“The most important country to the United States is…” and a bit more (strategy and energy)

I started writing this as a comment on a post at Coming Anarchy, but it is a bit too long for that.

 

So in answer to their question…not really an answer but a steam of thoughts…

 

The USA long peaceful border with Canada makes it an important relationship. They are a no problem neighbor.

The USA should want the Mexico relationship to evolve into the same type  of thing. The relationship matters economically and because a failed Mexico impacts the security of the US. Even longer term, the US goal should be to integrate (peacefully and voluntarily) Mexico fully into the USA in the next 100 years.

The UK had been the most important USA overseas ally. The decline of the UK (and NATO), the rise of the EU, and the actions of the current US President have reduced that relationship. Our challenge with the EU is to both prop up Europe slowing/preventing it from turning in Eurabia, and to at the same time benefit from an exodus of smart/innovative/entrepreneurial/motivated Europeans (with their brains and capital) from pre-Eurabia Europe to the US.

India needs to be targeted as a future most important relationship – Economics/Security/Democracy – it all comes together for the USA with India. The US should also support India getting a permanent UN Security Council seat (good for Obama on this).

The USA relationship with China is important because of the economic interrelationship (for better or worse), China’s rise toward superpower status, and because the PRC leadership is clearly positioning China as the alternative/opponent/adversary of the US. China is essentially waging a 5GW against the US now. The US needs to step up to it or face it that US decline is coming sooner rather than later/never.

Russia matters because it has nukes, oil, and KGB/Active-Measure skills a plenty. Russia is not the USSR. Russia is in decline. The challenge here is to manage the relationship so that while declining, Russia doesn’t hatch any Black Swans. The US also wants to avoid the creation of Russia/Turkey/Iran Axis of Mischief.

Iran matters to the US because they have oil, can effect access to lots of oil, will have nukes soon, has revolutionary Islamic expansionary activities, and has leadership that seems hell-bent on future war with the US. The US goal here must be regime change – hopefully without massive Iranian population/infrastructure destruction. One way or another, this is going to get ugly since most of the non-ugly options have been disregarded/ignored by the US ostrich strategy.

Japan matters to US right now because it is distinct (not Europe, not China, not Muslim) and for its partner potential. The US should support Japan’s JDF expanding and getting expeditionary (lots of US officers and SNCO’s should be detailed to the JDF). We should support this capital rich nation getting involved with financing/engineering stuff in Eastern Russia and Africa. The US should encourage Japan and India to become better friends. and to inter-operate.

Saudi Arabia only matters because of oil, and because (along with Egypt and Pakistan) it is at the heart of the 4GW Islamofascist War by Al-Qada et all against the US/West and of the Muslim Brotherhood/Salafist et all 5GW against the US and the West.

As for the nations that matter in a big way because of Oil (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Venezuela), the US should have as a major strategic goal that of breaking the world’s dependence upon oil for energy. The way to do that is:

1) Adopt something like Zubrin’s Flex-Fuel requirement for all new vehicles sold in the US (which means it would be adopted everywhere);

2) Easing/promoting/financing next-generation nuke and min-nuke power in the US and abroad (the US should want to be a world leader in this);

3) Adopting/promoting/financing Municipal Plasma Furnaces to generate electricity efficiently from trash in the US and abroad (the US should want to be a world leader in this);

4) Updating the US power grid into a network of smart grids and financing/deploying/promoting this around the world (the US should want to be a world leader in this);

5) The US should be making a major push for Orbital Solar Power systems and the related technology and processes. The US must be the world leader in this;

Note I am not calling for so-called hippy-friendly green energy (e.g earth-based solar, wind, etc, hemp/organic burning). Hippies can have an upside, just not on energy. There just isn’t potential enough of that at a reasonable costs to be the answer. Also, conservation isn’t the answer. I want more energy usage not less. I also want a future where Africans and Chinese, and Indians and everybody can have AC, bright lights in every corner of their homes and all of that. The happy future I want has more energy in total and more energy per capita, not less.

 

I want the Science Fiction Future of my youth.

 

Bill Whittle Gets “It” – “This is a once-in-history idea” – Now what?

I came to this by Bill Whittle via a post by Zombie:

In fact, in all of human history, there has been only one genuinely progressive, genuinely liberating idea: a lightning bolt across the pages of history – the why in 1776, the how in 1787 – the idea of limited government, god-given rights, personal liberty and rule by the vast collective wisdom and industry of the common man, and not by the bored, pampered and self-hating elites that have run everything before and since. This is a once-in-history idea. This is why we have to conserve it. We have to conserve this fundamentally liberal idea.

Brilliant! I don’t think it would be possible to sum things up with less words without loosing clarity.

So if that is “It”, what is the opposite?

