for the opposing side and promote their own leaders, global citizens to gain sympathy for certain causes and alter their perceptions of the outcome of events/battles, and citizens on the opposing side to make them think their leaders are responsible for the war and embed distrust of their own institutions. Common tactics summed up: “conspiracy theory, denial, and blame shifting” in an effort to confuse, distract, twist narratives, or reinvent reality

15. False narratives are made stronger by significant volume and repetition, rather than relying on quality. Even if only 25% of disinformation is believed and spread widely, its impacts will still be exceptional.

16. Misinformation, when fueled by the agenda to polarize (via othering or vilifying the other side), often spreads narratives through catchy mantras. And these mantras are often repeated without those saying them having any real understanding of the issue or what/who they’re upset about.

17. And while it may be easy to vilify the individuals spreading disinformation, this book remind us that a range of participants are involved. Certainly, some participate for greed, others for unwavering faith in their leaders/political agendas (likely due to misinformation spread in their circles), but others are forced into jobs they morally oppose because of crippled economies and necessity for survival.

18. The effect, however, creates significant distrust in all information. In a time where objective truth has been significantly questioned in academia, campaigns to “question more” have led to trusting established institutions and systems less, especially in the West. After knowing so much misinformation is being circulated, it can be difficult to differentiate between those who can be believed and those who can’t. The destabilization of opposing nations becomes the real victory for those wishing to spread disinformation.

19. Yet information can be verified. Satellite images from Google maps can be used to verify locations through road designs, landmarks, etc. Business locations can be verified through registration addresses. Weapons can be identified and traced back to suppliers through tags/markings. There are even sites that help determine time of day in pics/vids by analyzing sunlight in. And anyone with access to the internet, who is dedicated to researching these topics, has access to open-source verification methods, though the likelihood of the average sm user dedicating the time to investigate every video/issue is slim.

20. There is a small (though hopefully growing) class of researchers, whose category rests between civilian journalists and formal media, who act as researchers and interpreters of data/sources with an emphasis on verification. 1. They have a broad range of contacts. 2. Dedication to a specific issue 3. Collaborators who use sm to connect, share replicable techniques, and compile findings. (Ex. Bellingcat) This type of works reestablishes trust in information and strengthens narratives by giving a comprehensive and verifiable picture of events, and often does so at speeds quicker than gov intelligence agencies.

21. But war often, if not always, has a physical element, and soldiers must be recruited. While traditional govs can rely on promises of careers, education, travel or appeals to patriotism, non-traditional organizers must build and promote a collective ideology to rally support and participants around.

22. Information and narratives are key to recruitment, especially for non-governmental entities and radical political figures. These groups benefit from the rising distrust in current institutions and desire to identify with something new. Even when these groups fail to uphold their promises, they are able to feed on opposition for the establishment rather than their own merits.

23. Some groups, like ISIS, recruit widely by decentralizing as much as possible to build an international network for broadcasting their message and connecting to individuals. They also use multiple languages and diversify reach by using multiple sm platforms.

24. Yet broadcasting ideology/propaganda is usually not enough to recruit participants. Direct communication (either physically or virtually) with someone who has already joined groups like ISIS is almost always necessary. By forming a personal connection, and drawing on ideas of a better future and the ability to help create it, recruiters appeal to many potential members, especially those who feel isolated, discontent, useless, powerless, and angry. Recruiters then establish vulnerability and trust to make potential members feel understood and believe in the possibility of a new reality. Social media allows them to make these connections on an unprecedented scale.

25. Social media can also strengthen positions on the battlefield by preempting the fight with psychological warfare and fear. A group might be known for brutality and extreme violence. On some occasions, this can spark retreat before the battle has even begun.

26. These groups target news outlets/traditional media to keep their organization known and feared, and this often requires an escalation of violence/opinions to keep oneself “newsworthy.” Thus, the need to market inspires more extremities and polarization.

27. Another interesting concept the book touches on is the significance of naming war, or more importantly not naming it. By refusing to call intervention—be it narrative, physical, or both—a war, the rest of the world struggles to combat it. Thus the narrative itself—one that refuses to name one’s aggression in the language of combat—directly prevents other nations from intervening militarily (and yes, the example is Russia, so fears of nuc war also limits mil intervention). And while other countries may respond with sanctions, any significant sanctions’ will be devastating globally due to the multinational nature of modern economies. Thus the effective power of nations to meaningfully act, without risking their own financial stability, might be negligible. Yet how can the world sit back and do nothing?

28. The narrator also expresses concerns regarding “gray-zone conflicts,” saying there is a “blurred…distinction between war and peace, which is a dangerous thing. When you don’t desire to defeat your enemy [militarily] and force him to the negotiating table, then when does war end and peace start?” I don’t know if I entirely agree. Certainly the idea of perpetual combat is frightening, but if “war” can transition to being fought off the battlefield, isn’t the avoidance of violence preferable? Also, while a physical battle results in a treaty and forces one side to temporarily shut up, it doesn’t mean the conflicting opinions dissipate (in fact they can grow deeper). I don’t think the ideological battlefield will ever see peace, but if its volatility can be contained enough to keep disagreements off the battlefield, is that not better? I do, however, like this question the book raises: “how can you make peace when your enemy has no interest in making peace?”

