Debate over The Generations of War.

[Bill Moore]

Hey, does this mean you don't want to hear my theory on 5th Generation Wafare?

In all seriousness I agree, the terms then to create more confusion than clarity.

In general, there are a few broad categories of war (different doctrines, different equipment, different ways to get to the same objective). I hate all the terms, and still blame Clausewitz for the lack of evolutionary military thought. His writings were superb, but that shouldn't have equated to freezing the study of war in time. Instead we have some half baked ideas now like generational warfare, asymmetrical warfare, etc.

Some broad categories of war are:

Conventional Warfare:

Irregular Warfare/Low Intensity Warfare:

Nuclear Warfare:

Less than war: (Punitive missions such as our air strike on Libya, and our air strikes on Iraq in 98).

With the exception of the "less than war" category, we used all them simultaneously during WWII. We used conventional and irregular simultaneously in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bottom line is that anyone will fight the way that is advantageous to them. If you're really silly, you will get together with a much of like minded westerners in Genova and codify war, so everyone will have to fight the way you want them to fight, then assume that is the way that war will be fought. If they do something different, well that can't be war, it says so right here in this convention we signed. That must be that asymmetrical stuff.

[Cavguy]

Hey, does this mean you don't want to hear my theory on 5th Generation Warfare?

Actually, 5GW has been postulated in an article - the super-empowered individual waging conflict.

Kinda like the plot of the last "Die Hard" movie or "The Dark Knight".

Now '6 minute abs' er... 6GW ... then you'd be onto something.