From innovation to participation
Connectivity and the Conduct of Contemporary Warfare
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3707768 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Matthew Ford (0000-0002-2282-0451, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 100 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1531-1549 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-10 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-5850 • E-ISSN: 1468-2346 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ia/iiae061 |
| OpenAlex | W4400493119 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 12 |
The war in Ukraine is the first conventional war to ever take place in an entirely connected information ecology. The internet has not been switched off. Mundane smart devices are ubiquitous. Soldiers and ordinary civilians are participating in the conflict in ways that have never previously been possible. This stretches participation beyond the information domain and the kinds of connectivity that shaped conflicts in places like Syria, Tigray and Mali. Now the smartphone is routinely being used by soldiers and civilians alike to geolocate enemy columns, control drones to range find for artillery, and produce and broadcast the damage assessment for online audiences to watch. Surveillance technology already makes it possible to track individual smartphone users. In times of peace these forms of surveillance are curtailed. During a conventional war, however, private organizations and governments have reason to circumvent peacetime legal conventions. The result is that mundane connected technology forms part of an extended chain of sensors that feeds data and information to those involved in information warfare and targeting activities. In effect, the smartphone has collapsed the means to fight and represent war into the functionality of one device. This article maps the policy and military implications of these developments in relation to participation, the conduct of war and the law of armed conflict
Adversary · Armed conflict · Artillery · Computer security · Drone · International law · Internet privacy · Law of war · Peacetime · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Computer Science · Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies · European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies · Law · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection
Toward Information Infrastructure Studies
Mapping Crisis
The mobile phone and society in South Sudan
Forensic conflict studies
Will the centre hold? Countering the erosion of the principle of distinction on the digital battlefield
Eyes on the ground and eyes in the sky
Ukraine’s IT Army
The crisis in the palm of our hand
US Special Forces transformation
Sourcing the Sources
Probabilities towards death
War upon the Map
| Citations per year | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |