4GW is not some advance, but the Gap's last gasps
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 at 3:49PM John Robb had an assessment of the Mumbai attacks: Bombing systems in Bombay.
Lexington Green responded on Chicago Boyz: The Mumbai Attack: A Success for "Global Guerillas"?
Tom's comment:
I think Lex is basically on target here. There is the tendency now to exalt the strategic cleverness of terrorists. I think Robb is correct on systempunkts being targeted, but I also think such targeting is unlikely to overwhelm. The key here is the desire of people to carry on. That's why Hamas and Hezbollah go nowhere, while Israel can turn the West Bank into complete disarray. Israelis refuse to give in, while the Palestinians stew in the victimhood.4GWers in general buy into Occidentalist views too much: West are pussies and easily put into chaos (we've gone soft with our liberalism and rationalism and feminism and all those machines we depend on, thus we are so vulnerable). Meanwhile, the guerrilla cultures of all stripes are so tough, masculine (keep their women in place), close to nature, natural warriors--all the "good stuff" that we remember now in Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson movies.
And yes, this Occidental description extends into the East, so I'm not out of place extending it to rising India. In effect, this bias is now equivalent to modern development (such as Japan or South Korea) or even the aspiration for the same (or basically, my New Core states like India or China). To move in this direction is to suffer all the same weaknesses, in the eyes of the Occidentalist mindset. This is what I told the Chinese a couple of weeks ago: "Soon, you will be viewed by many in the Gap as the face of globalization/modernization and thus you too will be targeted."
Believe such a shift is impossible? Tell it to the Japanese: once the center of Occidentalism (it led them to believe the ultimate "punch" called Pearl Harbor would flatten the weak and decadent America), it is now a post-modernist dream, and thus a target itself of Occidentalism.
There is a profound reason why we're rich and powerful and connected and the enemy is none of those things. Terrorism is a strategy of the weak, and it earns them only what the powerful decide they no longer want.
As I opined in BFA, there are no lasting 4GW victories. Yes, sometimes conflicts are won, but what is really achieved? Look at Cuba or Nicaragua or Palestine--or best yet--Vietnam or China?
All these 4GW "victors" got was amazingly bloody disconnectedness, and--when they got smart--then they came back crawling to the system, the nets, the rules, the "decadence."
4GW is not some apogee. No Kaplanesque romanticism please. This is the dregs and nothing more.
Our nets are our strengths. They will attack and we will grow more resilient. Bush was right: Bring it on. Speed the killing. Flush the losers. Extend the nets. Be resilient.
Watch India. These attacks will accomplish nothing.
Reader Comments (5)
This analysis is right on the money! Th weakness, decadence, degeneracy, etc. of "the West" is a key assumption underlying the 4GW argument. This can be seen most clearly in the work of William Lind, probably the most important of the 4GW theorists. Lind characterizes current U.S. society as "Brave New World", a culturally and morally bankrupt society equally in need of defeat as al-Qa'ida so that the "old ways of living" can be rekindled. He writes, "We must rally the remnants of the Christian West to fight the Fourth Generation and Brave New World simultaneously...hopefully, Brave New World and the Fourth Generation destroy each other."
The degeneracy of Brave New World America, according to Lind, stems in part from multiculturalism. In his sympathetic review of Kaplan's "An Empire Wilderness," he sees multiculturalism as leading to the inevitable disintegration of the American state. (Marine Corps Gazette, Feb 1999)
In his "Militant Musings" from 1995, a futuristic story looking back from the 21 century, he describes how a culturally and morally bankrupt U.S. disintegrated and how the Northeast reestablished itself as a Victorian Era-style utopia.
To say that there is an important thread of Occidentalism in 4GW theory is correct. However, in general, we have not yet properly identified its depth, pervasiveness, or origins.
I agree with Tom's analysis with one caveat. 4GW victories are temporary because connectivity ultimately is needed to function but if there is a counter-Core, an alternative set of connectivity, networks, and rulesets is the goal of the jihadis, in part for historical reasons, possibly in part because they realize that 4GW doesn't get you anywhere without follow on.
The software people have a similar phenomenon, called forking. An OSS project comes to a point where two camps (they don't have to be equal) can't reconcile to a shared vision for the software and so one group goes off, takes the code, and develops independently to their own vision. Both groups networks are weakened but if there are wise men involved, there is a cross-fertilization that goes on even post-fork to mitigate the damage.
I think that forking the global rulesets is the aim of those who want a more prominent role in global affairs than their current status would give them and they don't care much if the overall efficiency of the system drops a point or ten. They want a counter-Core with them in the driver's seat. Negotiating the pitfalls of that problem is going to be tough. Tom may want to bring in a few large project OSS people to give a talk on managing project forks.
I think the 4GW label is up for grabs. Lind brings to it a heavy load of Spenglerian cultural pessimism. John Robb's Global Guerillas are a different category, since he seems to be describing a phenomenon of widespread sub-state violence, without necessarily having a particular political program, like drug gangs. Col. Hammes presents it, in his book The Sling and the Stone, in much less loaded with cultural assumptions, and focused more on how sub-state actors use a combination of force and propaganda to achieve their goals, in particular by using the legal and moral inhibitions of the Core countries as a shield. Lind, Hammes and Robb to some extent get lumped together. But I think that Hammes analysis is much more useful, since it is more descriptive than prescriptive. Just taken on Hammes' terms the Mumbai attacks seem like a bad job from a 4GW perspective. Far from causing dissension among the victims and gaining sympathy for the weaker side, it will rally and unify the enemy. The fact is that the islamic terrorists we face are not really 4GW practitioners because their goals are apocalyptic not political, and hence their behaviour, especially their murders, do not effectively advance a coherent political program. The Zarqawi wing of the Iraqi resistance for example, was unsuccessful at 4GW. With him out of the way, the Sunni resistance will be more attuned to political reality and probably more effective at getting at least some of what it wants. They may be evil, but they at least possess means-ends rationality.
Wow, Tom. Really great. The "West, Rising" is an idea that was born in my pessimistic, small mind many years ago, when the one thing I was raised to believe could never happen - the capitulation of the Soviet Union without a nuclear war (or ha ha ha! without a shot being fired!) happened.
It was a small seed that was planted by the slow blows of sledghammers at the Berlin Wall. The idea of a citizens' century...the notion that strength grows where freedom abounds.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm no Pollyanna, but you very succinctly illuminated why the West wins this one, time and time again. It is merely our job to do everything we can to see that it happens as quickly and safely (which is to say, sometimes not safe at all!) as possible.
All this talk about 4GW vs. Network Centric etc, reminds me of the following quote:
"...the ends do not justify the means..."
4GW with net centricity are the means
connectivity is the end
Does connectivity justify 4GW and NetCentricity? I think so, 4GW is one side of a coin, net centricity is the other, both need to work together to give you connectivity
Vinit Joshi