POWER TO THE PEOPLE HOW OPEN TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IS ARMING TOMORROW'S TERRO

Audrey Kurth Cronin’s work has long been required reading in the counter-terrorism community, and one of the great strengths of her writing has been her ability to take useful concepts from different disciplines and use them to explain the many and varied nuances of the threat terrorism poses to established state systems. In Power to the People, Cronin leverages concepts such as disruptive and sustaining technologies, contagion theory, social mobilization, and economic asymmetry and attrition, to great explanatory effect identifying dynamite, the AK-47 (slight echoes here of John Ellis’s Social History of the Machine Gun), and social media as three critical disruptive technologies that have driven successive waves of terrorist activity. She supports this thesis with a wealth of quantitative data suggesting correlations between production statistics and attack frequency, and the geographic proximity of attacks to manufacturing centers. However, perhaps the most important new idea to come out of Power to the People is what Cronin labels “lethal empowerment theory” which she uses to identify new technologies with the potential to become the future tools of political violence: “The theory holds that disruptive lethal technologies are accessible; cheap; simple to use; transportable; concealable; effective… ; ‘multi-use’…; not cutting edge – usually in the second or third wave of innovation; bought off-the-shelf (or otherwise easily purchased); part of a cluster of other emerging technologies (which are combined to magnify overall effects); symbolically resonant (which makes them more potent than just their tactical effectiveness); given to unexpected uses. They give individuals and small groups greater power not because they are superior to the high-end technologies of states, and not because the individuals using them can go toe-to-toe with conventional militaries, but because they help mobilize individuals, extend their reach, and provide them with unprecedented command and control abilities.” Applying this theory to emerging technologies such as robotic weapons systems, 3D printing and CRISPR, Cronin raises the alarming possibility that we may be about to see such potentially disruptive technologies fuel a new wave of terrorist violence, although I must admit I am still none the wiser as to how weaponizing gene manipulation would actually work in practice. And perhaps, in the final analysis, that’s precisely the point of this fascinating and groundbreaking book.

This book promotes a good understanding of how society around the globe has experienced violent upsets at times in history due to disruptive technology.

Well written on a vital subject ... and now shortlisted for the best foreign policy book of 2020- prestigious Lionel Gelber prize.