Head-on! Apply directly to my forehead!
Friday, September 14, 2007 at 11:26AM I have to apologize more often.
I do so to Ted O'Connor and I get this gem from Christopher Thompson as a result:
It is difficult to have to endure the time consuming process of COIN. It is equally difficult to endure the lack of 5GW to start limiting our exposure to 4GW.
That, in a nutshell, is a brilliant definition of 5GW--at least in function.
Fifth-generation warfare is designed primarily to limit one's exposure to Fourth-Generation Warfare.
KISS, baby!
No, I wouldn't see 5GW preventing earlier generations. That's easy enough to figure out and be obvious about (hell, being really obvious about it is much of the delivery).
But 5GW should be a leap-frogging of the bloody-nose strategy of the 4GWers.
How achieved?
It ain't about not caring how much you bleed, but figuring out how not to bleed whatsoever.
You are self-healing, real-time.
That's why I'm with Enterra.
Reader Comments (5)
Rule is, if you have to explain a joke, it's not a joke.
So, what is Enterra? A security solution? An intramuscular therapy?
Help here.
click through up there or search it on the weblog to learn more
4GW is either very old - the same tactics insurgents used against the romans - or nothing at all. The call for 5GW, for 6GW, for nGW seems to be layering more and more layers of obfuscation on top of a remarkably simple concept.
We need to get much, much better at occupying countries if we are going to be doing any more of it.
Running an occupation is *not* *warfare* in the conventional sense. It is certainly a military activity, but it is sharply distinct from war.
The problem here is that nobody likes to think of America has having an army of occupation, so we come up with terms like 4GW and so forth to disguise the simple fact: we're an occupying power and have not traditionally played that role, so it's all learning from scratch.
To think of this as netwar against insurgency simply continues the idea that we're fighting a war. We're not: we're occupying. It's a different activity, with different goals, even if the body count and hardware look very similar.
I disagree. Don't confuse tactics with operations or strategy. These are different things. XGW is a study of the underlying doctrines of conflict that shape operations and strategy, very rarely is it about tactics. Tactics are merely tools. 4GW is about attacking the will of the opponent and against the U.S, a casualty averse occupier, an amorphous insurgency is a very effective tool.
The point is this, and what Tom has grasped here, when you are faced with Generational Warfare doctrine 'X', you need to counter with 'X+1'.