29. The book also asks what responsibility social media platforms should have in preventing the spread of misinformation and success of militant/terrorist groups. It points to the absolute value of free-speech, commercialization of content by sm platforms (such as the tendency to push like-minded content to keep users engaged), US government fears of censorship, and lobbying power of these platforms as obstacles to weeding out harmful content. On a similar train to JS Mill, it highlights the value of knowing who disagrees with you and what their opinions are, which may have merit. Yet it also makes us ask: what value does spreading blatantly incorrect information add?

[Kristīne Līcis · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 stars rounded up to 4. Despite some repetitions and simplifications, this was an instructive read, and its ability to prompt questions is arguably more valuable than recounting of events.

First, there are a number ideas put forward at the beginning of the book - that wars, like viruses, evolve and adapt; that outlawing the war in mid-20th century means that State-to-State wars have largely been replaced by State-to-non-State-actors (or State-to-proxy) wars; that the conflict of narratives is taking over as the most important form of conflict; that the ability of the social media to decentralize and accelerate the distribution of information and to mobilize individuals has made it both tool and place for the conflict of narratives to play out; that the governmental systems that are inherently centralized, conservative, and slow are inevitably loosing the conflict of narratives; that propaganda will rapidly will the void left by a government not addressing all groups of population. These ideas are then examined through a series of case-studies, from Palestinian teenager reaching world-wide audience with her tweets in 2014 to confessions from a Russian troll to description of the online recruitment methods of ISIS. Plenty of details, plenty of reference material for the reader to follow the line of reasoning and conclusions, although some of the reasoning is surprisingly naive (e.g. "something is true if enough people tweet the same information form the same place").

Second, interesting to test the book against the six years that have passed since its publication and the questions arising from these six years. Did Russia invade Ukraine because it felt that its 2014 reinvention of reality through propaganda was successful in that the West did not really respond and thus encouraged it to try another level of reinvention? Does ISIS becoming a virtual caliphate make it more or less dangerous? Are the democratic governments any better in resolving the paradox of having to respond to the onslaught of mis- and dis-information without compromising on the democratic standards?

Finally, perhaps even more interesting to extrapolate the concepts of the book to current trends. Will the artificial intelligence tools amplify the centripetal or centrifugal forces of the social media? Both? How far behind the government really are? How the post-truth era will affect all the elections taking place in 2024? Sobering.

"[T]he war became the physical manifestation of the clash of narratives."

[Ihor Kolesnyk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Цю книгу варто доповнити новою інформацією. Деякі ідеї були цікавими, але загалом текст не дає можливості розпізнати основні тези автора, його позиції. І ще слід вичитувати текст краще переди тим, як давати у друк.

Для українців варто прочитати для пам'яті про політичних банкрутів. Варто пам'ятати і повертатися до історичної ретроспективи, щоб нагадувати собі леткість політичних фігур та процесів у нашому сучасному світі і те, що ми потребуємо нових критеріїв надійності особистостей, які йдуть у політику.

Для усіх нас варто почитати, щоб побачити велику прогалину у тому, що є реальністю (і віртуальною химерністю) і нашими уявленнями про неї. Світ, у якому ми народилися і яким він став тепер - це кардинально різні речі завдяки Інтернету та соціальним мережам.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

interessant boek dat uitleg geeft over de extra dimensie in huidige oorlogen. het is duidelijk geschreven met korte verhaaltjes per onderwerp

ik heb meerdere inzichten door dit boek gekregen:
- oorlog van woorden is belangrijker dan op de grond
- na WW2-systeem is ingericht op het voorkomen ww3
- grenzen oorlog&vrede en oorlog&politiek zijn vervaagd
- hoe meer twijfel je zaait hoe moeilijker het is de waarheid te zien
- Rusland gebruikt zwakke punten van het westen om onrust/polarisatie te creëren door via social media desinformatie te verspreiden
- question more -> trust less
- door het democratische vrije systeem is het lastig om deze "aanval" te counteren

Al met al begrijp ik goed dat dit boek op de leeslijst staat voor de NAVO. Social media geeft meer vrijheid aan de individu en meer controle over de individu

[Jessica Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid look at how the fracturing of the control of communications has lead to war.

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the twenty-first century, observes Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye, conflicts will be less about whose army wins than about whose story wins.

FARAH BAKER, GIRL FROM GAZA WHO TWEETS
- She became an increasingly popular source of information coming out of Gaza—

- In just a matter of weeks, Farah said, her followers jumped from 800 to around 200,000.

- She was not even seeking to do battle with Israelis online or to convince them of the validity of her cause. Rather, her target audience was the wider world.

- But it was the detailing of her emotions—her fear for her safety and for that of her family, especially her little sister, Lamar—that was by far the most powerful and popular element of her output.

- American magazine Foreign Policy... named Farah as one of its 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2014, “for cataloguing Operation Protective Edge in 140 characters.”

CONTENT CREATORS CAN ONLY GET SO FAR WITHOUT MAINSTREAM MEDIA
- Farah was able to use Twitter to become a source of interest to legacy media, but it was only when it picked her up that she became an international star...without the gatekeepers’ acceptance, citizen journalism can only get so far.

ISRAEL CAUGHT IN A CATCH-22
- The IDF was facing a catch-22: the more it won on the physical battlefield, the more it lost on the narrative one. In essence, the more it succeeded at the military dimension of war, the more it failed at the informational one.

