Recent discussion concerning the idea of "The Puppet Master" under an old D5GW thread has brought a question to my mind.
Adam Elkus used two statements, one in the post and another in a comment, that struck me as being very important for understanding 4GW:
Adam Elkus used two statements, one in the post and another in a comment, that struck me as being very important for understanding 4GW:
Driven by nationalism and religion, they wage a public war directed towards various audiences.
&
Most groups taking arms against the state do so publicly because they see themselves as waging public struggles for public interests.In many ways, these ideas remind me of a previous attempt I once made for understanding 4GW, in which I linked American political processes to 4GW.
The concept of "The Puppet Master" automatically brings questions about control and manipulation. Although I think we can agree that every "G" of xGW seeks to manipulate opponents via a manipulation of the environment, and that the manner of manipulation in 1GW, 2GW, and 3GW, are distinctive for each of those lower grades of warfare and fairly easy to establish, the question of distinguishing between 4GW manipulation and 5GW manipulation has not yet been fully resolved.
Adam's two considerations, above, have clarified at least one thing for me. In attacking the moral/morale qualifications of opponents and stirring moral/morale qualifications in would-be allies (puppets all), the 4GW force seeks to push others into a realignment. In the case of would-be allies, the 4GW force wishes for them to align themselves with the 4GW force, whether they offer material support or merely ideological and moral support. In the case of foes, the 4GW force seeks to break up old material and ideological/moral alignments; i.e., the foes of the 4GW force, having their morale sapped, would indeed become puppets but puppets whose strings are snapped, unable to do anything for lack of morale and moral justification. Both allies and foes of the 4GW force are pushed into an alignment w/ the 4GW force's goals. This is why something I've always seen in the 4GW paradigm, but have been unable to adequately express, came into focus when reading Adam's thoughts: though individual operators within the 4GW force may be hidden or secret, the 4GW activities and, generally, the 4GW plan is always in the open: "they wage a public war directed towards various audiences." The audience is forced into some relation, some alignment, with the 4GW force.
Such a consideration obviously brings up a very big question with respect to 5GW operations. If 5GW is to be largely secret, then any realignments will not be in direct response to the 5GW force. The world might be a stage with everyone on Earth in the audience, but the audience is not reacting to the 5GW force nor consciously aligning itself with or against that force. Therefore, any realignments -- and, "changing the world" is a process of realignment and the only purpose of war -- must have other foci.
I have previously mentioned my belief that 5GW may utilize existing 4GW and 3GW forces, at least initially. So we might guess that these forces -- "prawns" 1 -- may be temporary foci. The 4GW puppetry described above might enable the 5GW operators to cause some necessary realignments, that is (which, for the time being at least, will also fit the needs of that 4GW force being so used.) However, one can easily imagine the precarious situation of a 5GW operation forced to utilize multiple 4GW and 3GW forces in this manner. Add to these considerations the possible utility of using celebrities, various homegrown political parties, economic realities, even novels and movies, as various surrogate foci, and the process of realignment grows complex indeed.
So I have a new but not altogether clear "dream" of the 5GW difference, when I consider 5GW as opposed to 4GW manipulation. The 4GW paradigm indeed seems much like an attempt at Puppet Mastery, with the 4GW force as quite-visible string-holder being the center of gravity; this center is the primary cause of the realignment which occurs in 4GW-style warfare. 5GW seems to be more of a balancing act, in which a great many foci are utilized in an effort to create a stabilized but new realignment for a given system: a balancing act, or a system of hard-coded checks and balances. The checks and balances realign with each other as the 5GW effort unfolds.
1 "prawn" = "proxy + pawn"
Yes agreed with your post. And I just give ghost in the shell credit for a puppet master naming because they seemed to coin the term first to mainstream public. As to a group you would have a puppet master organization. But I would stress they try to stay stealth like, for the true parallel. I like the way you put your post together, good job. Also to the megalomania from another post, I think on the other page. I think a megalomaniac would be in the public and not in the shadows or ghost like. By definition they want to rule and control everything and everyone. A puppet master on the other hand would stay hidden, and craft specific events or movements leading to a goal or outcome.
--another good distinction between 4GW and 5GW. People get hung up on the fact that individual 4GW fighters may fight from the shadows, and think this means 4GW is hidden. In fact, in efforts to cause realignment, the 4GW efforts must occur quite in the open: They are visible button-pushing, or string-pulling.