5GW Makes Use of Another Dimension to Conflict: Institutional

Is there an easy-to-read post comparing the types of 5GW that you look at?

There isn’t a post. I’ll try to do something tonight or Thursday. I have been procrastinating (so much to do, so little time) on a big post for the Memetic Engineering style and for the Strategic Citizen style.

I have another style..I think…but I am a bit unsure of it. If I can work it out I will share.

Looking at that definition of Institutions I see a relationship to discussions of kinetic dispersion and generations.

Changing institutional rules is done by brute (political) force.
Changing norms of behaviour is a deeper level and requires more finesse (dispersion).
Altering self-imposed codes of conduct is the most subtle.

Each level trumps the previous in terms of long term effectiveness in achieving goals. And of course actions on one level affect all the others.

This is an interesting way to conceptualize xGW, especially if the theory is limited warfare by states. States are institutions themselves, and the role of this dimension may vary depending on which generation is involved. 1GW through 3GW would have a relatively common institutional dimension that increases in intensity; states use their institutions to mobilize resources (materials, labor) and develop purely coercive ‘means’ (military forces) of violence that do battle with the ‘means’ of other states. States-as-institutions competed on the battlefield, and so they didn’t seek to break down the institutions of the other state, only defeat their institutional ‘outputs’ and demonstrate their superiority of force.

Institutions have a different role in 4GW because it is moral warfare, and wants to destroy the will to fight of an opponent that possesses superior force. They might be thought of as the targets of 4GW, as they are used by transnational insurgencies to transmit public sentiment to state decision-makers that hurts their political self-interest, and by domestic insurgents that attack the social underpinnings of the relationship between state and society. Economically, this means denial of public goods, objects generally produced by the state by its institutional configurations. (Robb’s Global Guerilla might fight into this as it seeks decentralization and debureaucratization) Either way, 4GW works to weaken or create tension for state institutions that cannot be resolved by the coercive means available to the state.

Instead, and as PurpleSlog notes, 5GW is about using (and building upon) the social institutions of the enemy to achieve a desired outcome, without the enemy’s awareness that we’re using their institutions for the self-interested motives of the 5G actor. RyanLuke also mentions this, discussing how getting the enemy to self-impose a code of behavior is the most subtle. It becomes a subconscious aspect of individual behavior, but it becomes socially imposed upon society through specific institutions.

If this is how institutions matter in xGW, then there are several implications. First, something profound happens between 3GW and 4GW, and institutions-states go from fighting each other with armies on battlefields to actually undermining the institutions that produce those armies. Van Creveld captures this with the Rise and Decline of the State. However, 5GW might instead be thought of as a renaissance in terms of the use of institutions, one that regularizes them with other institutional arrangements.

Steve,

First, something profound happens between 3GW and 4GW, and institutions-states go from fighting each other with armies on battlefields to actually undermining the institutions that produce those armies.

The de-legitimization simply seems to operate by showing that the output of the state —- it’s raison d’être — is no longer mete. When states are proxies for citizens, whether collectively or for a handful of top-tier citizens, designated for resolving conflict, their usefulness seems obvious. The WWII documentary by Burns offers insight to this: e.g., the U.S. “output” could wage war overseas while so many millions of its citizens remained safe at home to carry on with their lives. The victorious states operate almost in the role of 4GW forces by showing that the opposing military-industrial-state apparatus is no longer legitimate, having failed as a viable proxy of the citizenry. Interestingly, when the 3GW forces bombed civilian targets during WWII, they were operating in a 4GW-ish fashion, aiming at demoralization; compare this to the modern-day American effort to eliminate collateral damage via high-tech targeting and guidance systems. The Marshal Plan and the reconstitution of Japan with U.S. oversight showed the world that the U.S. MISC was not only legitimate for fighting war as a proxy but also for building the peace as well.

