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First off I would like to give a big thanks to Tom Barnett, Zenpundit, TDAXP, Purpleslog, John Robb and many others (especially Curtis Weeks!) for setting the perfect stage to introduce Dreaming 5GW. We couldn’t have arranged it better ourselves … or did we?
Yes friends, welcome to the world of 5GW, land of conspiracy theory, confidence game, warfare by proxy and all good things that keep the royalty checks rolling in for Action / Adventure / Spy / Thriller novelists the world over. Come! Come out of the bright light and into the shadows, the realm of misdirection and sleight of hand. I am Keyser Soze, your guide, your friend. I have 31 flavors of 5GW for your pleasure. Take all that you wish but beware, sometimes that which seems most bitter is sometimes merely the least sweet …
Your first flavor: Memetic Engineering.
Behold the power of an idea. It can open closed doors and closed minds. It can build bridges both figurative and literal. Is it thought control or controlled thought, spread like a virus, contagious to those with the weakest minds and wills, each in turn becoming a vector for its spread. The viral meme cannot be destroyed. It cannot even be truly contained for it is as ephemeral as air, and as patient as water, always seeking its level and flowing through the smallest of cracks, at first a trickle, then a deluge. Indoctrination is the only immunity and temporary at that. Where is the 5GW you ask? Ahh yes, 5GW is a memetic symbiote. It strengthens and disperses the meme to new populations, promotes and entices new hosts. It is the Pied Piper playing a memetic flute. Where will it lead and who will follow?
Your second sample: The Super-empowered individual.
The Black Swan glides gracefully through the air, drifting toward the placid blue-green water of a quiet pond. As it lands, its feet and body break the calm surface. The waters part, whipped into a pale green froth that rises and curls, becoming a wave that travels toward the distant shore. Strangely, the wave seems to grow stronger and move faster, rising, looming ever higher to finally crash against land with the furious force of the tsunami.
How does one deal with a madman, especially one holding the power and lethality of a weapon of mass destruction / disruption. A system perturbation of this magnitude benefits only those who have prepared for it, strengthened themselves mentally and physically for it. Who is this who has such foresight, such vision to divine the future? Is it 5GW or the madman himself.
A third helping: The Sysadmin, the Department of Everything Else, and Development in a Box.
You build roads, and schools. You create a stable power grid. You establish communications networks that bring those who are far away, near. The streets are safe with the citizens secure in the knowledge that the guardians stand ready nearby and at the gates, to protect and defend. Are you an urban planner, an engineer, technician, policeman or soldier? Yes to all, but are you 5GW as well?
Where do the roads run?
Who and what do the schools teach?
Who provides the power?
Who is connected and who is not?
Who defines the laws and marks the borders?
5GW, indeed, are those who create the rule-sets and establish the places where they grow. Rule-sets, like roses, must be pruned and shaped for the plant to flourish. You drive roots deep, anchoring to what, at the core, makes the system work. The goal is connection and empowerment. You build and create with purpose and in doing so you destroy that which is ineffective and harmful. You encourage all those around you who will benefit to contribute. In doing so you add strength, determination, and diversity, increasing resiliency and a imparting a sense of ownership. This 5GW operates by the axiom that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Ahh, three tasty treats. It is just enough to whet the appetite and get the juices flowing. How do they taste? Are the flavors very much the same to you or are they vastly different? No matter, there will be more, I assure you. 31 flavors I promised and many more besides. All the colors of the rainbow are here, with tastes strangely familiar and tastes yet to be named. They will tantalize and tease, provoke and please.
I hope you enjoyed yourself. Next time bring your friends. We have plenty for everyone. Do, please, come again.
Posted by Arherring on Oct 11, 2006 01:09 AM
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3 Comments
Fifth Generation Warfare is an expansion of William S. Lind’s analysis and formulation of Fourth Generation Warfare. As such, I feel it prudent to revisit Lind’s original writing on the subject that was in collaboration with four other authors as follows:
The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation
William S. Lind, Colonel Keith Nightengale (USA),
Captain John F. Schmitt (USMC), Colonel Joseph W. Sutton (USA),
and Lieutenant Colonel Gary I. Wilson (USMCR)
Marine Corps Gazette
October 1989, Pages 22-26
In this piece it is stated as follows:
“Again, all these elements are present in third generation warfare; fourth generation will merely accentuate them.”
And later:
“All of these elements already exist. They are not the product of “futurism,” of gazing into a crystal ball. We are simply asking what would we face if they were all combined? Would such a combination constitute at least the beginnings of a fourth generation of warfare? One thought that suggests they might is that third (not to speak of second) generation militaries would seem to have little capability against such a synthesis. This is typical of generational shifts.”
So it would follow that Fifth Generation Warfare would employ elements that already exist and perhaps recombined while implemented with new technologies. We do not have to theorize about new elements, only how they may move into the forefront, in unique combinations and delivered by a new medium. Further, Lind makes a requirement regarding the identification of a new generation of warfare. Since he is the author of the theory of the generations of war and speculation on a fifth generation is an extension of his theory then this requirement would apply. This requirement is as follows:
“One simple test for whether or not something constitutes a generational shift is that, absent a vast disparity in size, an army from a previous generation cannot beat a force from the new generation.”
