[Nettime-bold] NetHierarchies & NetWar / Re: <nettime> actually existingdemocracy digest

[Willard Uncapher <willard@well.com>]

At 05:27 AM 11/2/2001 -0500, the nettime finger-puppet dangled before us:
"Paul Hilder" <paul.hilder@opendemocracy.net>
RE: <nettime> myths, democracy, reactivism, network and hierarchy:
      >>we can argue till the cows come home about which is stronger or 
better, the network or the hierarchy, and the answer will never be accurate 
in the abstract or at the level of the global system - because at that 
level the abstract distinction is void of content. Yes, RAND, the CIA and 
the Pentagon are worried about netwar. They're worried about it because it 
has the capacity to tie them down, to diffuse their energies, to undermine 
them, and to be unbeatable (precisely because its "underground network" 
(rhizome for those of you who like that language) "spreads" faster than it 
can be destroyed ("the wasteland spreads"...). [...]>>

Hierarchy is hot on the heels of the network, not because it is 
particularly swift, particularly evil, particularly powerful, or 
particularly resilient, but because it is part of the very structure of the 
Net itself.

No amount of techno-romantic unity speech will eliminate hierarchy, yet the 
desire, even expectation that social communitarian reality is around the 
corner is always telling. Hierarchy looks at patterns of organization 
across levels, as a way to break problems down into patterns and 
sub-processes. These levels need not be set ahead of time, and one of the 
very under-researched, under-theorized aspects of the emerging Network 
Society is how these 'levels' have become more flexible.

So what is the Net?  Some might look to the net in terms of interdependent 
systems of communication. Some might look to the net in terms of leveraged 
position based on digitally enhanced surveillance and strategic 
intervention of force. I would argue that both are the case on the Net, and 
that we need to understand better must why these two species of discourse, 
that of the nearly attained unity of connection, and that of the nearly 
attained power of panoptic power suggest they are talking about the same 
thing, but can barely frame their conceptual frameworks to speak with each 
other. Elsewhere, I have argued that we need to develop a new network logic 
that deals the paradox of mutual exclusion of these points of view, between 
analog and digital, between process and category. No, hierarchy is not lost 
in the Net since the architectures of hierarchy, and the social formations 
they connect with in the case of computer networks, are bound with the very 
architecture of the computer itself.

We find that networks are become strategic aspects of war and business. 
Consider the latest essay from Arquilla and Ronfeldt: 
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_10/ronfeldt/index.html

David Ronfeldt, and his associate John Arquila have been theorizing and 
planning for Netwar for over a decade, primarily in connection with 
official doctrines within the US military, primarily under the auspices of 
the quasi-military think tank associated with the RAND corp. This is not 
simply 'theoretical' work. Since they first proposed the concept during the 
early 1990s, netwar has become an explicit strategic topic taught in 
military colleges. Netwar has analogs to courses on 'virtual corporations' 
strategy taught in business schools. Netwar is different than 'cyberwar.' 
Netwar is about networks, whether using computer mediation or not. Cyberwar 
is about computer mediation and the kinds of tactics to use or disrupt 
computer mediation. Netwar is not about war 'in' networks, but rather using 
networks strategically, and in dealing with others who seek advantage by 
using networks.  Including terrorists.

This First Monday article summarizes some of the work associated with 
Arquilla and Ronfeldt. We might summarize the netwar credo: "it takes a 
network to fight a network."  Post-9/11, we have heard this mantra- its 
origin lies with these papers.  As this new military strategy of networks 
has evolved, it now includes notions of 'swarming' in which decentralized, 
mobile units discover advantages to their cause each on their own, and then 
quickly relay that information back to home base. Arquilla and Ronfeldt 
have authored a text, "Swarming and the Future of Conflict" available in 
pdf format from their RAND Corp. site.  A key component is the use of 
decentralized, yet tightly communicating units or pods arranged into 
various layers or levels of strategic coordination. There is a lot of 
theoretical interest here for all of us interesting in complexity and 
management: How decentralized can the unit be, and yet still be coordinated 
by strategic higher levels.  This is not so new- miltary and business 
strategists have long debated one another over the best places by which to 
relate different levels to activities within those levels.  'Hierarchies' 
are not static nor massively controlling- that is the point, whether we 
look to Pseudo-Dionysis (who came up with this religious term), or to the 
latest tactic of Information Management in your favorite business review. 
Simply to cast 'hierarchy' dialectically against democratic interdependence 
is to blind oneselve to what is going on in the world, to the kinds of 
strategies that have evolved, and to tactics of resistance and regulation 
that may need to be evolved by those who care.

So now, what is a network?  It is often useful to distinguish it from a 
'system.' I have long argued in that unlike systems, a theoretical 
consideration of networks can include multiple levels, and the kinds of 
constraints and communication that can occur between levels.  I would agree 
that many people use the terms network and system rather interchangeably. 
As one begins to theorize levels in networks, and this is something to 
which I have devoted a great deal of time and research. For one thing, 
levels need not be 'set' and fixed. That is, the 'place' of a level can 
dynamically change depending on a variety of factors. To understand this, 
we need to think about what we even mean by hierarchies, scope, and so on. 
What is a level- and this is a question particularly directed to those who 
have some trouble with the persistence of hierarchies in a network 
age.  For those who don't want to even think about hierarchies, then they 
needn't consider related questions such as how is communication or control 
between levels possible, what is the origin of a level, why are they so 
difficult to think about, what is the history of these concepts, etc., 
since all these questions are subsumed under the derailing question of - 
how digital technologies are undermining 'hierarchies.'  In short, I don't 
see hierarchies being eliminated, but rather our understanding of them, and 
their dynamics changing.

There are a few hierarchy theorists around here so I need not go to far, 
other than to note that lower, quicker, shorter term, levels need not be 
'nested' inside of higher, long term, slower moving levels, that is fully 
'controlled' and limited by a higher level. The technoromantic image of 
unity, democracy, and responsibility via technology can consider the 
problems of richer countries getting richer, and richer people getting 
richer (on average) as mere aberrations along the probable path of an 
inevitable technological solution to our social ills. I doubt it, and think 
we had better become clearer about what the new dynamism has become, and 
how it effects our very language about identities, communities, and 
categories in networks.

I would argue that we have to become actively engaged, as soon as possible, 
working with the notion of dynamic hiearchies (rather than the old fashion 
static version), understand that it is computers themselves that are 
endowing hierarchies with more flexibility, that we need to consider the 
importance of oversight, balance of power, and transpearancy in both the 
organizational forms that work in or with the public domain (broadly 
conceived to also include the natural environment), or in the private 
sector domain as we work for more efficient organizations that provide 
benefit to shareholders, workers, customers, and the public.

In my own work, I have been using such insights to rethink what we mean by 
networks.  If you work to ever to time with social network theorist, you 
would find that they tend to have a rather narrow two dimensional graphs of 
connections within systems. This is useful, but not exhaustive, and what is 
left out is various- power in networks, transformation of and in networks, 
and so on.

There are some serious issues for those who worry about the power of 
governments here, for those engaged in critical studies. We might think of 
critical studies here in its concern with the nature, exercise, evaluation, 
and 'control' of power.  Regulation is one such control of power. The 
definition of an audience or a problem is another such exercise of power. 
It is with such a definition that we assign responsibility, or evade it, 
that we connect events, or disconnect them.

We need to look carefully at how the 'boundaries' of any network is 
defined. For example if we were to consider the 'Right Wing' Latin American 
Death Squads of the 1980s as 'terrorist' then what should we do about the 
people involved in training these people, particularly if they funded and 
organized nearly-covert training camps (such as the School of the Americas) 
or shadowy arms transfer programs.  My point is that definitions matter 
because they determine the extent of responsibility by deliminating the 
edge of a network.  What is the responsibility of citizens within these 
governments, or within Iraq for that matter. This is the kind of question 
that it takes courts to decide, but which have real 
consequences.  Definitions have politics all their own- and a definition 
creates boundaries in a network. That's what a definition has always done.

I will leave at that. We need to think about networks in a new way. It is a 
way that goes beyond simple systems and 2d-network theory with their 
descriptive bias to look at emerging network strategies.  Not strategies in 
networks, but strategies using networks.  I should emphasize that I both 
use and need traditional social network, actor-agent network, complex 
systems generation, but I believe that we should call upon ourselves to 
look at these questions in new ways. The same is true of hierarchies, 
particularly as either the research or the activities of a hierarchy become 
embedded and/or deconstructed within hierarchy and scale transforming 
technologies such as the lowly computer processor.

The netwar example is relevant. Some might argue, "Yes, RAND, the CIA and 
the Pentagon are worried about netwar."  Rather, netwar is becoming an 
explicit RAND/CIA/Pentagon strategy. So yes they can be worried about 
people who use netwar strategies against them, but so they would be worried 
about any one who sets themselves in opposition to their interests. But 
they aren't against the 'strategy' per se, since this is a 'doctrine' is 
one they would make their own.   Let me note the chapter titles of Arquilla 
and Ronfeldt's article. Even by themselves, they offer some insights. They 
fill in the chapters one way. I might fill them in another way. How would 
you fill them in?

1. The Spread of Network Forms of Organization
2. When Is a Network Really an Organizational Network?
3. What Makes a Network Effective, Besides Organization?
4. The Practice of Netwar (and Counternetwar)
5. Coda: September's "Attack on America"

Willard
Willard Uncapher, Ph.D. / Network Emergence / 2369 Rodin Place, Davis, CA 95616
mailto:willard@well.com / http://well.com/user/willard 

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