Copyright Dr Matthew Ford, e-mail: matthew.c.ford@me.com - 1 The Smartphone as Weapon part 3: participative war, the laws of armed conflict and genocide by smartphone – Dr Matthew Ford First published 20 April 2022 Updated 29 April 2022 This final paper explores the political implications of connected technologies like the smartphone for combatants and civilians who now find themselves at the nexus of war and political violence wherever they are. Part 1: the new war ecology in Ukraine can be found here. Part 2: the targeting cycle in Ukraine can be found here. **** This is part 3 of a series of working papers where I have sought to understand how my book Radical War (Hurst: London; Oxford University Press: New York, 2022) , co-authored with Andrew Hoskins, has application to the war in Ukraine. This should be treated as my aide memoire. Further observations will follow to reflect any potential changes in the dynamics and evolving information environment of the war. **** Ukraine’s civilians can provide crowdsourced geolocated target information to the Ukrainian Army. This has the effect of creating a more resilient targeting process but also implies that anyone with a smartphone may become a target of enemy action. Now the question is whether raising a smartphone to photograph an enemy column constitutes a hostile act. There is already video evidence online showing how people using smartphones to record Russian military activity have found themselves under fire. 1 In addition, The Economist reporter Tim Juddah observes that, ‘The Russians arrested people and shot them in the street to make an example because what they were really frightened of was the Ukrainians using their phones to report to Ukrainian forces their positions’. 2 This does not justify the atrocities 1 See for example tweet by @bura_tinko dated 1 March 2022. Tweet available at: https://twitter.com/warmatters/status/1499659955875368960?s=20&t=S_fk2pYdvu1LlW980Hzd0A. Accessed 18 April 2022. 2 See Tim Juddah speaking on The Intelligence podcast from The Economist, broadcast on 5 April 2022. Podcast available at: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/137845786. Accessed 18 April 2022. Relevant commentary from 3 minutes 30 seconds.