Inside the Brave New War

Wired interviews John Robb, author of Brave New War – The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization – and blogger at Global Guerrillas.

His thesis: new cheap weapons and diffused technologies are changing the nature of warfare, and are undermining the capacity of weak states to deal with the most sinister effects of globalization. These include the rise of guerilla groups, local warlords, terrorist organisation and criminal gangs, from Latin America to Afghanistan, united in their attempt to destabilise the nation state for their political and economic interests using new technologies and the Internet.

This is not new stuff. It seems to be borrowing heavily from Robert Kaplan’s Coming Anarchy, as well as from conflict analysts like Mary Kaldor and economists like Paul Collier, but it has the merit of bringing the issue to the attention of the general public.

Whether the book does justice to the complexity of the debate over New Wars, it remains to be seen. I haven’t read the book so I won’t pass judgement. But given the insightfulness of John’s blog on matters of technological warfare, I am sure the book will contain several interesting observations.