Dreaming 5GW: In Surround Sound

5GW theory may indeed be vague, various, and a little unsettled — at least, in comparison to what the fifth generation of warfare will actually be — but much of my own approach to the subject is via a consideration of meme transference, or meme engineering, and the ability of a 5GWarrior to accomplish his goals without having to actually do anything more than create the necessary memes to motivate actors who will shape the world as the 5GWarrior desires.  Broadly speaking.  Secrecy will be key, or else the 5GWarrior risks becoming an observable manipulator whom the target rejects instinctively or with calculated force; and, the hardest thing in the world to track is a meme.  The goal is to have the target believe he is acting entirely under his own free will (which he actually is) while not realizing that another has influenced him to act in a particular way.

Ultimately, a cascading series of acts committed by multiple targets — perhaps in collusion or in confrontation — will lead to a paradigmatic shift not only in general world views but also in the concrete world (which is constantly being shaped by acts motivated by world views.)

Such a consideration has previously led me to consider the possibility that Thomas Barnett’s PNM theory is very 5GWish.  At the end of a long exploration of the OODA and the Generations of Warfare on my blog Phatic Communion, I had noted that other methods for changing the world exist beyond mere warfare, and had linked Thomas Barnett’s PNM theory to 5GW by considering the way both may depend on violent means as well as non-violent means —

There are other ways to change the concrete world besides warfare.  Thomas Barnett’s approach, for instance, may alter the concrete world in ways that may greatly influence targets’ OODA loops, leading to acts beneficial to those who would employ TB’s EBO.  It is still to be seen, perhaps, if similar forces as TB would employ will have an unguided effect similar to those effects he would set as his operational goal. 5GW theory, in some respects, also suggests way of manipulating the concrete world through non-violent means, although violent means are also often discussed by 5GW theorists. In fact, TB’s theories also skirt the bounds between violent and non-violent means.

Almost exactly one month ago, PurpleSlog, Arherring, and I had more directly discussed the connection in a conversation on PurpleSlog which began as a consideration of, believe it or not,
Bizzaro Fred Phelps and 5GW Speculation:

CGW: …as 5GW is refined and the costs of a major 3GW outweigh the benefits — picture a U.S. vs China scenario — 5GW efforts will require more precise control over situations and prove more cost effective. Actually, the Barnettian pseudo-5GW — heh, PNM theory — would operate similarly, since 3GW forces would begin by establishing a localized stability and order, and then capitalist and democratic forces would kick in to allow for an expansion of that order (within a nation as well as across nations.)

Arherring: Is 5GW Barnett’s sysadmin? I don’t know. It could be. I can imagine scenarios where it is, but I doubt any U.S. government has the focus to do it.

CGW: Now, of course, typically when we speak of 5GW, we think of secrecy; but see how much is often kept secret from the public, whether our own or our targets’ public, although certain platitudes are bandied about to give the populace something to think about. The processes haven’t been refined, but the effort to establish paradigms by altering aspects of the world — Barnett’s PNM theory — has a very 5GWish aspect to it when you consider the fact that he wants to establish ‘rule sets’ that are basically those broad and widely shared paradigms. In fact, PNM may not be quite refined yet (not to mention that it has never really been tried!)

Arherring:  One thing that really strikes me about Barnett’s PNM theory is that (as he staes in his book several times) His new map is not about war within the context of war but war within the context of everything else. Also, that the PNM thoery doesn’t focus on the horrible possible futures, but the a future that is a goal to work toward….In this way I see Barnett as being 5GWish on a grand-strategy scale. 5GW is goal-oriented. It seeks to create situations. It seeks to create outcomes. It seeks less to prevent events than it does to steer them, augment them or place them in a particular context leading to the next step in a proression, a chain of events if you will….As for the secrecy theoretically inherent in 5GW. I think it entirely possible to work on a strategic scale so globally vast like Barnett’s that it can’t be appreciated and demonstrated except in history books.

PurpleSlog: I think we have two different possible 5GW organizations emerging from the discussions on this and other blogs:

1) The Secret Puppet Master 5GW - which infiltrates and manipulates other organizations secretly (among other things)

2) The Master Social/Paradigm Entrepreneurial 5GW - that shapes the future with ideas and grand strategies and new ways of thinking/framing.

All of this of course occurring at a distance from the man himself, until his recent post on “The sandwich generations-of-war strategy,” posted yesterday, October 8, 2006, in which he consciously and perhaps for the first time directly connects his approach to 5GW.  Mark Safranski and Dan of tdaxp follow-up with commentary on their respective blogs.  For now, I would like to post a few thoughts on Barnett’s post and expand on them when I have more time.

