Wednesday, January 11, 2006
4GW FESTIVAL
DNI is rebutting learned critics...British generals are waving rhetorical swagger sticks....my head is spinning ;o)
Here they are boys and girls:
"4GW – Myth, or the Future of Warfare?A Reply to Antulio Echevarria" by Lt. Colonel John Sayen
"Critics of the Fourth Generation: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly" by William Lind
"Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations" by Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, British Army ( Hat tip to Rodger at Duck of Minerva )
There's also an excellent FPRI email distribution going around entitled " Complex Irregular Warfare", helpfully brought to my attention by Younghusband, which I cannot post without permission. You may, however, contact FPRI yourself to get on their distribution list. ¶ 8:01 PM
DNI is rebutting learned critics...British generals are waving rhetorical swagger sticks....my head is spinning ;o)
Here they are boys and girls:
"4GW – Myth, or the Future of Warfare?A Reply to Antulio Echevarria" by Lt. Colonel John Sayen
"Critics of the Fourth Generation: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly" by William Lind
"Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations" by Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, British Army ( Hat tip to Rodger at Duck of Minerva )
There's also an excellent FPRI email distribution going around entitled " Complex Irregular Warfare", helpfully brought to my attention by Younghusband, which I cannot post without permission. You may, however, contact FPRI yourself to get on their distribution list. ¶ 8:01 PM
Comments:
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Lt.Col. Sayen: "even if non-state entities acquired and used weapons like tanks or jet fighters...they would still be engaging in 4GW because what really distinguishes 4GW from earlier generations is not the equipment or tactics but the identity and motivations of the people who fight it."
Does that mean that there is a unique 4GW identity? That there are unique 4GW motivations? Sayen doesn't give us any specifics in this article about what this means. And I'm not particularly inclined to buy this.
Lind: "At the core of 4GW is a crisis of legitimacy of the state...
"What Fourth Generation opponents actually do to a state is not play mind-games with the state’s leaders, but use the power of weakness to bring the opposing state’s whole population to regard the war as an abomination."
But a 4GW opponent can't accomplish this without domestic allies (direct or indirect). After all it is not as if every member of the population is going to adopt the view that a particular war is an abomination simultaneously. Some people may adopt that view first and they become advocates for that view and seek to spread it to the rest of the population. At that point, are the anti-war advocates engaging in 4GW or are they just engaged in politics? So how do you distinguish between 4GW and political activity?
Acting to bring about a crisis of a state's legitimacy and to persuade a population that a war is an abomination seems to me to be one tactic among many that a state or non-state actor has at their disposal. I'm not persuaded that it rises to the level of a "generation" of war.
Is any organization or individual who seeks to bring about a crisis of legitimacy or "the war is an abomination" attitude among a population engaged in 4GW? The problem with the 4GW theorists is that they haven't made a clear enough distinction between 4GW activities and the activities of political parties, activist groups, psychological warfare, public diplomacy, lobbying, opinion journalism, even blogging.
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Does that mean that there is a unique 4GW identity? That there are unique 4GW motivations? Sayen doesn't give us any specifics in this article about what this means. And I'm not particularly inclined to buy this.
Lind: "At the core of 4GW is a crisis of legitimacy of the state...
"What Fourth Generation opponents actually do to a state is not play mind-games with the state’s leaders, but use the power of weakness to bring the opposing state’s whole population to regard the war as an abomination."
But a 4GW opponent can't accomplish this without domestic allies (direct or indirect). After all it is not as if every member of the population is going to adopt the view that a particular war is an abomination simultaneously. Some people may adopt that view first and they become advocates for that view and seek to spread it to the rest of the population. At that point, are the anti-war advocates engaging in 4GW or are they just engaged in politics? So how do you distinguish between 4GW and political activity?
Acting to bring about a crisis of a state's legitimacy and to persuade a population that a war is an abomination seems to me to be one tactic among many that a state or non-state actor has at their disposal. I'm not persuaded that it rises to the level of a "generation" of war.
Is any organization or individual who seeks to bring about a crisis of legitimacy or "the war is an abomination" attitude among a population engaged in 4GW? The problem with the 4GW theorists is that they haven't made a clear enough distinction between 4GW activities and the activities of political parties, activist groups, psychological warfare, public diplomacy, lobbying, opinion journalism, even blogging.
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