The Myths of Negotiating Dark Networks Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Myths of Negotiating Dark Networks - Article ExampleThey clear that in contrast to hierarchies, meshs lack top-down command and authoritative dispute settlement (2008 11). While they accept the commonly cited advantages of networked actors efficient communication and information processing, scalability, adaptability, resilience, and learning capacity they rightfully caution that all of these may not apply to every type of network. Eistrup-Sangiovanni and Jones identify three kinds of networks the chain network, the wheel network, and the all-channel network. Illicit networks are primarily of the first two variants and many, if not most, suffer from inefficiencies and short life-cycles (2008 17). The scholarship on networks, they claim, pays scant upkeep to historical evidence and extant studies of terrorism, insurgency, and organized crime.Dark networks suffer from information limitations and communication failures, poor decision-making and unjustified risk-taking, restr ictions on scope and structural adaptability, collective action problems due to (lack of) coordination, frequent security breaches, and learning disabilities (2008 19-33). development these limitations as an analytical framework, Eistrup-Sangiovanni and Jones examine the organizational structure of the al-Qaida, which appears to be a robust network-based threat in the 21st century. The al-Qaidas potency draws a lot from a hierarchical organization, which has been increasingly sticky to maintain as the group comes under sustained international pressure. Its capacity to undertake major trading operations like the 9/11 attacks dwindles as it more closely resembles a loosely structured network of actors indeed, there have been more failed attempts than successful attacks since 2001 (2008 35-40).