In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age
by John Arquilla, David Ronfeldt

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Book Reviews of In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age

Book Review: A theoretical look at the next face of conflict
Summary: 4 Stars

Athena was also a serious topic in ancient times when she was the Greek god with a sword and shield, the one who thought up the first Trojan horse... a legacy that connects well with today's netwars.

The authors of each chapter address different issues. Most are from the perspective of military issues. Many use clear historic perspectives to show how one side or the other lost conflicts, for example, the use of smart networks by Mongols to defeat Muslims and by Ho Chi Minh against Lyndon Johnson. Other examples are drawn from the gulf war; the chief of which is that the next opponent will likely not be as dumb as Saddam.

Oddly there isn't much in the book about China and Russia, the cyber-bullies of today's world. Even if one did want to look up material on these countries the missing index prevents it. With a new abbreviation on every page it would also be helpful to have a Rosetta stone inside the back cover.

The example of the wild west is used and very applicable here. There are only isolated pockets of law and order. Good and bad guys are hard to distinguish. Outside occasional enclaves good guys can only trust their resources and a few friends. This high level discussion can be directly translated to domains, firewalls, and virtual private networks. It argues against lowest-bidder security implementations.

Computer network managers will understand diminishing role of government in the direction of commercial systems. This means less traditional compliance-driven security technology will be available. Corporate security, network administrators and infrastructure managers are out there on their own. "Street smart" information behavior will be necessary to survive.

Through the book the term "cyber" is overused. It almost never appears in serious government discussions or commercial security where the emphasis is on all aspects of network issues.

Security managers who want a superficial self improvement should skip this book. It is very concept-dense and filled with ideas which will cause the reader to stop and think about strategy. Few solution specifics are presented. Concepts in this book are suited for someone who is developing a strategic vision for protecting their organization from network attacks.

[adapted from a review published in Security Management. All rights reserved by the author]

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