The D5GW Paradox
I’ve been sidetracked by Movable Type woes, which are eating into my time and my peace of mind; thus, haven’t been blogging much. Check out the new author pages, linked in the left sidebar, when you get a chance; plus, the banner at the top of each page actually links to the main page of D5GW, now. Sorry, still, to IE users, since I’ve found no solution as of yet.
During this time away from the front page, I’ve nonetheless had something in mind that seems to require a post. I don’t have much time to dig into it at the moment. (“Yay!” I can almost hear the chorus sing…) So I’ll put it simply and leave it there:
The Dreaming 5GW Paradox. Simply stated in two parts:
- Any successful 5GW effort will almost certainly be secret and unseen; the war may even occur without anyone else knowing it has happened. So how can any exploration of the theory of 5GW, or any dream of 5GW, ever have specific examples of 5GW, to consider or discuss, a la John Robb or any of numerous of other explorers of contemporary conflict? And so, what a futile attempt a blog about 5GW must make…
- Sure, I know that early 5GW attempts will almost certainly be sloppy, clumsy, and so might be seen and analyzed; but why on earth would anyone serious about 5GW hold those clumsy examples up as exemplary proof or even as a useful guide to understanding how 5GW might play out? How can inept attempts tell us anything about “the real deal”? They only tell us what 5GW is not.
Just had to get it out there.
Filed in The Vault
Inevitably, records relating to 5GW effort will spill out. The Cuban psyops and the WWII counter-spy stuff were eventually released and declassified. And many plots and mysteries are eventually solved. I think that 5GW plans will eventually leak once they no longer become relevant. The problem is, that may take fifty to seventy to even a hundred years.
However, by that time, because of your blog, people will have developed an analytical framework to examine those plans and put them into the context of larger events. That is your task--to do your best, despite your lack of access to real 5Gw, to develop such a framework.
I wonder if those records will point at actual activities -- but not at the 5GW itself. Considering your recent look at the power of conspiracy theories... The greatest reason, imo, for secrecy in 5GW is simply that people do not like being misled or even led; openness engenders either resentment and resistance or else active opposition or competition. While I think PurpleSlog offered a worthwhile consideration of how 5GW might utilize conspiracy theories, and while I think many more types of utilization of conspiracy theories are possible, I also suspect that "sealing the deal" in 5GW (the maintenance stage, once the new systemic reality has set) will mean ensuring that whatever information may surface in the future will continue to keep the 5GW hidden.
A successful 5GW campaign seems to me to fall under the umbrella of the hypothetical "Perfect Crime". The perfect crime is only hypothetical because it has never been discovered (if it had been then it would no longer be "perfect"). Luckily for us there are lots and lots of really, and not very, imperfect crimes and I suspect the same will hold true for 5GW. The "Perfect 5GW" will never be known, but I'm sure there will be plenty of campaigns with mistakes to study.
The "Perfect Crime" analogy is very interesting! What is even more intriguing is this: how some crimes have never been solved, even though their effects are seen and evidence of one sort or several abounds. The difference between 5GW and the Perfect Crime, then, is that whatever evidence can be found is linked to a cause (immediately or ultimately) -- but that cause is not the 5GW org or campaign?
Indeed.
It's like the old question of what was the perfect robbery: we will never know, because in a perfect robbery the bank would not know that it was robbed.
-2005 ;-)
That may be another sort of dreaming altogether. Recall in 5GW Effectors I gave these bullets:
--and a deeper consideration of these questions in Initiating 5GW.
Truly, semantics can obscure if not hide meaning, and holding to a, er, perfect concept of perfect -- a kind of perfection that can only exist in the head -- may obscure the discussion and mislead us.
I guess 5GW is a little like God:
So many things and events are observable, but different causes are seen to be behind those things: God, Allah, Zeus, Reality, Laws & Matter & Energy of Physics, psychological and cognitive Dreams, Gaia, angels and demons and djinn, and on and on.
The real Cause hides among the religions/belief systems; the real Cause cannot be seen. Religions and belief systems are the conspiracy theories, in this formulation of the analogy.
However, for the analogy to hold up, that Cause must not want to be seen in full, for fear of being opposed, annulled, overridden and defeated.
"I wonder if those records will point at actual activities -- but not at the 5GW itself. Considering your recent look at the power of conspiracy theories... The greatest reason, imo, for secrecy in 5GW is simply that people do not like being misled or even led; openness engenders either resentment and resistance or else active opposition or competition. While I think PurpleSlog offered a worthwhile consideration of how 5GW might utilize conspiracy theories, and while I think many more types of utilization of conspiracy theories are possible, I also suspect that "sealing the deal" in 5GW (the maintenance stage, once the new systemic reality has set) will mean ensuring that whatever information may surface in the future will continue to keep the 5GW hidden."
Remember the infamous Bush administration flack quoted in Ron Suskind's first book: "We're an empire now, we make our own reality?" As 1984-ish as it sounds, I think this could be the battle cry of a 5GW warrior.
It's important to remember that 4GW theory emerged as an effort to make sense of forms of warfare that had been around for a long time but were not being comprehended by the existing conceptual frameworks. Whereas 5GW emerged from a very logical question: Given 1-4 GW, then it would follow that there would at some point evolve a 5GW, what might that 5GW be? So, 4GW was attempting to make sense of something that already existed and 5GW attempted to speculate about what might come into existence.
In "The Sling and the Stone," Hammes says: "Like all previous generations of war, it [4GW] has evolved in consonance with society as a whole. It evolves because practical people solved specific problems related to their fights against much more powerful enemies. Practitioners created it, nurtured it, and have continued its development and growth. Faced with enemies they could not possibly beat using conventional war, they sought a different path."
There are two important things to keep in mind about the emergence of generations of war: first, they coincide with transformations throughout society (e.g. political, economic, social and technological) and they are the product of an effort to solve practical problems. Generations of war emerge from people who are engaged in war and are trying to use anything their society provides to give them an advantage toward winning.
We are now engaged in a war. This war is not comprehensible with our existing theory. And we cannot win using conventional theory. So how do we marshal the tools provided by our particular economic, political, social and technological circumstances to solve the practical problem posed to us by our current enemy? This is not just a question of how we win in Iraq or Afghanistan, but more importantly how we defeat the non-violent jihadists in Europe and the US who are taking advantage of our institutions to further their goals. Is this a new generation of warfare? I don't know. But it is a real problem that we need to solve. How do we solve it? How do we defeat the Flying Imams before they act? How do we counter the effort by Muslim cab drivers in Minneapolis to set up a separate set of rule for Muslims and non-Muslims? These are the kinds of practical problems that we need to solve. These are the kinds of non-violent war that we need to be speculating about.
Brilliant comment, Phil!
5GW theory is prospective rather than reflective...?
This is a brilliant thread all around. A lot to think of, and a lot to harmonize with what has already been written.