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READER REFLECTIONS AND QUESTIONS ON 5th GENERATION WARFARE

Jeremiah of Organic Warfare ( great strategy blog, check it out !) and Steve made some observations and asked some excellent questions. Dan of tdaxp helpfully answered some in the comments section of the previous post but I thought I’d add to the discussion as well. My comments will be in regular text.

Jeremiah wrote:

“It’s worth mentioning that 5GW is not limited to governments at all, or even to transnational groups. So-called “lone wolf actions” have become part of the lexicon of white supremacist groups, and I suspect that the concept will be spreading. No network to analyze, no cell structure to surveill and roll up.”

Agreed. ” Leaderless resistance” was a concept of Louis Beam, a brilliant, eccentric and dangerous guru of the extreme racist right underground and this modality of terrorism in the actions of Timothy McVeigh were responsible for the second worst terror attack in American history. Lone Wolves like the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski ( who actually served time with McVeigh and Ramzi Youzef) and the DC Sniper John Muhammed were far less destructive but that was due primarily to lack of imagination and overriding personal obsessions. They did however succeed in spreading a climate of fear and diverting considerable law enforcement and media attention from other matters.

“* More highly connected networks create group loyalty transcending national boundaries

* Greater empowerment of the individual through information and technology allows one person or a small group to do immense damage: the depths have not yet begun to be plumbed

* Highly concentrated information, energy and economic hubs allow small attacks to produce faliure cascades, often capitalizing on stored “work” in the form of fuel or otherwise to produce catastrophically greater damage “

Again I am in full agreement here with Jeremiah. My first post on 5GW touched on superempowerment while my series on Dr. Barnett’s PNM deleted scenes discussed the effects of System Perturbations and vulnerabilities to such attacks.

Steve wrote:

“Is Network-Centric Warfare considered as refinement (or optional add-on) to 3GW, or is it a complete alternative to 3GW4GW5GW?”

Network-centric Warfare is the theory of Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, the former head of the Pentagon’s Office of Defense Transformation, an adviser to Donald Rumsfeld, a mentor to Dr. Barnett and an organizational genius. To use a religious analogy, Network-centric Warfare is an alternative to 4GW theory in the same sense that Protestantism is an alternative and rival to Catholism. Both schools of strategic thought are influenced by the ideas of John Boyd and see networks as a central variable to understanding and dominating warfare. Right now the two sides are as chummy in the halls of the Defense Department as the Protestants and Catholics once were in Germany during the Thirty Year’s War. Perhaps a Westphalia is coming ?

Cebrowski on Network-centric Warfare

A 4GW reading list

“Also the “Global Guerillas” idea: Is that a refinement (or optional add-on to 4GW), or is a something complete alternative to 3GW/4GW/5GW/NCW?”

Good question. I very much like John Robb‘s ” Global Guerillas” and ” Open-source warfare” concepts. I believe he is in the process of putting his ideas in a book format which I look forward to reading since he strikes me as having both great field experience and considerable conceptual ability as a theorist. I won’t categorize him though until I’m familiar with the entire range of his ideas but I will say he seems very sympathetic to 4GW theory.

“Would there be at least 2 directions in 5GW: One more tech-focused, and the other more information/people focused? Or would that be the distinction between 5GW and 5GP?”

I would say that’s an excellent description of the 4GW vs. NCW no-hold’s barred, barroom policy brawl going on right now moreso than 5GW.

“How would a Nation-State defend against 5GW?”

First and foremost by awareness. A large part of 5GW may not be directed at states so much as within states to hijack the levers of power, though 5GW attacks on states to bring them down will no doubt occur. Antonio Gramsci, the Marxist radical theorist conceived of a ” Long March through the institutions” to capture Western states for socialism but his concept of the Left was a massive entity compared to a 5GW group. Or even a 4GW group for that matter.

“How would a non-State defend against 5GW?”

We really haven’t gotten to defense yet :o)

“Wouldn’t 5GW be perpetual war alternating between “hot” 5GW and “cold” 5GW periods?”

Yes.

An arc of conflict of which “war ” is but a part – and probably a small part – is a better way of loooking at 5GW. Machiavelli, Han Fei-Tzu and Sun Tzu for visionaries.

