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October 28, 2005
Generations of Warfare
With Morenuancedthanyou's question on this post, it is clear I used jargon I should have spelled out. The question: "What exactly is 4GW?"
4GW is an abbreviation for fourth generation warfare. It is also called "asymmetrical warfare". Modern warfare began in the late 1700s, roughly between the American Revolution and the rise of Napoleon in France. The first generation was characterized by mass conscription, fighting without regard to seasons, the use of formations such as rigid drills and fighting in a line to maximize the firepower of musketry, and a distinct lack of operational maneuver except among the best commanders (Napoleon was master of the art of operational maneuver).
Second generation (modern) warfare came about with the appearance of breech-loaded rifles, which made massed formations suicidal. The US Civil War was perhaps the last 1GW war, and showed elements of what was to come: reliance on indirect fire, dispersed lines in the advance, a reluctance to give ground in the defense and the development of operational art, particularly in the German army. WWI was a perfect example of this generation of warfighting at its peak.
3GW was also developed by the Germans, who saw a need to compete with numerically superior enemies and also an opportunity in new technologies. The result was the blitzkrieg: non-linear warfare, emphasis on logistics and maneuver, targeting enemy populations as a means to reduce future enemy supplies and on fighting in time (as well as space) and combined arms (aircraft acting as scouts, infantry supporting tanks in a breakthrough, tanks supporting infantry in defense and so on). WWII was the prime example of 3GW war, and its zenith in theory was the American AirLand doctrine developed after Viet Nam.
4GW is really almost a return to pre-industrial war, for at least one side. Realizing that America brings overwhelming strength to bear, and cannot be defeated on the battlefield by virtually anyone, leads non-American forces (and non-Allies) to develop suitable tactics to counter American strength: terrorism, attacking civilian populations exclusively, media-centric war, using criminal enterprises as instruments of covert war and the like. In effect, it is cheating, by the standards of "gentlemanly warfare" that more or less prevailed between the 1600s and today, at least in the West and most industrialized countries. The Iraq insurgency/terrorist campaign, 9/11, the second intifadeh terrorism against Israel, and the drug lords' war against the Mexican government. Viet Nam was, in effect, the first 4GW war by the end, being won by the Communists in the media, by attacking our will to resist or even to allow our allies to buy weapons and ammunition, rather than on the ground, where the enemy was pretty much slaughtered until the 1975 invasion, the second conventional invasion of South Viet Nam since American withdrawal.
It has been the case that each generation of modern warfare, by targeting the weakest points of the militaries of the prior generation, has been uniformly able to overcome the prior-generation army. 2GW weaponry made massed, linear attacks suicidal (ask both sides in WWI, and the Polish and Russians in WWII) and ineffective. 3GW tactics made 2GW weaponry ineffective because it couldn't reorient to the threat, and would be cut off and destroyed in detail. 4GW basically targets the enemy's will to fight, on moral grounds rather than practical grounds. A perfect 4GW war is one where the enemy chooses not to fight in the first place.
This has not yet been proven of 4GW vs. 3GW militaries. While the Americans were beaten in Viet Nam by 4GW tactics, the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Mexicans in Mexico, and so on, the second intifadeh was crushed by Israeli application of an immortal practice: building a wall and killing the enemy's leaders. Similarly, the US campaign in Iraq will be studied by future historians, barring a tremendous reversal of fortune, as a prime example of how to militarily defeat a 4GW force that is tied to a place, and how to tie them to a place initially. It's unclear as of yet, and will be for quite some time, whether the jihadi campaign globally will be beaten by American and allied force, by the adoption of 4GW tactics by America (as was done in Afghanistan with great success), by creeping democratization and liberalization of the Muslim world, or not at all.
It's pretty clear that a 3GW military with 4GW capabilities of its own can beat a 4GW force under some circumstances, and that a 4GW force can beat a badly-trained and badly-motivated 3GW force. It's pretty clear that 4GW won't work against authoritarian and particularly totalitarian regimes, because they can be as brutal and "unfair" as the 4GW forces and to much greater effect, since they have State resources behind them. It's pretty clear that 4GW forces cannot win without the support of States, particularly in weapons, financing, training and safe havens. Much else is still unclear, and will be resolved over time.
My personal view is that 4GW forces are more or less indistinguishable from pirates: no quarter given. If all nations begin to treat 4GW forces that are not the normal forces of a State (including but not limited to terrorists) as pirates and criminals, rather than as useful tools, 4GW forces will almost immediately lose their effectiveness. If the media would refuse to act as the propaganda agents of 4GW forces, the 4GW forces would almost immediately lose their effectiveness. If America becomes brutal (which may happen if we suffer a terrorist nuclear, chemical or biological attack), or the UN ceases to protect the "democratic rights" of States that are not in fact democratic, or Western citizens stop seeing themselves as their own enemies — in any of these cases, 4GW will collapse as an effective tool.
This leads me to conclude one other thing: it may turn out in the end that 4GW is nothing more than pre-modern warfare, ancient warfare even, fought with modern warfare before the unblinking gaze of the camera. If that is the case, 4GW will be seen in historical hindsight not as a generation of modern warfare, but as an attempt to win a gunfight with a knife.
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Comments
Thank you for the clarification.
You mentioned the hostile role of the media. Maybe the recognition of the news media as an "un-armed" belligerent is less an aspect of 4GW, especially thanks to the medium we are using here, than simply an aspect of the struggle between the statists and the anti-statists.
Posted by: Morenuancedthanyou ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.caerdroia.org/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 29, 2005 1:02 PM
It's very hard to pull the tangles apart. How much anti-Americanism and defeatism in the media is only because a Republican is in office? Recent history suggests that the defeatism is much less prominently expressed with a Democrat in the executive, just as government corruption tends to be underreported when Democrats are in charge.
Part of the problem disentangling this also comes from the number of conflicts being fought out in the media. In addition to the war against the jihadis, there is also the culture war in the West. I would not necessarily put it as statists against anti-statists — though that is an aspect of it — as I would pro-Enlightenment vs. anti-Enlightenment factions in the West. Essentially, the anti-Enlightenment factions desire not big government as such, but control of government. By taking power, and preventing pro-Enlightenment people from ever sharing in or taking that power, the anti-Enlightenment folks can ensure that everyone thinks the right way, their way. Of course, in order to get into every place where people could be doing things "wrong", government has to get very, very large.
Marc Danziger called the entanglement of all of these issues the War on Bad Philosophy, and I like that way of putting it. Of course, part of the problem is that those parts of society most capable of promulgating, communicating, and indoctrinating philosophy — respectively the academy, the media and the schools — are firmly in the control of the anti-Enlightenment folks. I suspect that this is a large contributer to the problems in colleges, the rise of blogs, and the prevalence of homeschooling: since the institutions are themselves corrupt, people are creating new institutions.
But that said, using the media as a freely-provided propaganda tool for the enemy certainly came about when both the Republicans and the Democrats were openly statists, and the media is being used that way now even though George Bush is statist in his actions (though not in his rhetoric). Using the media in this way is a definite part of 4GW, though it's also part of the culture war.
Posted by: Jeff Medcalf at October 29, 2005 4:13 PM