Winning Without Fighting
Luke. "5GW - To Win Without Fighting Is Best." The Balance of Terror. September 27, 2010. http://thebalanceofterror.squarespace.com/journal/2010/9/27/5gw-to-win-without-fighting-is-best.html (accessed October 2, 2010).
Luke of the blog The Balance of Terror summarizes the concept of 5GW found within The Handbook of 5GW :The entire premise of the ‘Handbook strikes me as sound: namely, that there is such a thing as a fifth gradient of warfare (call it something else, if it pleases you) which targets the observe portion of a target’s Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) loop. By successfully neutralizing a target’s ability to accurately observe, the 5GW actor, by default, neutralizes the entirety of the remaining loop downstream from the observe portion, rendering it useless.
This ability to “[neutralize] the entirety of the remaining loop downstream” suggests three interlocking requirements of 5GW:
- “Useful idiots” [the target of “a 5GW way of warfare”] would be manipulated to act against an ulterior target.
- The use of these pawns would be secretive, undetectable by the “useful idiots” who have had their observation manipulated by those who are utilizing 5GW.
- The practice of 5GW would require patience, since operations targeting observation would be “lengthy shaping operations” preceding the ultimate actions of the pawns and the ultimate victory envisioned by those utilizing 5GW. 5GW would require “Generations, perhaps!”
Luke concludes his blog post by offering a thought experiment. If a target is simply too strong to risk attacking directly — he implies the U.S. — then an opponent might utilize a third party such as Islamist extremists to destroy or at least weaken that target; or, housing bubbles could be created with the ultimate goal of weakening a financial system. The book Unrestricted Warfare is cited, and both China and Russia play a role in the thought experiment.
On 5GW:
“It’s quite a clever - and devilishly simple - concept if you think about it. Not only is the target unable to perceive that he is really the target (until far too late) of adverse action initiated by a 5GW actor, he is also isolated in place: the target suffers the observational equivalent of being bound and gagged, and thus unable to prevent the machinations unfolding around him because he simply does not perceive them for what they are. From the target’s observational perspective, such machinations (if perceived at all) might look like a disjointed series of calamitous events unrelated one to another - and, as far as the target can tell, unattributable to any (or the same) source. Such calamitous events are merely the 5GW actor’s shaping operations prior to the finishing action. But the observation portion of the OODA loop is merely the point of effect of a 5GW way of warfare.”
Filed in Timeline Candidates and tagged OODA, The Handbook of 5GW, Unrestricted Warfare
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