Armed Conflict Cybersecurity & Tech

Lawfare Daily: ‘War in the Smartphone Age,’ with Matthew Ford

Justin Sherman, Matthew Ford, Jen Patja
Wednesday, August 27, 2025, 7:00 AM
Discussing the role of smartphones and social media in war.

Published by The Lawfare Institute
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Matthew Ford, Associate Professor at Swedish Defence University and author of “War in the Smartphone Age: Conflict, Connectivity, and the Crises at Our Fingertips,” joins Lawfare’s Justin Sherman to discuss the role of smartphones and related technologies in war, how social media contributes to a collapse of context in the war content we see online, and how smartphones and other devices are reshaping open-source intelligence (OSINT) and open-source investigations (OSINV) vis-a-vis conflicts and violence from Syria to Ethiopia to Ukraine. They also discuss the tech stack in war, how the military “kill chain” is evolving with ever-greater digital connectivity, the current state and future of “participatory warfare,” and how we can become better consumers—and sharers—of war-related content online.

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Justin Sherman is a contributing editor at Lawfare. He is also the founder and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, a Washington, DC-based research and advisory firm; the scholar in residence at the Electronic Privacy Information Center; and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Matthew Ford is associate Professor at Swedish Defence University and author of “War in the Smartphone Age: Conflict, Connectivity, and the Crises at Our Fingertips."
Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.
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