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Thread: Fourth-Generation War and Other Myths

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    Default Fourth-Generation War and Other Myths

    I am about to read Dr. Echevarria's paper on 4GW which is published by the Strategic Studies Institute. I have read the 4GW theory that was put forward in the 1989 paper in the Marine Corps Gazette, and agreed with the author's points.

    Have any of you read this paper, and if so, what's your opinion on it? Are there any certain points that I could keep in mind while reading this?
    Read it here

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    Default 4GW - unimpressed

    I have never been very impressed with 4GW theory and find myself in agreement with Echevarria's assessment. If one is interested in some innovative thinking on the subject a recent book, Networks, Terrorism, and Global Insurgency, edited by Robert Bunker and published by Routledge (originally as special issue of Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement - Vol 11 No 2/3 Winter 2002). Of particular interest is the lead chpter/article of Part Three, "Challenging the Hegemon: Al Qaeda's Elevation of Asymmetric Insurgent Warfare Onto the Global Arena" by Kimbra L. Fishel.

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    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    I find some of the 4GW points interesting (mostly those articulated in "The Sling and the Stone," though I have reservations about his reliance on Mao), though overall I don't consider it a credible "generation." IMO what we're seeing is a convergence of 3GW with older terrorist tactics and an acceleration of media attention due to technological advances. I would say it's more of an advanced 3GW, but not the sweeping thing that 4GW advocates claim.

    Also, I think there's a fair amount of ego invested in 4GW.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
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    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    I've read and learned a lot from it. DuPuy, in A Genius for War, discusses the way changes in lethality of the soldiers weapons - gladius to pike to musket to rifle to machine gun -- brought about what I would think of as generational changes in the art of war. In that light, 4GW strikes me as a phrase searching for a concept. I also agree with Steve, there's too much ego involved for my comfort.
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    Echevarria's paper is a little too academic for me, but I take his points. The important thing in my mind, regardless of whether there are any generations of war, is that the war we are fighting now and that to which we will be subjected will be like those outlined by Tom Hammes. Echevarria mentions this fact several times in his paper, but it kinda gets lost among the explanations of the real meaning of the Treaty of Westphalia, etc.

    Other points --
    Yes, Clausewitz good
    Yes, trinity good
    Yes, Sun Tzu good

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    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    Hammes is good, but as I've mentioned before I think he spends too much time on Mao and doesn't look back far enough to find other (and possibly better) examples of what he's talking about.

    One of my gripes with 4GW theorists is that they spend far too much time talking about how "new" their theory is and how it encompasses everything and actually seem to spend very little time working on the actual details and application. A great deal of it seems to be a pissing contest to figure out who thought of what first. Hammes doesn't do this, but there are others out there who do. I've always figured it was just the basics of 3GW taken to a different playing field and with a few different gaps and surfaces.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

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    I agree with the premise that 4th GW is a phrase searching with a concept.

    Ever since I first truly started studying military history in college, the baseline arguement that was presented was one of tactics versus technology. This can further be explored more effectively in the framework that Willaimson Murray has used to describe innovations and how they change warfare. The most imporatnt aspect of which is that some have been technical changes and some have been political and societal changes. In the book he coauthored with Millet, they used a construct that there have been six militayr revolutions. The further argue that these military revolution are often tied to RMA's, but that a military revolution is the uncontrolled outgrowth from the fusio on the RMA, the manner in which the military does or does not utilize it, and how the society and political institutions adapt and change as well. Some examples were the atom bomb, levee en mass, and such. The Murray and Millet construct accounts for the Clausewitzian Trinity in the effects that these military revolutions bring about.

    The problem with 4GW is the imprecision of the definiton. In the 1989 Marine Corps Gazeete article, Lind describes warfare in generational constructs, which are more vague and conceptual. This leads to disjointed interpretation by many readers. His description focus more on the concept of maneuver on the enemy, searching for the exposed flank. His generational construction use and action, reaction, counter-action methodology to explain the changes in generational warfare. Namely that each generational change is driven as a counter-action to the previous generations reaction. His generations read as judo moves to fight one another. When he hypothesized 4GW, he did not define it. Instead, Lind described the various forms it could take on in an attempt for an enemy to gain a strategic, operational, and therefore tacticla advantage over and enemy. In this he laid out the conept of asymmetry, or Judo for nation-states. He pretty much provides a three fork road intersection: guerilla/terrorism/LIC, WMD, and high tech dominance. This is great, and he even ties guerilla/terrorism to attacking the will of a people, but this really isn't anythting new, he just used a his own construct ostenibly to create continued traction for his maneuver warfare theory/writings. There is nothing wrong wiht this, but I think he would have been better off utilizing a pre-existing framework, and then arguing for an RMA/Military Revolution type construct.

