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For several hours yesterday the news networks were captivated by a hostage situation at one of Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign offices. A news reporter on the Fox News Network speculated on a sympathetic surge of good-will toward the ‘victim’ of the situation, (sadly no, not the people trapped inside the building with the man claiming to be wearing a bomb) Hillary Clinton. He noted this might have an affect on her popularity as it is only a few short weeks before the start of primary elections. As the hostage taker demanded to speak to the Senator and campaign offices for other candidates across the state were evacuated, this notion that the event may positionally change the race sent the 5GW / Conspiracy Theory wheels turning.
The 5GW conspiracy theory begins with the consideration of an organization that would engineer a hostage taking, or multiple hostage takings, prior to an election in order to ride the sympathetic ‘surge.’ The 5GW aspect is in the process of causing an affect in order to effect a systemic change in the relative positions of the candidates. The target of the operation is not the candidates or the organizations of the candidates, but rather the voting public.
Some thoughts to keep in mind:
While the candidate him or herself may not necessarily have anything to do with the operation, the better prepared the candidate is to handle the MSM attention and steer the fallout effects the more the candidate will benefit.
The operation may be designed to be as spectacular as possible in order to ensure the greatest possible amount of attention from the MSM. This may involve multiple hostage takers, multiple and possibly simultaneous hostage situations, even acts that will be immediately and repeatedly replayed by the media in order to maximize the visual aspects.
An organization that attempts such an operation is necessarily looking at each of the direct participants; hostage takers, hostages, MSM, emergency / law enforcement personnel and bystanders, as pawns on a chessboard. Even if great care is taken to minimize the risk of injury to any of these parties, there is still the very real possibility that people will be injured or killed in the process.
The hostage takers and any organizations that recruit or support them will need to be very well insulated from the 5GW organization in order to maintain secrecy and deniability. Attacks on candidates and their organizations are not taken lightly. Investigation will be exhaustive and agencies with powerful resources will be involved.
I will admit envisioning the most lurid details of this operation including the movie script situation of the candidate himself or herself personally contacting the hostage takers and brokering the release of the hostages to great media acclaim. I even speculated on how the hostage takers might extract themselves from the situation in order to maintain their anonymity and escape law enforcement or their theatrical demise before the combined attention of the media leaving nothing but questions and incomplete answers. The essential fact remains that any organization that believes the ends justify the means could find utility in this theoretical situation.
Posted by Arherring on Dec 1, 2007 07:32 AM
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14 Comments
How is this not an example of 4GW?
It seems that an organization that needs sympathy is an organize that needs to be noticed.
I see what you mean Dan.
The way I was looking at it was that if the doctrine used was 4GW, the intent would have been to make the candidate drop out of the race, hurt the effectiveness of the candidate’s organization or somehow display the ineptitude of the candidate. That would make it an attack on ‘will’. With 5GW the intent is to manipulate the public opinion, so the public is the target, not the candidate. In light of that, the 5GW style operation would seek to avoid permanent damage to the reputation and organization of the candidate where the 4GW style operation would seek to destroy the cnadidate’s reputation and organization.
Granted, the two operations may seem to have only superficial differences in execution, but the intent is the key to making the distinction.
Aherring,
Thank you for your kind words.
Just because a difference looks superficial doesn’t mean it isn’t ;-)
In both case, the warrior faces an enemy force that possess a will. In both case, victory is achieved by breaking that will. Whether the will in question is of the candidate in particular or his supporters, you’re fighting a mimetic battle to deprive him of will.
You are attempting to disorient him, regardless of if you mean “his person” or “his supporters” by “him.”
Contrast with with 3GW, which would attempt to envelope “him” in a fog of war, or 5GW, which would seek to avoid recognition by “him” entirely.
D’oh! I tried to be too clever by half!
Just because a difference looks superficial doesn’t mean that it is
Essentially, my point was that your post is 4GW, because it’s directed
against will. Whether the “will” is the the person of the enemy or
the supporters of the enemy, it is still an attack on the will of the
organization of the enemy. (In the same way, a cannon-barrage is
2GW, whether it’s directed at the King, the Royal Body Guard, the
Royal Guard, or the Royal Army).
I agree with Dan. However, this scenario could be fertile ground for thoughts about 5GW on the tactical level.
“Essentially, my point was that your post is 4GW, because it’s directed against will.”
See, I’m not so sure that it is a 4GW attack on will or at least isn’t a 4GW effort to break or degrade will. The target is not the candidate or the supporters of the candidate. If that were the case I would agree with you that this would be 4GW. In the attack that I am envisioning, the candidate, if not initmately involved with the operation and vitually immune to disorientation and disruption, will specifically not be disoriented or disrupted as little as possible by the attack. After all, the objective is to increase support for the candidate. The candidate won’t gain support if the candidate looks like an idiot. The reporter spoke of a surge of sympathy but if the operation were engineered to do so, the potential exists for the candidate to use the situation as a platform for their campaign.
