My own personal 5GW dream
Here's the post that drives my comeback, which I was going to post there, on Weeks' site, but then I started to feel proprietary about it, meaning I was beginning to like the point enough to want it on my own site so I could find it months from now when writing Vol. III, which will definitely include an exploration of 5GW from my own peculiar perspective, as fueled by all this excellent stuff coming out of ZenPundit, Dreaming 5GW, Robb's Global Guerillas (which I admit I tend to read second-hand through translators who strip out the darkness and move it close enough to my own thinking that I can locate the hand grips), Tdaxp, Coming Anarchy (who painstakingly endeavor to connect me to Kaplan) and others. I have no ambition to lay out some theory of 5GW beyond the one I've already essentially laid out in both books (and which Weeks logically grabs ahold of in his very interesting interpretations of my work)--namely, the use of System Perturbations to alter existing rule sets or to replace them entirely with new ones. "Socializing your problem," as I put it in a recent post, is a tactic. The systematic alteration, or replacement of, an existing rule set is your strategic goal. You're not happy with things the way they are, so you make those around you unhappy enough that they too, are unhappy with the ways things are. Shock them hard enough, and you can trigger their own movement toward new rule sets that move the pile for you. Most of the time, what you trigger with an SP will look pretty negative in the short term, meaning objectively bad for all and subjectively bad for you--the instigator. In reality, though, my idea of the aggressive 5GW warrior is that he's uncommonly cool with that sort of ambiguity, a stance that can only be justified by the long-term perspective. In short, sometimes you'll take beatings in order to give better beatings later on. Nietszchean, I know, but to me, 5GW is more about shaping (and yes, manipulating isn't a bad word either) your own population's morale than it is disabling your enemy's population (whom you seek to reduce through the best sort of seduction).

So I don't disagree that the more you employ a 5GWish grand strategy to shrink the Gap by buying it off pre-emptively, the more 5GWish resistance you will engender (Weeks' great point). Entering the battlespace always activates the battlespace, and first responses are typically symmetrical (i.e., our enemy realizes we're trying to win his "date" from him, so he naturally does whatever it takes to keep her cowed and afraid and in his corner). To me, it's just about getting there first. The bribers will come into that space, selling all sorts of hope in a better future. Most will be liars, seeking power for themselves ultimately. We'll be the true revolutionaries, empowering the masses (and, of course, "enslaving" them to the market, according to our foes). But we should openly subvert our targets with the truth: in our path, they end up with more stuff and more freedom in how to use it; in our enemies' path, they end up with less stuff and less freedom in how to use it. Granted, not everyone wants empowerment, as plenty find it extremely disorienting. But better we go 5GWish on their asses than have our enemies beat down those who naturally thrive under such conditions, usually driving them away. When we lose those people in a society, we lose the society to enduring Gap status. Sure, we win the best & brightest from their populations in the meantime, but that's like the liberal Catholics going Episcopalian and the conservative Episcopalians going Catholic: the end result is that the Episcoplians only get more liberal and the Catholics only get more conservative. That's not the outcome we seek in the Gap, because that does not drain the swamp but merely deepens it.

There are many who would focus their attention primarily on those who exit the Gap individually and enter the Core, fearing their potential as fifth columnists (the Sageman obsession that reflects his spy-versus-spy paradigm), but to me, that's a defensiveness that keeps us trapped in a 4GW mindset here at home, when we should be all about acting offensively 5GWish inside the Gap (Steve DeAngelis' real point with Development-in-a-Box): altering the observed reality as rapidly as possible to liberate those who will thrive in that "chaos" and keeping as disoriented as possible the right-wing authoritarian types (and the personalities that naturally follow them, seeking submission) so that they spend all their time and attention trying to turn back the clock at home rather than speed up the clock here in the Core (pushing us down authoritarian pathways out of fear).

In truth, that's what really pissed me off most about the NIC's NIE: it basically ceded the away game to the opposition, feeding the mindset that we should play 4GWish at home and eschew the dangers of the 5GW offensive strategy inside the Gap (in effect, protect your own rule sets at home rather than have the ambition of altering those abroad).

To me, then, 9/11 was Osama's reach for 5GW-level strategy: yes, it scored on 4GW levels by striking fear deep in the heart of the homeland, but it's meta-goal was to trigger the U.S. engagement inside the Middle East (taking a beating to give a better beating and put the board in play that you could not otherwise manipulate). In short, Osama was counting on our tendency to play revolutionary power--he wanted that response.

