PDF also available. You should check out the ToC for this issue, as it features a whole series of "Perspectives on the Long War."

The result is a change in relative advantage at the individual level played out, for example, in the increasing role of suicide attacks in warfare. In today’s social and political context, it is not enough to focus on military organizational and doctrinal changes like networking and swarming. In the long run, the "swarming" that really counts is the wide-scale mobilization of the global public.

Can I get an Amen?

Will the United States recognize the significance of connectivity and its implications for conflict? It is hard to say.

To win, we must all become super-empowered individuals. Get happy, get angry, whatever; just get going.

I liked that phrase, "the significance of connectivity", and wanted to see who else was using it, and how. It seems most common in a neurobiological context. But I ran across this article from a member of the faculty at Ankara University:

In an age in which the problems that the citizens face exceed local, and even national boundaries, the significance of connectivity on a global scale gains an unprecedented importance.

Remember that guy, "Tom", who used to write openly accessible op-ed articles?

Because globalization has brought down many of the walls that limited the movement and reach of people, and because it has simultaneously wired the world into networks, it gives more power to individuals to influence both markets and nation-states than at any other time in history. Globalization can be an incredible force-multiplier for individuals. Individuals can increasingly act on the world stage directly, unmediated by a state.

So you have today not only a superpower, not only Supermarkets, but also what I call "super-empowered individuals." Some of these super-empowered individuals are quite angry, some of them quite wonderful -- but all of them are now able to act much more directly and much more powerfully on the world stage.

("You don't strike me as super-empowered!")