Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

NETWAR • 489turned out to be a Peruvian. The Túpac Amaru group is believed tohave extended its operations into Bolivia primarily to expand itsfund-raising extortionary activities there and possibly to sponsor andcontrol the CNPZ group. Since 1993 there have been few reports ofactivity by the CNPZ group.NETWAR. The concept of netwar was developed by RAND Corporationresearchers John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt in 2001 to identifyand analyze an emerging form of low-intensity conflict, involving actionsfalling short of conventional warfare and often involving nonviolentas well as violent confrontation in which like-minded protagonists,consisting of small groups joined together in a network organization,use related doctrines, strategies, and information-age technologiesto communicate, coordinate, and campaign in an internetted mannerwithout one central command. The contrast is between netwar-orientedgroups such as Hamas, Mexico’s Zapatistas, and U.S. “patriot” ormilitia movement groups, which consist of meshes of like-mindedbut independent groups, and their more traditional counterparts suchas the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Castroite groups,and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Another aspect of netwar is the use ofsympathetic groups in civil society to mount “swarming” campaignsof e-mail messages, faxes, and other communications in support of affiliatedgroups involved in more violent activities. As an example, ina netwar campaign some animal rights activists could be involved inactual attacks on research labs or mink farms, while others would beinvolved in nonviolent protests in front of fur shops or butcher shops,while others would be bombarding the offices of members of Congresswith letters and e-mail messages denouncing the fur industry orresearch involving animal subjects, while yet others could be involvedin trying to incapacitate the website of a fur industry group by bombardingit with thousands of e-mails.Arquilla and Ronfeldt identified three basic netwar structures: achain-network illustrated by smuggling rings; a hub, or “star,” networkwith one central node connecting all members of the network, and anall-channel network in which all nodes can communicate directly witheach other. The shift of terrorists to the use of decentralized networksmay be in part an adaptation to the possibilities of communication andcoordination provided by Internet technology and also an adaptationto the declining role of state sponsors of terrorism.