Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

[reggie]

The Handbook of 5GW
by Abbott, Daniel H
http://www.amazon.com/The-Handbook-o.../dp/B003VPX206




The successful application of the Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic" (Rees 2009, following in the spirit of Clarke's Law, propounded by the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey) "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"). The Fifth-Generation warrior hides in the shadows, or in the static. So, then, how can analysts and researchers study and discuss 5GW?

Other questions also demand answers. What is the xGW framework, which many theorists use to describe 5GW? What alternatives to the xGW framework exist? What 5GWs have been observed? What are the source documents for the xGW framework? What is the universe of discourse that the xGW framework emerged from? Why bother trying to understand 5GW?

This handbook attempts to provide systematic answers to these questions in several major sections, each of which is written by many contributors. While this handbook records many different voices of 5GW research, it speaks with one voice on the need to understand 5GW, the fifth gradient of warfare.

[Verrocchio]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

The title and blurb are intriguing. I found a description of one of the chapters at this location -- copied most of it below.

My contribution to the Handbook of 5GW, a chapter entitled The War for Robert Taylor, is about a 5GW counter insurgency operation that was conducted by the city of Chicago against the Black Kings in a public housing project in Chicago. The COIN operation I describe destroyed the insurgency by radically altering the human terrain of the area. This approach to COIN differs from 4GW ideas about COIN, such as David Killcullen's concept of the Accidental Guerrilla because, rather than trying to understand and leverage the primary loyalties of the population - which is what both the Anbar Awakening and the current tribal engagement strategies in Afghanistan do - Chicago's COIN operation set out to destroy and reorient the population's primary loyalties, away from the close to home "tight network" family-community (hood) dynamic to a "loose network" individual-state dynamic. Perhaps counter-intuitively in our anti-government, pro-entrepreneurial society, the government's COIN operation in Chicago was specially designed to destroy private sector relationships (although black market) and replace them with a dependency upon the state. This was done because state dependency was considered the lesser evil when considered against its black market alternative.

When considering my contribution to the 5GW discussion, we should consider the ratio of horizontal to vertical relationships in a human terrain area (be it a nation-state, sub culture, community, etc). In this context horizontal relationships describe "organic" human-to-human relations. This means blood relatives, spouses, extended family, friends, coworkers, community, etc. On the other hand, vertical relationships describe a relationship between the individual and the Leviathan - the state in most cases. In the case of Chicago the horizontal relationships had grown too strong - creating a classic insurgency controlled temporary autonomous zone within the inner city - and needed to be broken by a reassertion of the authority of the Leviathan. So what the city figured out was how to use a 5GW to break horizontal relationships and force individuals to turn to the vertical relationship offered by the state. This type of warfare may have wide ranging implication, from destroying narco-terrorists like the Black Kings to engaging in various social engineering projects. Indeed, the bulk of Lydon Johnson Great Society may have been 5GW operations that tried to destroy more informal, horizontal networks that were designed to help the poor and replace them with a vertical relationship with the state.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

I would call myself a current student of Killcullen.

Efforts to destabilize local cohesion and local networks to be supplanted by state-centric dependancy and control is unethical and immoral.

In my humble opinion and limited experience, COIN is about building bridges, not blowing them up and leaving indigenous folks to starve without a state helicopter to drop off some money.

3rd world COIN is THE core focus of my part-time employment.....but I have to admit not having spent ANY time considering the application of varying COIN doctrine in a 1st world environment outside of very limited organized crime scenarios, particularly in the countering of any potential "political insurgency".

I'll ask around about this 5G stuff with folks I respect as subject mater experts, but I know Killkullen is the current flavour......and I think for good reason.

[reggie]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

I think TDAXP originally called it SecretWar in the sense that one side might not even be aware it was being war’d upon.
Deception is a major component of 5GW, even more so than other categories of war. Much of that is for security purpose. The 5GW effort is fragile…exposure of the leads to destruction of the 5GW effort or at best reduction from a 5GW to a weak 4GW effort.


