LikeWar
The Weaponization of Social Media
Peter Singer and Emerson Brooking
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
400 pages; $28
Why do nation-states go to war? Clausewitzian wisdom would immediately tell us that war is merely an extension of politics. Indeed, politics and war are among the most universal and fundamental of all human historical experiences.
So fundamental, in fact, that technological innovation — another universal human experience — is often prompted by war. Gunpowder, for example, was developed in China during the brutal conflicts of the Song and Jin dynasties, and was transported West by the Mongols. Musketry and artillery then arose during the desperate wars of early