When a society – after generations of hard work, sacrifice and hardship – reaches a certain level of prosperity, “Progressives” like Bill Maher, Janeane Garofolo, Rosie O’Donnell and Gaius Gracchus – that last Progressive died in 121 BC – assume that the prosperity is endless, and push for more and more people to get more and more goods and services for less and less work. Why? Because – as today, in America, as with the British Empire, the French Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Ottomans, the Mongols, Rome, Greece, Eqypt, Babylon… They do it for political power. They live for political power. This “Progressivism” is ancient, recurring, tyrannical and ruinous.

And we voted for it. Just like the Romans did.

It is not just the opposite of “It”. The opposite is the norm course of events.

Whittle explains how the USA got to where it is in terms that made me think of 5GW:

And so they asked themselves: if the vanguard of the revolution wasn’t going to be the worker, then who would it be? And the answer they came up with was: the dispossessed.

The Neo-Marxist revolution would not attack the capitalist economy – that was too successful. The target of the new Marxist revolution would be the Culture.

Marxist philosophers like Antonia Gramsci, and later, Saul Alinski – personal hero to such present-day fellow travelers as Chris Matthews, Hillary Clinton and, of course, The President of the United States – started to create narratives – stories – about America. This rapidly evolved into a philosophy called “Critical Theory” and the idea of Critical Theory was to attack the dominant culture – that would be us – from all sides, simultaneously.

[…]

The objectives of the Frankfurt School, of Gramsci and Alinski in their assault on the culture, were laid out in detail and were very clear: Eliminate not only the voice, but the very idea of reason. Destroy history. Delegitimize shared morality. Medicate instead of discipline children. Promote the idea that problems are so complex that only elitists, experts and academics can discuss, let alone solve them. A later pair of American Marxist philosophers developed what became known as the Cloward-Piven strategy: overwhelm America’s social systems – welfare, health care, immigration, etc. by telling people they were owed things, and by intentionally overwhelming them, cause them to collapse – leaving nothing but smoking wreckage, and no where to turn but to the government.

This is certainly “Secret War” or “War of Hidden Movements”. Most of us don’t even know it is going on. Whittle calls even says:

we are in an information war, a battle of narratives…We are, together, soldiers in this narrative war for America and for civilization

The first part sounds like Memetic Engineering. The second part sound like Strategic Citizen 5GW.

So…how do “we” win? Using a Titanic analogy he gets to:

We need to ram the iceberg. We need to hit it head-on. We need to put in all the power we have – all of the power – and go right at the heart of that monster. Because everyone talks about what the iceberg did to Titanic, but no one talks about what Titanic did to the iceberg.

That sounds like degrading the 5GW into a 4GW. Maybe.

Any Specifics?

We, for the first time in human history, have an example of what a free society looks like. We, for the first time in history, are children of the only real progressives in all of human history. And we, for the first time in history, have the technology that allows common people to talk to each other, to encourage and inform each other, and to make an end run around the suicidal elites and their suicidal, dying media organs.

Is that it? I think (and it sounds right to me) he is suggesting every meme/false-story/false-narrative on the  must be challenged whether it it is in public or in our institutions with four intermediate ends in mind:

• Slow/prevent/rollback the memes opposed to “It”
• Convince the undecided to join on the side of “It”
• Discourage those opposed to “It”
• Encourage those on the side of “It”

What is the end goal for “It”? How about this blast from the past:

[…]that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

So now what?

(old found draft post)Historical 5GW Example: The Anti-Nixon 5GW-ish Coup

Dec 31, 2008 @ 15:53

I should still write this up more fully, if I have time to get into it. The revelation was pretty shocking and way under-reported.

—

http://amicablecollisions.blogspot.com/2008/12/all-fbis-men.html

http://committeeofpublicsafety.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/deep-throats-coup-detat/

http://committeeofpublicsafety.wordpress.com/2008/12/25/the-deep-throat-dilemma/

https://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-using-the-stenographer-as-their-agent-actively-spied-on-the-civilian-command-during-the-vietnam-war/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Mark_Felt

(old found draft post) Ralph Peters: “the complexity of counterterror operations comes down to three essential requirements”

Dec 4, 2008 @ 10:17

I am not sure why I didn’t post it. I guess I didn’t feel like going to how to do a counter-terror/counter-4GW 5GW. I should come back to this idea.

—

In the NY Post:

All the complexity of counterterror operations comes down to three essential requirements: Superb intelligence, ruthless determination and tremendous patience.

Intelligence helps you find the enemies you need to kill; determination means you kill them – and patience means accepting that even a successful fight will take decades, if not generations.

Sounds right to me.

So, do we have “Superb intelligence”. I have no idea. It is at least “good” I would venture (and expect given the budget size).

Do we have “ruthless determination”? I don’t think – at least much of the political class doesn’t (or most the US  population).

Lastly, Does the US have “tremendous patience”. I would say no, for sure no way. The US did not have the patience in the Cold War. It took a 5GW to set much of the US cold war response on automatic.

I guess we need a Long War 5GW.

