Results tagged “Laying the Foundations”

I posted this as part of a comment at TDAXP, part of an excellent discussion with several D5GW contributors and Smitten Eagle about the shape of XGW and its differences from the Generations of Modern Warfare (GMW). I'm posting it here so that I can possibly expand upon it and more easily refer back to it in the future.

0GW is the heading for genocidal/survival warfare. Individuals fight for themselves and for the right of their line to survive.

1GW encompasses projection of force to and from key geographical postions. The Spartans and Persians at Thermopylae is a good example of this as are the campaigns of Hannibal and many other battles from antiquity to modern times.

2GW covers doctrines of attrition, where force is used to degrade the physical ability of the enemy to oppose you by direct force. Agincourt is a prime example of this but so are many battles in the American Civil War, WW1 and WW2.

3GW is for doctrines that dislocate the strength of an enemy with a strike at the essential weakness of an enemy (2GW is strength on strength, and 3GW is strength on weakness). The German bypassing of the Maginot Line is an example of avoiding strength to attack weakness and displacing the enemy. This kind of displacement may be positional, temporal, material and/or moral. The Mongols were masters of this, so was ‘Stonewall Jackson’ and Erwin Rommel.

4GW makes the jump into the moral that 3GW starts. 4GW doctrines strike at the enemy’s perceived ability to continue fighting. Scorched earth is an example of 4GW in that even before an invader feels the pinch of not being able to provide for themselves from conquered territory (even if alternative supply can be arranged) they begin to feel unable to continue the fight in the face of such destruction and resolution.

5GW is even more subtle, it’s activity goes below perception into the context of conflict. What a target observes is manipulated in order to cause the target to react in a specific and completely natural manner.

Each of these Generations is, in effect, a dislocation of the previous Generation (X-1). The doctrines that fit into each of these Generations may exist concurrently with each other. A 5GW campaign may contain battles fought with 4GW, 3GW and 2GW doctrines and contain engagements of Generations 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. This is a strength of XGW.

What is the nature of the secrecy or invisibility of Fifth Generation Warfare?

I have been thinking lately about the idea that 5GW will be secret, or invisible because it is hard to distinguish what is 5GW and what is not. I have also considered, at length, the concept that a 5GW campaign will function at a strategic level that by nature will also be hard to observe, while operationally and tactically it will appear to be acting at a lower rung on the XGW ladder (if at all). I have seen this type of security described before as security through obscurity. Fundamentally speaking, I am not completely happy with that approach. While it may be effective in most cases security through obscurity is essentially a passive defense. Such passive defense is most similar to camouflage or mimicry and while blending into your surroundings, or resembling something you are not, may be effective at some level once that veil is pierced the organization is no longer able to operate. This is why I feel an active defense is something that should be an essential component of 5GW theory.

How it should work:

Fundamentally speaking the 5GW organization should operate by proxy at every possible opportunity. Ideally, there should also be one or more levels of cutouts between the proxies and 5GW organizations. At every opportunity the 5GW organization should be isolated from its operations with its directives and orders moving through highly specialized and designated channels that, brutally and bluntly speaking, when eliminated will leave nothing but dead ends for anyone seeking to unravel a 5GW campaign.

Why it needs to work this way:

An organization using fifth generation warfare undertakes operations in order to provoke a specific reaction or result. It does this best by influencing the opposing aspects of a situation. In short, it works on the offensive and defensive (perhaps also on the neutral) sides of a conflict and plays all ends against the middle. Remember, the result is the goal of the 5GW organization. To best accomplish this the various sides must never realize that they are being manipulated much less that there is an organization working on both sides of a conflict. They must believe they are acting of their own will. They must believe their responses are in their own best interest and must not realize that interest and the reaction to that interest has been carefully conditioned. Secrecy is essential to reach the most optimum conclusion.

Previous forms of generational warfare are only very rarely deceptive on the strategic level. Even 4GW, as shadowy and elusive as its insurgent practitioners attempt to make it, is essentially very direct and very blatant. A 4GW attack on the will of an opponent must be direct in order to cause the target to respond in the manner desired by the 4GW organization. It is essentially blackmail; I will keep doing this until you give up and there isn’t anything you can do to stop me. The side that blinks first loses.

Here is where I think that 5GW will take off in a different direction from its XGW predecessors. 5GW is all about deception on every level, especially strategic. This is what lends it an inherent secrecy as it either actively conceals its actions or operates on a level of influence that the great majority of people aren’t consciously aware of.

