Fighting the network: a critique of the network as a security technology

Abstract

It is difficult to think about global connectivity without confronting the importance of the network as a metaphor and a model of contemporary social life and transnational danger. From the dispersed global terrorism threat, to the spread of (computer) viruses, from the identification of organized crime ‘hubs’ to the depiction of al Qaeda terrorism, the network has become a key metaphor of contemporary danger. This paper analyzes and critiques the network as a mode of security knowledge and as a risk technology. It regards invocations of network not simply as a metaphorical representation of danger, but as devices that render the world actionable and amenable to intervention. More than a metaphor for capturing threat discursively, the network is a device for calculating and classifying security risks and acting upon them. ‘Fighting the network’, in this paper, refers to the development of a critical perspective on the ubiquity of the metaphorical network in security practice and its operation as a security technology.

Keywords:

• netwar
• networks
• precaution
• risk
• security
• temporality
• terrorism

Acknowledgements

This paper was first presented at the ‘Operations of the Global’ workshop at the University of Hamburg in October 2011. Many thanks to all workshop participants for their comments, especially to Urs Stäheli, Ute Tellman, and Sven Opitz. Many thanks also to two anonymous reviewers for Distinktion, who generously offered support and helpful comments. Financial support for this research was provided by the Dutch Council for Scientific Research (NWO), through the VIDI-grant ‘European Security Culture,' award number 452-09-016.

Notes

The images are taken from Rodriguez (2005, 11, graph 2; 25, graph 5).

See the following: ‘Al-Basel Ghalyoun arrested’, Syrian Human Rights Information Link, November 27, 2008 ( http://www.shril-sy.info/enshril/modules/news/article.php?storyid=57) and ‘Incommunicado detention / Torture: Basel Ghalyoun (m)’, Amnesty International, Syria, November 27, 2008 ( http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE24/034/2008/en/12be9443-bc78-11dd-a4da-f9d3cfe448ce/mde240342008en.html).

This is the formulation used by US diplomats when explaining and justifying the program to concerned German politicians, Embassy Cable Berlin to Washington, February 17, 2010, § 4c, available through Wikileaks (http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/02/10BERLIN187.html).