The Exploit: A Theory of Networks - asounder

Prolegomenon 21
sovereignty. In the 1970s, when Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
wrote about “the war machine” as a resistance to the state apparatus,
they were describing the threat that an elusive network can pose to a
power center. But by 1990, Deleuze had recognized the historical transformation
that had taken place in the intervening years, and he wrote
of the new network form in terms of “ultrarapid forms of apparently
free - floating control.” 9
What the United States accomplished in the years after 1989 was
to derive its own sovereignty from within the “ultrarapid” and “free -
floating” networks. This results in the curious dual rhetoric of the
“international presence” in peacekeeping operations combined with
an “American - led” force, an equivocation held together only by the
most flimsy political fantasy. This flimsy assimilation is precisely the
model for sovereignty in networks.
The current American regime is in the political vanguard. It aims to
establish sovereignty in a new political structure that is antithetical to traditional
modes of sovereignty.
The trick is to reach beyond a theory of “power law distributions”
to an actual theory of political action rooted in networks. Now we
can return to our original constellation of queries: What is the nature
of the current geopolitical struggle? Is the United States an exception
on the world stage? Has a singular sovereignty returned to networks,
global affairs? Our argument has three steps:
1. The modern period is characterized by both symmetrical political
conflicts waged by centralized power blocs, and also asymmetrical political
conflicts in which networked actors struggle against centralized powers.
Many have further suggested that asymmetric conflict is in fact a
historical response to the centralization of power. This type of asymmetric
intervention, a political form bred into existence as the negative
likeness of its antagonist, is the inspiration for the concept of
“the exploit,” a resonant flaw designed to resist, threaten, and ultimately
desert the dominant political diagram. Examples include the