Say 5GWhaaaat ?
David Axe of War is Boring has a piece in World Politics Review on 5GW that summarizes the extended journal article “Fifth-Generation War: Warfare versus the nonstate” in the Marine Corps Gazette by LTC Stanton Coerr that I linked to previously:
War Is Boring: U.S. Wages First Battles in New Generation of War
War has evolved rapidly in the last 100 years, prompting historians and strategists to come up with new terms for new ways of fighting. They call mechanized warfare, which originated in the early 20th century, the third “generation” of war, and ideological warfare waged by guerilla groups the fourth.But what about guerilla-style warfare waged by non-ideological groups against traditional states — pirates, for instance, whose attacks can destabilize trade-dependent nations, but who don’t have strategic goals beyond just getting rich? Free-for-all violence, with indirect global effects, represents a fifth generation of war, according to some experts. And when it comes to defeating fifth-gen enemies, “the old rules of warfare do not apply,” declared Marine Lt. Col. Stanton Coerr, writing in Marine Corps Gazette, a professional journal.
So the U.S. military and its government partners are writing new rules, and putting them to the test on the first of the fifth-generation battlefields emerging in Africa.
Fifth-gen enemies do not have traditional “centers of gravity” — armies, governments, factories, charismatic leaders — that can be destroyed by military attacks. By their mere survival, these enemies undermine the notion that nation-states, their ideals and their economies are viable in the modern world.
To the extent that 5GW can be characterized at all, I think both Axe and Coerr are incorrect here because the term “Fifth-Generation War” makes little sense except in relation to “4GW” and the strategic school of thought associated with William Lind, Col. Thomas X. Hammes and others in the circle of DNI. As Axe and Coerr use “5GW” it is indistinguishable from how Lind has described “4GW” since 1989. To follow the logic of the 4GW theory, as Hammes did in The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
, 5GW would be the strategy and tactics that developed in opposition to 4GW as 3GW “Blitzkrieg” emerged from the “Stormtroop tactics” used to counter static and linear 2GW of the Western Front in WWI. Without this context “5GW” is just a placeholder term.
That said, the articles by Coerr and Axe are otherwise praiseworthy for bringing the many nuances and potential dangers of rapidly evolving irregular warfare and associated concepts to describe it, to the attention of a wider audience. That’s useful for generating further debate and bringing more sharp minds to the table. Complex, “hybrid” wars of mixed regulars, insurgents, terrorists and criminals will be here for some time to come and the entire panopaly of the national security establishment needs to come to grips with that threat, regardless of what we ultimately choose to call it. Labels matter less than substance.
Dan of TDAXP, who has voiced his own skepticism about Coerr’s and Axe’s pieces, has issued a call for papers on behalf of Nimble Books to debate the scope and legitimacy of 5GW which will be assembled into an anthology on this subject. It would be nice to have those people who have writtten previously on fifth -generation war a list that includes Thomas P.M. Barnett, John Robb, Thomas X. Hammes, William Lind as well as myself, the cast of Dreaming5GW and others, contribute old or new pieces to that project. Let’s bring it all under one roof for interested readers instead of having posts and articles scattered all over the internet.
ADDENDUM:
Bibliography – The Timeline of 5GW Theory
January 13th, 2009 at 8:25 am
I’m adopting the Hoffman suggested nGW meme.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Why can’t a pirate just be a bloody pirate! What is it with this name tagging of everything,
do people get paid for producing this kind of rubbish?
Non Ideolgical non state actors… eh criminals anyone? not serious enough? is’ent this why we have coast guards and police forces?
This Pirate business is a God send for the worlds Navies, gives them some thing to do, makes them feel important, a bit more frisson than a live fire exercise.
This is police work plain and simple, police work with a boat.
January 13th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I’d hesitate to put the Somali pirates under any generation of warfare much less the fifth.
January 13th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Frank Hoffman’s advice is usually good and "Hybrid War" is a flexible yet fairly accurate term, descriptively speaking. I’d be happy if the DoD and State simply said " War is changing faster than we can keep up and the current legal, diplomatic, military policies we use work to the advantage of irregular fighters and we need to fix it fast!"
January 13th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I am going to have to write something for Dan’s Nimble project.
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The whole tail-chasing farce surrounding this terminology is a brilliant case study in a particularly bad intellectual vice which seems to particularly afflict people writing about warfare.
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But the clown show is not funny because (1) major, serious, dangerous threats are emerging, (2) they are novel and need to be understood so they can be dealt with, (3) accurate, clear assessments are at a premium, and (4) this current terminology is at the point that it is an obstacle not an aid to clear thinking and clear discussion.
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What is particularly pernicious is the discussions that arise over whether some phenomenon "is or is not 5GW". This is like a parody of late scholasticism. At lease angels on pinheads taught a useful point about geometry.