ISRAEL FORMS AN ONLINE PRESENCE (SLOWLY AT FIRST)
- The IDF takes its Spokesperson’s Unit (Dover Tzahal in Hebrew) very seriously indeed. A brigadier general commands it, while a lieutenant colonel heads up the foreign press branch—

- The protesters instantly relayed their version of events to the world via social media—a tale of innocent civilians murdered in cold blood for trying to bring food and blankets to Palestinians. It was almost twelve hours before the IDF was able to provide conclusive evidence to back up its side of the story—

- One of its major conclusions was that the army needed to be able to respond faster to occurrences of this nature.

- the IDF was not using all the tools at its disposal to rebut the Palestinian narrative

FACTORS THAT HELPED ISRAEL
- The emergence of the IDF’s social media presence rested on a serendipitous convergence of three factors. The first was Landes, with her youth, dynamism, and sheer drive. The second was Leibovich’s willingness to listen to her subordinates... The third and most important factor was the retreat of bureaucracy during wartime.

GETTING BIG (INADVERTENTLY) BY GETTING BANNED
- Then came the greatest gift to the entire enterprise—and probably the biggest stroke of luck in the history of the IDF’s Spokesperson’s Unit’s social media arm: YouTube removed their videos.

- She didn’t know anyone at YouTube, so instead she called up her friend Noah Pollak, who wrote for the US magazine Commentary, and he wrote an article about what happened entitled “What YouTube Doesn’t Want You to See.” It was a hit.

- But twenty-four hours after the article appeared, YouTube reinstated all of the videos.

GOING AROUND THE GOVERNMENT TO HELP UKRAINE’S MILITARY
- [Anna Sandalova] decided to set up a private Facebook group—for around forty people only—dedicated to raising money to provide medicine and warm clothes for the protesters camped out on Independence Square.

- Then in February 2014 Russian troops marched unopposed into Crimea, and she watched as Ukraine’s army, devastated by two decades of government corruption, stood by, helpless to stop them.

- Now the army became her responsibility, too. Buying everything from body armor and radios to helmets and underwear, she and her fellow volunteers personally drove the goods to the front lines.

- Online groups sprang up across Ukraine, doing everything from disseminating information on the crisis to housing refugees to raising money to repairing planes to buying trucks on which the army mounted rocket launchers. All used social media to circumvent the lumbering government bureaucracy, create networks to raise money, and mobilize and inform the populace. They did what their government couldn’t do. Empowered by social media, they became, in effect, a virtual state.

- Anna’s strength, as her heartfelt posts show, is that she uses social media to make her messages personal.

RUSSIAN TROLL FARM
- Anna told him what was expected of him for the Ukraine 2 project: he needed to rewrite twenty articles a day, averaging eight hundred words each. Vitaly asked, once again, if he would have to write anti-Ukrainian propaganda of the type he was seeing all over the Russian media. Anna once again said no.

- He needed to change words like “terrorist” and “separatist” into “militia” and instead of “Ukrainian army” write “national guard” or “volunteer battalions,”

- Also, he could never refer to the cities of Donetsk or Luhansk—it always had to be the People’s Republic of Donetsk (DNR) and People’s Republic of Luhansk (LNR), the official separatist names for the cities they had occupied.

- Above all, he was prohibited from criticizing Russia or the separatists in any way.

- By now it was clear to Vitaly what the purpose of both his job and the company was: to encourage ill will toward Ukraine and the United States and to enrage people. Once united in anger, they would find it easier to support Putin’s increasingly aggressive nationalism.

- The goal was twofold. The first was to shore up the Kremlin’s own constituency by giving them a narrative to hold on to and subsequently disseminate. The second, more bemusing to him, was to simply sow as much confusion as possible:

SUCCESS IN “NEW WARS”
- As Mary Kaldor has noted, those most successful at “new wars” are those who are most able “to avoid battle and to control territory through political control of the population.”

THE POWER OF OPEN-SOURCE INFORMATION: BELLINGCAT
- But, along with just a few others, through the power of open-source information—that is to say, information anyone can access—available on social media, Higgins was able to prove Russia’s culpability. Such was the quality and strength of his output that the Russian Foreign Ministry has, on more than one occasion, been forced to publicly respond to his claims.

- [Eliot Higgins], from the comfort of his own home, as a private citizen, has directly affected the narrative war surrounding the Russia-Ukraine crisis to a degree that would have previously been unthinkable, let alone possible.

- established institutions, stifled by bureaucracy, simply cannot compete with networks of individuals empowered by social media.

- how much more might be achieved if he threw additional resources and time into the investigation? He decided to put together a team dedicated solely to MH17—most pressingly, to find out where the Buk had originally come from.

GOTTA CATCH THEIR ATTENTION
- visuals on social media are the key to everything.

- “I have come to accept that no matter how good your research or data is, unless you’ve got a question in the title and it has a nice image, it won’t be looked at.

RECRUITED INTO ISIS
- According to Abdel Bari Atwan, author of Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate, “Without digital technology it is highly unlikely that Islamic State would ever have come into existence, let alone been able to survive and expand.”

- he understood the need to broadcast ISIS’s every success—and in this he was enabled, in no small degree, by the emergence of what would become one of the most popular social media platforms, YouTube, the very same year.

- “It is surely a mistake to think that individuals are radicalized by themselves or solely by the consumption of radicalizing social media. There is usually a personal dimension—a friend or relative or neighbor—or a virtual individual dimension providing remote intimacy through Skype or Twitter or instant messaging.”