I’ve thought for a long time about drawing an analogy between stage magic or illusion and Fifth Generation Warfare. Recently, discussion (Hat Tip: Soob, and PurpleSlog) has popped up about 5GW and theater and upon further reflection, theater offers an even better possibility as an example of the thought that goes into shaping the process and operationalization of a 5GW campaign. In stage magic, the audience knows that the illusionist is attempting to deceive them. They know that when the magician holds up his right hand the left is probably busy doing something else. People will sit for hours attempting to figure out the ‘trick’ that allows the magician to appear and disappear. After all, once you know how the illusion is performed it ceases to be magic and just becomes a ‘trick’, a deception. It is all part of the game played between the magician and the audience. In a sense, the deception, the secrecy, is tactical and operational and very rarely strategic. Theater, on the other hand, is a different story.

The Fourth Wall (from Wikipedia):

“The fourth wall is part of the suspention of disbelief between a fictional work and an audience. The audience will usually passively accept the presence of the fourth wall without giving it any direct thought, allowing them to enjoy the fiction as if they were observing real events.”

An audience watching a play, a movie or television is separated from the action by what is known as “the fourth wall” and that fourth wall provides the line where the reality ends and the fiction begins. The audience, looking through the fourth wall, are, in a sense, allowing themselves to be deceived on all levels including the strategic.

Want an example? Ever go to a horror movie and have to listen to a young woman three rows back scream every time the monster jumps out at its victims? She knows that nobody is actually getting killed. She knows the monster is the product of make-up, CGI and/or camera tricks. She knows everything before her is a carefully contrived fiction and yet she has suspended her disbelief of what is happening on the screen to the point that she reacts to the events there as if she were a part of the group being preyed upon by the monster. That is, from my point of view, a strategic deception.

With a 5GW campaign the strategic deception is slightly different but still similar enough to draw a strong comparison. The main difference is that fourth wall. In 5GW the fourth wall becomes very hard to discern or disappears altogether. As the 5GW organization operates it very consciously blurs that line between fiction and reality, presenting a situation or set of circumstances in a manner designed to elicit a specific response from its target (or audience). The audience, not knowing where reality ends and fiction begins, responds as if the events before them were reality. They are, in effect, unconsciously deceiving themselves rather than consciously allowing themselves to be deceived. Their rationalization of events in order for those events to fit inside of their preexisting paradigms allows the 5GW organization to influence and manipulate their actions. It even allows the 5GW to, over time, alter those very paradigms in a more direct way. After all, as the cliche goes, actions speak louder than words.

One thing that I have always tried to keep in the forefront of my thoughts as I ponder the theory and doctrine of Fifth Generation of Warfare is to keep, for the most part, technology out of the picture. As I see the Generational Warfare Model, technology has virtually nothing to do with the Generational level of a force. The doctrine of a Generation has nothing to do with its tools of war. Doctrine drives technology. Technology does not drive doctrine.

So what does this mean for 5GW?

As discussed in Part 1 of this series, sequential design, also known as the Waterfall model, provides a framework for a 5GW campaign where the goal is focused, its requirements are known and fixed, and the timeframe for the 5GW operations is of a known length. If the 5GW effector is confronted with a goal that is broad in scope, with requirements that aren’t fully known or understood and may, in fact, be subject to change, then the Waterfall model is unlikely to be as effective. Iterative design, however, offers a great deal more utility.

As far as software design is concerned iterative design works much better than sequential design. As a result a number of design models have been created. Some of the best known of the iterative models are Rational Unified Process (RUP), Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Rapid Application Development (RAD), Agile and Spiral. Each model offers a slightly different process that addresses problems found in software design. Some of these refinements may also have application for 5GW iterative design but for the purposes of this discussion of 5GW I will use a basic iterative process as illustration.

Updated: With Graphic by Curtis Weeks

Re-Updated: to give credit where credit is due -hat tip to TDAXP-

While searching the internet for others who are working on 5GW or its equivalent, I ran across an article on Phil Jones’s ThoughtStorms wiki where he was plucking interesting bits and phrases from Dan TDAXP's Dreaming 5th Generation War.

“5th Generation Wars will be created with Waterfall Development? We can see what 5GWs will be like by looking at what Waterfall Development is like:

· Requirements must be known a long time before fighting begins
· Requirements will be rigid and non-adaptable
· Long Time between proposal and victory “

While at the time I didn’t know what Waterfall Development meant in this context the Wikipedia soon enlightened me.

“The waterfall model is a sequentialsoftware development model (a process for the creation of software) in which development is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing (validation), integration, and maintenance.”

Wikipedia, Waterfall Development

What does this mean for 5GW theory? Well, along with its sister Interative Design (an article for another day), this provides a framework by which 5GW may be organized and executed.