Wiki at War

Conflict in a Socially Networked World

James Jay Carafano

Publication Year: 2012

In 2011, amid the popular uprising against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, the government sought in vain to shut down the Internet-based social networks of its people. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange has been branded “public enemy number one” by some in the United States for posting material on the World Wide Web that concerns airstrikes in Iraq, US diplomatic communications, and other sensitive matters. In Wiki at War, James Jay Carafano explains why these and other Internet-born initiatives matter and how they are likely to affect the future face of war, diplomacy, and domestic politics. “The war for winning dominance over social networks and using that dominance to advantage is already underway,” Carafano writes in this extremely timely analysis of the techno-future of information and the impact of social networking via the Internet. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of history and defense strategy, Carafano creates a cogent analysis of what is truly new about the “new media,” and what is simply a recasting of human warfare in contemporary forms. Wiki at War is written in a lively, accessible style that will make this technological development comprehensible and engaging for general readers without sacrificing the book’s usefulness to specialists. Outlining the conditions under which a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, detailing how ancient wisdom can still apply to national security decisions, and examining the conditions under which new expertise is required to wage effective diplomacy or successful military strategy, Carafano casts in stark relief the issues that face political, military, and social leaders in trying to manage and control information, in both the international and domestic arenas. Wiki at War affords stimulating thought about and definitive discussion of this vital emerging topic.

Published by: Texas A&M University Press

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pp. vii-

Prologue: Mad Scientists and Fighter Pilots

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pp. 1-24

He did not look like a man who would perpetrate an outrage. No, Milgram seemed like who he was—a young professor trying to wend his way up the ivory tower. With wavy hair, scratchy beard, and baggy suit, he dressed the part of a Yale University junior lecturer in social psychology. But Stanley Milgram had an obsession ...

1. Mongols and Mullahs

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pp. 25-64

Neda was not alone. Many joined her in the street protests following the disputed Iranian presidential elections. The vote on June 12, 2009, became a referendum on the country’s controversial sitting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Decades after a popular uprising that swept the shah of Iran from power in 1979, ...

2. Star Trek and Superhighways

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pp. 65-90

The year was 1942. That year Stanley Milgram attended grade school in Camden, New Jersey. His father moved the family there so he could take a job as a welder at the shipyards. While his father built warships, Stanley listened to news about the war on the radio. Meanwhile, fifteen-year-old John Boyd lived ...

3. Dragons, Bears, Cutthroats, and Criminals

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pp. 91-124

Tibet is the roof of the world. To many it is a distant and mysterious place. All we know for sure is that it is no more peaceful a place than the rest of the planet.¹ It never was the world of Shangri-La, the fictional earthly paradise described in James Hilton’s 1933 novel, Lost Horizon. ...

4. Keystone Kops and the Fog of War

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pp. 125-161

Allen was a company commander.¹ A company represents a basic unit in almost any army: one amounts to about a hundred soldiers or so. For the US Army, the company is the equivalent of a ship at sea—also commanded by a captain—and in many ways army captains run their command like ships. ...

5. Cheerleaders, Pornographers, and Unemployed Engineers

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pp. 162-193

Jamie McIntyre craved experimentation. A former CNN national security correspondent, McIntyre hosted a daily blog called Line of Departure (now Carl Prine’s Line of Departure), a reference to military mapping—the line from which a force advances on the enemy.¹ On November 3, 2009, McIntyre posted a message ...

6. Anciens Regimes and the Government After Next

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pp. 194-227

Steve Ressler wanted a job.¹ Not that he had anything to complain about as a grad student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The campus is an academic paradise wedged into an urban landscape, with large green open spaces, and plenty of room to sit, walk, and talk. It seemed like the perfect place for Ressler, ...

7. Weird Science and Dark Horizons

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pp. 228-264

If there is a prototype for the cyber- Renaissance leader of the twenty- first century, K. A. “Kim” Taipale might be it.¹ In the twentieth century, Taipale would have been a lawyer. Yet even for a would- be attorney his education was far more diverse than the average barrister. Taipale got a degree in psychology ... ...

Epilogue: The Art of War and Wiki War

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pp. 265-272

Bucci works for IBM.¹ Once the world’s largest manufacturers of computers, today IBM is a very different kind of company. When IBM began to build personal computers it licensed software from a small company called Microsoft. IBM did not bother to acquire the newfangled operating system or the company. ...

E-ISBN-13: 9781603446570
E-ISBN-10: 1603446575
Print-ISBN-13: 9781603445863
Print-ISBN-10: 1603445862

Page Count: 352
Illustrations: Index.
Publication Year: 2012