Radical War: Data, Attention and Control in the Twenty-First Century

by Matthew Ford, Andrew Hoskins

This book examines the digital explosion that has ripped across the battlefield, weaponizing our attention and making everyone a participant in wars without end.

"Smart" devices, apps, archives and algorithms remove the bystander from war, collapsing the distinctions between audience and actor, soldier and civilian, media and weapon. This has ruptured our capacity to make sense of war. Now we are all either victims or perpetrators.

In Radical War, Ford and Hoskins reveal how contemporary war is legitimized, planned, fought, experienced, remembered and forgotten in a continuous and connected way, through digitally saturated fields of perception.

Plotting the emerging relationship between data, attention and the power to control war, the authors chart the complex digital and human interdependencies that sustain political violence today. Through a unique, interdisciplinary lens, they map our disjointed experiences of conflict and illuminate this dystopian new ecology of war.

376 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2022

Reviews

[C. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should read more political theory. But not this.

[Mahmudjon · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the book, after 2001, the events of the war in general, after the possibility of posting them on the networks and then live streaming, its origin, more precisely, the change of the "ecology of war" is talked about.

And it has also been shown that social networks have started a new type of war, "digital war", and that social networks have been the main cause of some wars (for example, Facebook caused the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar).

In addition, it is mentioned that in the course of wars, the parties use social networks to improve their position, balance the social mood in the network, and give "digital" blows to the opposite side (for example, the Russian-Ukrainian war).

Briefly, the authors explore how modern warfare is legitimized, planned, waged, forgotten, and remembered through digitally saturated cognitive spaces. Tracing the emerging relationship between information, attention, and the ability to control war, the authors describe the complex digital and human interrelationships that underlie political violence today.

The authors show how information has become an all-encompassing domain, and how the smartphone, rather than a weapon, has become the main weapon of war. A stunning vision of a 21st century battlefield is created that breaks down the traditional boundaries between state, society and the military.

[Wayne Hsieh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still working on a more formal response (including a critique) to be later published on Substack, but I do just want to say here that _Radical War_ is an incredibly important book, and it seems to have not gotten as much attention as it deserves. The book is disciplinary boundary busting in a deep and profound way, and it's an important intellectual marker of where we stand at the precipice, with various possibilities in front of us--the end of the end of history, the revenge of the state, digitization, etc.

[Dustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made pertinent by smartphone use in Ukraine!