Deception is used to hide the 5GW actors. This does not mean necessarily that they are in a secret unknown location, but just that they are not identified as being part of the 5GW, or that whatever they are doing is not 5GW (nothing to see, move along). This can also mean that those who are spotting the 5GW get branded as crazy/conspiracy-mongers.


Deception is used to hide or mask the 5GW’s goals/aims. If you don’t know what a 5GW effort is after, how can you counter it or raise awareness of it? Not knowing the goals also leads to reactions like that of Lexington Green that “isn’t 5GW just politics”.


Deception is used especially to hide its methods. This is done IMO by relying upon incremental indirect methods (N-order effects) across the full spectrum of domains over long periods of time. By using a wide array of small steps it is hard so-to-speak to follow backwards the trajectory to the source (the 5GWers), it is hard to follow the path forward to the target, it is hard to see that anything is going on at all.


I do note that it is hard to “aim” lots of small incremental indirect actions. By using lots of small steps, the “aim” can be corrected (corrected=learning) over time.

http://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2010...ts-naming-5gw/

[reggie]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

sorry, double post

[ggirod]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

Perhaps counter-intuitively in our anti-government, pro-entrepreneurial society, the government's COIN operation in Chicago was specially designed to destroy private sector relationships (although black market) and replace them with a dependency upon the state. This was done because state dependency was considered the lesser evil when considered against its black market alternative.

Efforts to destabilize local cohesion and local networks to be supplanted by state-centric dependancy and control is unethical and immoral.

While a COIN operation executed by the government might be weak and ineffective due to bumbling or subverted due to ethical insiders, the thought of the same tools in corporate hands is truly scary. Remember, "black market" is in the eyes of the beholder and a community that chose to provide some of its own food/material goods would definitely become a target. Simply substitute megacorporation for state, and, I think, you will see my point.

I guess I will have to pony up the bucks and buy the book.

[don]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

In any counter-insurgency war where guerrillas, faced with vastly superior fire power, fight from cover and work hard to blend in with the populace, where the counter-insurgents are foreigners about as alien from the land they are to "protect" as humanly possible, and fight, in part, from on high or based on "intelligence" from others about a world they can't fathom, civilians will die. Lots of civilians. Continually. Whatever rules you make up. The issue isn't the "rules of engagement." No rules of engagement will alter the fact that civilian death is the central fact of such wars.

It's time to stop talking about those rules and start talking about the madness of making counter-insurgency the American way of war. It wasn't always so. Not so long ago, after all, it was considered a scandal that, post-Vietnam, the US military rebuilt its all-volunteer force without rewriting or reconsidering its counter-insurgency manual.

The high command, in fact, let counter-insurgency go to hell, exactly where they thought it deserved to rest in peace, and were focused instead on preventing Soviet armies from pouring through Germany's Fulda Gap (something they were conveniently never likely to do). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US military would continue to focus for some years on former secretary of state Colin Powell's doctrine of overwhelming force, decisive victory, and quick exit.

Then Iraq happened and decisive victory ("mission accomplished") soured into decisive disaster. It was at this moment, in 2006, that Petraeus and James "Mad Dog" Mattis (now respectively Afghan war commander and head of US Central Command) dusted off the old, failed Vietnam-era counter-insurgency doctrine and made it sexy again. They oversaw the writing of a whole new guidebook for the army and marines, 472 pages of advice that even got its own (University Press) trade edition, and became the toast of Washington and the Pentagon.

So, after being buried and disinterred, COIN, as its known, is once again the reigning monarch of American war-fighting doctrines as the Pentagon prepares for one, two, three Iraqs or Afghanistans - and the scandal is that (surprise, surprise!) it's not working. This should hardly have been news.

The history of counter-insurgency warfare isn't exactly a success story, or our present COINistas wouldn't have taken their doctrine largely from failed counter-insurgency wars in Vietnam and Algeria, among other places. It's not so encouraging, after all, when the main examples you have before you are defeats.