- History shows that groups with extreme ideologies, from the Bolsheviks to the Nazis, are never mass movements, but rather are relatively small groups of true believers who take power and then impose their worldview on the masses.

COUNTERING THE TERRORIST NARRATIVE
- When you want to conquer a city you need an element of psychological warfare and social media helps them to achieve this. Equally, their online propaganda is not possible without their victories on the ground, which feed their media success. They are two sides of the same coin.

- Fernandez was not interested in trying to project a positive image of the United States or produce content saying how wicked al-Nusra was. That, he knew, would not work. Instead he ordered CSCC to focus on trying to draw an equivalence between Syria’s barbarous president, Bashar al-Assad, and the jihadists.

- Working in a government bureaucracy was constraining. Too much oversight, endless chains of command, and the scarcity of resources common to almost all government departments meant that CSCC didn’t have a lot of arrows in its quiver.

- “We tried to give the appearance that we were all over the place and challenging them everywhere. It’s one definition of trolling, looking bigger and more ubiquitous online than you really are, like some punk kid trolling and tweeting.

SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT DO THIS AT ALL?
- But it questioned whether “the U.S. government should be involved in overt messaging at all.” Behind this was the logic that Washington had little credibility with international Muslim audiences, and that direct messaging had done little to stop recruits from joining Islamic State.

- In our interviews Fernandez was repeatedly clear on the greatest problem he faced in countering Islamic State propaganda: the fact that CSCC was a US government organization. This created two problems. The first was the bureaucracy, which by its nature is slow and overly centralized. Moreover, it is inherently reactive and perennially, infuriatingly cautious.

- The second problem, which Fernandez discovered from his focus groups, was one of credibility, and it stands at the center of the battle between institutions and Homo digitalis... “I believe that this type of countermessaging cannot come from government,”... “Everything we did had the State Department label on it, and that was a liability.”

- directly engaging the terrorists and their fanboys endowed them with recognition and thus a form of legitimacy.

- The decision was made to work entirely through proxies.

- “The most plausible content that would have the highest probability to resonate would be the testimony and stories of those who know the Islamic State best: defectors, returnees, and Sunni Muslim victims and their family members.”

PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL BATTLEGROUNDS
- the military dimension, events on the physical battlefield, no longer stands alone as the most important arena of conflict.

- virtual battlefields directly impact each other to such a degree that they now blur together.

FINDINGS: BLURRED LINES AND CONTRADICTIONS
- In this way, Web 2.0 is a contradiction: it is simultaneously empowering and exploitative, a platform for both control and freedom. This paradox and contestation is at the heart of social media.”

- Social media creates networks that, by their nature, are not built around the architecture of a single state. They are transnational and care little for borders or nationalism.

- blurring boundary between war and peace... It blurs the beginning and end of a war because the informational dimension can start long before active combat and continue long after battlefield operations have finished.

- the idea that military operations can become a form of informational operation and seek political rather than specifically military outcomes.

*** *** *** *** ***

FACTOIDS
- Rubenstein had used social media during 2012’ s Operation Pillar of Defense, in which the IDF had declared war in a tweet (the first army in history to begin a war this way).

- In 2016, RT received around $ 250 million from the Russian state, and it broadcasts in English, Arabic, and Spanish, as well as having a presence in Russian, French, and German; it is reportedly the most popular television news network on YouTube.

- “Produsers” (users who also produce)

- Bellingcat. The name came from the classic fable “Belling the Cat,” about a group of mice seeking to combat the threat of a dangerous cat.

- SunCalc.net. The site allows you to post an image to it and then, with a cursor or slider, move the position of the sun by sliding it through various positions... it is possible to determine the rough time of the day in any photo.

HAHA
- A stall selling toilet paper bearing Yanukovych’s image blocked the entrance to an international bank.

- “It’s one thing to say the Russian government is lying. It’s another to prove it in a PowerPoint presentation.”

- It then included the purported examples of fakery that Higgins [from Bellingcat] had requested. The only problem was that Higgins was able to prove that the examples used in the [Russian defense] ministry’s response had been plagiarized from a LiveJournal blog,

BONUS
- IDF’s social media strategy (features the author): https://youtu.be/R7lCW8GPuTQ

- IDF Spokesperson’s Unit: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...

- How Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat (and others) tracked down the Russian Buk launcher that shot down flight MH17: https://youtu.be/4EgTXJ-49IQ

- How a Buk launcher works: https://youtu.be/dz6CUI-fTRI

- State Dept anti-ISIS campaign: https://youtu.be/13swcfMwC_c

[Yuliia Chykolba · Rating 3 out of 5]

По-перше, переклад дуже недобрий. Важко читати. Зʼявилися якісь брамарі, стріли в сагайдаках і так далі. Іноді фактичні смислові помилки. По-друге, автор, який пише про інформаційні війни сам став їх жертвою і де-не-де транслює російські наративи. Взагалі видалося, що розуміння ізраеле-палестинського конфлікту в автора набагато глибше, тому і читати цікавіше. По Україні - фактично не точно, ні слова про передумови, історію наративів - дуже поверхневе дослідження журналіста «парашутиста» в часи початку україно-російської війни.

