Netwars refers to the use of the Internet by autonomous groups and social movements to co-ordinate action to influence and change society and fight government or business policy. This use of the Internet has steadily grown over the years, with a Rand corporation researcher, David Ronfeldt, arguing that this has become an important and powerful force (Rand is, and has been since it's creation in 1948, a private appendage of the military industrial complex). In other words, activism and activists power and influence has been fuelled by the advent of the information revolution. Through computer and communication networks, especially via the world-wide Internet, grassroots campaigns have flourished, and the most importantly, government elites have taken notice.

Ronfeldt specialises in issues of national security, especially in the areas of Latin American and the impact of new informational technologies. Ronfeldt and another colleague coined the term "netwar" a couple years ago in a Rand document entitled "Cyberwar is Coming!". "Netwars" are actions by autonomous groups — especially advocacy groups and social movements — that use informational networks to co-ordinate action to influence, change or fight government policy.

Ronfeldt's work became a flurry of discussion on the Internet in mid-March 1995 when Pacific News Service corespondent Joel Simon wrote an article about Ronfeldt's opinions on the influence of netwars on the political situation in Mexico after the Zapatista uprising. According to Simon, Ronfeldt holds that the work of social activists on the Internet has had a large influence — helping to co-ordinate the large demonstrations in Mexico City in support of the Zapatistas and the proliferation of EZLN communiques across the world via computer networks. These actions, Ronfeldt argues, have allowed a network of groups that oppose the Mexican Government to muster an international response, often within hours of actions by it. In effect, this has forced the Mexican government to maintain the facade of nnegotiations with the EZLN and has on many occasions, actually stopped the army from just going in to Chiapas and brutally massacring the Zapatistas.

Given that Ronfeldt is an employee of the Rand Corporation (described by Paul Dickson, author of the book "Think Tanks", as the "first military think tank. . . undoubtedly the most powerful research organisation associated with the American military") his comments indicate that the U.S. government and it's military and intelligence wings are very interested in what the Left and anarchists are doing on the Internet. Given that they would not be interested in this if it was not effective, we can say that this use of the "Information Super-Highway" is a positive example of the use of technology in ways un-planned of by those who initially developed it (let us not forget that the Internet was originally funded by the U.S. government and military). While the internet is being hyped as the next big marketplace, it is being subverted by activists — an example of anarchistic trends within society worrying the powers that be.

Ronfeldt argues that "the information revolution. . . disrupts and erodes the hierarchies around which institutions are normally designed. It diffuses and redistributes power, often to the benefit of what may be considered weaker, smaller actors." He continues, "multi-organisational networks consist of (often small) organisations or parts of institutions that have linked together to act jointly... making it possible for diverse, dispersed actors to communicate, consult, co-ordinate, and operate together across greater distances, and on the basis of more and better information than ever." He emphasises that "some of the heaviest users of the new communications networks and technologies are progressive, centre-left, and social activists... [who work on] human rights, peace, environmental, consumer, labour, immigration, racial and gender-based issues." In other words, social activists are on the cutting edge of the new and powerful "network" system of organising.

All governments, especially the U.S. government, have been extremely antagonistic to this idea of effective use of information, especially by the political Left and anarchists. The use of the Internet may facilitate another "crisis in democracy" (i.e. the development of real democracy rather than the phoney elite kind favoured by capitalism). To fight this possible use of the internet to combat the elite, Ronfeldt maintains that the lesson is clear: "institutions can be defeated by networks, and it may take networks to counter networks." He argues that if the U.S. government and/or military is to fight this ideological war properly with the intend of winning — and he does specifically mention ideology — it must completely reorganise itself, scrapping hierarchical organisation for a more autonomous and decentralised system: a network. In this way, he states, "we expect that. . . netwar may be uniquely suited to fighting non-state actors".

Ronfeldt's research and opinion should be flattering for the political Left. He is basically arguing that the efforts of activists on computers not only has been very effective or at least has the potential, but more importantly, argues that the only way to counter this work is to follow the lead of social activists. Ronfeldt emphasised in a personal correspondence that the "information revolution is also strengthening civil-society actors in many positive ways, and moreover that netwar is not necessarily a 'bad' thing that necessarily is a 'threat' to U.S. or other interests. It depends." At the same time, anarchists and other activists should understand the important implications of Ronfeldt's work: government elites are not only watching these actions (big surprise), but are also attempting to work against them.

This can be seen in many countries. For example, in 1995 a number of computer networks, so far confined to Europe, have been attacked or completely shut down. In Italy, members of the Carabinieri Anti-Crime Special Operations Group raided the homes of a number of activists — many active in the anarchist movement. They confiscated journals, magazines, pamphlets, diaries, and video tapes. They also took their personal computers, one of which hosted "BITS Against the Empire", a node of Cybernet and Fidonet networks. The warrant ridiculously charged them for "association with intent to subvert the democratic order", carrying a penalty of 7 to 15 years imprisonment for a conviction.

