Power to the People

Essential reading on how technology empowers rogue actors and how society can adapt. Never have so many possessed the means to be so lethal. A dramatic shift from 20th century "closed" military innovation to "open" innovation driven by commercial processes is underway. The diffusion of modern technology--robotics, cyber weapons, 3-D printing, synthetic biology, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence--to ordinary people has given them access to weapons of mass violence previously monopolized by the state. As Audrey Kurth Cronin explains in Power to the People, what we are seeing now is the continuation of an age-old trend. Over the centuries, from the invention of dynamite to the release of the AK-47, many of the most surprising developments in warfare have occurred because of technological advances combined with changes in who can use them. That shifting social context illuminates our current situation, in which new "open" technologies are reshaping the future of war. Cronin explains why certain lethal technologies spread, which ones to focus on, and how individuals and private groups will adapt lethal off-the-shelf technologies for malevolent ends. Now in paperback with a foreword by Lawrence Freedman and a new epilogue, Power to the People focuses on how to both preserve the promise of emerging technologies and reduce risks. Power is flowing to the people, but the same digital technologies that empower can imperil global security--unless we act strategically.

Audrey Kurth Cronin is one of the world's leading experts on security and terrorism, with high-level experience in public service and academia. She is currently Distinguished Professor of International Security and founding Director of the Center for Security, Innovation and New Technology at American University.

- Foreword by Lawrence Freedman - Introduction: The Age of Lethal Empowerment - PART ONE: THEORY - Chapter 1: Classic Models of Military Innovation: Shaped by the Nuclear Revolution - Introduction - The Historical Relationship between War and Technology - Innovation is Double-Edged - The Social Nature of Diffusion - Technology is Not Strategy - Historical Context Matters - Opening Pandora's Box - Chapter 2: The Arsenal for Anarchy: When and How Violent Individuals and Groups Innovate - Introduction - The Historical Relationship between Political Violence and Technology - How Technologies Were Harnessed - How Lethal Nonstate Actors Innovate - Everett Rogers' Theory of Commercial Diffusion Revisited - PART TWO: HISTORY - Chapter 3: Dynamite and the Birth of Modern Terrorism - Introduction - The Advent of Gunpowder - Early Explosive Violence from Below - Gunpowder Helps Build the Modern World - Alfred Nobel's Vision - Dynamite Becomes the People's Weapon - The Narodnaya Volya and the Killing of the Tsar - The Skirmishers and Clan na Gael - The International Anarchist Movement - Why Dynamite Diffused - Chapter 4: How Dynamite Diffused - Introduction - Innovation Was Not Driven by the Military - The Global Production of Dynamite - Growth Despite Danger - Inexorable Downward Pressure on Price - The Stoking of Discontent - The International Anarchist Convention of 1881 and 'Propaganda of the Deed' - Dynamite Schools and Pamphlets - Anarchist Newspapers and Periodicals Worldwide - Mass Market Sensationalism - Patterns in Numbers of Attacks - How Global Dynamitings Ended - Nobel's Remorse - Chapter 5: The Kalashnikov and the Global Wave of Insurgencies - Introduction - The Evolution of Firearms and the Introduction of the Machine Gun - Kalashnikov's Invention of the AK-47 - Why the AK-47 Was so Widely Adopted - A Humble, Yet Disruptive Innovation - Chapter 6: How the Kalashnikov Diffused - The Kalashnikov's Debut and Public Demonstration - Trading in Kalashnikovs - The Diffusion of Kalashnikovs - A Proliferation of Factories - The Revolutionary's Weapon of Choice - Back to the USA - The Impact on the Power of States - Why the Kalashnikov Spread - The Floodgates Opened - Kalashnikov's Regret - The Power of Unintended Consequences - PART THREE: CONVERGENCE: WIDESPREAD LETHAL EMPOWERMENT - Chapter 7: Open Innovation of Mobilization: Social Media and Conquering Digital Terrain - Introduction - The New Nature of Mobilization - New Tools for Old Tactics - New Tools Used in New Ways - Boundless Interactivity - Mobile Streaming Videos and Live-streaming - Quality First-Person Filmmaking Technology - Viral Fake News - End-to-End Encryption - Hijacking Psychological Tactics - Unintended Consequences Redux - Chapter 8: Open Innovation of Reach: From AK-47s to Drones, Robots, Smartphones, and 3-D Printing - Introduction - Convergent Technologies and Extended Reach - The Scope of Unmanned Systems - How Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Extend Private Reach - Predators, Reapers, Global Hawk: Sustaining Technologies - The Pattern of State-to-State Proliferation of UAVs - State-to-Group Proliferation of UAVs: Hezbollah and Hamas - These Are Not the Drones You're Looking For - Terrorist and Insurgent Groups' Lethal UAV Programs - Crowd-funded, "Grey Zone," and Private UAV Intelligence - Advances in the Works - Drones as Missiles - Democratized Precision Strike Capability - Everyone Manufactures Everything with 3D Printing - Individual Flying Devices - Lagging Countermeasures - Chapter 9: An Army of One Launches Many: Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence - Introduction - A Spectrum of Autonomy - The Perils of Full Artificial Intelligence - The Predictions of Lethal Empowerment Theory - Autonomous Reach - Self-driving Truck Bombs - Hijacking the Internet of Things - Autonomous Swarms - Small Autonomous Killer Robots - Tailored for Terrorism - Conclusion: Strategy in an Age of Lethal Empowerment - Powerful Economic Incentives for Diffusion - Technological Optimism and a Boom in Tinkering - New Communications Technologies Are Powerful Incentives to Violence - Militaries Are Facing the Innovator's Dilemma - Disruptive Private Armies: The ISIS Precedent - Responding to the Threat - The Profit Motive for Protections - Regulation Is Not Necessarily Strangulation - Building Up National Security - Strategy in an Age of Lethal Empowerment - Epilogue