[Olesya Tkachuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

на прикладі сучасних воєнних конфліктів автор доводить тезу, що війна принципово змінилася: окрім фізичного поля бою, є війна у віртуальному світі, де умови диктують соціальні медіа.

нас навчили чистити кукі, знаємо про рекламні алгоритми, чули про постправду, але чи є розуміння наскільки потужний вплив того, що відбувається у віртуальному світі на воєнний конфлікт? дейвид пише, що вплив безпрецедентний, не відрізняється особливим оптимізмом і каже, що без переосмислення сучасних воєнних конфліктів, світ дестабілізується до стану напередодні 1914 року, тобто глобальної війни.

найперше: у нинішніх війнах людина із смартфоном – homo digitalis – безпосередній учасник війни.

українські волонтери у 2014 році завдяки соціальним мережам й мобільності забезпечували армію амуніцією в рази швидше й ефективніше, аніж держава. в той же час створені в росії осередки із продукування фейкових новин на українську тематику розпалювали цю війну – у книжці описано історію чоловіка, який працював у такій структурі. у тому ж 2014 році між ізраїлем та хамасом розгорнулись бойові дії. армія оборони ізраїлю, здобула перемогу у фізичному протистоянні. але інфомаційна кампанія, яку розгорнула 12річна палестинська дівчинка, роблячи твіти про обстріли, вперше глобально змінила наратив навколо конфлікту, що триває з 1940х. після того, як у 2014 році іділ захопили мосул у сирії, «ісламська держава» завербувала через фейсбук більше як 300 тисяч мусульман зі штатів та європи. зрештою ще приклад: еліот гіггінс, затятий гравець у комп’ютерні ігри, не виходячи з дому, як пише дейвид «іноді в самих трусах», з допомогою ютуб, інстраграму, форумів зміг довести: російська армія завезла на територію україни ракетний комплекс «бук», яким проросійські сепартисти збили літак із 298 пасажирами.

взагалі 5 з 11 розділів книжки так чи інакше стосуються війни в нашій країні, в т.ч bellingcat, які в силу соціальних мереж стали її учасниками.

окремо тут багато про зміну ролі журналістики. сьогодні кожен може бути «громадянським журналістом» і медіа ще не знаю, як з цим співіснувати, наразі лише позичаючи контент: «соціальні медіа дали голоси безсилим та безголосим. це сприяло тому, щоби на світло вийшли історії, які справді треба було розповісти. та завдяки своїй здатності обійти традиційні медіа, вони також сприяли поширенню оманливих і фейкових новин, здатних охопити безпрецедентно широку в сучасній історії аудиторію».

коротше, бажаю книжці побільше читачів, а ще другого видання – коректура трохи безалеберно плутає букви у словах чи не кожні 20ть сторінок. читати в комплекті із «війною за реальність» дмитра кулеби.

[Микола · Rating 4 out of 5]

Книга цікава та актуальна. В ній розбирається декілька прикладів з України, але переклад/редактура/коректура в українському виданні на жахливому рівні. Деякі слова перекладені тупо дослівно (тригери на автоматах) і в безлічі місць просто неузгоджені між собою слова в реченнях (не ті закінчення тощо).

[Patrick Baty · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, thought-provoking, book.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't want to be overly dramatic, but you have to read this book or everyone's going to die.

[Tam Le Blanc · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a first draft of history and it shows. Written by a journalist there is some repetition and sometimes superficial analysis. Done in the heat of the moment there is not much time for reflection or deeper understanding. Patrikarakos also lacks the background to truly discuss whether social media is a new type of warfare or simply a new battlefield for an old problem.
The books starts with an interview of Gazan Twitter-user, Farah Baker. She is the daughter of a surgeon at al Shifa hospital. Blue-eyed and English speaking her tweets during Cast Lead found an eager world wide audience once amplified by mainstream journalists.
Patrikarakos describes what is underneath al Shifa as a ‘basement’ but it’s actually a full fledged, Israeli-built, air shelter. A fact which Farah’s father certainly knows. Also, although social media brought the information battle closer to the public, Israel has had to face the dilemma between effective action and poor optics for much of its existence.
The author is on more solid ground when discussing the problems of government bureaucracy in dealing with this new style of information war. The interviews with Aliza, her father Richard Landes and with Peter Lerner about how difficult it was for the young Aliza to combat the IDF’s bureaucracy and put out relevant and timely content are particularly useful.
Turning to Ukraine, this book provides some background to the current (2022) conflict. Several questions arise, such as whether the relative success of Russian propaganda in 2014 simply a sign of how disunited and unprepared the Ukrainians were? When crowd-sourced aid went to ‘good’ units did that mean only those well run? Did it include ideologically pure units that ran their affairs somewhat well and fought well such as the Azov units?
There appears to be a missed opportunity in the section on open source investigators. The author raises questions of bias with Eliot Higgins regarding Russia, but forgive me, poor propaganda by a sloppy authoritarian regime isn’t news.
How much of Bellingcat’s successes were conditioned on the poor opsec of Russian and militia fighters? And how much by the fact that no one can be untraceable in this digital age? Higgins tried to post a few times about Israel but ended up pointing to another website, which quite frankly was crap. Was Hamas’s opsec designed to defend against Israel also effective against open source investigators such as Higgins? What does this tell us about the limitations of Twitter-based OSINT?
The book ends with a discussion of Digital Outreach Team (DOT) in the State department, which faces both internal bureaucracy ,external disbelief and the limitations of democratic governance. There is no discussion of what the CIA might have been up to and given their connections to Hollywood one wonders what efforts were made. The CIA wouldn’t be limited by the truth the same way an identifiable part of the State Department would be.
A side note on how bureaucracy bedevils a number of individuals in this book - especially Israelis, Americans and Western Ukrainians. Reflected in the way that Russians with Attitude describes Russian informational warfare as ‘boomer moments’. It is difficult for any of the older military commanders to grasp the new space. It will still take time to assess how important this space is. The Ukrainians have won the 2022 Information War and that has contributed to their ability to keep fighting. The sources of Ukraine’s success in the social media arena of the second Russo-Ukraine cry out to be examined in a new book.
This book is a benchmark in the study of new social media and warfare, but there is still much context and analysis that needs to be done.

