4th Gen Warfare is not new. A serious study of the American Revolution will show that the "Founding Fathers" used 4GW. They used conventional military forces; irregular military forces; insurgency; information warfare; effective local, state and national political networks; social factors; economic boycots; attacks against economic targets; and international diplomacy to win the war.

Quote Originally Posted by Uncle Scary
Hello Jedburgh,
I wasn't that familiar with 4GW until I scanned the link that you provided.
Here's an excerpt from the abstract.

"In brief, the theory holds that warfare has evolved through four
generations: 1) the use of massed manpower, 2) firepower, 3) maneuver,
and now 4) an evolved form of insurgency that employs all available
networks—political, economic, social, military—to convince an
opponent’s decisionmakers unachievable or too costly."

Does the notion of 4GW look as fatally flawed as the author believes? I haven't read the whole link, so I can't speak intelligently about the theory or the author's opinions. But from what I gathered in the abstract, he believes that supporters of the 4GW theory believe that war has gone through 4 evolutions through history, and that modern day insurgents are now employing a "4th Gen" of war. The author believes that this theory is flawed, but I didn't get to the reasons why he believed this. Any opinions?