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I am reminded of the "battle languages" in Dune, which read about five times before age 15. I think I can get the definition from memory. A language of limited vocabulary for clear speech communication in warfare. Perhaps we should all discuss current defense and security issues exclusively in Chakobsa.
January 13th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Speaking for myself, I understand what Lexington Green is getting at, and I agree with him in part. I think what dismays me the most is that I feel like I am forced to defend my work in 5GW and XGW not on its merits (a process that I look forward to because it forces me personally to learn and grow as well as improve and grow my work), but because my work is uncomfortably close enough (or at least assumed to be) to somebody else’s theory, that it is attacked merely for its existence or because it appears to deviate from the orthodoxy. I’m not trying to step on Lind or the Generations of Modern Warfare model or dig up somebody else’s private patch. In truth I owe a lot to GMW, Lind, Hammes and others because they introduced me to a a group of thinkers and a discussion that has kept me interested, thinking and growing for several years now.
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To respond to Lexington’s points:
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1) My personal reason for exploring 5GW (beyond my love of history and facination with the subject of warfare) was that if our opponents are practitioners of 4GW, instead of meeting them on their own terms it is logical to create a doctrine that dislocates the strengths and exploits the weaknesses of 4GW as 4GW dislocated the strengths and exploited the weaknesses of 3GW. (On a side note, this logic arose from reading Hammes’ The Sling and the Stone. Even then the idea of 5GW he discusses in that text rang false to me. A Google search of 5GW brought me to the blogosphere and first to The Coming Anarchy and a discussion of 5GW and Keyser Soze then to TDAXP, Zenpundit and Phatic Communion.)
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2) To create a fifth generation (or a fifth gradient), one must understand not only just the ‘how’ but ‘why’ 4GW and all other generations or gradients of warfare function as they do. Once they are truly understood and their components are quantified, the interactions between the principles that define each level can then be studied and informed theories can be formulated to combat the doctrine of the opponent.
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3) XGW was created not only to be a tool that serves to categorize doctrines, but also to offer solutions for responses to the doctrines of opponents both in conflict and in confrontation (in the sense of conflict and confrontation from Rupert Smith’s The Utility of Force). It is intended to be clear and dynamic in its ability to expand and adapt. It also includes not only a fifth gradient, but goes farther back to define the basis of confrontation and conflict at 0GW, and demands that the potential of a sixth gradient must exist. Its predecessor, the Generations of Modern Warfare model (GMW), shows a historical context for trinitarian warfare and suggests what future warfare may become but does not offer answers for non-trinitarian confrontation or suggest solutions to problems. In GMW, 4GW encompasses all possible future forms of warfare short of a singularity.
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4) Maybe I should be ignoring it when writers like Axe, Hammes or others decribe fifth generation warfare in terms I don’t agree with because XGW and its fifth gradient of doctrines is as qualitatively different from GMW and 5GW, as birds are an evolution of dinosaurs. Both share a common ancestry and traits that carry over into the new model, yet they are no longer the same. It just drives me crazy though, because it doesn’t make sense. When I see their descriptions of 5GW I see nothing more than a evolution of 4GW (and by GMW lights it truly is just 4GW+), a raptor that became a T-Rex, but not a Raptor that became an eagle. It is still a dinosaur, not a bird.
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And before somebody gets their feathers ruffled, I don’t mean that GMW is an outdated dinosaur of a theory, I happen to think dinosaurs are really interesting too as well as being vicious, vicious predators just like modern birds of prey.
January 13th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Of course, we will need to decide upon a particular dialect of Chakobsa first.
January 13th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
<blockquote>
What is particularly pernicious is the discussions that arise over whether some phenomenon "is or is not 5GW". This is like a parody of late scholasticism. At lease angels on pinheads taught a useful point about geometry.
</blockquote>
If everything is considered 5GW, then nothing useful comes from that term. It would most likely be useful that when writing about 5GW those of us coming from 5GW-as-SecretWar" corner of the blogosphere define (or link to) the term in the post. It may also be time to use another term in addition to (or instead of) "5GW".
As far as 4GW, I mentally map as references for that to the "Hybrid Wars" articles, "The Sling and The Stone", "Unrestricted Warfare", "The Utility of Force" and Rand’s "Netwar". BTW, 4GW is not well defined and is still evolving , so I understand the confusion as to defining 5GW. Also, lots of authors I think are using 5GW as a branding opportunity or selling point for their particular take on 4GW. That’s not too useful.
I came to 5GW pre-purpleslog in some posts by Zen, TDAXP and Coming Anarchy. I was interested because if US opponents were using something called 4GW to counter the USA’s 2GW/3GW I wanted to think what about a 5GW to counter that and because I am interested in think about the next next thing. I used Lind’s GMW category framework because it was useful. I have come to see its shortcomings and have to discard the parts that don’t work and use the parts from others that do.