With this in mind I see the true target as the voting public, specifically the voters who haven’t made up their mind about which candidate they favor. In this sense the 5GW operation isn’t attempting to attack will so much as redirect the will of voters or increase their willingness to vote for the candidate.
Aherring,
I agree.
That’s why you’re talking about 4GW.
4GW focuses on orientation: orientation can be individual-level or group-level. Therefore, your post talks about a 4GW focused on a group rather than a 4GW focused on an individual. It’s still a 4GW.
Dan,
How you would engineer this operation to be 5GW then?
Perhaps the source of the disconnect between our thinking is that we don’t have enough operational detail on the table. Would a more involved plan of action be helpful? I could develop that and put it into a follow-up article, or you could do the honors. Maybe even do a side by side comparison of this operation as 4GW and as 5GW.
Dan,
From two different comments you left:
Actually, 5GW, because it focuses on observation also focuses on orientation and the will: these follow observation, and an attempt to alter the observations is really an attempt to shape the will. Unquestionably, will will be the target of 5GW operation, among other things.
I think Arherring’s making some good points in his defense and you are arguing from a very minor ledge with the belief that you are standing on a strong foundation. Your arguments in this thread seem ideological — i.e., over-rationalist, beginning with a very simplified “definition” of 4GW that is all about the will, the will, the will.
I can quite easily see how a scenario such as Arherring’s proposed scenario could be a part of a 5GW campaign. Remember, one of the qualitative differences of 5GW will be the fact that 4GW, 3GW, 2GW proxies/pawns will be used by the 5GW organization; so no wonder that a whiff of 4GW without much substance might seem like an overwhelming odor to those accustomed to sniffing out one particular trail.
Curtis,
Dan and I have traded a couple of e-mails and I better see now where he is coming from on this. I don’t completely agree with him but I don’t think he is wrong either.
This is starting to remind me of the Hammes article ‘Fourth Generation Warfare Evolves, Fifth Emerges’ where Hammes examines Hezbollah’s 2006 summer war with Isreal. He saw it as a 4GW operation targeting Isreal and the west.
I saw it this way:
“that the target of Hezbollah was not Israel or the West, but rather the people of southern and central Lebanon who, after being caught in the cross-fire of a conflict initiated and brought down on them by Hezbollah, now look to Hezbollah as patron and protector because of their valiant defense of the land against the predations of the Israeli invaders and Hezbollah’s immediate ability to provide the Lebanese people aid in rebuilding while the government(s) dithered. It wasn’t a 4GW attack on the will of Israel, it was a 5GW attack re-directing the will and shaping the worldview of the Lebanese people.” [1]
I also think you have highlighted another potentially important point to be considered; is there a tactical level to 5GW?
[1] http://www.dreaming5gw.com/2007/05/colonel_hammes_enters_the_fift.php
Arherring,
Perhaps I was a little harsh in my last comment. I often wonder why so much discussion about 5GW remains in and relies on approaching the subject in the abstract, and why so very little attempt is made to address how 5GW might actually play out. Your post is one attempt to address the actual “nuts and bolts” of potential 5GW, which I appreciate.
“is there a tactical level to 5GW?”
No and Yes.
No. 5GW seems purely cognitive or in terms of the OODA loop concentrates on Observation. It doesn’t disrupt the rules of the game (Orientation) rather defines them. See Arherrings Hezbollah example in which Israel suffered a redefinition of “victory.” Not kinetic but cognitive.
Yes. 5GW, as Curtis states, will harness every prior generation (though I’d weigh heavily on 4GW as the most complimentary and effective) even though it transcends them. In this respect (again using Arherrings Hezbollah example) the tactical level of 5GW are the kinetic actions that precede it. In this case raising the ire of Israel through kidnapping it’s three soldiers and then utilizing hit and run tactics to lure Israel into an overkill that eventually led to 5GW victory for Hezbollah and something a bit less than a Pyrrhic victory for Israel. Firepower won out only because of the enforcement of a UNIFIL presence in southern Lebanon. In reality Hezbollah seized the initiative and rolled general popularity into a very real and influential political platform.
Excellent summary by Soob.
Agreed with Curtis on the need for more nuts-and-bolts scenarios.
Is “developing the infrastructure to develop the infrastructure an example of 5G politics?
Soob, nice comment.
Curtis, I’ll try to keep the scenarios rolling in. This has been an interesting and fruitful discussion.
Dan, that is very interesting. It might indeed be an example of 5Gpolitics. It reminds me of the sysadmin / DoEE 5GW I explored in my very first post here of D5GW but possibly even more broad in scope and longer ranged in vision. I would be very interested in a nuts-and-bolts scenario for that 5GW campaign.