Fifth Generation Warfare?
2/03/04
By William S. Lind
Discussion past this point on several blogs has posited that Fifth Generation Warfare would by necessity be implemented in secret from the enemy. It has also been suggested that it would require large upfront time periods for preparation. It is this last issue I find most problematic and the least wieldy if it is to be employed against a force composed within the framework of an earlier generation perhaps on short notice. However, the issue of secrecy may be implicit if we insist that a generational shift would be on the order of a quantum level paradigm shift as suggested by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), Kuhn also argues that rival paradigms are incommensurable — that is, that it is not possible to understand one paradigm through the conceptual framework and terminology of another rival paradigm. From Wikipedia
This would imply a form of steganography where the Fifth Generation Warfare effort was in plain sight and yet undecipherable. It would be undecipherable and hence secret because it was not possible to understand it while an enemy was still embedded within Fourth Generation Warfare force mindset or much less an earlier one. To penetrate such an effort an opposing force would need to employ a form of critical thinking such as linguistic deconstruction or semiotics.
Therefore, I think that the Fifth Generation Warfare aspects of Thomas P.M. Barnett’s books are not accessible through a surface reading. This would be too visible and too accessible. The Fifth Generation Warfare aspects of his work may be his optimistic viewpoint. So much of the Fourth Generation Warfare effort seen today is fueled by fear and hatred of the ‘Westernification’ of traditional societies, the so called cultural imperialism that can only be analyzed with a form of critical thinking such as linguistic deconstruction or semiotics. The low level of education among the fundamentalists whose very resistance to western culture prohibits such an understanding can only support a vague sense that they are being assaulted and they find their objections difficult to conceptualize about, they can only point to indicators such as cell phones or Barbie dolls. It is the deep underlying premise of Barnett’s work that provides a Fifth Generation Warfare attack.
RevG,
I’ve got to hand it to you. I don’t think I really could have put it much better myself. I think you have an excellent handle on the subject.
Yes, in fact in one example earlier explored regarding captured plans to create a war between the U.S. and Iran by members of Al-Queda in Iraq. Almost all of the operations involved would be 4GW guided by a possible 5GW strategy.
Indeed, the very first comment I ever made on the topic was that 5GW should be designed to defeat 4GW and up until that point all that I had read was basically a sort of evolved, super-secret, 4GW. Evolved yes, but 4GW all the same.
Secrecy, I think, is the greatest hangup that most people seem to be having with 5GW. I think, if you do it right, 5GW will be inherently secret for just the reason you give.
Personally, I don’t think Barnett himself completely understands how 5GW meshes with his PNM theory. He certainly didn’t write it with 5GW in mind and while, in spirit, the concept may have been peeking over his shoulder while he wrote. Judging from what I have read from him on the topic, all he needs to do is step back a little more and he will see it. Knowing his mindset and thought processes by his writings, that won’t take long to happen. The guy is a serious, hard-core, big-picture thinker. Also, yes, it is his optimism that fits best with 5GW. As I see it, 5GW is about creating situations and working toward goals. You can’t do that when your first thought is what to destroy first.
RevG,
I like this interpretation —
This would imply a form of steganography where the Fifth Generation Warfare effort was in plain sight and yet undecipherable. It would be undecipherable and hence secret because it was not possible to understand it while an enemy was still embedded within Fourth Generation Warfare force mindset or much less an earlier one.
— mostly because it really gets at the way we are often locked into habitual modes of observation and reasoning. Using steganography as a metaphor, we might say that the belief systems of a target may be used against the target: something else is really going on, something else is being communicated, and the target doesn’t see it but only sees and understands what he would normally see and understand; but — and this may be the most important part — his actions (which flow from his understanding) actually produce results in line with the hidden message / reality even while they appear to him to produce results in line with his own understanding of things. The target becomes the carrier, reinforcer, and fulfillment of the message he doesn’t see.
As for Barnett’s message… I’m somewhat in agreement with Arherring, although I’ll admit there are many unsettled intimations, which may be ‘fingertip feelings’ or merely misgivings without much basis, whenever I consider what he proposes.
The low level of education among the fundamentalists whose very resistance to western culture prohibits such an understanding can only support a vague sense that they are being assaulted and they find their objections difficult to conceptualize about, they can only point to indicators such as cell phones or Barbie dolls.
I’m not sure that the vague sense is also therefore weak and sure to fail. On the contrary, the overt messages being given by Barnett and / or others — the Why we are there that we give as explanation for our activity — may accomplish more than the hidden agenda which is not quite understood by opponents in the Gap. I.e., this latent and dimly understood opposition to our presence in the Gap may be more than enough to continue inspiring strong opposition from those who greatly dislike anything but the tried-and-true rigors of their fundamentalism - slash - totalitarianism, while the overt message continues to be viewed as a Great Big Lie.
But, right or wrong, my own fingertip feeling gives me the sense that many Great Planners actually do have a totalitarian wish even if they cloak it in platitudes that many ‘should’ like. Trying to sell the benefits of ‘interconnectivity’ while hoping the buyer won’t be aware of the many responsibilities and limits imposed by that brand of ”interconnectivity’ seems more naive, less optimistic.