Users of
Internet Explorer 6.x
or before should be aware
that this site works best in
Firefox (best choice) or
Internet Explorer 7.x.
Some helpful links:
 |
| IE 7 at Microsoft |
Disclaimers
The views expressed by contributors to Dreaming 5GW are entirely their own and may not reflect the views of other contributors or the general editor.
Site
“Recommended Reading” — Mark Safranski, ZenPundit
”9/11: The Mouse that Roared” — Nonpartisan, Progressive Historians
Interesting back-and-forth at ZenPundit. Mark linked the article on Progressive Historians in his weekly highlight, spurring a negative comment from D5GW contributor Dan tdaxp which in turn spurred a little horizontal speculation from yours truly.
You can read the article written by Nonpartisan. Essentially, through a sensationalizing metaphor and purple writing, Nonpartisan has declared that 1) those in America most terrified of terrorists following 9/11 are the “elephant” petrified by the “mouse”, and 2) 9/11 was really “no more than a bee sting against America by any metric you can imagine” which nonetheless has had a profound effect not only on American psyches but also on America’s entire future:
The metaphor of the mouse and the elephant is particularly apt here, for of course a mouse cannot really strike in any significant fashion at an elephant, yet the elephant is so irrationally afraid of the mouse that it becomes completely paralyzed by the very sight of him — the powerful beast takes on the ultimate animistic visage of a coward.
Long after we are all dead, historians will look back at this sorry state of affairs and ask, why? Why did America abandon its promise at the very moment it had the economic and political power to really accomplish something great in the history of the world? Why did the Americans not simply ignore the terroristic mouse, or use the international goodwill 9/11 gave them to promote a world order of lasting mutual peace? And they will turn sadly away from this historical epoch, knowing that the only answer to their query is that too many Americans were, incredibly, afraid of the mouse; too many, like Orson Scott Card and Zell Miller, were even more afraid of the mouse than of the real threats America faced. They traded their unique opportunity in exchange for petty vengeance because only that vengeance could ease their fitful, irrational nightmares.
[Nonpartisan, “9/11: The Mouse that Roared”]
The essay, which also compared the Top Ten Causes of Death, 2001, as computed by the CDC, with the death total from the 9/11 attacks, prompted Dan tdaxp to comment at ZenPundit,
The underlying claim — that deaths from thinking- and non-thinking- opponents are comparable for the purpose of analysis — has been dealt with elsewhere. If that was the entirety of the post, P.H. would have presented us with a boring repetition of claims many years old.
[Dan tdaxp]
To which, Nonpartisan replied with this comment:
Dan, the underlying claim of my post is that we lost the “War on Terror” by allowing it to divert us from our previous world goals; I use the actuarial data only as a segue into that broader point.
[Nonpartisan]
My first thoughts when reading the essay at Progressive Historians — besides thoughts about Orson Scott Card, which I won’t address here — were bi-fold:
First, I remembered a similar comparison I once made on my blog Phatic Communion. In “Deaths by Human”, I compared all deaths caused by foreign terrorists globally to deaths caused by homicide in America for the year 2003 (Americans killing Americans.) Essentially, murders in America were about 7 times the number of deaths caused by terrorists in that year.
I have frequently thought that the 9/11 murders, the falling towers, etc., though extremely horrible were a kind of “bee sting”: America is very large, very powerful, quite capable of coming out of such an attack scenario at the same relative strength as before the attack.
The second thing: a comment by Alan Sullivan to a different post on Phatic Communion, in which he suggested that 9/11 fit the bill as far as 5GW theory goes. I had replied to his comment that, yes, rather than “sap the will” of so many Americans who never realized we were already fighting radical Islamist terrorists (4GW), 9/11 initiated so many counter-moves by the U.S. as America began to realize a larger, previously unknown narrative existed. Nonpartisan’s thesis seems to be that our psycho-emotional response to 9/11, as expressed through action (OODA), has hurt America far more than the actual 9/11 attacks hurt America in themselves.
With these two thoughts in mind, a third entered my thinking: Dan tdaxp’s thoughts concerning “thinking- and non-thinking-opponents”. I have had in the back of my mind the possibility that al-Qaeda, at least at bin-Laden’s level, might have 5GW aspirations; but I have also thought that whatever aspirations he and his closest advisors may have, al-Qaeda is very unlikely to have the sort of resources, connectivity, and sophistication to fight in a 5GW style (at least as of 9/11). Nonetheless, one can make an argument, I think, that 9/11 has had 5GWish repercussions: not only the drain on resources, morale, and military readiness caused by the war in Iraq, but also the political fracturing that has only been exacerbated in America since the invasion of Iraq — to a boiling point, actually. In fact, bin Laden’s latest meandering video may be an attempt to inject even more noise into the political fracturing — or indeed the national narrative — of America.