Capturing My Thoughts: More on the 5GW Puppetmaster

I originally made this comment on a Dreaming 5GW post by Adam Elkus:

However, I see it as very rare—the entry costs to such an effort could only be met by someone extremely wealthy, with an almost supernatural level of intelligence. I suppose it would work best for a state security agency.

I don’t really see a valid a Blofeld/SPECTRE [1] or Professor Moriarty [2] type Puppetmaster [3]. Also note that I don’t think a Puppetmaster is the only possible type of 5GW actor [4].

Any 5GW effort requiring superhuman wealth or intelligence is unlikely to ever be attempted, let alone succeed. Looking for this type of puppet master leads to madness and conspiracy theory mongering [6].

I didn’t quite see the 5GW Puppetmaster that way. Relying upon smaller action and N-order effects along without have a personal profit motive/goal brings down the cost and need for super-human intelligence.

The stealth aspect of it would not suit most guerrillas and terrorists. Driven by nationalism and religion, they wage a public war directed towards various audiences.

A very public action by a 5gw group will expose it. if the group itself isn’t destroyed, its utility is dramatically reduced. Exposure stops 5GW.

As far as Ghost in the Shell, I guess I need to get some DVDs…

Here [7] is Adam’s post at his own excellent blog.
—
[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Stavro_Blofeld
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECTRE

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Moriarty

[3] https://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/possible-5gw-archetype-the-puppet-master-5gw/

[4]
https://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/5gw-operation-notes-who-what-where-when-why-how/

[6]
https://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2006/05/30/5gw-will-hide-in-the-sea-of-conspiracy-theories-to-avoid-discovery/

[7]
http://simulatedlaughter.blogspot.com/2007/05/puppetmaster.html

Capturing Thoughts: 5GW Analysis Paralysis

I don’t want to have to google for these notes again…

From http://shloky.com/?p=762#comment-33197 :

Shloky is correct to point out that there is a danger in seeing patterns or conspiracies where there are none and drawing conclusions that some secret puppet master is pulling strings. That way can lead to madness or Analysis Paralysis.

ARHERRING on  CGW’s old blog:

‘5GW analysis paralysis’

In other words, what is the effect of the knowledge that you have an opponent merely capable of 5GW campaigns? Given the inherent secrecy of 5GW your opponent has only two real options, (regardless of if you choose the engage in a 5GW campaign or not) he can proceed as if no campaign is ongoing and accept your influence while trying to maintain his objectives, or he can search so obsessively for the 5GW manuevering against him that he ceases to able to function as a legitimate threat.

From Old CGW blog:

Folks, it does not get clearer than that.  Arherring was spot-on when he suggested that al-Qaida in Iraq (and perhaps elsewhere?) is morphing into a 5GW entity.  I have been considering whether the aftermath of our invasion of Afghanistan would force al-Qaida to morph, especially when 4GW tactics fail to defeat America and her allies; and, of course, hostilities in the region, latent or otherwise, provide a fertile playing ground for any 5GW entity that would seek pawns that could do its bidding — without those pawns’ knowing that is what they are doing.

Or, maybe Arherring was not entirely right.  Either al-Qaida got sloppy and their 5GW plans were discovered because of their sloppiness — surely, a major no-no for any 5GW force — or perhaps the letter has never been seen by any member of al-Qaida?

Would the national Iraqi government have any reason to attempt to dissuade America from attacking Iran?  Or, perhaps some Shia elements within the Iraqi government do not want to lose the leverage they will have with Iran’s support, in the future,  if Iran fell to America?

Arherring did point me to that Newsvine discussion, which includes another conspiracy theory: The American forces planted the evidence, for political reasons back home — to show that America is “winning” against the insurgency.

Another commenter at Newsvine ponders the possibility that the letter is authentically from al-Qaida, and that this was their plan all along when they attacked America on 9/11 — reminiscent of my discussion with Alan Sullivan (excerpted above.)

Perhaps, however, some Americans planted the information to dissuade GWB from pursuing a military solution to the crisis with Iran — leftists from America?

Or, from Europe?

Or, perhaps Iran planted the information, for the same reasons?

Or did the Iraqi government want to find a way of assuring the electorate that the insurgency is failing, the government succeeding (with the help of America) against the disruptive forces?

Did China plant the note, or Russia, in an attempt to keep their oil supplies flowing from Iran?

Ah, PurpleSlog, maybe you got that right.

UPDATE 6-19-06: As this post from Abu Aardvark shows, conspiracy theories have a “way” of emerging in the broad spectrum, in multiple places — and anyone offering analysis is sure to get caught in the web of charge-&-counter-charge when analysis of incomplete or insufficient and unverifiable “evidence” is being offered. [Worse, perhaps:  when analysts confuse another’s analysis with evidence, as if analysis can ever be evidence.] Any one or a multiplicity of points in such analysis could well be correct, but the sea of conspiracy theory and fisking of conspiracy theory would dissuade most people from taking any of those points very seriously. PurpleSlog has recently related this phenomenon to Analysis Paralysis.