    COl Hammes wrote many articles on Mao, and is very well read on Mao and his methods. Therefore, 4GW , as of late, has had a very Maoist bent to it. I believe that is a fair criticism, but Maoist theory tends to be pretty universal. Sure there are other theoriists whose material influneces guerillas today, but Mao is probably the most comprehensive, especially in the tieing the military aspects of revolutionary warfare with the political aspects. The Vietnamese Dau Trahn construct provides a good campaing plan for Mao's strategic theroy. The point here is, do not assume that guerillas operate in a vacuum of information.

    On Echevariia, if you think this was dry, you should try having him for class right after lunch, not good.

    The key point to take away from Cllausewitz is that many misunderstand his use of the total war construct, and that the famous quote that war is an extension of state policy by other means fits hand and glove with the description of insurgency as armed/violent politics.

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    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
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    I have always thought 3GW, 4GW, and XGW are simple B.S. because it is nothing more than common sense and what is right in front of our face.

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    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    I never had a problem with 3GW, in part because it was coupled with good practical examples and managed to point out things that were "right in front of us" but not necessarily understood.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

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    Council Member Stratiotes's Avatar
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    I read Dr. Echevarria's paper sometime ago and I can't recall particular points with which I disagreed at the time. I do remember it was a decent paper for the most part and I did not have too much heartburn with it. If memory serves, however, it seems to me he did what a lot of people do - clouded the differentiators in the definition of 4GW as opposed to guerrilla or irregular warfare. In that sense, I believe he missed the point and did not do much to discredit the 4GW side. I'll try to find some time to re-read it so I can be more specific. I believe Bill Lind did a response to it though and I'm pretty sure that's available at the DNI site.

    As for the "new" side of 4GW - I don't think its really anything new and I don't believe others really think it is either. I think that what they are considering "new" is the fact that it has been given a label where it had none before. In fact, Bill Lind, one of the main proponents of 4GW theory, recommends Barb Tuchman's book on the 14th century as a tool for understanding 4GW better.
    Last edited by Stratiotes; 03-21-2007 at 12:54 AM.
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    Default 4th and 5th GW

    I have been a supporter of 4th GW concepts up to a limit, but have grown more critical of the 4th GW mafia over time based on the identified petty ego problems. I also don't like categorizing wars by generation, to include the 1st through 3rd generation wars.

    Whatever we call it in the end, I think our social, economic, information, and political environment has changed considerably since the end of WWII, which in itself changes the nature of war significantly. You'll see various comments throughout the site on so called 4th GW and little on 5GW.

    I loved Wolfberger's comment that 4GW is a phrase searching for concept.

    I think anytime you apply a label to war, you'll quickly find out that are being aspects of the conflict that don't fit into your definition or concept, so the label serves little purpose. For the long time SWC members, believe it or not, I'm actually a closet Clausewitz fan (hard for some to believe after my many rants against our officers who know nothing but Clausewitz), and his guidance was that the most important thing a political leader must do prior to commiting forces to war, is to understand the nature of the war he is going to fight (note this is very loosely paraphrased). 2d, 3d, and 4th GW constructs do not describe the nature of the war one is about to undertake in my opinion.

    In short, I concur with many of the scattered ideas found in 4th and 5th GW articles and books, and think we would all be better off if we studied them, but they are far, far from complete theories.

