Swarm War

   Printer-friendly version    E-mail this story to a friend

A new military strategy emerges from bees and mobile communication technology.

Military think tanks are taking a closer look at a military strategy that takes its cue from bees. As bees use their "humming" to instinctively move in coordinated synchronous behavior, mobile communication tools are allowing humans to move in similar patterns in the theatres of war and protest.

"Swarming" has long been a military strategy of coordinated attacks from all directions from small, dispersed and networked units. It is evolving as a new, partly technological model, with ancient, non-technological roots. Terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda are using swarm tactics, and they are using technology to take it to a new level. The U.S. military is now feeling the pressure to explore this tactic further to participate effectively in the War on Terrorism.

Swarming does have historical precedent, though it has not been a dominant form of military maneuver, according to Professor John Arquilla at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and a consultant with the think-tank Rand. Variations of the tactic, to move on an enemy in small, dispersed units simultaneously, have been used in battles ranging from the Roman Punic Wars in ancient times, to Mongols, to Zulu tribes, to the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Arquilla says swarming tactics became less and less used as technology allowed for bigger and more advanced weapons of war. He says a new kind of technology, mobile communications, is reviving a new version of swarming.

Smart Mobs author Howard Rheingold agrees that swarming has a modern manifestation. He says mobile communication technology has evolved so that it serves the same function the "buzzing" accomplishes for bees. The bees sense each other's buzzing and instinctually move in concert in real time. Text messaging on mobile devices and instantaneous file sharing off the internet via PDAs allows groups of people to receive their instructions, move in unison, nearly instantaneously, without prior planning or forethought. And, the technology allows groups to do so without a central leader. One modern example is the protestors at the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, in 1999, who were able to orchestrate their movement effectively in this way.

Terrorist groups like Al Qaeda are also utilizing similar tactics, according to John Arquilla, a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. He says Al Qaeda operatives converged on four separate targets simultaneously on September 11, 2001 when it swarmed on the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and presumably the White House. He says Al Qaeda likely used mobile communications to coordinate concurrent recent attacks in Kenya, Yemen and Kuwait. He says that ability to plan separate attacks at different points on the globe at or around the same time is a huge strategic advantage, one that is only augmented by an age of mobile communications. Arquilla says mobile communications have taken swarm warfare to a whole new level when an Al Qaeda agent who is in hiding can coordinate, from a cave in Afghanistan or a ship container, simultaneous attacks at separate points around the globe.

Professor Arquilla believes the U.S. will have to change its military strategy from focusing on big-ticket items like planes and submarines to building up a sophisticated, decentralized, low-cost, web-based intelligence network of its own in order to wage a full-on "netwar" in order to effectively fight Al Qaeda.

Swarming does have its critics who say there is no replacement for the strategic advantage traditional weapons provide. Thomas Henriksen at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University calls swarming "an old idea in a new wine bottle." He says big-ticket weaponry is necessary for complete success in the war on terrorism, and that a battle on terrorism "has to have tanks."

CONTACTS

John Arquilla: Associate Professor
United States Naval Postgraduate School
1 University Circle
Monterey, CA 93943-5001
Phone: (831) 656-3450

Howard Rheingold: Author Smart Mobs
Mill Valley, CA
Phone: (415) 381-7600

LINKS

KRON-TV in San Francisco broadcast this story.

WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York City features an archive of transcripts of stories broadcast on The Osgood File.

Howard Rheingold's new book Smart Mobs looks into swarming in military and social contexts.

Howard Rheingold's Web site delves into tangential issues related to swarming.

John Arquilla published an article in Wired in December of 2001 titled, "Fighting the Network War."

John Arquilla published an article for Rand think-tank on "Swarming and the Future of Conflict."

Professor Arquilla also works for the Rand military think-tank.

ACFnewsource provides links to sites maintained by other organizations for informational purposes only. ACFnewsource has no responsibility for the accuracy of the content of any Web site to which a link is provided. The groups included on the list do not necessarily reflect the views of ACFnewsource.

Return to top