"War in 140 Characters" by David Patrikarakos

Book Review Scale

o   It’s Great, Read it Now!

o   It’s Good, Read it Soon!

o   It’s a Mix of Great and No So Great Passages

o   It’s Only for Niche Audiences or Select Passages

o   Read Something Else, Not Worth Your Time

War in 140 Characters’ primary thesis discusses how “homo digitalis” changed warfare permanently. Previously in the 20th century, the nation-state traditionally held power in two areas: a monopoly on the use of force and a monopoly on control of information. War journalist and author David Patrikarakos defines “Homo digitalis” as the impact of social media to fundamentally challenge the narratives of war, a threat to state filtered information. Social media’s ubiquitous presence on the battlefield allows for anyone to share their point of view of conflict at the push of a button.

Patrikarakos believes that social media shatters unity and divides people into two distinct ways. The first impact of social media is an increase in confrontation between factions online. Today, Palestinians can send messages to Israelis while Israelis can send messages to Palestinians. It is also extremely easy to contact leaders, such as President Netanyahu, and get a message across.

The second impact of social media has people consciously or subconsciously choosing sides. How does one pick a side in 21st century conflict? Simple, by adding “friends” or “following” those of a specific narrative, users are filtered biased information. 10 years ago, CNN was a media outlet watched by Israelis and Palestinians. While it may have presented a bias, many regarded CNN as a worthy source of news. Today, those on social media choose to publish information from fringe sources, this reinforces prejudices and exacerbates conflict.

It was actually not Hamas but Israel who lost the 2014 Israel-Gaza War

In the 2014 Israel-Gaza War called by some Westerners as Operation Protective Edge, Patrikarakos observed two different individuals: a 16 year-old Palestinian girl and an American born Israeli soldier who served as director of IDF social media. Patrikarakos believes the true nature of the conflict was fought online. In order to win the conflict on the battlefield, the narrative had to be won on social media.

Enter, Farah Baker, a 16-year-old Palestinian who tweeted non-stop during the war in English. Her ultimate goal was to gain attention of Western media. She was successful as US and UK news outlets displayed her tweets, photographs and videos for their respective audiences. Most importantly she was able to upend the traditional structure of how news covered warfare. Before the age of the internet, she would have been powerless. During the conflict Farah’s real-time updates of engagements made a lasting impact on international public opinion. While the IDF had advanced weaponry, they lacked technological strategy online. This proved to be a difficult task for Aliza Landes, Director of IDF social media. Ailiza was trapped inside the Israeli bureaucracy. For her, it was frustrating as she believed the IDF was not using the best tools possible to rebut the narrative that Israel “targeted Palestinian civilians”. Aliza was able to counter bureaucratic red tape by sending IDF video footage to Jewish-Americans – who would translate all strategic videos from Hebrew to English.

Social media has destroyed the gap between institutions and individuals. Patrikarakos believes the most important aspect of winning conflict is to send raw (or dishonest) data from battlefield to the information sphere. Once online, traditional news outlets will be required to publish this information in order to compete with the speed required to beat competition. Whoever can communicate their side the fastest can win the narrative with international public opinion. Public opinion ultimately influences policy and can thus win the war.

I will leave it to the reader to digest Patrikarakos’ two other studies, the Islamic State of the Levant and Syria (e.g. Daesh, ISIS, IS, ISIL) and the 2014 Russo-Ukrainian War. Patrikarakos may not reflect the current character count of X, formerly Twitter, yet it stands the test of time as a primary first mover analysis of social media’s impact on war.