Lastly from Wikipedia:

Casual analysis paralysis can occur during the process of trying to make personal decisions if the decision-maker overanalyzes the circumstance with which he or she is faced. When this happens, the sheer volume of analysis overwhelms the decision-maker, weighing him or her down so much he or she feels overwhelmed with the task and is thus unable to come to a rational conclusion. Such a circumstance is more formally known as cognitive distortion.
[…]
Although analysis paralysis can actually occur at any time, regarding any issue in typical conversation, it is particularly likely to occur during elevated, intellectual discussions. During such intellectual discussion, analysis paralysis involves the over-analysis of a specific issue to the point where that issue can no longer be recognized, and the subject of the conversation is lost. Usually, this happens because complex issues (which are often the basis of elevated, intellectual conversation) are intricately connected with various other issues, and the pursuit of these various issues makes logical sense to the participants.
[…]
In board games, analysis paralysis denotes a state where a player is so overwhelmed by the decision tree that he or she faces that the player’s turn takes an inordinate amount of time.

Update 8/3/2009: CGW has a related/linked post.

5GW Operation Notes: Who What Where When Why How

Here some notes to help me clarify my own thinking. The notes may be useful to others as well.

As always, I appreciate any comments, questions, corrections, additions…feedback of any sort.

5GW DEFINITION

5GW is the secret deliberative manipulation of actors, networks, institutions, states or any 0GW/1GW/2GW/3GW/4GW forces to achieve a goal or set of goals across a combination of socio, economic, and political domains while attempting to avoid or minimize the retaliatory offensive or defensive actions/reactions of 0GW/1GW/2GW/3GW/4GW powered actors, networks, institutions, and/or states.

I also like these succint definitions:

5GW as “War of hidden movements” [TDAXP]

5GW as “a school of strategic thought focused on the indirect and surreptitious application of influence” [Joseph Fouche]

5GW is merely the preemption of war and politics by whatever means [CGW]

Fifth gradient doctrines are based upon the principle of manipulation of the context of the observations of an opponent in order to achieve a specific effect. [Arherring]

WHO

• Puppetmaster 5GWers
• Socio-Political Entrepreneur 5GWers
• Strategic Citizens 5GWers
• 5GW Insurgents
• State-within 5GWers
• State-without 5GWers
• 5GW inclined Super-Empowered Individuals
• Prior 4GWers re-inventing themselves in order to continue on their mission

WHAT

• Nudge Behavior
• Constrain Activity
• Define Rules
• Co-Opt Networks
• Spread Memes
• Move the Overton Window(s)
• Selectively Kill
• Lawfare (examples)
• Open-Source Espionage

WHERE

• Across any combination of the socio, economic, and political domains of human interaction
• Dimensions of War: physical, moral, mental, and institutional
• CyberSpace? (for a future post)

WHEN

• Small step by small step over a long period of time

WHY

• To achieve or increase the probability of achieving a goal against (or for) an otherwise unwilling target [Example Link]
• To wage war with inferior power or resources compared to the target
• To avoid counter-activity by the target (aka increased 5GWer survivability)
• “…an outcome which is lasting, i.e. a strong and resilient system, and this would also require that those living within any newly created or newly modified system consciously or unconsciously continue to maintain that system — rather than consciously or unconsciously form groups to bring it down.” [Source: CGW]
• Love?

HOW

• Quietly/Stealthily
• Rely upon N-Order effects
• Use Leverage Factors
• Secretly/Anonymously
• Slowly/Patiently
• Incrementally
• Strategic Attrition
• Covert Influence

4GW and 5GW move beyond traditional weapons. It is about the importance of the non-kinetic (aka dispersed kinetics)

5GW is dispersed kinetics to a greater degree and manipulation of things (e.g. SBNs, KBNs, SEIs, PDNs, MBNs) to achieve result desired by the 5GW actors. The weaponization of things not thought to be weapons leaves the opponent who is fixed on attacking/defending what are obvious weapons distracted/confused/unprepared and even unaware about the action taking place against them. [Source]

ALTERNATE NAMES

• SecretWar
• HiddenWar
• StealthWar
• OtherWar

5GW ACTOR OPTIONS AFTER THE 5GW IS OVER [LINK]

• It comes out of the cold slowly (The future Team Soros Model?)
• It morphs into a larger open (possible 4GW) movement or movements (The Muslim Brotherhood Model)
• It Quietly ends with Mission Accomplished (Heh…is this the Red EU Model?)
• It is exposed and is broken up or destroyed (the Cambridge Five Model and aspects of the Comintern)

5GW-ISH BOOKS

• TBD

EXAMPLE/POSSIBLE ACTUAL 5GW

• TBD

FICTIONAL 5GW

• TBD

—

Note: The unofficial 5GW Theory Song

Update: Corrected some typos. Added an idea from here by CGW.

