Code is Law.
The idea of network-centric operations initially was inspired by developments in the IT-industry in the 1990s. But while today’s internet industry is happily nurturing a new boom revolving around Web 2.0, the defense establishment is haplessly managing counterinsurgency and stability operations. Yet a closer look at the two seemingly separate trends brings to light striking similarities. War’s changing character is not only augmented by the emergence of the new media; the way the web and today’s communication devices are used to organize lives also instructs our understanding of how killing is organized. The argument put forward here is that the web’s emerging organizing principles — including a social as well as a technological dimension — increasingly govern the management of violence. The new media consequently offer both a set of new metaphors to understand the character of today’s wars and a socio-technological platform that remodels the architecture of battle.
AJAX is Bad Law.