I wanted to give Osama that response, and so I supported the invasion of Iraq. I was willing to accept the likely beating in order to give a better one down the road (the necessary changes within the U.S. military). That's not a cavalier decision. That's simply understanding that, under the current rule set, if you continue to play as before, you'll lose because your enemy's gone onto the next generation of warfare to turn your strengths into your weaknesses. Osama wins when he keeps America in this loop: we try classic 3GW, find it only gets us 4GW in response, and so we retreat, eschewing the 4GW battlespace and thus surrendering it to him.

In that path, we don't defend globalization, letting the enemy rally his troops around the friction naturally triggered by the global economy's spread, when what we should be doing is speeding globalization up as much as possible, accepting both the 4GW burden of countering resistance both within the Core and throughout the Gap and the meta-strategies implied by an offensive 5GW approach (releasing the "dogs of 4GW" war only bonds us further with fellow Core powers, by: 1) moving us collectively away from the temptations of classic 3GW scenarios (like Taiwan) and 2) replacing those temptations with new fears of collective exposure to 4GW dangers, thus pushing us toward aggressively building out the Core).

I know this may all come off as slightly rambling and inchoate, but I'm in that reaching mode toward Vol. III more and more. To me, PNM was all about moving off 3GW and recognizing the realities of 4GW, while BFA suggested the institutional changes and strategic alliance choices necessary to move us beyond 4GW engagement (the Long War, as we call it now) and into what I would call 5GW shaping of the future battlespace (by locking down Asia and gaining its strategic aid in shrinking the Gap in all those places where our enemies are--to date--not yet strong, such as the entire Gap outside of the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan/Pakistan).

Along those lines, I am willing to take the beating in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to give the ultimate "beating" (as in, beating them to the punch) elsewhere throughout the Gap, but I need New Core pillars to make that effort with me, because I know that Old Core Japan and Europe simply aren't up to it. The quickest way to do that, in my mind, is to leap-frog toward strategic alliance with China (and yes, I won't even wait on the solution set on North Korea to emerge before pursuing that). The longer we wait on that, the better the chance that Osama and Co. can create enough doubts about our strengths to convince China that the safer path is hunkering down and building-out their own version of globalization there. Osama wants that because a three-bloc world (Old Core, China-centric New Core, Gap) keeps his strategic goals in play in the Middle East. I want China locked in ASAP because a two-bloc world (strong Core working to shrink the Gap versus a global jihadist movement fighting to keep Islam off-line) basically preordains the outcome.

So giving the jihadists their "cause celebre" in Iraq is just fine and dandy to me, as cynical as that may sound, because that tie-down of their resources and strategic attention gives globalization more time to work the rest of the Gap during this unprecedented global expansion triggered by the rising East and those three billion new capitalists. By tainting anti-globalization through association with the grotesquely frightening masks of the Zarqawis and bin Ladens, I push China toward the self-realization of strategic alliance with the United States in a number of ways: 1) letting their "infiltration" of the rest of the Gap go unchecked (Oh, how lax of me!) and 2) by moving them closer to the identification as the new "face" of globalization (the "Chinese model" as flytrap to the Egypts of the world, thus depressing the old reflexive reach for the notion that globalization = westernization = americanization so good anti-globalization = good anti-americanism).

The great danger, of course, is that by "staying the course" too long on Iraq and Afghanistan, we drive up anti-Americanism among our enemies and their targeted population pools that we reflexively pull away from the Long War (Americans want to be liked, even when waging war), but there again, that danger only speaks to the speed to which we need to lock in Asia's strategic affection.

Our failsafe in all of this? Bush and Co. must go by Jan '09, which is why it's so crucial that we get somebody in who can see the whole board here and not just the need for an exit strategy in southwest Asia. Historically speaking, I'm more than willing to accept the "loss" in the Middle East if that loss suitably triggers the new strategic relationships I need to win the rest of the planet, and to me, the quickest route to that desired end is locking in China to lock-down Asia and set up the combination of our Leviathan and their SysAdmin for closing down future potential pathways for the global jihadist movement to move out of its current center of gravity in southwest Asia into places we should jointly lock-down pre-emptively with China, India, Russia and Brazil--such as Central Asia, southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Doing this right, in a 5GW sense, will make it seem as those our New Core pillars are "laughing all the way to the bank," to use Chris Lydon's phrase. This was the cracking-the-code moment for me in the New Map Game: we set the table (Leviathan) and China eats the meal (SysAdmin). We seem to "lose" and China seems to "win," first in East Asia on the East Asian NATO/North Korea solution set, and then in Latin America (where the Chinese-Brazilian "axis" dominates) and Africa (where the Chinese model gets most of the credit).