Additional minor updates on and after 8/1/2010

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<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/

The Kindle version of the Dr. TDAXP edited Handbook of 5GW has been released!

The Dreaming 5GW website might be defunct, but the 5GW Theory Timeline (extracted from the group the blog) is available here. Dreaming 5GW is alive again.

RIP It Lives?

I like this 5GW Definition Tweet

5GW is like boiling a frog slowly in a crowd. The frog doesn’t notice until it is too late & nobody in the crowd sees the subtle chef. [Source – Purpleslog on Twitter]

5GW Thinking Snippet from Nikita Khrushchev

From the The Wednesday Report:

Nikita Khrushchev once said, “We cannot expect the American people to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism until they awaken one day to find they have Communism”.

That sounds familiar.

“We Are 5GW”

This comment from Shloky (and Lexington Green’s reply) had me laughing in a good way.

Funny turn of phrase aside, there is a nugget of wisdom regarding what may have been the true value of the GMW.

Recent Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) Stuff on the Internet

TDAXP is taking the lead with a souvenir edition of the Dreaming 5GW PoV on 5GW theory by calling for chapter ideas and submissions for a 5GW Book. This is a great idea (and overdue). I hope CGW can be coaxed into participating. MY suggestions are here.

Glenn Anderson has a posting on Making Meme Stick which is apropos to Memetic Engineering. He lays out a simple framework to follow.

FeralJundi.com has a posting “Building Snowmobiles: Fifth Generation Warfare Blogs“. Welcome to the fun house FJ.

The Committee of Public Safety had a post entitled “The Tactical Loop“, which while not about 5GW directly, may be of interest those people looking into 5GW.

Zen was the first place I saw it (and it has a good discussion) –  LTC Coer has a 5GW article. Ubiware posts related to the Quantum Theory of War. Blosint comments on it here. TDAXP has also commented with “Redefining 5GW, again” in response to that Marine Corp Gazette article and Danger Room which has a good discussion. Especially noteworthy is Greg McDowall bringing up “fractal war” with “possibility of using elements of each generation, sort of like a grand strategic version of combined arms” which has me thinking, and Seerov (who should consider getting his own blog) with this great comment on why XGW and not Lind’s GMW:

Perhaps the political goals shouldn’t matter in the classification? The tactics and strategy will determine what generation/gradient it is, regardless of political goals. I see no reason why a group can’t use 4GW and try to seize a State?

At the same time, its very unlikely that a non-State actor would use 1,2,or 3 GW, as most non-state actors don’t have the resources for this kind of war. So in determining whether a force is conducting 4GW or not, we should NOT focus on the end state, only on the methods.

Some of you may have read “Unrestricted Warfare.” Its a book dealing with China’s plan to use 4GW/5GW to “destroy the US.” The book lays out how a State can use 4GW/5GW (although they don’t call it 5WG, in fact I think this was before anyone coined the term GW?) to to win wars for the State.

So bottom line: Anyone can use any form/generation/gradient of war they believe will achieve them their goals. It doesn’t matter if they’re a State, or non-State. It doesn’t matter what their goals are. It only matters how they fight. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care what their gaols are, only that it doesn’t matter in determining what “generation/gradient their using.

So this is how we should think about a war:

1) Realize you’re in war (this is most difficult in 5GW). This may happen after an attack?

2) After determining that you’re in a war, take security measures so as to not take anymore damage.

3) Determine who and what your enemy is trying to accomplish.

4) Determine how they’re trying to accomplish their objectives. It is at this point when you determine what GW they’re using on you. They may be using a combination.

The US is good at beating actors who use 1,2,3 GW. We’re learning how to beat 4GW in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its important that we think about what people are calling “5GW” so that we recognize it, and understand how to beat it/defend against it.

And that’s where we’re at now.

Adam Elkus at Rethinking Security has two post of interest on 4GW/GMW and a little 5GW. In first The Crisis of 4GW he writes that future success 4GW and 5GW may be overstated:

A common definition of 5GW–as well as real world case studies–remains out of reach. And the price for moving towards a non-state paradigm of war has been the overestimation of the insurgent’s power and an automatic assumption of the network’s vitality against the hierarchy.
[…]
5GW is so vague that it may be impossible to salvage. That being said, there are elements from it that were certainly of theoretical value to conceptions of propaganda, politics, and future conflict that should not be thrown out with the bathwater.

Though Adam seems to have come out against 5GW Theory in the comments:

SE, this isn’t a postmortem, just a recognition of a problem. It is, however, a postmortem of 5GW

Yikes.

His second post is More thoughts on 4GW.

Phil at Amicable Collisions has a rich roundup called “A Generational Warfare Miscellany“.