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    i pwnd ur ooda loop selil's Avatar
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    This may have been covered before, but I'm coming to a realization that generational taxonomies of warfare do not supersede a fundamental idea. As war has increased in scope and changed in techniques the precedeing techniques have not fallen away. Where stick and sword might have been tools long ago that doesn't mean a soldier sitting in a hole in Iraq won't use his k-bar should the need arise. Even using fourth generation assets like sattelite or imaging technologies to choose when to implement that weapon. In many cases it appears that people think of each geneartion suplanting the prior generation which is a voilaton of the analogy of generations. Generations build upon each other and are supported by each other much like grandpa helps, the father, who helps the son. Artifiical taxonomical derivitation creates silo's whereas in reality we're likely talking abotu a layer cake.
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    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by selil View Post
    This may have been covered before, but I'm coming to a realization that generational taxonomies of warfare do not supersede a fundamental idea. As war has increased in scope and changed in techniques the precedeing techniques have not fallen away. Where stick and sword might have been tools long ago that doesn't mean a soldier sitting in a hole in Iraq won't use his k-bar should the need arise. Even using fourth generation assets like sattelite or imaging technologies to choose when to implement that weapon. In many cases it appears that people think of each geneartion suplanting the prior generation which is a voilaton of the analogy of generations. Generations build upon each other and are supported by each other much like grandpa helps, the father, who helps the son. Artifiical taxonomical derivitation creates silo's whereas in reality we're likely talking abotu a layer cake.
    I very much agree with your point about focussing on all of the tools of war that are being used. But there is more to the story--we are looking at a continuum instead of a layer cake IMHO.
    A few years back, I wrote a response to Echevarria on the notion of Generational Warfare and submitted it to CSI but received no response from the good folks in Carlisle. I agreed with his position that 4GW has no “value-add” to our analysis of warfare. Unfortunately for me, a glitch in technology destroyed my only copy (silly me for not backing up more frequently).
    My bottom line was that we ought to view warfare as a continuum (or perhaps a spiral) covering the amount of risk imposed on both combatants and non-combatants by technological changes that have improved weapons’ ranges. In early warfare, risk was greatest to combatants due to weapon range limitations. Sticks, stones, and swords all require combatants to get up close and personal with their opponents. Non-combatants usually are well out of harm’s way in such encounters. As technological changes produced weapons that could be used in indirect fire engagements, the risk to combatants using the weapons decreased but the risk of harm to non-combatants increased, especially as range increases allow for engagement with unobserved fire.
    If we want to identify different forms/generations of warfare, we ought to focus on the degrees of risk to which each side is willing to expose both itself and the non-combatants. This idea of the degree of willingness to accept risk covers, in my humble opinion, the three aspects of the Clauswitzian Trinity. We could describe different types of warfare along my continuum by analyzing the ranges of the weapons used by each side, their willingness to risk their combatants, and each side’s willingness to risk injury to non-combatants.
    Important things I did not address relate to non-combatants:
    1. Whether to distinguish between the combatants ( e.g., those in my country versus those in my opponent’s country), and
    2. If 1., above, is required, how to make such distinctions.

    Just war theory (justice of war) requires that wars be fought to defend non-combatants. Just war (justice in war) also requires warriors to undertake risks to protect non-combatants. I think that any other way to describe warfare opens the floodgates to excessive carnage. The only value I see to be gained from Echevarria’s discussion about the pre and post-Peace of Westphalia periods is to note that responsibility for accepting risk and identifying who may be at risk changed somewhere about that time (at least in Europe).

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    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    If we're seriously going to look at generations of warfare or Revolutions in Military Affairs, it seems we ought to begin by identifying those elements of warfare that would, could or should be the drivers. Here's my (strawman) proposal for the factors that have driven RMA in the past:

    1. Individual lethality. Stabbing sword to pike/spear to etc.
    2. Mobility. Stirrup, chariot, ship, etc.
    3. Logistics. Contrast Scipio Africanus' campaigns in Spain and Africa with Henry V's campaign in France.
    4. Intelligence/information.
    5. Economic capability. What surplus does the social group/nation have available to prepare for and conduct warfare.

    As I wrote, it's a strawman. What I would suggest is that any dramatic change in one of these, or other factors that might be added, will lead to an RMA.