Throughout this years-in-the-waging 5GW strategy, America will "lose" much global power to China, allowing them to shrink muck of the Gap for us (along with fellow rising India and Brazil and to a lesser extent, demographically moribund Russia). Meanwhile, the Middle East/Islam (to most people) will remain unsolved and screwed up, our "addiction" to oil will go seemingly unaddressed, Europe will be lost to the invasive species known as Muslims, and the West will be in near collapse... (so you see, I do find types like Steyn wonderfully useful...).

Except great power war will be a distant memory, the global economy will have successfully migrated through its greatest expansion ever, the Gap will be effectively shrunk everywhere save the permanently f--ked-up Middle East (which we ceded to Iranian domination), China will be our permanent strategic ally, and life will be very good.

Of course, in that 5GW victory (that will suspiciously seem like a defeat throughout its making), we'll only be setting ourselves up for future domination by the Chinese, much like the Japanese currently subvert us with sushi, Pokemon, anime, etc. Blade Runner's sloppy mix of Asian-American global culture will have been achieved, radical Islam will have been hopelessly marginalized, and Europe will achieve the permament third-tier status it so richly deserves for setting up this huge task called shrinking the Gap, which China and America (two former European colonies) so kindly got together on and finally solved.

There you have it, my personal 5GW dream...

But again, the key dynamic here: the more we "lose" and are perceived to "lose" in the Middle East, the more we are forced to seek (hat in hand) strategic alliance with China (where Kim serves his only useful purpose in life). The more China sees itself as rescuing itself, globalization, and the world from American recklessness, the more self-confidence we build in an ally that will be perceived to eclipse us just as we were perceived to eclipse Great Britain across the 20th century while nonetheless basically doing its strategic bidding throughout the planet for decades on end (the lap dog's tail is wagging its "master"), saving them in two World Wars and a Cold War. Now, if we play our cards right, we suffer similiar such "indignities" at the hands of the Chinese throughout the Gap.

I know, I know. I'm selling America down the river in order to build a stable world order that keeps us fat, rich, and safe for the long haul, getting others to do the heavy lifting for the Gap's pursuit of happiness. It'll never happen because it's too devious and duplicitous to unfold, and all this talk of winning-while-appearing-to-lose simply won't wash. You simply can't manipulate people and countries like that.

All good points. And the more strongly people make them, the better.

Remember when our defeat in Vietnam forced us to make peace with the Sovs and Chinese in the early 1970s, setting up their rapid ideological expansion around the planet? Yeah, we got totally screwed on that one (I mean, look where we are now). What were those 5GW geniuses Nixon and Kissinger doing there?

Apparently giving the world away to the Commies. Worked like a charm, didn't it?

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"We [The USA] are the strongest nation in
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Secretary Of Defense for JFK & LBJ


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OSAMA's STRATEGY WAS
MADE IN THE USA ...

The 2001 - 911 tragedy instigated by Osama bin Laden and his followers using the Fourth Generation Warfare strategies developed by US strategy expert Gary "GI" Wilson emphatically demonstrated the inadequacies of current costly hi-tech defense strategies that most nations tend to embrace.


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Osama not only borrowed his stealthy strategy from the Americans, but he also borrowed the American made planes and used them as lethal missiles to attack his vulnerable targets.

FAULTY TOWERS

Now the high tech defense strategies of the USA proved totally ineffective against such lethal low tech strategies of the Fourth Generation Warfare paradigm, and therefore the Twin Towers had no hope on 911.

The amazing irony is that Gary Wilson tried in vain to get the US military and politicians to embrace his Fourth Generation Warfare strategies but was rejected in favor of the high tech path.

He predicted such a 911 tragedy occurring over two decades earlier, but no one listened to him.

It was Osama who embraced Gary Wilson's strategies and it is Osama who won the tragic battle of 911.

THE FBI FAILED THE PEOPLE

A post 911 expose by the Frontline TV Program revealed that it was the FBI who failed the people of New York and America by failing to encourage the work of former FBI agent John O' Neill.