Sam at Seli briefly discusses 5GW as port of his post “Generation warfare a cohesive explanatory model“:

Fifth generation warfare is about the melding of different aspects of DIME (within this discussion) within the society. When an adversary engages from fifth generation the military through civilian population can be very much the same. The DIME model overlaps more and more until it is nearly one overlapping set. That is an oversimplified explanation but is also why I chose to narrow the aspect of the differing generations. It depicts how that fifth generation of warfare begins to emerge into the spectrum regardless of whether it is high intensity conflict or low intensity conflict. That increasing overlap also means, if we accept the earlier point, information operations takes on enhanced roles within conflict fifth generation warfare. I am sure there are aspects that I am missing.

Arherring’s comment on the Seli Post is noted as:

There are a few basic premises that I think have to be included in any framework that attempts to differentiate between methods/doctrines/types/generations/gradients of warfare.

1) There must be an internally consistent progression of effectiveness displayed in the framework. For every type of warfare there is at least one corresponding type of warfare that exists to offset it. It may not yet exist or yet have a theoretical definition, but it must be able to exist and be able to be expressed as a continuum in the framework.

2) The types of warfare must be able to be expressed on any type of battlefield.

(This is where I think your cyberwarfare should fit. Be it manuever or attrition of information the doctrines should apply even to electronic battlefields)

3) The framework must express an ability to both categorize types of warfare in order to determine the position of a type of warfare on a continuum, and suggest the appropriate response to a type of warfare by showing the counter to the type of warfare an opponent is employing.

4) Each type of warfare in the framework must be able to be clearly defined at each level of employment be it tactical, operational, strategic or grand strategic yet be consistent in the method in which it is employed. Also, different types of warfare must be able to co-exist at each of these levels.

The Generations of Modern Warfare (GMW) developed by Bill Lind does not meet any of these criteria. However, X Gradient Warfare (XGW) does and your excellent diagram could be a very convincing way of displaying an XGW-like framework.

I like your definition of Fifth Generation warfare and I agree that information operations will have a prominent role, indeed the key role in its application. It is the ability to present ideas in context to that is the heart of 5GW as I imagine it.

David Axe has an article on 5GW that is covered at Soob. I think this is the David Axe article. He seems to be implicitly defining 5GW as sort of Robb’s Global Guerrillas concept. A good discussion follows at ZenPundit on why this isn’t 5GW and on the whole meta-debate in general.

Coming Anarchy’s Younghusband has a post on visualization of XGW as a step to eventually improve XGW. I like his idea of going back to Boyd’s trio of Attrition Warfare, Maneuver Conflict, and Moral Conflict. The question is, can a visualization that includes room for 0GW and and 5GW (and perhaps other things not thought of yet) in that type of visualization?

The Committee of Public Safety also has some neat visualizations going.I really like the axis the information power vs Kinetic power axis as opposed to a  Kinetics vs non-kinetic or kinetic vs. dispersed kinetics idea.

Crossed Crocodiles uses the term 5GW in the context of Somalia and the “vortex of violence”. He seems to be equating 5GW with Nation-building or perhaps just as non-kinetic war.

I briefly blogged on Sharia Finance as a 5GW tactic. There have been a lot of posting on this.

In this draft post I try to re-tell post-cold war history as the history of three overlapping 5GW efforts and is partially responsible for how I consider the that the default American PoV has become a leftists PoV. I am still working on (I misplaced my handwritten notes).

Bob Morris of blog “Politics in the Zeroes” sticks his  toe into the 5GW water with two posts.

Cross-posted to Dreaming 5GW.

My Suggestion for chapters for Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) book

TDAXP is calling for chapter ideas and submissions for a 5GW Book (a souvenir edition) of the Dreaming 5GW PoV on Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) theory .

Here are my suggestions for an overview:

• Forward by TBD
• What is Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW): Our Point of View (PoV)
• The Genesis of this PoV
• XGW, not Lind’s GMW
• Properties of 5GW
• Visualizing XGW
• Actors and 5GW
• Styles, Kinds, Types, and Organizations
• Historical (Possible) Examples
• 5GW in Fiction (books, movies and TV)
• Possible Current 5GW
• Preparing for 5GW
• Defend against 5GW
• Doing 5GW
• Clausewitz, Sun-Tsu, Boyd, and 5GW
• Survey of Opposing Views to this PoV
• The Other 5GWs: Survey of other uses of the Term
• Future Directions, Questions, and the Way Forward

I would be willing to write, co-write of contribute to any of these (except the Forward).

Recent 5GW related links of (maybe) interest

Soob’s – “The Ultimate 5GW? Holding a Foreign Economy Under the Knife by Manipulating the Resource Demand of our Own”

Mountain Runner’s “The Spectrum of War and Peace and the Role of Public Diplomacy”

“Where Are the Shadowy Criminal Masterminds?“

Citizen Warrior’s “The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex“

PDF: Mind War

Volconvo’s “Search Term: Fifth Generation Warfare”

“William Ayers’ forgotten communist manifesto: Prairie Fire“

Gathering Storm’s “Taking the Jihad Temperature – A Gathering Storm Special Series – INFILTRATION Part 2 “:

The Islamists are boiling our frog and though this blog and hundreds like it record almost daily the rise in the Jihad temperature, unless we see how far and fast the temperature has risen, we will not know how far along our boiling has progressed.