“The “cold war” 5GW might look like paranoia to those who are not focused on detecting/fighting it. I suppose that is one way somebody would fight 5GW: Portray those detecting it, as paranoids/crazy/eccentric to marginalize them among those on there own side”

We have met James Jesus Angleton and he is us. Another bias is seeing conspiracies out of mere and genuine coincidences.

“Are democratic governments inherently poorly organized to fight 5GW? What structures (gov and non-gov) should a democratic nation-state develop to fight/detect 5GW?”

I think open societies are actually better poised than authoritarian or totalitarian ones to survive 5GW attacks because decision-making is decentralized, information flows are wide open and the degree of transparency is far higher ( if not actually transparent).

Nicolae Ceausescu was undone by elements within his own Stalinist security apparatus that kept him in the dark, manipulated and betrayed him. By his own orders and actions Ceaucescu’s information feedback loop had come to resemble a funhouse mirror so that he did not even seem to realize that he had become the most hated figure in Romania until a fenzied mob was shouting for his blood. He died running frantically around a room screaming as Army recruits vied to be the first to blow his head off at close range. Three days earlier Ceaucsescu had the life of every Romanian in his hand – or so he thought.

5GW RELOADED: REFLECTING ON 5th GENERATION WAR CONCEPTS

Preface :

Recently, Dan of tdaxp posted a remarkable essay recently entitled ” Dreaming 5th Generation War “.

Additional, 5GW related links:

Fifth Generation Warfare ? ( Lind)

Fifth Generation Warfare ( anonymous Army CI )

Unto the Fifth Generation of War (Zenpundit)

Go Deep( OODA and the Rainbow of Generational warfare) (tdaxp)

5th Generation War in the OODA Loop (Zenpundit)

5GW ( Coming Anarchy – Younghusband)

Emerging Netwar/Secretwar Tactic: Shareholder activism (tdaxp)

SecretWarriors Walk Without Rhythm, Won’t Attract the Worm (tdaxp)

5GW ( Phatic Communion)

Main:

Fifth Generation warfare may not quite be here yet but the concept is certainly fodder for speculative analysis. Dan’s “Dreaming ” post was among his best and his previous OODA/5GW post attracted the attention of at least one field expert, ” Open Source warfare” guru and military analyst John Robb. Possibly another expert as as well by email. That my friends, is the power of horizontal thinking, methodically applied !

Dan has articulated several concepts in his 5GW posts that have genuine resonance. Here is one:

“If traditional war centered on an enemy’s physical strength, and 4GW on his moral strength, the 5th Generation of War would focus on his intellectual strength.”

Consider the evolutionary shift toward managing information flows in real-time as critical variables in terms of economic growth, communication systems and network-centric warfare and you have to consider that Dan may have had an insight of fundamental importance. Not only would it seem to be in synch with conditions emerging for a globalized information economy future but also consistent with principles of warfare from the past:

“Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy”
– General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson

“ Finding a position where you can reach an opponent, realizing when the opponent has not yet determined what to do, you strike directly, as fast as possible, without moving your body or fixing your attention“
– Miyamoto Musashi

“All warfare is based on deception.”

“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting”
– Sun Tzu

A second major point of Dan’s 5GW concept involes the primacy of secrecy as a tool of war:

” In 5GW, secrecy is vital for success. While this has always been true on some levels, secrecy has never been vital on the grand-strategic level before 5GW. In 5GW the enemy’s knowledge of your existence all but ends your plans.

…being secret is more important than being completely “right” in 5GW.”

What is secrecy ? Secrecy is a comparative advantage in information. The U.S. government loves secrets. It has a detailed hierarchy of secrecy and a set of security clearance rules, $ 50,000 FBI-DIA background checks and bureaucratic obfuscation that drives Dr. Steven Aftergood and practicing diplomatic historians up the wall. Ironically, most of these millions of documents aren’t actually secret just as most “covert-operations” and ” undercover” CIA and DIA personnel aren’t secret either. These are examples of restricted classes of information, not secrets.

