Fourth-generation warfare: Jihadist networks and percolation

This paper studies the approach to the fourth-generation warfare (4GW) paradigm from the perspective of physical and mathematical disciplines, through the interdisciplinary bridge offered by the analysis of complex networks. The study is within an emerging multidisciplinary field, Sociophysics, which attempts to apply statistical mechanics and the science of complex systems to predict human social behavior. The fourth-generation warfare concept is reviewed, and the war of the Jihadist Islam against the West will be contextualized as 4GW. The paradigm of complex systems has in diverse branches of science changed how collective phenomena are processed. The jihadist networks phenomenon in particular is appropriate for study from the standpoint of complex networks. We present an empirical study of the 9/11 and 11M networks, implemented from public information, and we give a comparison of both networks from the standpoint of complex networks. Several authors have made use of the phenomenon of percolation in complex physical systems to analyse complex networks, particularly jihadist actions like 9/11. The relationship between jihadist networks and percolation is considered. The percolation concept is reviewed and related to 4GW, and the definition of memetic dimension is introduced.