5GW Mention: August 19, 2003

I have actually read two of his books (The New Craft of Intelligence and On Intelligence) years ago. There were mostly on the importance of OpenSource Intelligence. I also remember him having a 2X2 matrix of threats facing the use and the force structure needed to counter. He doesn’t use 4GW in the books as far as I can recall, but he covers the same ground.

The last time I came across him was some articles - he had sort of turned in to a 9/11 Truther.

I suppose he must have a new book out.

I looked his site www.oss.net.

Here we go.

Here is 5GW idea as a word doc. It looks like a press release created on August 19, 2003 7:25:00 PM.

The full contents:

FIFTH GENERATION WARFARE WITH PEACEFUL PREVENTIVE INVESTMENTS IS THE NECESSARY NEW NATIONAL SECURITY PARADIGM, NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERT SAYS

Washington, D.C., August 19/PRNEWSWIRE/ — “Afghanistan, Israel, and Iraq are all at risk,” says Robert David Steele, a national security veteran and expert on 5th generation warfare. “The U.S. has the wrong national security paradigm in effect—the Cold War heavy metal military paradigm, and it is slated to lose Afghanistan, Iraq, and perhaps even Israel in the mid-term. Homeland security is at risk as well—the glaring weakness of the critical infrastructure is likely to encourage terrorists already within America to attack electrical transmission towers and water or fuel pipelines across the country.”

Steele, who has written extensively about unconventional and non-traditional threats, and about the intelligence and national security capabilities needed to deal with them, is among the first to speak of “5th Generation Warfare.” He says, “The US is stuck between 2rd Generation “mass” warfare and 3rd Generation “maneuver” or precision warfare. We have not adjusted to 4th Generation or “asymmetric” warfare—suicidal volunteers able to blow up buildings, pipelines, and transmission towers. We are simply not trained, equipped, nor organized to find, fix, and fight individuals or sub-state networked organizations.”

“The Bush Administration has elevated terrorism to a six-front hundred-year war we may lose.”

“5th Generation “holistic” warfare requires a coherent global security strategy that places its primary emphasis on nurturing legitimate governance everywhere. Only legitimate governments can be effective at internal security against the minority seeking to be terrorists. Repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia, or oligarchic regimes such as Colombia’s, are destined to fail, and no amount of US military assistance or training will be effective in stabilizing those regimes.”

“5th Generation warfare is total war through total engagement, and it demands that the first priority be on both homeland education and infrastructure, followed by very high investments in global peaceful preventive measures (what Joe Nye calls ‘soft power’), with narrowly focused military intervention being a last resort. Absent a Berlin Airlift for Afghanistan and an immediate Marshall Plan for Iraq, we will ultimately be forced out of both countries on unfavorable terms.”

Robert David Steele is a former Marine, former spy, founder of the USMC Intelligence Command, founder of OSS.NET, and author or editor of three books on intelligence.

SOURCE: OSS.NET
-0- 08/19/2003
/CONTACT: Robert Steele
703-242-1700, or bear@oss.net/
/Web sites: www.oss.net

Hmmm.

It is not quite the way we talk about it here. It predates the D5GW and related efforts.

The three things that jump out at me were our definition syncs with his:

1) It about dispersed kinetics
2) It seems to be about creating/modifying institutions for future success
3) Long timeframes are implied

I noticed your points as well.

“5th Generation “holistic” warfare requires a coherent global security strategy that places its primary emphasis on nurturing legitimate governance everywhere. Only legitimate governments can be effective at internal security against the minority seeking to be terrorists. Repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia, or oligarchic regimes such as Colombia’s, are destined to fail, and no amount of US military assistance or training will be effective in stabilizing those regimes.”

“5th Generation warfare is total war through total engagement,

Thomas Barnett, anyone? And of course, Steve.

What is interesting is the fact that these ideas for combatting 4GW have developed separately but run similarly.

Also interesting: notice the focus on “GG’s”:

the glaring weakness of the critical infrastructure is likely to encourage terrorists already within America to attack electrical transmission towers and water or fuel pipelines across the country.”

This thread is full of interesting finds!

Wow — I first encountered Robert Steele about 15 years ago when he was touting “Open Source Intelligence”. Maybe he’s equating 5GW to some kind of “Open Source Warfare”? Interesting development …