More Thoughts on 4GW

Just to be clear, (clearing up some confusion in comments)--what I wrote about 4GW was in no way a "postmortem." 4GW is still alive right now--and will most likely continue to survive--because it fills a theoretical gap in the study of modern warfare as well as its practice.

Academics who hold their noses and sneer at 4GW have not proposed anything viable to replace it--and the blizzard of competing theories of irregular warfare are not ambitious enough to take its place.

Just as I do not think 4GW is dead (the post's title was "The Crisis of 4GW"), I am not advocating for its burial. I first learned of 4GW theory through Robert D. Kaplan's articles in the Atlantic Monthly and am a rather fanatic fan of Defense and the National Interest. Attending the 2007 Boyd Conference was one of the high points of my experience within the small (yet certainly not insular) group of people who blog and write about defense issues. I do, however, think that the the disparate theories collected under the 4GW umbrella could do with a re-think.

(1) Thinking more critically about the decline/evolution of the state. As I mentioned in my previous post, we are certainly in an era of great state change, but the decline of the state into feudal anarchy and "primary loyalties" is really only one of many possible outcomes. I also have problems with the idea of primary loyalties, as it assumes an unchanging, primordial identity. In Iraq, Sadr was juggling Shiite sectarianism, Iranian influence, and Iraqi nationalism all at the same time and trying to negotiate between them. Identities are not stable--they remain in a state of constant flux and reinvention, especially with the advent of globalization.

(2) Thinking more critically about networks and hierarchies. There is an assumption that networks are always better than hidebound top-down organizations. In many cases this is true, but hierarchies do have their own benefits and can be made elastic. Some degree of hierarchy is natural and also necessary in even the most protean of network organizations.

(3) Looking more carefully at the power of insurgents vs. that of the state. Irregular warfare theory is making insurgents out to be supermen--the most literal representation of this being "super-empowered individuals" and the state is said to have little chance against them. While I think that modern insurgents do have fearsome power they are not invincible, and one of the better parts of T.X. Hammes' book The Sling and the Stone was his discussion of how the Palestinian's strategic miscalculations prevented them from achieving a 4GW victory (so far, anyway). We also assume too often that states cannot utilize 4GW to their own ends--a notion that China and Russia's usage of cyber-militias seems to belie.

(4) A movement away from disputes over chronology. What makes 4GW is not the "G" but the strategic, operational, and tactical mechanisms that 4GW actors utilize and the geopolitical/sociological theories underlying their interaction with state, hybrid state, and non-state forms.

This is not an exhaustive list--I will have more thoughts as they come. Whatever its flaws as a historical argument, 4GW has immense practical and theoretical value as a taxonomy for the present. It is a big, messy, and ambitious idea--something that we need more of as both irregular and conventional threats continue to evolve. combined. Most importantly, with a bloated and hidebound Defense Department that is still (despite the efforts of Gates and co) theoretically under-equipped to wage 21st century conflict, 4GW's radical critique is more important than ever. 4GW grew out of the military reform movement and it must remain a movement of military reform.

Comments

[YT]

The army's formation is like water.

The water's formation avoids the high and rushes to the low.

So an army's formation avoids the strong and rushes to the weak.

Water's formation adapts to the ground when flowing.

So then an army's formation adapts to the enemy to achieve victory.

Therefore, an army does not have constant force, or have constant formation.

(www.sonshi.com)

Not so much a lack of tools but more like a BANKRUPTCY of original thinkin'. One track minds are impossible for this time & age. The entities that many states have to deal with are EVOLVIN' at a pace that is simply bewilderin'. Too bad that most of 'em blockheads are still obsessed with fightin' an Imperial Japan at sea or hordes of armored fist from the ten - foot tall ex - Bolsheviks.