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A part of a comment from Jay@Soob:

“This was likely compounded by the chronological assignment (that Mao was the first to conceptualize 4GW is an assertion that Ethan Allen might have something to swear and swing fists about)”

The frequent and casual association of Chairman Mao with 4GW is something that has always puzzled me as well ( though, if memory serves, William Lind was always careful to explain that 4GW isn’t simply guerilla warfare). I think it can be attributed to the likelihood that most people who are somewhat familiar with 4GW theory tend to think first of guerillas and Mao is regarded as a great innovator there. However, is there merit in placing Mao in the “4GW pantheon” (if there is such a thing)?

In the ” yes” column I’d offer the following observations:

Mao, whose actual positive leadership contribution to Communist victory in the civil war was primarily political and strategic rather than operational and tactical ( his military command decisions were often the cause of disaster, retreat and defeat for Communist armies) had a perfect genius – I think that word would be an accurate description here – for operating at the mental and moral levels of warfare.  Partly this was skillful playing of a weak hand on Mao’s part; the Communists were not a match on the battlefield for the better Nationalist divisions until the last year or so of the long civil war but Mao regularly outclassed Chiang Kai-shek in propaganda and diplomacy – turning military defeats at Chiang’s hands into moral victories and portraying Communist inaction in the face of Japanese invasion as revolutionary heroism. Yenan might have be a weird, totalitarian, nightmare fiefdom but Mao made certain that foreign journalists, emissaries and intelligence liasons reported fairy tales to the rest of the world.

In the “maybe” column:

Regardless of one’s opinion of Mao ZeDong, China’s civil war, running from the collapse of the Q’ing dynasty in 1911 to the proclamation of the People’s Republic in 1949, is a historical laboratory for 4GW and COIN theory.  The complexity of China in this era was akin to that of Lebanon’s worst years in the 1980’s but it lasted for decades. In a given province of China ( many of which were as large or larger than major European nations) then there might have been operating simultaneously: several warlord armies, Communist guerillas,  Nationalist armies, the Green Gang syndicate, White Russian mercenaries, Mongol Bannermen, rival Kuomintang factions, common bandit groups and military forces of European states, Japan and the United States. Disorder and ever-shifting alliances and fighting was the norm and Mao was the ultimate victor in this era.

In the “no ” column:

Mao ZeDong, whatever his contributions to the art of guerilla warfare, intended, quite firmly, to build a strong state in China, albeit a Communist one in his own image. He was never interested in carving out a sphere of influence or an autonomous zone in China except as a stepping stone to final victory. Moreover, the Red Army’s lack of conventional fighting ability for most of the civil war related to a lack of means, not motive on Mao’s part. When material was available, particularly after 1945, when Stalin turned over equipment from the defeated  Kwangtung army and began supplying a more generous amount of Soviet military aid to the Chinese Communists, Mao tried to shift to conventional warfare. When in power, he sent the PLA’s 5-6 crack divisions into the Korean War to face American troops in 2GW-style attrition warfare, not guerilla infiltrators behind MacArthur’s lines. 

Finally, Mao’s personal political philosophy of governance, taken from Marxism-Leninism and Qin dynasty Legalism, are about as radically hierarchical and alien to 4GW thinking as it is possible to be.

In sum, Mao is and should be regarded as a major figure in the  history of the 20th century and that century’s military history but he isn’t the grandfather of fourth generation warfare.

ADDENDUM:

Congratulations to 4GW theorist and blogger Fabius Maximus for being picked up by the BBC.

Skilluminati featured a SSI PDF on drugged out paramilitary fighters by Paul Rexton Kan:

“ DRUG INTOXICATED IRREGULAR FIGHTERS: COMPLICATIONS, DANGERS, AND RESPONSES“

From SS Einsatzgruppen to Bosnian Serb paramilitaries to Indonesian brush gangs, intoxicants have frequently been given to erode irregular fighters’ moral constraints and facilitate atrocities.

Dr. Chet Richards at DNI had this post on Mexico:

A fourth generation war near you

…..An alternative is that what we’re going to face might better be described as a fourth generation, non-trinitarian conflict and not classical insurgency because it doesn’t appear that the goals of the groups employing terrorism and guerrilla warfare tactics involve replacing the government of either Mexico or the United States (see Bill Lind’s latest, below, for a discussion of this point).

So it is armed conflict, and if it isn’t insurgency, is it war? This is an important question because, as the current president claims and as the candidate from his party agrees, in war, a president has extraordinary powers.