Tech Dirt’s “Books Are The Souvenir Edition For Your Idea” – The article is not about 5GW, but the idea is something we 5GW bloggers should consider doing.

And from me:

The Weatherman: “they estimated that they’d have to eliminate 25 million people in these re‑education centers…”

Some stray 5GW thought

Found Buried Draft Post from April 2007: “Entrepreneurial Public Diplomacy” as 5GW

(Cross-posted to Dreaming 5GW)

The Weatherman: “they estimated that they’d have to eliminate 25 million people in these re‑education centers…”

Read about it here at Dr. Sanity.

Some “fun” parts:

Most of the people that had no prior experience, let’s say the average Weatherman, if there is such a thing, they were sent to Cuba for training in Cuba.
[…]
Grathwohl: I brought up the subject of what’s going to happen after we take over the government. You know, we become responsible for administrating, you know, 250 million people. And there was no answer. No one had given any thought to economics. How are you going to clothe and feed these people? The only thing that I could get was that they expected that the Cubans, the North Vietnamese, the Chinese and the Russians would all want to occupy different portions of the United States. They also believed that their immediate responsibility would be to protect against what they called the counter-revolution. And they felt that this counter-revolution could best be guarded against by creating and establishing re-education in the Southwest where we would take all of the people who needed to be re‑educated into the new way of thinking and teach them how things were going to be. I asked, “Well, what is going to happen to those people that we can’t re‑educate, that are die-hard capitalists?” And the reply was that they’d have to be eliminated and when I pursued this further, they estimated that they’d have to eliminate 25 million people in these re‑education centers. And when I say eliminate, I mean kill 25 million people. I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of whom have graduate degrees from Columbia and other well-known educational centers and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people and they were dead serious.

Ayres and his ilk haven’t given up on a Communist takeover of the USA. They have just switched from a Guerrilla/4GW approach to an Institutional/Infiltration (5GW) approach.

For the election 2008, the questions are: Is Obama an active 5GWer, just a 5GW Prawn, or its this all coincidental?

Some stray 5GW thought

I know I said I wasn’t going to do any 5GW blogging for awhile, but some thoughts came whispering from within, and  I want to write them down.

5GW will be (can be) War disguised as Politics.

5GW will be (can be) War disguised as Social Work (Social Development).

5GW will be (can be) War disguised as Entrepreneurship.

What might be a major difference between politics and 5GW-War-disguised as politics? The intent and the true goal.

Opposite thought: Did I just water down 5GW into a tangent of non-usefulness?

Update: I attempted to define war/conflict here:

Making War in the 21st century:

The non-trivial action(s) of a global actor(s) to purposefully attempt to coerce another global actor(s) to take some action(s), cease some action(s), or maintain a state of inactivity that the second actor(s) would not otherwise do or not otherwise consider beneficial to itself.

Here is a shorter version of Making War:

War is the attempted non-trivial coercion of one global actor(s) by another global actor(s).

Found Buried Draft Post from April 2007: “Entrepreneurial Public Diplomacy” as 5GW

Phil writes a comment at Mountain Runner on public diplomacy that is very interesting:

We are all aware of how non-state actors like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah can run more effective PD operations than the most advanced states. There is a lesson in this. The solution to our PD problem will not come from government, rather it will come from citizens who have an interest in public diplomacy who will take the initiative and use the technology we all have access to and just do it. We need to start thinking in terms of an “entrepreneurial public diplomacy”. What is required is a change in our conceptual framework.
[…]
Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say we decided to create a non-profit whose purpose was to do public diplomacy, what projects would it undertake? Documentary films, audio speeches distributed on cassette tape, short films distributed on Youtube or emailed from cell phone to cell phone, lectures by pro-liberal democracy muslims, graphic novels in arabic telling stories of arab liberal democrats fighting authoritarianism and fundamentalism, etc. There are a lot of options and obviously some trial and error will be involved in determining what works, but the reality is that we don’t need government to do this, we can do it ourselves.

There is something 5GW-ish about this idea.

This could be a method for Strategic Citizens and/or Socio-Political Entrepreneurs to influence/change/alter/effect the world around them with a pretty good potential return based on the costs involved with low-risk.

—

I found this while looking for an old post. It was a draft from April 2007 and had never been published. I guess I just forgot about it.

Mutually Exclusive Paths to Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) Success

I have been working up a Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) [1] scenario in response to a question by Seerov on Dreaming 5GW.

As a side effect, I have come to have to see that regardless of which combination of 5GW style [2] and of which 5GW kind [3] is used, that I think there are two main paths to success that a 5GWer [3.5] will take.