[Stephanie McGarrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot of repetition in this book, and being a heavily political book the author will inevitably show some bias. Hence the lower rating. I believe this book would have been better served if it were shorter, and use more diverse examples. There are so many that clearly show how social media is used to both the state's and the individuals advantage, fundamentally changing the landscape of modern warfare. When ISIS emerged as a force to be reckoned with, I became fascinated with how they used social media to their advantage.

"of crucial importance is the threat social media poses to the idea of the nation-state, an idea that, perhaps anachronistically, we still adhere to. In this sense it is not merely destabilizing but a force for chaos. Social media creates networks that, by their nature, are not built around the architecture of a single state. They are transnational and care little for borders or nationalism." This is most clearly seen in the success of ISIS who, as the author points out, "made a great show of physically demolishing structures marking the border between Iraq and Syria. It doesn't matter whether the foreign fighters it recruits come from France, the UK, or the U.S.; once they join Islamic State, they are Sunni Muslims: all other identity is transcended."

It should be clear why this is of importance to anarchists and others determined on disrupting the monolithic state. One chapter makes the analogy of a thousand Davids against Goliath, and I feel this is appropriate. Not only can individuals now play their part in international conflicts without ever stepping out of their bedrooms, social media has also changed the landscape of politics itself. Now it is not simply a matter of 'boots on the ground'. Even if a state has a military advantage, what really matters is who has the stronger narrative. The state, with its bloated bureaucratic nature, has been slower at this.

Some politicians have begun to realize the importance of knowing how to brand yourself on social media, with hilarious results. An example of this is the notoriously socially conservative republican senator Ted Cruz tweeting from his official account a joke referring to the meme that he is the Zodiac. Older politicians with barely any knowledge of how the internet even works will throw the most absurd shit out there (conspiracy theories are now legitimately discussed by even politicos of all stripes including the president himself, who undeniably was given a boost from trolls not just from Russia, but alt-right basement dwellers). The way this plays out is a politician will then be told by a younger staffer presumably, that, for instance, they probably shouldn't have posted that racist meme. They then delete the post, as if they don't realize that anything they post online ever disappears.

There's much more to be said about this, but for now I'm moving on to Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate.

[Jacob Stutzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very detailed, inductive approach to the ways social media have changed the ways combat is started and conducted. Non-state actors take priority here and state actors are described in relation and response to NSAs, which is a far different approach than most writing about military combat. The battlefield is just one site of conflict and that’s never clearer than in each of the 21st century conflicts the author investigated in detail. The use of interviews with non-combatant participants is fantastic for an in-depth understanding that would not otherwise be possible.

The conclusion is...dark. The author points to the possibility that social media, and especially its use by aggressors like IS/Daesh and Russia, may create the conditions where combat is inevitable and public opinion drives states toward another world war. Certainly that is a possibility, and not one to be discounted. On the other hand, the ability of a state to win combat but lose a war is a relatively new thing and especially in democratic (or pseudo democratic states) may interrupt the drive to war. Losing in Vietnam made the US arguably more reticent to go grandly adventuring, and the negative perception of the Vietnam War was largely because of the combat failure. Was our lack of engagement in Syria similarly a reaction to the impossibility of crafting a successful narrative? Or the prior inability to craft such a narrative in Libya? If military action by the US becomes less common or at least less in scope, does that reduce the militarization of counter-ideologies? Maybe, maybe not, but again the possibility shouldn’t be discounted.

I was also surprised to see gender not treated as a function of social media in conflict. In the chapter on Sophie and her radicalization there is some mention of the different ways men and women are recruited, and the IDF chapter says that the unit prefers women but that’s about it. Many of the examples in the book show women getting involved in conflict where they would have generally been excluded. Women have always formed some sort of support network from the homefront, but directly delivering supplies as Anna does in Ukraine, setting up the social media arm of the IDF as Aliza does, and being directly targeted for recruitment as Sophie was show nee roles for women to engage in conflict without being in combat. Obviously women are in combat roles in a number of countries, but they are primarily Western industrialized countries, and even then, their numbers remain relatively small. As social media expand the battlefield, they may also expand the role of women in conducting battle.