John had been tracking Osama for a long while and was determined to stop him from attacking the USA, but the flaws in the FBI's cultural and management systems [Office Politics] that allowed John O'Neill to be abused and then forced from the FBI may well be where the full blame should be focused.

This plus the USA's many years of abuse of the poor of the world from Asia, South America to the Middle East.

Had John been given full support by the FBI the 911 tragedy may well never have happened, and the USA's sinister, unfounded and illegal war against Iraq would never have happened in 2003.

THE MAN WHO COULD'VE?

In August 2001, John left the FBI in frustration and took his years of expertise about Osama with him. He got a job as head security man at the World Trade Center. Ironically, and most tragically, weeks later, John O' Neill was killed by the very man he devoted his FBI career to stopping, Osama bin Laden, in the 911 Tragedy.

HAMMER AND NAILS

If you want to develop a peaceful national strategy you don't ask a military strategies, you ask a peace strategies.

It only makes sense.

Because to a military hammer, everything looks like military nails.

THE FOURTH GENERATION WARFARE

The Fourth Generation Warfare strategies are very simple -

Attack the enemy's vulnerable underbelly, rather then taking the high risk path of attacking the enemy's military strong points.

Instead you attack the enemy's vulnerable targets like -

1. Economic Targets.

2. Social Targets.

3. Political Targets, and finally

4. Military Targets.

THE MINI BLITZKRIEG

The idea is to harness small scale swift stealthy strikes - Get in strike and vanish without trace.

But even more alarming is the fact that if your enemy has warriors who do not fear death, then you have absolutely nowhere to go to defend yourself.

You can't scare the crap out of them by waving your ineffective multi-billion dollar high tech military might at them, because they only laugh at you and keep on coming at you until they succeed.

Look at the suicide bombers as an example, and Vietnam as well.

When you take the arrogant war path - you can never ever sleep at night with total peace of mind, because you will forever be compelled to ask ... have I covered all my bases?

And the answer can only be "NO" because no one can, not even the mighty USA.

FEEDER STRATEGY

What makes the Fourth Generation Warfare super effective is this single most profound fact:

Your rivals, who are astute about your vulnerabilities, because they didn't enter the battle against you to lose, will do their homework and will have highlighted your nation's strengths and weaknesses.

And they will target your weaknesses.

And if it is too difficult to infiltrate your nation to attack you from inside, they will adopt what the WEPI Team calls the FEEDER Warfare Strategy.

And this Feeder Warfare Strategy simply means to attack foreign sources that your nation relies on for your daily survival. That's sources of critical nation sustaining stuff that your nation feeds off like foreign energy, food, technology, manufactured goods etc.

And this simple strategy works so brilliantly and so powerfully and so effectively.

While many of us may ignore conflicts that are going on on the other side of the world, it's another thing when your food and energy supplies are running out, or worse, their costs skyrocketing as supplies dwindle.


"So it's the Hip-Pocket or
the Stomach strategy ...
To hit you where it hurts the
most, your bank account
and your tummy"
- Valerie J. Elly


And there is no military way and no economical way to combat this strategy because they are out of your control, in foreign lands and in foreign hands.

Now can you see how impossible it is to combat the Fourth Generation Warfare strategies.

And now can you see why WEPI's wonderful super effective Fifth Generation Warfare is the only way to achieve guaranteed and enduring peace and prosperity for your nation and for your world.

How absolutely super cool is that!!!

DIGITAL CYBER WARS EFFECTIVELY
RENDERS ALL ANTI-TERRORIST
STRATEGIES ECONOMICALLY
UNVIABLE, INEFFECTIVE
AND OBSOLETE ...

But if the Feeder Strategy above does not scare the crap out of you, or does not enlighten you and compel you to accept the incontrovertible fact that there is no guaranteed antiquated cost-effective and pain free way for any national government to protect every single square meter of its territory 24/7/365 against a terror attack ...

And therefore quickly compel you to discard all such foolish offline anti-terror campaigns, and therefore to quickly stop the bleeding and wastage of your nation's precious resources, then this next incontrovertible fact is guaranteed to compel every nation to accept wepinet.com's wonderful Fifth Generation Warfare national security strategy.

And every national leader who ignores this most dangerous warning should be imprisoned and the key thrown away, because your nation's security, every nation's security is currently vulnerable to every form of unstoppable CYBER ATTACK.

IS YOUR NATION'S CRITICAL
SCADA SAFE FROM THOUSANDS
OF POTENTIALLY CRIPPLING
CYBER ATTACKS TODAY?