But I doubt that al-Qaeda had as much foresight as 20/20 hindsight would ascribe to them. Was 9/11 a 5GW attack? Or does it even matter if it was/not?
Dan’s injection of the “thinking- and non-thinking-opponents” meme, in combination with these thoughts, inspired me to comment on ZenPundit with a question:
Question, though, since Dan brought up the “thinking- and non-thinking” meme: Is it possible for a 5GW effect to occur by accident?
Ha, imagine: that’s the ultimate in “formlessness”!
But I mean, basically, that al-Qaeda may have intended a kind of 4GW sabre-rattling and 4GW attack but “accidentally” achieved more of a 5GW jujitsu kind of attack.
Or perhaps in other words, a different way of thinking about it: Is this how 5GW will be “discovered” and then refined and ultimately utilized by some actors on the world stage?
Posted by Curtis Gale Weeks on Sep 12, 2007 09:17 AM
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Thinking- and Non-Thinking 5GW.
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://dreaming5gw.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/192.
15 Comments
Curtis, thanks for your consideration of my post. I find your summary of my post to be an accurate representation of my central argument, and your comments are well taken.
A side note: as I have no idea what “5GW” means, could you point me to an article (here or elsewhere) which gives a succinct explanation of the concept? I don’t find a link to such a piece on your homepage.
Hi,
You can find a definition here:
Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW): An emergent theory of warfare premised upon manipulation of multiple economic, political, social and military forces in multiple domains to effect positional changes in systems and achieve a consilience of effects to leverage a specific goal or set of circumstances. (Arherring 1/12/07)
Please poke around the site and ask us questions. If you like, I could create an open Q&A post.
Also an overview of 5GW post can be found here.
I think it’s very possible (maybe even certain) that the first 5GW efforts will be not so much accidental as they are unconsciously 5GW.
I heard a bit on the radio today in which a hypothesis was presented that Arab (Islamic) men would utilize schoolbusses (full of children) in a deadly fashion (I’ll let your imagination fill in the blanks) to invoke a massive American backlash against Islam which would, hypothetically, incur a counter backlash against America and the west throughout the Islamic world. Very much in line with Arherrings ruminations in the forums but an action that would very definitely be nationally inflammatory in terms of backlash, I suspect.
Is this an “accidental” 5GW?
Thanks for this, PurpleSlog. I do have a question about the teleology of this theory: isn’t it possible that warfare doesn’t move in a teleological direction at all, but that rather we’re facing “armies” that are using techniques so primitive that we can no longer comprehend or guard against them? i.e., could warfare be cyclical rather than teleological?
Soob —
Ah, “unconscious.” Reminds me of Dan’s frequent mentions of fingertip feeling and modes that are other-than-rational. Or….”non-thinking.”
Since posting this, I’ve been wondering about a queer paradox or, let’s say, an odd feature of 5GW in a 5GW world. We’ve said frequently enough that 5GW should be made to appear “natural” or like an accident…so, naturally, it might appear to be an accident even if it is no such thing; alternatively I suppose, it might appear to have been planned when in fact it was not, in which case so many bogey-men a la Younghusband’s old post may become targets for retaliation. Either way, though, whatever situations are occurring may become actionable, or usable, for future “thinking 5GW” operations.
NP,
What do you mean by this, exactly? I’m having trouble placing it within the context of the rest of your comment.
There is some discussion, various threads, concerning whether the xGW framework must be linear and relatively new or recurrent through history (yet perhaps still linear with respect to specific times, places, groups.) Shlok, on his blog, recently inspired criticisms by suggesting that 5GW is merely emergent and uncoordinated, a result of so many millions or billions of actors on the world stage — chaos we simply can’t understand. My response was simply, and basically, that humans are thinking creatures and have it in their power to observe what is occurring and from that plan responses in a conscious fashion (whether or not those responses are meet for the occasion) — so innovation and activity are informed by this observation and reason and other things.
What exactly you mean by contrasting the teleological with “cyclical”, I don’t understand…?
NP…I am not quote sure if I understand what you are saying. I will take a stab at it though.
I think your reply is to the nature of the “Generations of Modern Warfare” theory proposed by Lind et al. Lind’s theory is history or timeframe driven with generations emerging in response to changing times, technology and the effects of the prior generation.
While Lind was the starting point, I have - and I think others in the little part of the blogosphere may have also - moved beyond Lind.