[Chad Manske · Rating 4 out of 5]

A leading foreign correspondent journalist who’s written for The NY Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and others traveled thousands of miles and interviewed hundreds for this groundbreaking look at how social media has been shaping the conflict narrative for the last decade. A concept he calls homo digitalis—‘a new type of hyper empowered, individual, networked, globally connected’ 21st century phenomena—is instantaneously shaping perceptions of modern war and conflict’s battles. This information (and dis- and misinformation) warfare strives to more accurately portray, or deceive as the case may be, followers of such media and events in real time. The author’s case studies range all types of media and include the then 16 year old Palestinian girl—Farah Baker— living in Gaza that was under attack from the IDF in 2014 and took to Twitter. She garnered instant fame and a HUGE following and the world became sympathetic to the Palestinian’s plight. Another case examines the 2014 Russian incursion into Ukraine and how Anna Sandalova took to Facebook and garnered widespread sympathy. Another case regarding the Ukraine crisis follows writer Vitaly Bespalov, who desperate for a job unwittingly became a news ‘troll’ enlisted third hand to write disinformation and propaganda articles casting the Ukrainians in a poor light relative to the reality on the ground. He was finally able to figure out his role in the convoluted game and extract himself. Yet another case looked at French native Sophie Kasiki, a now de-radicalized ISIS recruit who in 2014 fell victim to an alluring and sophisticated Skype recruitment to Raqqa only to realize when she finally got there with her young son it was all an illusion, but was able to escape and get back home with the help of a sympathetic Syrian family. Finally, we see how Steve Higgins used his adept analytical skills to determine, and place smoking-gun evidence on, the Russian shoot down of Flight MH17 in 2014. His use of photo from-location skills and the piecing together of other social media postings help place blame on the Russian 53d Brigade as the origin of the shoulder-fired weapon that brought the plane down. A great book that political and defense decision makers MUST understand and harness in this Information Age, or risk losing the support of those they protect.

[Vincent Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century by David Patrikarakos is an invaluable resource for understanding how social media is shaping the world, especially in reshaping conflict and warfare.

Modern warfare is a war of narratives, where bullets are fired both physically and virtually. Whether you are a president or a terrorist, if you don't understand how to deploy the power of social media effectively you may win the odd battle but you will lose a twenty-first-century war. Here, journalist David Patrikarakos draws on unprecedented access to key players to provide a new narrative for modern warfare. He travels thousands of miles across continents to meet a de-radicalized female member of ISIS recruited via Skype, a liberal Russian in Siberia who takes a job manufacturing "Ukrainian" news, and many others to explore the way social media has transformed the way we fight, win, and consume wars-and what this means for the world going forward.

If there is any belligerents who have understood and utilise social media maximally is the terrorists. Many a terrorist is recruited via social media platforms, terrorists use it to spread propaganda (which in most occasions is effective) and recruit. While this is happening, conventional forces play catch up.

The author has comprehensively and critically analysed the role, impact, and effectiveness of social media in warfare, and the bottom line is: It is a battle of narratives and whoever tells their narrative first, fast, and aggressively so, wins the battle.

This is an invaluable resource for security professionals, military strategists (apparently President Putin is a case study), and conflict resolution managers.

[Zoreslava Ninovska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Почну з поганого: книга не бачила ні редактора, ні коректора, тому безкінечно натикаєшся на помилки, неузгодження відмінків і т.д, що заважає. Але сама книга дуже важлива, тому що як мінімум третина її присвячена подіям на Україні і у викладі хорошого журналіста є поглядом зі сторони, що дуже цікаво і корисно. Чимало нового я відкрила для себе про Ізраїль та Ісламську державу, про методи інформаційних війн.
Ось, наприклад, про перший:
"Команда зробила кілька відеороликів, які ілюструють як мало часу мали ізраїльські мирні мешканці, аби сховатися в укриттях у різних районах. Одне запам"ятовуване відео починалося зі слів: "Найшвидша людина у світі може пробігти 200 метрів за 20 секунд"... Глядачі бачили кадри, де Усайн Болт мчить до перемоги впереміш з кадрами до смерті наляканих ізраїльських цивільних, які біжать до бомбосховищ. Наприкінці відео перегонів з"явилося просте повідомлення:"Під час ракетного обстрілу ізраїльтяни, які мешкають поблизу Гази, мають лише 15 секунд, аби добігти до бомбосховища".
Прекрасно сказано і про Україну:
"В Україні віртуальна держава тепер дедалі частіше забезпечує суспільну згуртованість, яку не може забезпечити держава "реальна"... Там, де держава краде гроші, народ жертвує їх, де вона повільна та неповоротка, люди - стрімкі та гнучкі".
А ось цитата з розділу про фабрики російських тролів та російські ЗМІ, які фальшують інформацію, звинувачують очевидців у брехні і якщо не можуть спростувати, то топлять все в суперечках та дискредитаціях:
"... цей тип інформації знаходить сприйнятливу аудиторію. "Question More" ("Сумнівайтесь більше") стає фактично "Trust Less" ("Довіряй менше").
Кожен мем, який він створив, або фальшива стаття, яку писав, були ще однією віртуальною кулею, яку Віталій випускав у соціальний простір".
Чудова книжка, яка хоч і написана у 2017 році, наразі не втратила актуальності, а навпаки стала ще ціннішою, бо висновки підтвердились часом та гірким українським досвідом.

[CHAD FOSTER · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating book. The author argues that social media has fundamentally changed war, blurring the line between the battle field and political discourse. Facebook posts and Tweets are increasingly sources of information that drive legacy media and, by extension, go a long way in determining who wins the narrative. In today’s world, the narrative is what largely determines victory. Military muscle alone does not suffice.