SCADA stands for ...

Supervisory Control Data Acquisition System!

They are every nation's critical Utility Digital Control Systems ...

You see, every nation's critical SCADA systems like power stations, water supply, transport, finance, education and communication and so on are totally vulnerable to CYBER ATTACK at any time.

For example, a CYBER ATTACK that could so easily strike your nation today has the potential to take out your nation's power/energy system for many months, therefore driving your nation into absolute chaos and economic ruin, because how can you sustain your nation's critical infrastructure if you have no energy to run your nation for six months or more?

And what is more terrifying is the incontrovertible fact that there is strong evidence that Osama's Al Qaeda and possibly every other terror organization in the world has very advanced CYBER WAR capabilities, ready to digitally invade any nation and bring it to its knees within a few hours ...

So can you see why global peace via wepinet.com's wonderful Fifth Generation Warfare may just be the only true economically viable and super effective path for every nation to achieve true iron clad national security

Please click the link below, or visit pbs.org and search for "CYBER WARS" on this super cool US website -

CYBER WARS

So wepinet.com's wonderful Fifth Generation Warfare is the only surefire path to secure true economically viable national security for every nation in the world, with no exceptions ...


And this wepinet.com Peace and Love
technology will put many trillions of critical
dollars back into each nation's national reserves
enabling each nation to better fund its
critical prosperity infrastructures for
many, many generations to come ...

Because a peaceful world
Is a prosperous world ...

Because armed with a peaceful
world, global commerce and prosperity
has a more stable platform to thrive ...

Because squandering a nation's
precious reserves on foolish military and
anti-terror campaigns is just stupid and
totally unjustified and wasteful ...

This wepinet.com solution is the most
effective and cost-effective way to
secure national security for every nation!!!


Because ...

THERE'S NO PLACE TO HIDE

You cannot run and hide because you cannot possibly know when the strike will be launched, unlike a regular military attack. Yes there is no place to hide from a totally ruthless and committed suicide warrior.

And therefore the can only be one national defense strategy that can defuse any would be attackers ...

PEACE!

NATIONAL SECURITY A DELUSION

So political leaders who erroneously believe that throwing billions of dollars of their tax payers precious resources on costly high priced defense strategies are arrogantly and naively squandering their nation's wealth in a most costly and foolish ineffective defense system.

THE FOURTH IS OBSOLETE

The WEPI Team believes that the Fourth Generation Warfare strategies are in effect obsolete because if people embrace wepinet.com's Fifth Generation Warfare strategy, there will be no need for the Fourth.

Because there would be no need for your adversaries to retaliate against you, and therefore there would be no need for you to defend yourself against them.

Hence ... total peace of mind with national security!

THE FIFTH GENERATION WARFARE

The WEPI Fifth Generation Strategy simply and profoundly is this - get every citizen to participate in finding cool ways to give peace to their world, especially to their past and current rivals.

Every citizen must ask - why are our enemies trying to hurts us?

Then we must ask our enemies for forgiveness.

And find super effective ways to give peace to your world. And you will save many billions of precious dollars each year, because there is no need to squander it on unnecessary military defense strategies where your financial resources flow into the pockets of the global defense industry's shareholders.

WEPI's FIFTH GENERATION WARFARE
MEANS A MORE PROSPEROUS NATION ...

And you can then safely and securely and super effectively channel those massive annual savings into more effective solutions to make your nation and region more prosperous with superior social and prosperity structures.


SO YOU POLITICAL LEADERS
BE WISE AND PUT THOSE
PRECIOUS DOLLARS IN
TO YOUR OWN
NATION'S POCKET ...


Please click the WEPI Info-Active button below and generate cool ways to give peace to your world, and therefore eliminating the costly, wasteful need for ineffective obsolete military strategies and solutions

Fifth Generation (political) warfare
ARTICLE: "In Clips on YouTube, Politicians Reveal Their Unscripted Side: Rival Posts 'Gotcha' Videos In Tight Montana Race; Kevin O'Brien Vigils," by Amy Schatz, Wall Street Journal 9 October 2006, p. A1.
Constant observation of the foe. Unrelenting surveillance. Every gaffe exposed and then run ad nauseum on the web. His ability to orient himself as desired in the race is disrupted.
Conrad Burns, the incumbent, is trailed everywhere on the campaign by a young operative for the Dems who videotapes him non-stop every chance he gets, waiting for the screw-up.

