Are the generations of war purely a response to developments within the earlier generation? To wit, is (x plus 1)GW driven primarily by a desire to thwart practitioners of (x)GW?
Consider this:
1GW: Marked by regimental structure and strict discipline. Noted historians Keegan and van Crevald have attributed this to the advent of firearms, which create a need for more rigorous safety mechanisms.
2GW: In response to 1GW rank-and-file formations, fires are massed to shatter their cohesion.
3GW: Massed fires are countered by maneuverability.
4GW: Maneuver forces are proved inadequate in the face of an asymmetric adversary who exploits the full breadth of the maneuver space by denying sanctuary to 3GW units.
5GW: Moral and cultural warfare is fought through manipulating perceptions and altering the context by which the world is perceived.
By presuming a measure/countermeasure approach to the evolution of warfare generations, does this imply that a given entity (be it a nation-state or a transnational terror organization) does not grow by single "generations" -- but rather by two generations? (Move, which begets Counter-move, which begets Counter-counter-move.)
The implication is that even-numbered GWs (0GW, 2GW and 4GW) have common antecedents, as do odd-numbered ones (1GW, 3GW, 5GW). And that a given warmaking enterprise should not focus on growing to the "next" GW, but rather to leap ahead ( (x plus 2) GW ).
Wow. That last para is quite the thing!
I think, though, that the leap is impossible until x+1 is defined well enough to inspire x+2; perhaps, the requisite motivation will be lacking, also, from a cost-benefit analysis. If you really need to defeat x, you might regret wasting the time to conceive, develop and operationalize x+2.
I suppose that will depend on the entity; but then we run into problems of defining and identifying entities. (Problems of identity; heh, going a bit philosophical here....) Time scales are important. For instance, if x+1 is able to truly harm x, x may never be in a position time-wise and finance-wise and mental- or morale-wise to develop x+2.
I also think that the generational shifts are intimately tied to societal shifts. Leaping ahead of where the society currently is may be possible -- it's called innovation -- but leaping ahead to the innovation-of-the-as-yet-non-existing-innovation may be quite impossible, to the degree that the general prevailing social structures must be able to support the gen.
This consideration, however, prompts an interesting thought experiment, which was really considered once before somewhere about our neck of the Blogosphere:
Nice post!
Recall that "generation" is not a dialectical entity (like Lind says), but rather a measure of kinetic dispersion. We say 1G, 2G, 3G, etc, but it's probably more accurate to say 1.0g, 2.0gg, 3.0g, etc. Forces either degrade or improve linearly, not through dialectical processes of thesis-antithesis-synthesis.
1GW...
If you drop the historical timeframes for the xGW, you can see the Greek phalanxes, Roman legionary-based armies and New Model Army all as 1GW in responses to less organized fighting around them.
On 5GW...
"5GW: Moral and cultural warfare is fought through manipulating perceptions and altering the context by which the world is perceived."
This may be the most succinct definition of 5GW I have ever read.
It is interesting. I know my own interest in 5GW, was in reaction to 4GW rising.
I don't want to even think about 6GW again for awhile.
This post will keep me thinking for awhile.
TDAXP: I hate to admit, but I fall into Hegel's mode too. I think his idea of t-a-s may be how memes form. That's for another post.
I'm very ambivalent about whether or not 'evolution' is a dialectical process. Each generation has always existed prior to their modern incarnations. Further, evolution is most likely linked to a specific societal state and not always about evolving past your enemy. To win World II, we developed a 3GW capacity that simply overwhelmed the Axis 3GW capacity. We did not evolve to 4GW because we had state structure that wanted to preserve its own survival. Offensively, 4GW would require some kind of 4GW German dissident that would develop a network and launch an insurgency, but in an all-powerful fascist state this would be harder to develop.
There is something about the characteristics of the combatant that factors into which generation she may choose, some kind of analysis that asks the questions "Who am I" and "Who am I fighting?"
I'm not sure if this is a dialectic or maybe a teleogical process, about who the agent is relative to the structure in which she is embedded.
Very good!