A New Way of War
Swarming is a seemingly amorphous, but deliberately structured, coordinated, strategic way to
perform military strikes from all directions. It employs a sustainable pulsing of force and/or fire
that is directed from both close-in and stand-off positions. It will work best—perhaps it will only
work—if it is designed mainly around the deployment of myriad, small, dispersed, networked
maneuver units.
This calls for an organizational redesign—involving the creation of platoon-like “pods”
joined in company-like “clusters”—that would keep but retool the most basic military unit
structures. It is similar to the corporate redesign principle of “flattening,” which often removes or
redesigns middle layers of management. This has proven successful in the ongoing revolution in
business affairs and may prove equally useful in the military realm.
From command and control of line units to logistics, profound shifts will have to occur to
nurture this new “way of war.” This study examines the benefits—and also the costs and risks—
of engaging in such serious doctrinal change. The emergence of a military doctrine based on
swarming pods and clusters requires that defense policymakers develop new approaches to
connectivity and control and achieve a new balance between the two. Far more than traditional
approaches to battle, swarming clearly depends upon robust information flows. Securing these
flows, therefore, can be seen as a necessary condition for successful swarming.
Related Reading
Arquilla, John, and David Ronfeldt, The Advent of Netwar, Santa Monica: RAND, MR-789-OSD, 1996.
Arquilla, John, and David Ronfeldt, eds., In Athena’s Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age,
Santa Monica: RAND, MR-880-OSD/RC, 1997.
Arquilla, John, and David Ronfeldt, The Emergence of Noopolitik: Toward an American Information
Strategy, Santa Monica: RAND, MR-1033-OSD, 1999.
Edwards, Sean J. A., Swarming on the Battlefield: Past, Present, and Future, Santa Monica: RAND,
MR-1100-OSD, 2000.
Lesser, Ian O., Bruce Hoffman, John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt, and Michele Zanini, Countering the New
Terrorism, Santa Monica: RAND, MR-989-AF, 1999.
Ronfeldt, David, John Arquilla, Graham Fuller, and Melissa Fuller, The Zapatista “Social Netwar”
in Mexico, Santa Monica: RAND, MR-994-A, 1998.
DB-311-OSD
SWARMING & The Future of Conflict
John Arquilla David Ronfeldt
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