5GW secrets are secret even from the government striving to implement a 5GW policy and tactical moves will be done so under plausible reasons congruent with existing factional interests and well-known public goals. The 5GW network does not come to power by a political revolution from below but by moving up through legitimate channels to implement an invisible evolution from above. Their ” Future worth creating” appears by to come into being by chance, not design.

I do have an important caveat in pondering Dan’s excellent 5GW work. What he and other commenters have or may have discerned about 5GW is less than what 5GW will comprise when it is fully realized and a generational shift in warfare has taken place. We have to hold out the possibility that “attacking the enemy’s intellectual strength” and secrecy as proposed by Dan and my “longitudinal vision-short execution” and “shaping the battlespace” may end up be less significant than aspects of 5GW that have yet to materialize. Societal shifts by 2050 or 2080 are likely to be sizable – perhaps more extreme than the changes that occurred from 1860 to 1945 – and these shifts will produce new advantages and conditions that may favor defense over offense.

Comments as always are welcome.

MIND-STRETCHING RECOMMENDED READING

Some genuine thought-provokers:

” Dreaming 5th Generation War ” by Dan of tdaxp:

Dan accomplishes some quality reification of the 5GW concept here before moving on to illustrate an example. This one has earened a detailed response from me but it is not a good idea to launch in to it without first letting readers familiarize themselves with Dan’s magnum opus. I should be following up soon however.

“Measuring the Depth of Ideas” by Lubos Motl:

This is a fantastic, horizontally conceived piece with potentially wide application across fields.

Unfortunately, Lubos has cast many of his examples in a vertical subfield expertise format – and since Motl is a String theorist that leaves those of us without a strong grasp of the nuances of modern physics in the dark at times. Understandable since The Reference Frame is a String Theory heavy blog but the core idea of the argument is really a general one as explained in Motl’s summary:

“Deep ideas are those that are unique among conceivable similar statements at comparable levels of complexity and that are able to cover a large set of particular examples (models, phenomena, metaphenomena) and explain a large number of patterns using a small number of independent assumptions and parameters, especially if the deep ideas are inevitable. Whether or not a given idea is unique among ideas that a priori look analogous, may often require hours or years of calculations. These calculations are crucial because we must choose our deep ideas not only according to the impression they make in the first 3 minutes, but also according to their ability to offer us true insights in the long term. “

” Knowledge and Information Part I.” by Matt at Conjectures and Refutations:

A multi-part epistemological investigation on the implications and interpretation of Karl Popper’s ideas and information theory ( Part II, Part III and Part IV) this thread may be of particular interest to readers like Von, Dan, Critt, Younghusband and Jacob H and anyone else of the computer-math-physics tribe.

Ah, my brain spins just from posting…. :o)

KISSINGER ON THE GWOT AND EUROPE

An interview, the vicar of American realism accepts that the spirit of the Europeans is broken:

“Their problem is that European countries’ constituencies now won’t make any sacrifice for anything, either domestically or abroad, and the leaders know what the consequences of a defeat in Iraq will be. They have been helping us, within the limits of what they can do without any domestic penalty. They’re no longer trying to thwart us. But it’s not a heroic face. “

NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AND DISCERNING RATIONAL ACTORS FROM IRRATIONAL ONES

My philosophically-inclined comrade and unwilling constituent of Representative Tom Tancredo(R-Col) jb at riting on the wall offered an in-depth analysis of my brief commentary on the mechanics of the credibility of nuclear deterrence. I will make remarks in regular text in response:

“ the core critique (and there is a secondary critique below as well) here is that deterrence is, at root, a byproduct of rational actor theory. which is to say that all actors within a system will under all circumstances make rational decisions to maximize identified self-interests. these interests can be existential (which is the essential logic of mutually assured destruction) or they can fall to other categories: symbolic, tactical, strategic, etc. under normal circumstances, making a clear and credible existential threat to a defined action would deter such an action (in this case a nuclear strike on us soil) from taking place. all this is well and good under traditional understandings of rational actor theory, but i have to throw several wrenches in the works at this point.”

In real-world nuclear deterrence logic as it played out in the era of brinksmanship through MAD, rational actor theory was not actually subscribed to by either superpower.