The fact that a modern 4GW force can seemingly operate outside its own MISC and beyond the touch of its opponent’s MISC leaves many wondering if the nation-state complex may be becoming irrelevant. However, this reminds me of a comment I made beneath a previous post, that the definition of “stateness” may need revision. Some have argued that 4GW forces in our modern world indeed require a “complex” similar to the MISC, since industry is required for supplying the components of bombs and other weapons and states make possible the stability required for manufacturing the same: whether “black globalization” or direct state support is responsible for supplying the needs of the modern 4GW force. This is why the extreme version of John Robb’s theory has received some negative critical commentary; by eliminating states utterly, GG’s would be committing suicide. The rise of DIY operations may still require an MISC base, of some sort, but here’s the rub: an explosion of sources, allowing for more choices in suppliers and a more fluid, non-linear environment, due to globalization, means that no particular nation-state can gain legitimacy or be respected for its output. No linear cause-effect can be discerned, where one state’s output can be credited with the success of DIY and 4GW operations. Question: if Shi’a insurgents in Iraq were to win ultimately, would that translate into a greater legitimacy for the MISC of Iran and and Syria and the “ISC” of, say, Russia, China, India who are techno-economic partners with Iran?

We might look at the shift in institutional credit as some have, as a question of monopoly. Whereas most consider only the so-called state’s “monopoly on power” (which has never once existed), we might broaden the concept to “monopoly on legitimacy.” Increased competition, the fruits of capitalism and to a lesser degree democratic institutions (including the U.N as a type), leads to a dispersion of legitimacy. Furthermore, just as in the corporate world, legitimacy may come and go in a quick-cycling fashion. Just because one source of output may have great legitimacy today does not mean it will have as much legitimacy tomorrow. The quick-cycling, the competition, requires constant innovation if an institution is to remain legitimate; legitimacy is not a given.

Curtis,

I don’t believe the Syrian-Iranian ISC is more legitimate b/c of its success in Iraq, but certainly it is more efficient. There is no normative basis as to why that ISC would be the ‘choice’ of all those actors involved in it. I think of it more of a marriage of convenience rather than one of lasting importance. If circumstances change in terms of the costs of connecting to one ISC or another, then each actor will make that choice. And those changes would be more likely than the loss of legitimacy that has fallen upon states, which is a once-in-a-world-system phenomenon.

I would tentatively agree with that line of criticism of Robb. GG’s don’t want to eliminate states, just leave them weak enough to not disrupt their autonomy. GGs want the state in their front pocket and in their own control, and they achieve this either though partnerships with the state (al-Qaeda/Taliban), mutual acceptance and non-interference (Pakistan and the ‘agreement’ with the tribes of the frontier), or corruption (Mexico, Colombia). The existence of even a weakened state means it still can claim sovereignty, and this maintains a minimal barrier between GGs and outside forces that might want to disrupt them.

I also agree that because there are so many available resource channels that 4G or GG actors can tap into, states can no longer guarantee their legitimacy solely because they can organize violence and in turn protect their citizens. Yes, states never really had a monopoly on violence, but from 1GW to 3GW, only states could pay costs associated with developing the means to violence. In fact, ‘nations’ wanted states because they saw the institution as the only way to protect themselves and gain access to modernity. Now, because of technology and globalization, anyone can pay those costs and thus challenge state institutions and their underlying legitimacy directly, as opposed to indirectly on a foreign battlefield.

All this (although not new, by no means), also supports your point regarding that institutions and states can’t take their legitimacy for granted. It’s especially because mobilized peoples desperately want institutions of their own, that give them security and stable expectations of the world. But it also makes them vulnerable to predation. Political entrepreneurs generally capitalize on mass uncertainty and insecurity to gain support for their own institutional arrangements that are objectively self-serving, but because of perceived external threats and an institutional ‘monopoly’ on resource distribution, they are able to maintain popular support. Without access to those patronage-based or informal institutions, people are often left with nothing.

Anyway, this was a long-winded way of getting to the point: 5GW is institutional development that doesn’t take advantage of uncertainty or dependency for private gain. Instead, it develops institutions on the basis of mutual trust, and (I’m a bit hesitant to use this term) social capital. These institutions are conducive to individual risk-taking and innovation, and perhaps this helps to ensure their efficiency and effectiveness.