http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/05/cascading_syste.html

The article, “Cascading System Failure,” by John Robb, pulls social networking theory and information cascading ideas from harmless social networks into today’s terrorist groups. Its main points are about modern nations’ fragility in losing key nodes and how it affects their distribution of materials, information, and manpower. The article uses these theories to show that the effective way to bring down modern powers like the United States and other entities, like global corporations, is through the removal of critical nodes, thus dividing these main groups into smaller, more isolated bodies.

The examples given with network dynamism and how the elimination of critical and large nodes will cause materials to overflow smaller nodes and create a cascade of system failure, is similar to the example from blackout in the Northeast in 2003. Robb uses the theories to show that these cascading failures will ultimately cause the network to split into smaller parts that are ineffective. This is similar to the discussion in class this week about cascading information, however instead of getting people to switch from one this to another, it’s affecting abilities, whether things can go on or not. The graphs provided in the article are the same graph theory-type graphs, but show disruption in balance, like the Granovetter paper, as well as groupings and giant nodes, somewhat like that of the Kossinets-Watts paper.

The article then goes into showing potential targets that these guerilla fighters would want to target, thus showing areas of improvement or where network theory could be used (especially with materials distribution). He goes into undersupply problems (like that of electricity and water) and oversupply problems stemming from disruptions and breaks in connections.

Ultimately, this article spells out a scary present times with potential risks in any large network that exists today. However, with these problems come solutions from network theory that could be used to eliminate bridges in networks, try to prevent cascading failures in these networks as well as reinforcing distribution in many areas.