    The next argument I would make is that we are not, in fact, seeing a new generation of warfare on the part of al Qui'ida. Instead, we re seeing asymmetric warfare (not new) enabled and extended by global economic changes in finance, availability of industrial products, information availability, etc. (And having written this, and reread it, I realize somebody might well argue I've just made the case for a new generation.)
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    Wolf,

    Shoot, move, communicate, and log are a construction, but they are mearly tools, they have to be examined in the context of their historical settings. Those are all useful lenses to utilize, but various developments in those areas did not necessarily revolutionize warfare at the time of inception (My head now hurts). The big unknown out there is information. I know what Cebrowski said (Ugh), but the current use of decentralized and globalized information methods might be the new change, who knows.

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    All interesting thoughts.. I haven't been able to finish the paper (work has demanded too much time) but I don't like Dr. Echevarria's way of thinking from the outset. His first paragraph says that 4GW theory gives him an opportunity to attack 'unfounded' doctrines... The key word, I think, is attack. Defend your current doctrines, but isn't an open mind with a critical thought process the best avenue of approach to refining doctrine? Unless the current doctrines embraced by US forces are perfect.

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    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
    the current use of decentralized and globalized information methods might be the new change, who knows.
    If it is, I submit that this so only because it may allow leaders to gain more and better insight into the risks to which they expose their forces and those of their opponents. I submit that analysis of the 9 traditional principles of war--maneuver, mass, offensive, objective, security, simplicity, surprise, unity of command, economy of force--shows that all are ways of minimizing operational risk for one's forces.

    Better, faster information flow at all echelons could allow us to stop doing things like dismounted patrolling and "recon by fire." It would also make it much harder for an opponent to catch us unawares while we might be able to inflict some serious hurts on our opposition were our information flow such as to allow us to get inside their decison loops--a construct pushed back in the 80s that still does not seem to have been actualized (at least not as far as I can tell in reading critiques on US operations in the 90's and the current decade).

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    Council Member 120mm's Avatar
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    I must admit that I've always found the desire to define and compartmentalize things into neat little boxes, especially something as chaotic and difficult to define as war, as incomprehensible.

    I understand that we must be able to communicate concepts, but quibbling over what name to call a "kind of war" is foolish, to me.

    "War as Art, and Not Science" is a concept that I can understand.

    It's funny how everyone sees this differently....

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    Default 4GW not really about military capability

    Guys,

    We ignore the fact that Martin van Creveld and Bill Lind, the ideological fathers of the 4GW mafia and seemingly in competion to be known as the grumpiest military historian on the planet, have consistently been more correct than the pack in predicting how military events would unfold over the last 15 years. Wishing that they weren't just dosen't cut it, just as wishing that western forces with massive capability overmatch weren't strategically all at sea in the Middle East. The core point in the 4GW argument is that it is the collapse of the moral and legal construct of the state that gives the opponent their strength and that trying to put the state back together militarily won't work, the issues of info and lethality proliferation are second tier issues that support this anomaly.

    Agree or not with the 4GW construct no one can argue that Armd Divisions, DDGX and F22 Wings, the ultimate evolutionary tools of western warfare, have much utility for the fight we face. Sure we can smash states but we are yet to prove we have the capability or will to build a state. The 4GW argument that it is our inability to conceptualise the issues rather than our military capabilities needs to be considered deeply rather than rejected because its advocates have the personaility of a wire brush.

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    Council Member J Wolfsberger's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hawkwood View Post
    ...yet to prove we have the capability or will to build a state.
    Maybe that gets closer to the central issue. Anthropologists use a concept in cultural evolution named "aggregation." (Marc, please fix this if I get it wrong.) Groups of various sizes combine their interests to form clan, tribe, nation - larger groups. The current insurgencies (separating the total "insurgency in Iraq from the wider one) represent just such aggregations of interest, i.e. pulling subgroups into the larger one. The brilliance of the strategy implemented by Petreus, Kilcullen, et. al. lies in disaggregating the larger groups.

    The rub is what comes next.

    "Nation Building" seems to imply there's a clean white sheet of paper to work with. That's never going to be the case.

    Maybe we need to think in terms of "re-aggregating" the subgroups into a new larger group. Thinking that way would have to force us into thinking in terms of both process and end state that line up more naturally with the local culture. For example, preventing idiocies such as sending men in to search the women's quarters.

    Looking at it this way, debate over which generation of war we face doesn't contribute much.
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