Network-Centric Violence, Critical Infrastructure and the Urbanization of Security

This article addresses the question of whether contemporary global urbanization is characterized by a distinctive relationship between the city and warfare. In particular, it examines the specific way in which two particular forms of warfare — so-called Al-Qaeda terrorism and US tactics in Iraq — target urban infrastructure. I argue that infrastructure is targeted because it is a constitutive feature of contemporary urban life. Metropolitan life is marked by its constitutive relation to urban infrastructure. The article thus suggests that this targeting of infrastructure provides a lens through which to investigate some of the central questions posed by the contemporary urbanization of security.