Our generals might have better spent their time studying the first modern war of this sort. It took place in early 19th century Spain when the Islamic fundamentalists of that moment - Catholic peasants and their priests - managed to stop Napoleon's army (the high-tech force of the moment) in its tracks. Just check out the "Disasters of War" series by Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) if you want to see how grim it was. And it's never gotten much better.

Looked at historically, counter-insurgency was largely the war-fighting option of empires, of powers that wanted to keep occupying their restive colonies forever and a day. Past empires didn't spend much time worrying about "protecting the people". They knew such wars were brutal. That was their point. As English author George Orwell summed such campaigns up in 1946 in his essay "Politics and the English Language":

Defenseless villagers are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set afire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.

The rise of anti-colonialism and nationalism after World War II should have made counter-insurgency history. Certainly, there is no place for occupations and the wars that go with them in the 21st century.

Unfortunately, none of this has been obvious to Washington or our leading generals. If they can rewrite the army's counter-insurgency manual for a new century, any of us can, so let me offer my one-line rewrite of their 472 pages. It's simple and guaranteed to save trees as well as lives: "When it comes to counter-insurgency, don't do it."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LG22Df02.html

[reggie]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LG22Df02.html[/URL]

Tom Engelhardt's message: nothing to see here folks, the US military is too incompetent to practice sophisticated xGW. I happen to think further research is warranted before coming to that conclusion.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

Tom Engelhardt's message: nothing to see here folks, the US military is too incompetent to practice sophisticated xGW. I happen to think further research is warranted before coming to that conclusion.

Completely agreed........I would also strongly suggest a visit to the Small Wars Journal forum......lots of subject mater experts on finance/economics here.......lots of COIN subject matter experts there.

[c1ue]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

Sounds nice, but doesn't seem to be working anywhere.

The only insurgencies which were successfully fought were those that were either by minorities in a population, or eradication/relocation.

"Hearts and Minds" sounds nice, but can not work when the insurgent population's hearts and minds are on getting the damn foreigners out.

Equally so 'magic' crap like missiles from drones just makes more angry insurgents.

I also find it equally interesting about the supposed COIN operation in Chicago - it doesn't seem like things are getting better there at all. At least according to the various police blogs.

[don]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

Sounds nice, but doesn't seem to be working anywhere.

The only insurgencies which were successfully fought were those that were either by minorities in a population, or eradication/relocation.

"Hearts and Minds" sounds nice, but can not work when the insurgent population's hearts and minds are on getting the damn foreigners out.

Equally so 'magic' crap like missiles from drones just makes more angry insurgents.

I also find it equally interesting about the supposed COIN operation in Chicago - it doesn't seem like things are getting better there at all. At least according to the various police blogs.

MacNamara was a whiz kid too. Electronic fencing of the DMZ and the Ho Chi Minh Trail with people sniffers and other hi-tech paraphernalia, strategic hamlets, special forces enlisting the Montgnards , etc. It was all going to work. It would cost a fortune in treasure and blood but it was Can Do all the way home. Of course this time it's different.

[jk]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

another interesting source: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/

[reggie]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

Sounds nice, but doesn't seem to be working anywhere

Actually, it works so well the vast majority don't even know it exists, and dismiss those who present it. Tom's article (posted in this thread), is in fact an awesome illustration of the success of the goals of the doctrine, which is...

Full Spectrum Dominance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-spectrum_dominance

Full-spectrum dominance is a military concept whereby a joint military structure achieves control over all elements of the battlespace using land, air, maritime and space based assets.

Full spectrum dominance includes the physical battlespace; air, surface and sub-surface as well as the electromagnetic spectrum and information space. Control implies that freedom of opposition force assets to exploit the battlespace is wholly constrained.

Anyway, some more reading for those interested.

