Gracias to Morgan!
For the dead-tree copy of the 5GW article by LTC Stanton S. Coerr from the current issue of the Marine Corps Gazette that the UMSC keeps locked behind a subscription firewall. Not the 21st century road to influence but maybe the Marines like the virtually few and proud readership. 🙂 Thanks Morgan!
More on the article later.
UPDATE:
Thanks to Purpleslog, we now have:
“Fifth-Generation War: Warfare versus the nonstate” by LTC Stanton S. Coerr
January 1st, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I’m going to read it!
January 1st, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Mark, the pleasure is all mine. Morgan
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:38 am
Ack…there is usually 6-18month lag until a copy of the Gazette or Leatherneck makes its way to me.
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:42 am
Is this from the article?
http://www.marinecorpsgazette-digital.com/marinecorpsgazette/200901/?pg=71
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:13 am
Thanks Purpleslog – that would be it! How’d you access that ?
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Zen, the answer could be : I’m a computer illiterate and Prupleslog isn’t.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
By the way, the link takes you to the last page of the article. Go to the top of that page and click on the pages button which opens up all the pages of the Gazette and you can start there and read the whole article. [ It starts on page 63.] I have a Lifetime subscription to the Gazette, so I get it every month.
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Coerr fails to persuade me that his conception of 5GW is much different than current conceptions of 4GW. He bounces between motivations of the enemy. Is the motivation irrational/unknowable? Or driven by ideology? Or poverty?
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I also don’t think he adequately attributes the correct motivations to our enemies. He described them as "irrational." This doesn’t stand up to the facts. OBL’s objectives are well known. His tactics actually make sense. There is a logic to suicide bombing, especially when a religion promises eternal life for such an act. Ascribing irrationality to such an enemy betrays our own prejudices, and isn’t based in fact.
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Another motivation mentioned is poverty (mentioned at the top of p.67). But we know how to deal with this: Population security, establishment of adequate governance, and delivery of basic services. Or…if we’re dealing with pirates…kill them.
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Bottom line…these guys can be appeased without too much trouble on our part. Piracy (another form of poverty-fighting) can be dealt with by making the risk of death/vs. valuation of spoils calculation unprofitable.
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Yet a third motivation mentioned is ideology. How is this different from the ideological battles fought in the past? (There have been several in the 20th century…all of which have been fought with varying degrees of success or failure). I think MountainRunner would agree with me that our ability to fight ideological warfare is hamstrung by the extreme downsizing of USIA and misconceptions of how public diplomacy should be used, but at the same time, ideological wars have been fought and won by the US.
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And finally, if OIF was the cradle of 5GW, then why has the population security strategy proven so effective (thus far)?
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In conclusion, I think Coerr is trying to express a thought that hasn’t had enough gestation time. 5GW as described by Coerr is indistinguishable from 4GW. And the motivations ascribed to our enemies can be defeated. Without these motivations, what is 5GW?
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S/F,
SE
January 2nd, 2009 at 8:44 pm
I just played around in google a bit. I don’t think it will be available for too long. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Printed it. SE’s critique sounds pretty strong. I tend not to like the whole XGW framework. I don’t think it is historically accurate or helpful to understand anything. 5GW in particular is still seems to be a useless category, even after all of the mulling it has provoked, which adds less than it detracts from clarity.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:48 am
[…] Zen was the first place I saw it (and it has a good discussion) – LTC Coer has a 5GW article. Ubiware posts related to the Quantum Theory of War. Blosint comments on it here. TDAXP has also commented with “Redefining 5GW, again” in response to that Marine Corp Gazette article and Danger Room which has a good discussion. Especially noteworthy is Greg McDowall bringing up “fractal war” with “possibility of using elements of each generation, sort of like a grand strategic version of combined arms” which has me thinking, and Seerov (who should consider getting his own blog) with this great comment on why XGW and not Lind’s GMW: […]