Today, individuals can enter the conflict using social media and sometimes change the course of events. Whether it’s a Palestinian girl Tweeting her family’s daily suffering while under siege in Gaza or a Ukrainian woman organizing logistical support for Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russian aggression in the Donbass region, individuals wield power once reserved exclusively for states and established journalistic institutions. As a consequence, the rise of social media has increased the likelihood of misinformation and propaganda gaining a foothold. Traditional gatekeepers can now enforce discipline and accountability only with extreme difficulty.

The author interviews a wide variety of examples of “homo digitalis” to illustrate his argument. My favorite chapter is the one that focuses on Anna Sandalova and her use of Facebook to rally support from her fellow Ukrainians and others around the world in supplying Ukrainian units engaged in combat against Russian and Russian-backed forces. Anna filled a gap in capability (logistics) that her own government could not. It is an amazing example of social media’s power to mobilize.

I rated this book at 5-stars because of the importance of its implications. I am very wary of those that claim that the fundamental nature of war has changed, but this book effectively argues that the character of war is undergoing a transformation that will shape how nations approach armed conflict in the years ahead.

[Doug Lewars · Rating 5 out of 5]

*** Possible Spoilers ***

This was a fascinating and very well-written book. It concerns the relationship between was and social media but there are a number of ideas that can be extrapolated to less physical conflicts. The author focuses of three specific wars - Israel vs Hamas, Ukraine vs Soviet Union and ISIS vs pretty much everyone but Syria specifically.

The emotional and visual impact of posts are discussed relative to objective factual journalism and how people can be easily manipulated by the former. The production of fake news is also described alongside methods for determining the underlying truth. Lastly he notes that pure propaganda is not sufficient but must be coupled with manipulative recruiting techniques if radicalization is the objective.

One thing that fascinated me is the assertion that the objective behind using disinformation is not to create belief - although there are some who will buy into just about any theory provided it plays to their underlying paranoia and personal beliefs - but to create doubt. If people can be made to believe that every piece of news they read is questionable then they become increasingly isolated and forced into bubbles where every piece of news they consume is filtered in such a manner as to foster a sort of digital tribalism which is highly divisive and may eventually lead to conflict at a global level.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who uses social media - and who doesn't - and is beginning to question what is and isn't real.

[Yuliia Dukach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Як ми опинились у світі, де військові операції перетворились на підтримку інформаційних операцій? І чи релевантне це питання для України після 2022? Чи можемо ми погодитись, що наративи важливіші за танки? Але чи були б нам потрібні зараз "танки", якби ми програли війну наративів?

Чудова книжка, заснована на репортажах про війни 21 століття. Ставлю на "робочу" поличку поруч із Померанцевим.

На відміну від книг "теоретичних", репортажі зазвичай легко читаються + майже не втрачають своєї актуальності і через 5-10-20 років. А насправді з 2017-го змінилось вже багато чого. І саме в цьому, вважаю, книга виконує свою функцію – систематизує зміни, які принесли нам соціальні мережі, але, разом з тим, – підсвічує те нове, що зʼявилось віднедавна, але видається вже чимось стабільно знайомим (взяти хоча б те, що він Telegram називає "програмою зашифрованих повідомлень" – ага-ага, зашифрованих, і майже не допускає, що глобальна аудиторія може не тільки співпереживати, а ще й донатити)

Тому книгу точно радитиму для легкого, але корисного читання "про нашу війну до 2022-го".

Але обовʼязково попереджатиму, що Yakaboo Publishing тут розчарували невичитаним текстом з десятками орфографічних, стилістичних і граматичних помилок((

[Dr.Husaim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Скільки символів вміщає один твіт? Насправді об'єм досить малий - всього 140 символів. Та часом його вага може більшою і сильнішою, ніж слова сказані на центральній площі міста і більш руйнівні ніж бомба скинута з літака.

Саме про це розмірковує Дейвід Патрикаракос в свой книзі "ВІЙНА У 140 ЗНАКАХ" аналізуючи як соціальні мережі впливають на новітні війни.

Не все сподобалося, бо тема ІДІЛу чи ХАМАСу мені мало цікаві. Тому їх я просто перегорнув. А от журналістський погляд на події в Україні це було цікаво.

Особливо цікаво Дейвід показує волонтерський рух, як унікальне явище, що показало силу українського народу, об'єднаного навколо підтримки армії, об'єднаного за допомогою фейсбука.

І зворотню сторону, за "порєбріком" де будуються ферми тролів, щоб перемогти без застосування зброї. Один такий вчорашній троль із Тюмєні розповів, як це влаштовано.

Можна ще розповідати. Та не буту вам переказувати весь зміст. Краще читайте і думайте.

[Melinda Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful look at social media and war

From the conclusion of the book, summarizes the overall message well:

In the run-up to World War I, few statesmen had any idea of the destructive powers their actions would unleash, but the pressure for war from their respective populations following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand became almost impossible to resist. The climate many rulers helped foster made pulling back from the brink a grievous threat to their thrones or administrations. The possibility that one day a state like Russia or Iran, or a terror group like Hamas or Islamic State, may become boxed in by its own aggressive rhetoric is alarmingly close. Empowered by social media, the voices of their own people may be impossible to contain. If that happens, the requisite conditions for a catastrophic global war, which coincided to such disastrous effect in 1914, may well reappear.