Once found, it's run on YouTube.

Good enough for the state senator challenger to pull even or even a bit ahead the polls.

An interesting example of the 5th Generation Warfare discussion that Tdaxp, ZenPundit and others lead.

I know everyone (including me in my NASCAR "yellow flag" notion) wonders about the war-without-knowledge scenario where the enemy wages but we're unaware anything's even going on. But to me, this scenario will be far more pervasive in our sensor-heavy future world (because that's all this operative is with his Sonycam--a sensor).

That's why extending the net is everything in the Long War, because ubiquitous transparency is our calling-card 5GW weapon.

Posted by on October 9, 2006 7:22 AM | Permalink

Comments
This is about the recent Knox News Sentinel column. I am not sure where the best place to post it is.

The United Nations estimates that, thanks to our economic sanctions, we sentenced 50,000 Iraqis to death annually throughout the 1990s, mostly kids and old people. That's half a million in a decade, not counting all the citizens Saddam kept killing. Our best estimates say fewer than 50,000 Iraqis have died since March 2003. Continue containing Saddam in the meantime, and over 100,000 additional Iraqis would have died - thanks to our realism.
At first I thought he may be referring to The Lancet study, which is the only epidemiological study of the mortality rate in Iraq conducted since the war, however I am not sure either TPMB or Mr. Meade are aware of it after researching the archives of their blogs.
But then I realized he must be referring to the UNAMI estimate based on Iraqi health ministry data. Paragraph 10 is the 50,000 estimate TPMB refers to I presume. This doesn’t include an additional 6,000 dead in July and August, a not insignificant 10% jump in the span of two months. Notice the first footnote in the second link (page three) says there was no data collected from Al-Anbar in July, indicative of widespread under reporting.

And I thought to myself “TPMB is a smart person, he can’t possibly be making such a ridiculous comparison, could he?!”

You’re comparing apples to hand grenades. These deaths reported by UNAMI are exclusively violent deaths. The 50k/year from sanctions was due to economic instability and lack of supply. Do you really think that in a country experiencing a violent insurgency that causes a reported death toll about a third of that size purely from violence is somehow more economically coherent and able to care for the frail old and young then a cohesive state with little violence? You don’t think the prevalence of violence, street gangs, kidnapping, torture, and targeted assassinations interferes with the ability to form sigma six supply chains?

The only source that actually attempts to measure comparable numbers is The Lancet’s study. It explicitly compares the death rate from all sources before and after the invasion. It estimates that about 100,000 more people died in the 18 months following the invasion then would have over a comparable period before the invasion, and not all the excess is due to violence.

On War #53

Fifth Generation Warfare?

2/03/04
By William S. Lind

Despite the fact that the framework of the Four Generations of Modern War is relatively new, first appearing in print in 1989, some observers are now talking about a Fifth Generation. Some see the Fifth Generation as a product of new technologies, such as nanotechnology. Others define it as the state’s struggle to maintain its monopoly on war and social organization in the face of Fourth Generation challengers. One correspondent defined it as terrorist acts done by one group in such a manner that they are blamed on another, something traditionally known as “pseudo-operations.”

These ideas are all valuable, and if people try to think beyond or outside the framework of the Four Generations, that is probably a good thing. An intellectual framework must remain open or it descends into an ideology, something poisonous per se (as Russell Kirk wrote, conservatism is the negation of ideology). At the same time, I have to say that these attempts to announce a Fifth Generation seem to go a generation too far.

One reason for the confusion may be a misapprehension of what “generation” means. In the context of the Four Generations of Modern War, “generation” is shorthand for a dialectically qualitative shift. As the originator of the framework, I adopted the word “generation” because I was speaking to and writing for Marines, and “dialectically qualitative shift” has more syllables than the Marine mind can readily grasp (think of the Emperor Joseph II’s response when he first heard Mozart’s music: “Too many notes.”). Most Marines vaguely remember that Hegel pitched for the Yankees in the late 1940’s.

As that old German would be quick to tell us, dialectically qualitative shifts occur very seldom. In my view, there were only three in the field of warfare since the modern era began with the Peace of Westphalia; the Fourth marks the end of the modern period.