I think of each xGW “generation” as a conflict mode to be used given the nature/intentions/capabilities of competing/cooperating actors and whatever is the state of the world at that particular time and place.
Here is some shorthand:
1GW is Linear orderly warfare.
2GW is Attrition Warfare…where the industrial and manpower might of an actor is mobilized in a managed way to defeat 1GW opponents with overpowering firepower and manpower.
3GW is Lightening Warfare or Maneuver Warfare. Speed, tempo, and better military thinking is used to collapse an opponent on the battlefield while avoid the cost/time of 2GW and the firepower might of 2GW opponents.
4GW is Full Spectrum Warfare. In addition to weapons, things not thought to weapons are weaponized are used together in a sort of strategic information warfare directed at minds to win while avoiding the strengths and costs of 1GW/2GW/3GW.
5GW is the thing that comes next. This group blog is dedicated to exploring what “the next thing” is.
By thinking I merely mean capable of bargaining, in the sense that all normal people are and all natural disasters are not.
One doesn’t have to have metacognition — the ability to define some action actually as this-or-that — to be able to have cognition.
Ha, Dan, well you know I ingest words and ruminate.
But you have leapt from “thinking” to “cognition” as if they are identical!
I was using it more in the distinction of, say, “to be alive” and “to live”, where one may be more active than the other, more willful.
So cognition happens, but thinking is conscious and directed activity.
Or some such.
Bah! Or should I say, Moo?
As one practices any action, it increases in automaticity, requiring less cognition/thinking/whatever.
An experienced warfighter might not have to think about the warfighting at all.
That said, he’s still capable of bargaining/thinking/cognition, and so is capable of warfare.
A volcano, which might be equally destructive and systemic in effect, is not, and so it not capable of warfighting.
Dan,
I’m not disputing. I knew exactly what you meant from the very first comment at ZenPundit. Nor am I trying to say that your conceptual model — ha, call it your understanding — needs revision, expansion, or any other such thing.
We are talking apples and oranges but using the same words. I do think, however, that we probably have great differences between us vis-a-vis these apples and oranges. When I use a word, I usually have a large number of the different definitions in mind, the different uses for that word; and when I think of groups of words (like, in sentences or blog posts), I often have multiple definitions of many of them in mind; and, this soup gives birth to different frameworks at once. (When I’m very lucky, or in good “flow”, these multiple frameworks give birth to an overarching framework, perhaps something related to consilience, encompassing all of them. At other times, it’s mere confusion, chaos, or just sound.) You, on the other hand, seem to have narrowed down these words to a single definition each — and they must not vary from their definition one iota or one jot! And, your words have a very definite framework when considered together, springing from those definitions.
So it seems, sometimes. Even if not, my description of myself might explain why I so often use these words, and some certain terms, in unusual and perhaps seemingly loose ways.
In any case….”still capable” does not mean he’s actually doing warfare, or conducting warfare.
But then, how to “conduct” unconsciously, hmm? Especially something like warfare. Pretty soon we’ll be wondering whether not cutting a $5 check to this-or-that-relief agency is in fact a type of act of war, after all.
Dan,
Last follow-up, while I wait upon your replies ;)
This seems just too, too pat. Especially for a 5GW. 1GW: okay, I can see how practitioners of the past probably didn’t have to think much about how to swing the sword or aim the musket. But 5GWarriors? In a complex world that is ever shifting according to various other activities and continual emergence resulting from them? I don’t buy it.
There must be a G correspondence to level of automaticity, or acceptable and viable automaticity. Then again, I wonder if the automaticity shifts…say, all those prawns (proxies/pawns) whom the 5GWarrior wants acting without much deep thought or examination of events. That would be true of 4GW victims, as well: automatic knee-jerk reactions and automatic paralysis from fear. Does the 5GW aim for even greater automaticity in his prawns? Is “automaticity” shifting as the x gains 1? (I can see a sort of stalemate in 2GW, or turning point, after which the shift becomes more obvious.)
Expert 5GWarriors would be expected to enter the state that Csikszentmihalyi calls flow, as do experts in many other fields (social or not). When they are doing their best, they would not recognize the passage of time as a subjective event, when they are working closer to the edge they would rely on finger-tip feeling, and in situations where they are ill-prepared, they would have to think things through (that is, feel anxiety).
Further, I disagree that generations of war necessarily are more or less hard to think about. While I cannot put myself into the Yanomami’s shoes during their 0GWs against their neighbors, the experience of Adolf Eichman shows that 0GW in a modern world is, if anything, banal.
I think I disagree…