In Britain, Terminal Boredom bulletin board system (BBS) in Scotland was shutdown by police in 1995 after the arrest of a hacker who was affiliated with the BBS. In the same year Spunk Press, the largest anarchist archive of published material catalogued on computer networks faced a media barrage in the UK press which has falsely accused them of working with known terrorists like the Red Army Faction of Germany, of providing recipes for making bombs and of co-ordinating the "disruption of schools, looting of shops and attacks on multinational firms." Articles by the computer trade magazine, Computing, and the Sunday Times, entitled "Anarchism Runs Riot on the Superhighway" and "Anarchists Use Computer Highway For Subversion" respectively, nearly lead one of the organisers of Spunk Press loosing his job after the firm he works for received bad publicity. According to the book Turning up the Heat: MI5 after that cold war by Lara O'Hara, one of the journalists who wrote the Sunday Times article has contacts with MI5 (the British equivalent of the FBI).

It is not coincidence that this attack has started first against anarchists and libertarian-socialists. They are currently one of the most organised political grouping on the Internet. Even Simon Hill, editor of Computing magazine, admits that "we have been amazed at the level of organisation of these... groups who have appeared on the Internet in a short amount of time". According to Ronfeldt's thesis, this makes perfect sense. Who best can exploit a system that "erodes hierarchy" and requires the co-ordination of decentralised, autonomous groups in co-operative actions than anarchists and libertarian-socialists?

These attacks may not be confined to anarchists for long. Indeed, many countries have attempted to control the internet, using a number of issues as a means to do so (such as "terrorism", pornography and so on). Government is not the only institution to notice the power of the Internet in the hands of activists. In America, the Washington Post ("Mexican Rebels Using a High-Tech Weapon; Internet Helps Rally Support", by Tod Robberson), Newsweek ("When Words are the Best Weapon: How the Rebels Use the Internet and Satellite TV", by Russell Watson) and even CNN have done stories about the importance of the Internet and network communication organisation with respect to the Zapatistas.

It is important to point out that the mainstream media is not interested in the information that circulates across the Internet. No, they are interested in sensationalising the activity, even demonising it. They correctly see that the "rebels" possess an incredibly powerful tool, but the media does not report on what they either are missing or omitting.

A good example of this powerful tool is the incredible speed and range at which information travels the Internet about events concerning Mexico and the Zapatistas. When Alexander Cockburn wrote an article exposing a Chase Manhattan Bank memo about Chiapas and the Zapatistas in Counterpunch, only a small number of people read it because it is only a newsletter with a limited readership. The memo, written by Riordan Roett, was very important because it argued that "the [Mexican] government will need to eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the national territory and of security policy". In other words, if the Mexican government wants investment from Chase, it will have to crush the Zapatistas. This information was relatively ineffective when just confined to print. But when it was uploaded to the Internet (via a large number of List-servers and the USENET), it suddenly reached a very large number of people. These people in turn co-ordinated protests against the U.S and Mexican governments and especially Chase Manhattan. Chase was eventually forced to attempt to distance itself from the Roett memo that it commissioned.

Anarchists and the Zapatistas is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Currently there are a myriad of social activist campaigns on the Internet. From local issues like the anti-Proposition 187 movement in California to a progressive college network campaign against the Republican "Contract [on] America," the network system of activism is not only working — and working well as Ronfeldt admits — but is growing. It is growing rapidly in numbers of people involved and growing in political and social effectiveness. There are many parallels between the current situation in Chiapas and the drawn out civil war in Guatemala, yet the Guatemalan military has been able to nearly kill without impunity while the Mexican military received a co-ordinated, international attack literally hours after they mobilise their troops. The reason is netwars are effective as Ronfeldt concedes, and when they are used they have been very influential.

It is clear than Rand, and possibly other wings of the establishment, are not only interested in what activists are doing on the Internet, but they think it is working. It is also clear that they are studying our activities and analysing our potential power. We should do the same, but obviously not from the perspective of inhibiting our work, but the opposite: how to further facilitate it. Also, we should turn the tables as it were. They are studying our behaviour and actions — we should study theirs. As was outlined above, we should analyse their movements and attempt to anticipate attacks as much as possible.

As Ronfeldt argues repeatedly, the potential is there for us to be more effective. Information is getting out as is abundantly clear. But we can do better than just a co-ordination of raw information, which has been the majority of the "networking" so far on the Internet. To improve on the work that is being done, we should attempt to provide more — especially in the area of in-depth analysis. Not just what we are doing and what the establishment is doing, but more to the point, we should attempt to co-ordinate the dissemination of solid analysis of important events. In this way members of the activist network will not only have the advantage of up-to-date information of events, but also a good background analysis of what each event means, politically, socially and/or economically as the case may be.

Thus Netwars are a good example of anarchistic trends within society, the use of communications technology (developed for the state and used by capitalism as a means to aid the selling process) has become a means of co-ordinating activity across the world in a libertarian fashion.

(This section of the FAQ is based on an article by Jason Wehling called "'NetWars' and Activists' Power on the Internet" which has appeared in issue 2 of Scottish Anarchist magazine as well as _Z Magazine)