by William Davies, Jonathan Cape by Carl Miller, William Heinemann
IN 2013, few outside Russia had heard of Valery Gerasimov ā until he wrote a certain article in a military periodical.
Gerasimov, then recently appointed chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, used the piece to reflect on the so-called Arab Spring and the novel role of social media and smartphones in mobilising crowds. He suspected that a new form of warfare was emerging, in which states could achieve more without resorting to armed conflict. If they could incite civil unrest against a rival state, to the point of toppling it, then their own forces might simply roll over the borders ā perhaps even in the guise of peacekeepers.
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Five years on, the āGerasimov doctrineā is well known as a controversial rethinking of the future of warfare. It also exemplifies the emergence of a new kind of power, one that knows no frontiers and is based on the ability to penetrate every device connected to the internet.
āThese firms proudly claim to be ādisruptersā. Facebook staff are still told to āmove fast and break thingsāā
Two alarming but excellent books, The Death of the Gods by Carl Miller and Nervous States by William Davies, place the doctrine at the centre of the many tools of technochaos. These matter as our familiar institutional landmarks (Millerās āold godsā) vanish daily, to be replaced by a disturbing and strange combination of internet tech with military might, fake news and populist targeting. Not to mention the rise of cybercrime, tech corporations the size of states, cryptocurrencies and scary algorithms that track and shape individual lives.
It is likely that all major powers now have a military capable of digital intervention. Miller reports on his visit to the British armyās 77th Brigade, whose barracks display the motto ābehavioural change is our USPā. The brigade already numbers several hundred cyberwarriors.
Later, in eastern Europe, Miller meets the generators of what many in the West would regard as fake news, incentivised by a share of ad revenue from the major Silicon Valley outfits. And he warns of the opaque governance of those companies, proudly claiming to be ādisruptersā heralding a new age. Facebook employees are still told to āmove fast and break thingsā, while at Google, workers tell him the companyās central purpose is to āmonetise dataā.
The new forms of power made possible by networked technology, says Miller, āhave something in common which olderā¦ more recognisable forms of power typically do not. They are far less constrained by rules.ā
Luckily, there may still be opportunities to resist this. But discovering them means taking into account not just the spread of disinformation, but also why we are vulnerable to it. Davies gives a thoughtful analysis of the influence of fake news and populist rhetoric against experts, statistics and the civil order of liberal democracies.
It will not be enough, he argues, to combat them by increasing calls for rational thought and Enlightenment principles. We must also recognise the emotional triggers that make the irrational effective, especially among people who have not fared well in recent decades. Even in the most democratic countries, inequalities in income and wealth have grown, and the burdens of austerity have fallen largely on the poor. Former manufacturing regions no longer offer skilled work, and both physical and mental health are suffering. For those at the sharp end, talk of national economic growth and social progress means little and may be seen as outright lies.
Citing a review of psychological studies, Davies finds that what makes people most vulnerable to disinformation are factors linked with self-esteem and control. When people feel their status is threatened, and they are victims of social change rather than agents of it, they are more likely to support authoritarian solutions and leaderships that will sweep away the slow process of evidence-based policy-making.
Lurking beneath the surface is a resort to violence, which is why Davies finds this āwar-in-peaceā concept so worrying. A feature of mass mobilisation in war, first used by Napoleon, is to stir up a sense of injury and a desire for revenge: politicians, Davies reminds us, have long understood the āpolitical energy in suffering and defeatā. We are not facing new types of manipulation, but rather a broader and more intrusive method of delivery.
āFor those at the sharp end, talk of national economic growth and social progress means littleā
Other features of war-in-peace include using emergency powers, merging corporate and state power, telling lies designed to affect morale, increased secrecy and restricting knowledge to small groups. Davies sees signs of these in elite tech companies, in which a handful of billionaires have a tight personal grip on ownership and control, and wield influence without oversight.
So how do we resist? Davies thinks experts have a vital role, but only if they recognise and reach out to the emotional component in popular thinking (and their own). More concretely, he suggests we act wherever emotion can usefully help unite populations on rationally sound issues ā such as global warming, the #MeToo movement and the Black Lives Matter campaign.
These are small seeds of hope perhaps, but they are grounded in an encouraging and novel picture of how we got here, and how we might find a way out.
This article appeared in print under the headline āThe rise of technopowerā
