Hammes on 5GW

[Originally posted to the now-defunct D5GW “blorum”, transfered to the blog with date, title, and content retained.]

Arherring has a new post up on D5GW critiquing the 5GW prognostications of Colonel Thomas X. Hammes. I agree with every point Arherring made and added another related criticism in the comments.



Essentially:

1. Although Col. Hammes delineates the scope of 4GW very well (albeit, not as well as he should; re: Arherring’s post) and announces “our” need to reorganize defenses in order to combat 4GW-style opponents, he does so through a state-centric p.o.v. One may wonder whether any nation-state in our modern world can possibly combat 4GW, given the fact that 4GW specializes in defeating nation-states. This goes beyond an US vs Them consideration and straight to the Centralized Force vs Decentralized Force dynamic that exists beyond/before a simple US vs Them paradigm. Simply understanding and recognizing 4GW — the very point of Hammes’ The Sling and The Stone — is not enough to ensure the viability of a nation-state’s winning conflicts with 4GW opponents.


2. In any case, given for the moment the possibility that nation-states can reorganize to successfully defeat proficient 4GW forces, Hammes’ reliance on the use of advanced biotech weaponry (and other advanced technology) for defining 5GW seemed to me to follow a “bigger cannon” philosophy: If we, or they, build a bigger cannon, the bigger cannon will allow more destruction — and, more efficiently find the targets — and therefore allow victory. Arherring does a very good job of critiquing this point of view, especially when he asks, “How do you send an anthrax-laced letter to the 4GW al-Qaeda organization?”


3. Hammes seemed to have overlooked the fact that emerging technology and emerging social structures are far more than merely weaponized facets of our global system. I commented in the thread that Hammes has weaponized the Internet; I meant, that he (like many other warfare theorists) continues to look through a 3GW (or pre-4GW) lens which distorts theories of warfare by severely limiting the environment. In the past, relatively limited environments went hand-in-hand with warfare operations, and effects could be more easily contained than they will be “contained” within a future, highly “connected,” globalized world. Hammes’ consideration of the use of smallpox or engineered viruses suffers from such myopia. Furthermore, emerging technologies will be used by more people than merely Global Guerrillas or super-empowered nihilists, affecting the environment in which those groups must operate.

Tonight, while reviewing later portions of The Sling and The Stone mentioning 5GW, I detected another peculiar bias or oversight that I would add to these three, which perhaps explains these three. Near the very end of the book, when Hammes introduces his summary, he states,

Quote:

In designing our new personnel system and operational forces, flexibility must be a central tenet. Only a highly flexible organization can hope to succeed in 4GW and still be prepared to deal with emerging 5GW or variations on earlier forms of war.

The second sentence suggests an US (or, U.S.) that must confront 4GW forces and be ready to confront 5GW forces. While I agree with Hammes, I find only a limited understanding that we cannot look at the 4GW & 5GW models as merely representative of our foes or potential foes. I.e., Hammes argues that we have 4GW foes and may have 5GW foes; and he assumes these are the types of foes we must fight, but without also suggesting that we ourselves must become 4GW or 5GW fighters. At best, he says in the summary:

Quote:

[…]our primary step in preparing for 4GW warfare is to reform our personnel system to one that selects and grooms those who can function effectively in the free-flowing, networked environment characteristic of this type of war.

That is close to saying that the U.S. must form a 4GW force; however, given Hammes’ excellent characterizations of 4GW opponents throughout the book, one must wonder if that’s what he really meant. Okay, I know that he includes a chapter on “Where to from here?” in which he describes transitioning our military to a 4GW-styled force; but conveniently or unfortunately, Hammes has defined two types of 4GW: the opponent’s style and our (suggested) version which he calls “netwar” in that chapter. Clearly, he is confused, as you can see when he says early in that chapter:

Quote:

Fourth-generation-warfare enemies do not see international boundaries as an impediment, nor do they see war as primarily a military function.

There, he has described one aspect of the Opponent’s 4GW model of warfare; but he goes on within the chapter to described how DOD must change the U.S. military in order to fight these foes. One supposes that he did not feel comfortable suggesting within the book that we ourselves should ignore international boundaries and develop a force which also does not see war primarily as a military function. Not at all; rather, Hammes has attempted to style a different kind of 4GW for ourselves, calling it “netwar”, which will not “break” the hierarchy of the U.S.  ilitary — although it might loosen it up a bit. You can see the disjunction more clearly when Hammes continues to explain the different steps that must be taken: They are very good ideas, if considered loosely; but they can also be summarized as I’ve summarized the book in #1 above, Simply understanding and recognizing 4GW . Hammes gives steps that will ensure our forces understand and recognize 4GW and believes that those two things, when “netwar” is added to them, will be sufficient for ensuring victory. Again, we see in this the disjunction in his theory of 4GW, in which one style exists for our opponents and our own style consists of 1) “netwar” and 2) merely recognizing our opponents. God forbid that he should suggest we become our 4GW-opposite.



Rather, he suggests in the summary,

Quote:

If the United States can develop a proper force to fight fourth-generation war, that force is more likely than our current establishment to have the intellectual and physical flexibility to recognize and adapt to fifth-generation war as 5GW evolves.

The phrase, fight fourth-generation war, is ambiguous because, as I’ve outlined, it can mean that Hammes has a view of our opponents’ 4GW and wants to fight it, or it can mean that we “fight [in the style of] 4GW.” I believe it is the first. But worse, far worse, I’d bring in something both Arherring and PurpleSlog have mentioned in their recent entries:

Arherring wrote:

The problem I think is that we, as a society, are so used to being on the defensive, that we don’t often enough ask how 5GW will be, and by necessity should be, used to defeat 4GW opponents. [from the post linked above]

PurpleSlog wrote:

The reason I am interested in 5GW is that 1) I am interest in the next next thing, and 2) I want to think about how to counter-4GW with something other then more 4GW. [from, “Introducing PurpleSlog”]

Arherring’s characterization of our defensive thinking could be a pretty good summary of my recent criticism of Hammes here; but both point at something Hammes seems to have missed in his book and in the article Arherring linked: That we should not wait for 5GW to “emerge” or to be developed by our enemies. We should be developing it ourselves.