Essential reading on how technology empowers rogue actors and how society can adapt.Never have so many possessed the means to be so lethal. A dramatic shift from 20th century "closed" military innovation to "open" innovation driven by commercial processes is underway. The diffusion of modern technology--robotics, cyber weapons, 3-D printing, synthetic biology, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence--to ordinary people has given them access to weapons of mass violence previously monopolized by the state. As Audrey Kurth Cronin explains in Power to the People, what we are seeing now is the continuation of an age-old trend. Over the centuries, from the invention of dynamite to the release of the AK-47, many of the most surprising developments in warfare have occurred because of technological advances combined with changes in who can use them. That shifting social context illuminates our current situation, in which new "open" technologies are reshaping the future of war. Cronin explains why certain lethal technologies spread, which ones to focus on, and how individuals and private groups will adapt lethal off-the-shelf technologies for malevolent ends. Now in paperback with a foreword by Lawrence Freedman and a new epilogue, Power to the People focuses on how to both preserve the promise of emerging technologies and reduce risks. Power is flowing to the people, but the same digital technologies that empower can imperil global security--unless we act strategically.

Foreword by Lawrence FreedmanIntroduction: The Age of Lethal EmpowermentPART ONE: THEORYChapter 1: Classic Models of Military Innovation: Shaped by the Nuclear RevolutionIntroductionThe Historical Relationship between War and TechnologyInnovation is Double-EdgedThe Social Nature of DiffusionTechnology is Not StrategyHistorical Context MattersOpening Pandora's BoxChapter 2: The Arsenal for Anarchy: When and How Violent Individuals and Groups InnovateIntroductionThe Historical Relationship between Political Violence and TechnologyHow Technologies Were HarnessedHow Lethal Nonstate Actors InnovateEverett Rogers' Theory of Commercial Diffusion RevisitedPART TWO: HISTORYChapter 3: Dynamite and the Birth of Modern TerrorismIntroductionThe Advent of GunpowderEarly Explosive Violence from BelowGunpowder Helps Build the Modern WorldAlfred Nobel's VisionDynamite Becomes the People's WeaponThe Narodnaya Volya and the Killing of the TsarThe Skirmishers and Clan na GaelThe International Anarchist MovementWhy Dynamite DiffusedChapter 4: How Dynamite DiffusedIntroductionInnovation Was Not Driven by the MilitaryThe Global Production of DynamiteGrowth Despite DangerInexorable Downward Pressure on PriceThe Stoking of DiscontentThe International Anarchist Convention of 1881 and 'Propaganda of the Deed'Dynamite Schools and PamphletsAnarchist Newspapers and Periodicals WorldwideMass Market SensationalismPatterns in Numbers of AttacksHow Global Dynamitings EndedNobel's RemorseChapter 5: The Kalashnikov and the Global Wave of InsurgenciesIntroductionThe Evolution of Firearms and the Introduction of the Machine GunKalashnikov's Invention of the AK-47Why the AK-47 Was so Widely AdoptedA Humble, Yet Disruptive InnovationChapter 6: How the Kalashnikov DiffusedThe Kalashnikov's Debut and Public DemonstrationTrading in KalashnikovsThe Diffusion of KalashnikovsA Proliferation of FactoriesThe Revolutionary's Weapon of ChoiceBack to the USAThe Impact on the Power of StatesWhy the Kalashnikov SpreadThe Floodgates OpenedKalashnikov's RegretThe Power of Unintended ConsequencesPART THREE: CONVERGENCE: WIDESPREAD LETHAL EMPOWERMENTChapter 7: Open Innovation of Mobilization: Social Media and Conquering Digital TerrainIntroductionThe New Nature of MobilizationNew Tools for Old TacticsNew Tools Used in New WaysBoundless InteractivityMobile Streaming Videos and Live-streamingQuality First-Person Filmmaking TechnologyViral Fake NewsEnd-to-End EncryptionHijacking Psychological TacticsUnintended Consequences ReduxChapter 8: Open Innovation of Reach: From AK-47s to Drones, Robots, Smartphones, and 3-D PrintingIntroductionConvergent Technologies and Extended ReachThe Scope of Unmanned SystemsHow Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Extend Private ReachPredators, Reapers, Global Hawk: Sustaining TechnologiesThe Pattern of State-to-State Proliferation of UAVsState-to-Group Proliferation of UAVs: Hezbollah and HamasThese Are Not the Drones You're Looking ForTerrorist and Insurgent Groups' Lethal UAV ProgramsCrowd-funded, "Grey Zone," and Private UAV IntelligenceAdvances in the WorksDrones as MissilesDemocratized Precision Strike CapabilityEveryone Manufactures Everything with 3D PrintingIndividual Flying DevicesLagging CountermeasuresChapter 9: An Army of One Launches Many: Autonomy and Artificial IntelligenceIntroductionA Spectrum of AutonomyThe Perils of Full Artificial IntelligenceThe Predictions of Lethal Empowerment TheoryAutonomous ReachSelf-driving Truck BombsHijacking the Internet of ThingsAutonomous SwarmsSmall Autonomous Killer RobotsTailored for TerrorismConclusion: Strategy in an Age of Lethal EmpowermentPowerful Economic Incentives for DiffusionTechnological Optimism and a Boom in TinkeringNew Communications Technologies Are Powerful Incentives to ViolenceMilitaries Are Facing the Innovator's DilemmaDisruptive Private Armies: The ISIS PrecedentResponding to the ThreatThe Profit Motive for ProtectionsRegulation Is Not Necessarily StrangulationBuilding Up National SecurityStrategy in an Age of Lethal EmpowermentEpilogue