One simple test for whether or not something constitutes a generational shift is that, absent a vast disparity in size, an army from a previous generation cannot beat a force from the new generation. The Second Generation French Army of 1940 could not defeat the Third Generation Wehrmacht, even thought the French had more tanks and better tanks than the Germans. The reason I do not think the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon mark a generational shift is that Wellington consistently beat the French, and the British Army he led remained very much an 18th century army.

While attempts to think beyond the Four Generations should generally be welcomed, there are some shoals to avoid. One is technological determinism, the false notion that war’s outcome is usually determined by superiority in equipment. Martin van Creveld’s book Technology and War makes a strong case that technology is seldom the determining factor.

A related danger is technological hucksterism: coming up with Madison Avenue slogans to sell new weapons programs by claiming that they fundamentally change warfare. This kind of carnival sideshow act lies at the heart of the so-called “Revolution in Military Affairs,” and it dominates all discussions of national defense in Washington. Every contractor who hopes to get his snout in the trough claims that his widget “revolutionizes” war. As the framework of the Four Generations spreads, you can be sure that the Merchants of Death will claim that whatever they are trying to sell is an absolute necessity for Fourth (or Fifth) Generation war. It will all be poppycock.

From what I have seen thus far, honest attempts to discover a Fifth Generation suggest that their authors have not fully grasped the vast change embodied in the Fourth Generation. The loss of the state’s monopoly, not only on war but also on social organization and first loyalties, alters everything. We are only in the earliest stages of trying to understand what the Fourth Generation means in full and how it will alter – or, in too many cases, end – our lives.

Attempting to visualize a Fifth Generation from where we are now is like trying to see the outlines of the Middle Ages from the vantage point of the late Roman Empire. There is no telescope that can reach so far. We can see the barbarians on the march. In America and in Europe, we already find them inside the limes and within the legions. But what follows the chaos they bring in their wake, only the gods on Mount Olympus can see. It may be worth remembering that the last time this happened, the gods themselves died.

William S. Lind is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism
Free Congress Foundation

If you would like to interview Mr. Lind, please allow me to be of assistance.

Jill Sutherland Farrell
Email: jfarrell@freecongress.org
Director of Communications
Free Congress Foundation
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The Free Congress Foundation is a 26-year-old Washington, DC-based conservative think tank, that teaches people how to be effective in the political process, advocates judicial reform, promotes cultural conservatism, and works against the government encroachment of individual liberties.

Iraqi Army Soldiers Taking Fight to Enemy
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12, 2006 – The Iraqi army took the fight to the enemy over the weekend, capturing an insurgent cell leader, detaining an improvised explosive device supplier and detaining suspected death squad members.

Coalition forces in Anbar province also killed three insurgents.

Yesterday, 8th Iraqi Army Division forces, with coalition advisors, conducted a raid near Suwayrah and captured the suspected leader of an insurgent cell. The cell leader is suspected pf being responsible for a car bomb attack in Suwayrah that killed nine and injured more than 50 Iraqi civilians. The cell is thought to have also coordinated an attack which destroyed an Iraqi army headquarters in Suwayrah. Iraqi forces detained four additional suspects during the raid.

Iraqi Army special operations forces, with coalition advisors, conducted another raid yesterday in Abu Ghraib to capture a criminal suspected of providing supplies for improvised explosive devices and munitions to a bomb-making cell in the area. The Iraqi soldiers confiscated several sniper and assault rifles during the raid and detained three suspects.

Near Ramadi, the 7th Iraqi Army Division conducted a raid Nov. 10 to capture members of an insurgent cell believed to be responsible for attacks in the area. The cell members allegedly are responsible for multiple coordinated attacks on coalition operating bases in and around the capital of Anbar province. The soldiers detained one suspect.

In a raid near Sadr City, Iraqi Army special operations forces captured a top-level death squad leader.

Authorities believe the man is responsible for widespread death squad atrocities in eastern Baghdad. Officials in Baghdad said the man controls multiple cells with hundreds of members. The cells conduct sectarian murder and torture, kidnappings, improvised explosive device attacks and other attacks and crimes against Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces. He also facilitates the flow into Iraq of weapons and explosives used to conduct sectarian attacks.

The Iraqis detained five suspects during the raid and confiscated six improvised explosive devices and Iraqi military uniforms.

Finally, coalition forces killed three insurgents yesterday in a thwarted attack against a coalition patrol in the Euphrates River city of Hit, Iraq. Six insurgents fired on the patrol, and coalition soldiers responded to the attack with gunfire, killing three of the insurgents. The other three fled the scene.

(Compiled from Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)