January 13th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Lind and, much more, Hammes, made a contribution.
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They helped isolate some of the things that seem to characterize warfare in our era.
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The 4GW term had some utility and coherence. I did not particularly like it, because I think it is just as easy to say what is actually happening, such as "a non-state actor is using the media to directly attack the public perception of the occupying force, by its depiction of civilian casualties, instead of focusing on the impossible task of defeating the occupier by direct attack." You do not then have to have an argument about whether or not this is a "4GW operation". It just is what it is. Also, of course, much of what Hammes and Lind called 4GW was not warfare at all but, "other means", combined with some admixture of violence, to diretly attack the political and moral (government and people) elements of the trinity, while minimizing contact with the kinetic/military element. So, it was "war" but it was also "a bunch of other stuff". It was policy by a non-state actor with some admixture of violent means. Still, 4GW seemed to roughly capture a category of conduct which is observable as part of a pattern.
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The big problem arose when we got into 5GW. Then all Hell broke loose.
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January 13th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
[…] Say 5GWhaaaat ? […]
January 14th, 2009 at 12:00 am
"I came to 5GW pre-purpleslog in some posts by Zen, TDAXP and Coming Anarchy. I was interested because if US opponents were using something called 4GW to counter the USA’s 2GW/3GW I wanted to think what about a 5GW to counter that and because I am interested in think about the next next thing. " (purpleslog)
This is exactly what I can’t figure out? Is 5GW to be the method that defeats 4GW, or is it something that already exists and looks like John Robb’s Global Guerrillas? If it truly is a "generation" of war, then it should be something that is used to overcome 4GW. Dan Tdaxp espouses the Barnett "shrink the Gap" idea a way of defeating 4GW. I’m leaning more towards the global guerrilla idea myself. Which mean I suppose, that I see the "G" not as a "generation," but a "gradient."
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Then again, a part of me feels that all this GMW stuff is crap?
January 14th, 2009 at 1:02 am
Lexington,
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XGW is an attempt to not only deal with the ‘war’ stuff, but the ‘bunch of other stuff’ too, anwhere there is conflict (the war stuff), and confrontation (the other stuff).
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Seerov,
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In XGW doctrines of the fifth gradient would have a clear advantage over doctrines of the fourth gradient. In GMW 5GW is whatever comes after 4GW. As I was saying above the two models have become two different concepts that can no longer be used interchangeably.
Under that rationale Global Guerillas may indeed be the fifth generation of GMW. I personally think they would be 4GW plus but the issue is debatable. Under XGW, Global Guerillas (like Super-Empowered Individuals, the Mexican narco-mafia, or the U.S. Marines) would be practitioners and the gradient they fit into would depend upon the doctrine that they use (something that can change from situation to situation). For example, system disruption as application of Force on a critical vulnerability would be third gradient.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:49 am
[…] defining 5GW as sort of Robb’s Global Guerrillas concept. A good discussion follows at ZenPundit on why this isn’t 5GW and on the whole meta-debate in […]
January 14th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
"XGW is an attempt to not only deal with the ‘war’ stuff, but the ‘bunch of other stuff’ too, anwhere there is conflict (the war stuff), and confrontation (the other stuff)."
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That much is clear, and I did not suggest anything else.
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The problem is that so far it does not "deal with " them in a particularly helpful way.
January 15th, 2009 at 4:09 am
Most of the utility of the generational model may have been that it provided a topic/place for thinkers on terror and insurgency to cluster.
Some 20 years later, perhaps we sucked that bone dry. War is everything, everything is war. We’re all in this cluster. We are 5GW. 😉
January 15th, 2009 at 4:26 am
"We are 5GW."
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Kill me now, Beavis.
😉
January 15th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
All revolutionaries become victims of their own successes as once radically new propositions disseminate widely and transmogrify into conventional wisdom. Sleepy, mainline, protestant denominations with decling memberships like the Episcopalians and Methodists were once firebrand churches militant.
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It’s too soon to say that 4GW or COIN doctrine are conventional wisdom but they are no longer limited to a small and ostracized band of dissenters and in spreading widely the band of dissenters no longer controls the discussion.
January 15th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
"We are 5GW."
Awesome!
January 15th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
[…] Are 5GW” This comment from Shloky (and Lexington Green’s reply) had me laughing in a good […]
January 18th, 2009 at 7:27 am
[…] that it is so much debating how many angels are dancing on the head of pin. Aherring raises the element of xGW I find most compelling: XGW was created not only to be a tool that serves to categorize […]
January 19th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Re : "War is changing faster than we can keep up and the current legal, diplomatic, military policies we use work to the advantage of irregular fighters and we need to fix it fast!"
& "We are 5GW."
Funny! Say 5GWhat?