The Russians basically had one plan for all nuclear scenarios which was to launch everything they had in a strike that would be, they hoped, massive enough to wipe out much of the American capacity for a devastating retaliatory strike. MAD was the accepted doctrine of the Arms Control priesthood in the State Department and in academia but not of the Red Army general staff. The Reagan administration unofficially abandoned MAD as well when the
” decapitation” strategy was implemented circa 1982-83 to ensure that our first priority in a nuclear war would be the destruction of the Soviet political, security and military leadership and their command and control systems rather than the Soviet population.

” to start, there is an assumption under rational actor theory that actors have some degree of parity (if not equality) on the world stage. traditionally, this would imply that all defined actors are states, and that states on some level maximize expected outcomes. the problem with this situation, of course, is that non-state actors do not necessarily view maximal outcomes in the same way that state actors do. for instance, it is entirely unclear whether a non-state, transnational fundamentalist islamic organization with a millennial world view would view the elimination of mecca – per tancredo – as a deal-breaking outcome. while the vast majority of muslims may see things this way, millennial cults hold a certain expectation of apocalyptic circumstance and see this outcome as, if not inevitable, far from inconceivable. which is to say that such groups would make a perfectly rational calculation that such a threat is, in their world view, mitigated by other outcomes, notably the symbolic destruction of the perceived hegemon.”

It is not that maximization of interests are categorically prevented so much that potential minimum costs of insisting on maximum gains are raised to politically unacceptable levels for the stronger party.

Asymmetry and not symmetry is the historical rule in nuclear deterrence. Soviet parity was not achieved until the early 1970’s and all other nuclear powers chose to remain in wildly asymmetrical positions vis-avis the superpowers. The anxiety felt over North Korean, Iranian or non-state actor possession of crude and unwieldy fission bombs itself makes the point of the potent psychological value of asymmetric deterrence.

A status of equality or rough parity in nuclear capability is not required for deterrence purposes – a point aptly captured by Charles DeGaulle, who when asked how many nuclear weapons France would need to deter the Russians, candidly answered ” Six”. The British and French never built more than a modest number of warheads compared to the U.S.-Soviet combined total of almost 50,000 but the Soviet disarmament negotiators were always anxious that these small stockpiles be considered despite the Soviet arsenal hovering in the global overkill zone.

As for Bin Laden specifically, he seems to understand the concept of nuclear deterrence very well.

“but perhaps one can argue that the threat is not being made to such groups but rather, implicitly, to the wider muslim world. in this case, the threat reads something more like this to cynical ears: “if you do not stop islamist terror from delivering a nuclear weapons to united states soil, you will pay a commensurate price.” or at least that’s the idea behind it. the problem here is that, wisdom of crowds be damned, the message if perceived accurately is: “succumb to draconian security measures to prevent terrorism or you face an existential threat.” this message, received by fully rational actors, is not likely to win friends or support amongst the global ‘umma. in fact, i would guess that it wins just as many die-hard enemies who by their die-hard nature are not rational actors in the first place as it does allies. i’d be open to a counterargument here, but that’s my take.”

Point taken and it is a good one. There are political costs to this stance. No argument.

Survival in a nuclear scenario is not a time for winning popularity contests, it is a time for concentrating minds like a hangman’s noose. The Arab-Muslim world bears some responsibility for the cultural and financial cultivation of loose cannons that stand next to their state actors and the continued survival of their networks. Complicit parties range from wealthy members of Gulf royal families, leading business enterprises, certain Arab intelligence services as well as elements of ISI and the Pasdaran, leading figures in the Sunni religious establishment in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to the ” Arab street”.

If an al Qaida nuclear weapon detonates in Kansas city or Manhattan, the supporters of terrorism bear the same responsibility that a lookout or getaway driver has when a bank robbery results in a murder. They bring what comes afterward on their own heads and can be allowed absolutely no illusions that a chance exists of executing a ” free” or a ” no return address” nuclear shot at an American city without suffering tenfold retaliation.

Again the whole point here is to set up a dynamic where everyone chooses to walk away from the brink of a nuclear holocaust.