While such powers have proven useful when the country faces the military forces of another country, they also allow the president to undertake activities that would be counterproductive if used against a guerrilla-type opponent, where the outcome depends primarily on moral elements – that is, on our ability to attract allies, maintain our own determination, and dry up the guerrillas’ bases of support.

The post elicited the following comment from Global Guerilla theorist, John Robb:

You are exactly right Chet, will this counter-insurgency stuff work against an open source enemy with billion dollar funding?

The narco-cartel killers, especially the Zetas, resemble the tiny, highly professional, 1GW armies of the 17th and 18th centuries. Very few in number relative to the population as a whole that they generally ignore ( or run roughshod over) while they engage the other, numerically small, professionals ( Mexican police and Army). Perhaps the appropriate strategic counter is analgous to the French Revolution’s response to invasion by monarchical 1GW armies – a levee en masse in the form of an ideologically turbocharged popular militia. This was one of the ideas being toyed with in the 1920’s by the German officers of the Reichswehr under von Seeckt, that had it’s last, twisted, gasp as Ernst Rohm’s vision of a 4 million man SA National Militia, a possibility extinguished in the Night of the Long Knives. Even the stealthy Zetas would have trouble operating in a city where the police and Army were backed by, say, 40,000 armed militiamen who were part of a national network. A loyalist paramilitary on steroids.

However, any such hypothetical popular militia will have to come from a social movement as the Mexican state no longer commands enough political legitimacy to recruit such a force to it’s side – even if it had the courage to grasp that kind of wolf by the ears.

An older (2001) PDF on the lessons of history for American leaders facing asymmetric threats by Representative Ike Skelton (D-Missouri). Skelton is currently the Chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee.

America’s Frontier Wars: Lessons for Asymmetric Conflicts

Very nice to see a member of Congress who thought well ahead of the curve, demonstrating real expertise on an important national security matter over which he has jurisdiction and considerable influence for shaping policy long-term decisions. If every member of Congress emulated Skelton, their approval rating would be a good deal higher.

Hat tip to Charlie of Abu Muqawama

I’m with Fabius Maximus on this one, Stratfor contemplating a major military intervention in Mexico is akin to lunacy:

Two of the many benefits of subscribing to Stratfor are (1) its reporting on geopolitical trends not yet visible to the mainstream media, and (2) it provides a window into the thinking of America’s elites (Stratfor’s customers, senior business and government officials with whom it must stay in synch).

We get both in a new report:  “High Stakes South of the Border.”  This continues their excellent reporting during the past few years on the disintegration of Mexico’s polity – another “decline of the state” in progress.  Just as interesting, Stratfor’s conclusion shows its (and our) assumption of America’s unlimited power and resources.

“U.S. forces are largely preoccupied in Iraq and Afghanistan. While it would take a great deal to tip the scale toward a U.S. military intervention in Mexico, we may now be at a point where that has to be considered given what is at stake.

The last time the United States meaningfully asserted control over a deteriorating situation in Mexico was in the early 20th century during the Mexican Revolution, when the United States occupied Veracruz for six months to protect U.S. business interests. If violence on the border started hurting the bottom line, the cost of not doing anything would start to approach the cost of military action. The potential for an escalation of violence between the cartels and the government spiraling out of control could tip that balance.

It is unclear what the threshold for U.S. action in Mexico would be. But the stakes are high. If the United States sees trade flows threatened, and the security situation deteriorating, Washington might see fit to intervene. And just because it hasn’t done so in a century doesn’t mean it will not choose to do so in the future.”

Belief that we could stabilize Mexico is amazing, on several levels.  Mexico’s population is over one hundred million people, roughly one-third the size of ours.  Their long-standing hostility to us, with considerable historical basis, would make intervention potentially explosive.  But most of all, this displays no awareness of how the world has changed.

Amazing ain’t the word. Stratfor’s analysis here caters to the bipartisan Washinton elite’s view that absolutely nothing should be done to put pressure on Mexico to reform but instead that the United States ( or rather, the American middle-class and below) should shoulder all of the spillover costs of poor governance by the Mexican state. Mexico has serious social, political and economic problems but they are fixable, at this stage but most of them relate to the corruption and parasitic culture of the Mexican elite itself. Invading Mexico is a proposal that is wrong on so many levels for American national interests that I hardly know where to begin.

Tighten the “safety valves” on which Mexico’s elite rely – the borders and remittances – and then diplomatically press for improvement in the economic prospects of Mexico’s bottom third of the population. Mexico is not a poor country, it’s a middle income nation where the state is traditionally used to enrich a loose political oligarchy.

Hat tip to Fester via Twitter.