In their book, LikeWar: The Weaponisation of Social Media, P W Singer and Emerson T Brooking explored the evolutionary process of social media and the innovative ways through which it has grown into a new battlefield, which not only modified the conflicts all over the globe but has also become a defining feature of the democratic wars of contemporary strategic environment.
There are eight chapters in the book with epigrammatic titles and impressive themes. In the first chapter, the debate revolves around the blurring of the line between the online and offline worlds and how the “decentralisation of technology” has affected the physical world. The authors set the tone of the book in this chapter by constructing an analogue between the Nazi Blitzkrieg war strategy and online campaign by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). How these two powerful forces used the modern communication technologies of their respective eras to win the war before the actual attack. The authors strengthen their case by further discussing the role of social media in instigating violence during the Chicago Gang war (2017), Russia-Ukraine crisis, Israel-Palestine conflict, Pakistan-India rivalry and the Colombian civil war. The second chapter provides an all-encompassing account of how the global communication system evolved through various critical junctures ranging from the first printing press in 1438 to the contemporary social media platforms.
