This documented briefing continues the elaboration of our ideas about how the information
revolution is affecting the whole spectrum of conflict. Our notion of cyberwar
(1993) focused on the military domain, while our study on netwar (1996) examined
irregular modes of conflict, including terror, crime, and militant social activism. Here we
advance the idea that swarming may emerge as a definitive doctrine that will encompass
and enliven both cyberwar and netwar. This doctrinal proposal relates to our efforts to
flesh out a four-part vision of how to prepare for information-age conflict (see Arquilla
and Ronfeldt, 1997, Ch. 19).
We have argued, first of all, for adopting a broad concept of “information”—so that it is
defined as something that refers not only to communications media and the messages
transmitted, but also to the increasingly material “information content” of all things,
including weapons and other sorts of systems. The next part of our vision focused on the
organizational dimension, emphasizing that the information revolution empowers the
network form—undermining most hierarchies. Moving on to the third part, we then
exposited our ideas about developing an American grand strategy based on “guarded
openness”—a principle that, for example, encourages reaching out widely with ideas
about freedom and progress, while still being circumspect about diffusion of advanced
information processes and technologies.
In this document, we complete our four-part vision by articulating a doctrine we call
“swarming,” and which we believe may eventually apply across the entire spectrum of
conflict—from low to high intensity, and from civic-oriented actions to military combat
operations on land, at sea, and in the air.Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence), OASD/C3I