Fifth Generation Warfare and Super-Empowered Individual
Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...d-individuals/

ZenPundit: UNTO THE FIFTH GENERATION OF WAR
http://zenpundit.blogspot.com/2005/0...on-of-war.html

Security: Power To The People
by: John Robb (Global Guerillas blogger)
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/...-security.html

[BuckarooBanzai]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

Perhaps counter-intuitively in our anti-government, pro-entrepreneurial society, the government's COIN operation in Chicago was specially designed to destroy private sector relationships (although black market) and replace them with a dependency upon the state. This was done because state dependency was considered the lesser evil when considered against its black market alternative.
[/I]

This guy is an idiot. This isn't "5th Generation Warfare", it's Cultural Marxism he's describing. One of the foundational concepts of Cultural Marxism is to destroy private sector relationships and replace them with dependency on the state.

Plus, Cultural Marxism is EXACTLY what one would expect to be propagated in Chicago, which is a decrepit sinkhole of Statism run amok.

Again, based on just this, the book appears to be complete crap. I'd like to hear Bill Lind weigh in on it-- the man who defined 4GW.

[reggie]

Re: Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

This guy is an idiot. This isn't "5th Generation Warfare", it's Cultural Marxism he's describing. One of the foundational concepts of Cultural Marxism is to destroy private sector relationships and replace them with dependency on the state.

Plus, Cultural Marxism is EXACTLY what one would expect to be propagated in Chicago, which is a decrepit sinkhole of Statism run amok.

Again, based on just this, the book appears to be complete crap. I'd like to hear Bill Lind weigh in on it-- the man who defined 4GW.

I don't think it will be the first time you'll see similarities between US war fighting doctrine and cultural Marxism.

As far as Lind, he wrote something here, but since then the d-n-i website has gone through a metamorphosis and I can no longer locate Lind's work there.

This is good..
Generation warfare a cohesive explanatory model
http://selil.com/?p=535

The model as depicted in figure 1 is messy. When you consider you have a Venn diagram with four elements of the DIME model, all overlapping in multitudinous sets. Each edge is the creation of a new element in the set. There are only four generations of warfare depicted, but each of those have the each succeeding generations sets, along with increasing by another factor the number of sets. Wowser. When I originally progressed this model through the different permutations I was slightly shocked too. But, maybe that is overstating the case as I am sure the model is still not up to the task ask originally stated.



As we see there is the original elements of OODA, and for the sake of clarity the original version of DIME has been produced in a way it might be depicted. On the bottom right corner is the new depiction of DIME as it more accurately reflects reality. Another reason not to use the newer national power models is that they are made up of seven elements. The model shows one specific thing and that is the fact conflict is chaotic. It is also not very hard to understand why people argue so much about what is war. Even those involved in conflict have a hard time understanding what type of conflict they are involved in. There are so many segments at different generational levels that an expert in any one area can be effective and decry that they know the way of war. Inherently though the model exposes another tasty tidbit.

Look closely at the DIME model. In the the middle is a set {D,I,M,E}. All of the elements exist there in that center section. If each generation is made up of one cloverleaf of the DIME model. There are in this model four of those clover leafs. If only the size of the clover leafs change for the scope of conflict. Remember that we made them each smaller towards the center but in retrospect they could be any size. For the case of depicting the model this is how they are laid out. There is one tidbit at that center set where they all come together. That center section is also where information operations lives. The center section is where communication to all of the varied elements has to reside. Since computer network operations is part of the information operations paradigm we have now near the end found where cyber warfare exists.

Where to fifth generation warfare?

Fifth generation warfare is about the melding of different aspects of DIME (within this discussion) within the society. When an adversary engages from fifth generation the military through civilian population can be very much the same. The DIME model overlaps more and more until it is nearly one overlapping set. That is an oversimplified explanation but is also why I chose to narrow the aspect of the differing generations. It depicts how that fifth generation of warfare begins to emerge into the spectrum regardless of whether it is high intensity conflict or low intensity conflict. That increasing overlap also means, if we accept the earlier point, information operations takes on enhanced roles within conflict fifth generation warfare. I am sure there are aspects that I am missing.