My immediate thought is that he gets it all wrong.  This is not a criticism of PNM, per se, but a criticism of the way he connects PNM and Development-in-a-Box, etc., to 5GW.  Much of my criticism can be encapsulated by Barnett’s single assertion,

It means we deny evolution toward 5GW in those parts of the Gap we deny to our enemies…

The evolution of warfare does not occur so much as a self-contained linear progression, where one force moves directly from, say, 3GW to 4GW to 5GW, as a result of its own internal impetus, but instead occurs as a result of friction between forces.  New warfare strategies and tactics are created, or old strategies are refined — and actually, it’s usually both — in order to meet and address and ultimately surpass those of the foe. So when Barnett trumpets the superiority of the U.S. 3GW forces and the superiority of a certain set of rule-sets, and so forth, he is only describing the forces with which a potential foe will have to contend.  I.e., as these become established within the Gap, anyone who would oppose them will need to surpass them.  By Barnett’s own admission, U.S. 3GW force is so great, if it is applied as he prescribes then no one will be able to oppose it; and, the Development-in-Box which will introduce the rule-sets he prescribes will make 4GW even more unlikely to succeed than it now is; and that leaves only 5GW for the opposition in the Gap.

Barnett’s prescription will create 5GW opponents, as conditions for viable 3GW and 4GW opposition continue to deteriorate.

On the other hand, the idealized version of Barnett’s system would likely produce — it is hoped — a world view paradigm shift within a significant portion of the Gap populace that would serve to preempt opposition —

Development-in-a-Box really gets you into 5GW because it alters the observed reality—pre-emptively—in a sort of bribe-the-proles mode that steals the thunder of the 4GW warrior of today in the same way that social welfare nets and trade unions stifled the rise of socialism in Europe. [Barnett]

I.e., that’s a little bit like providing enough luxuries to Americans so that a significant portion of them stop caring about going out to vote.   It isn’t that he is wrong in believing that a changed world will change perceptions, and perceptions will change activities, and activities will then change the world again in accordance with those perceptions; this is why I have thought that his approach is very 5GWish.  But the decision to step forth to create those changes openly and then to keep a security apparatus of some sort in place within the Gap until those changes have taken hold is not very 5GW, simply because the cards held in hand are displayed openly for whatever opposition exists at the outset, and because 5GW will be about having others make the decisions and act as if they were acting entirely on their own.  That kind of decision to believe in a reality is the kind most likely to stick.  It is in fact the kind of decision, leading to perseverance, any opposition within the Gap will have.

None of this is to say that Barnett’s prescription is without merit, but only that it’s not really 5GW.  5GW within the gap will be what happens as a result of Barnett’s plan if it is implemented — or, perhaps naturally regardless of whether Barnett’s plan is ever fully utilized.   So when he says,

…you win by extreme transparency: you democratize “observe” for the world, for nations, for individuals.

I wonder how much freedom to “observe” he really wants for the world, for nations, and for individuals.  Does he believe that a common and identical World View will be held by all, since everyone will be seeing everything and that ‘democratized’ observation will return identical evaluations by everyone; or does he mean that it is merely enough if they all ‘observe’ the same world but evaluate it differently?  The latter is what is already happening, quite often; the former is a form of totalitarian wish which has never been fulfilled.

Mark Safranski of ZenPundit, in his commentary on Barnett’s post, introduces some similar questions:

Vastly increasing the connectivity and transparency of a Gap state also increases the opportunities and parameters for John Robb’s Global Guerillas or superempowered individuals - we can see this in how the Islamist insurgency makes use of, for example, the internet. On the other hand, it expands opportunities for millions of others at the same time who will use the increased individual choices (which most insurgents are fighting to deny) in constructive ways.

But in 5GW, the millions acting on their own ‘individual choices…in constructive ways’  may well be greatly influenced by the handful of superempowered individuals feeding them a steady diet of preselected media and world changes; and is it possible that this is the desired paradigm?  I.e., 5GW conflict in which few die but some rise while others fall, unbeknownst to the majority, in largely non-violent conflicts?  Or might superempowered individuals actually influence those millions to occasionally fracture and war upon one another via 3GW and 4GW, in order to break up an existing paradigm and make way for a new?

Dan of tdaxp questions the automation of rule sets by quoting:

As the founder of the greatest capitalist revolution in human history once remarked, “No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat..”

Which is to say, rather than an automation of rule sets, or of One Common World View, some stable dynamic which allows for multiple world views and perhaps different applicable rule sets might be required.  If one likes mice, one does not want a mice-catching cat, and being supplied with the choice of a white mice-catching cat or a black mice-catching cat — and being forced to have at least one of these — will produce conflict, whether 3GW, 4GW, or 5GW.