Decapitation strikes against decentralized networks are counterproductive

Evidence

In Marvel’s Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. comics, the nefarious S.P.E.C.T.R.E.-like international crime and terror network was called H.Y.D.R.A. Its slogan was “cut off a limb and two more shall take its place”. In Saturday’s Times, Paul Wilkinson, Chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, described the “decentralised network” of al-Qaeda as a “true hydra”. But the lesson of the hydra myth — that to use force against certain types of enemy is not only ineffective, it is counter-productive — is one that the leaders of the War on Terror have yet to learn. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1424

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the The New Crusades material on the War on Terror as self-reinforcing, and to base-nation arguments that force feeds extremism. — connects to: Military strikes against decentralized networks relocate threats rather than eliminate them — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2306; War metaphors misfit a decentralized network enemy that no leader’s death can destroy; Targeted assassinations predictably trigger revenge attacks in a violent feedback loop — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 633
• SEED: The hydra myth as a general theory of decentralized resistance — applicable to everything from terrorism to open-source movements to anti-fascism.

Broader Connections

• Military strikes against decentralized networks relocate threats rather than eliminate them #expands (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2306
• War metaphors misfit a decentralized network enemy that no leader’s death can destroy #expands (0.90)
• Targeted assassinations predictably trigger revenge attacks in a violent feedback loop #corroborates (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 633