These paths are exclusive and imply a set of different decisions made to the design of the 5GW.

A 5GWer will either take the path of Frog Boiling [4] or the path of Black Swan Hatching [5].

Please excuse me for the cutesy names, but it helps me to remember them and to visualize them.

A Frog Boiling 5GW aims to make many small effects which lead to success. The planning will be iterative [6] and future actions will depend on lessons learned from the results achieved from the prior actions. By going slow, using many small actions, and relying upon N-order effects, the Frog Boiling 5GW hopes to get a successful end result without exposure to adversarial forces or without other perhaps even knowing a 5GW has taken place.

A Black Swan Hatching 5GW is designed using the waterfall method [7] to effect a Black Swan event [8] (or at least a major Systems Perturbation). This 5GW achieves its goals from either the Black Swan event itself or from reactions to the Black Swan event [9]. Secrecy is achieved by the tight knit, closed, top-down model of planning and control. The hope is that even if the 5GW effort is discovered, it will be after it is too late[10].

I think that all 5GWs will take one path or the other, but not both.

There is a way for a Frog Boiling 5GW to make use of a Black Swan event. I am saving that for the next post.

What do you all think? Comments, questions, corrections, additions, modifications, and disagreements are all welcome.

[Cross-published to Dreaming 5GW]

—
References

[1] Purpleslog’s 5GW definition:

5GW is the secret deliberative manipulation of actors, networks, institutions, states or any 0GW/1GW/2GW/3GW/4GW forces to achieve a goal or set of goals across a combination of socio, economic, and political domains while attempting to avoid or minimize the retaliatory offensive or defensive actions/reactions of 0GW/1GW/2GW/3GW/4GW powered actors, networks, institutions, and/or states.

[2] Styles of 5GW (actual 5GWs can overlap styles to some extent)

– Puppet Master 5GW Style
– Socio-Political Entrepreneur 5GW Style
– Strategic Citizen 5GW Style
– Memetic Engineering 5GW Style
– CGW’s Loving Co-Option 5GW Style (and here)

[3] TDAXP’s Kinds of 5GW:

– The insurgent 5GW (the classical formulation)
– The state-within 5GW (where a clique inside the host society attempts to transform the host society)
– The state-without 5GW (where an operational arm of a government attacks a different society)

[3.5] https://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/terminology-question-how-should-we-refer-to-those-doing-5gw/

[4] Purpleslog: Boiling the Frog:

Effective 5GW against a state or organization will consists of lots of little operations by the small 5GW actor effecting the larger target actor in such small ways they don’t notice until there is nothing they can do to counter the outcome.

…and … Wikipedia:

The boiling frog story states that a frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough — it is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out.

The story is generally told in a figurative context, with the upshot being that people should make themselves aware of gradual change lest they suffer a catastrophic loss.

[5] Arherring’s Nuts and Bolts:

In short a Black Swan is an event that invalidates a system. By definition it is something that you are unprepared for. Black Swan 5GW is used to invalidate systems and rule-sets. Ideally to my mind, the 5GW organization would be able to replace the invalidated system with a new system that achieves its objective, but there may be other reasons for invalidating a system or rule-set. Perhaps a competing rule-set offers better opportunity for 5GW manipulation or perhaps the situation is such that an existing system or rule-set is an impediment to a desirable though painful improvement. Potentially a 5GW organization may prepare for Gray Swans, events that are possible though unpredictable and/or unlikely, yet present opportunity to establish a new system. An example of this might include some sort of natural disaster.

[6] Iterative 5GW thoughts: here, here, here, and here.

[7] Sea of conspiracy:

A 5GW operation will create conditions and contingencies to avoid detection by hiding among the crazies. I can see where parts of an operation might purposely be exposed and then linked with false information and crazy theories to discourage real investigation. All of this is aimed at the observation part of the OODA loop of the opponent.

[8] Waterfall model: here and here.

[9] Black Swan Event

Investipedia:

An event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation and that would be extremely difficult to predict. This term was popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a finance professor and former Wall Street trader. Black swan events are typically random and unexpected

Soob:

What of the cultural or national shock of the sudden and unexpected? Certainly giving the cultural framework that entails a nation a good solid shake will toss the useless glitterati that is Paris Hilton aside and invite a national conscience to actually focus? What of the unexpected left hook that sends all of our pre-concieved notions flailing to the mat and ready for the ten (or even twenty) count? What of the Black Swan? Or, to simply define, the aforementioned left hook that nobody sees coming that rings our bell, sends our government into political turmoil and penetrates the perversely sheep like blind covenant that entwines the American people and popular culture and actually focuses national attention on a common cause. And then, and here’s some villany for you, builds and manifests itself upon this new collective.

Ah, the Black Swan, that which shakes nations, because a national conscience typically relies on the past and the present for a comfortable pillow of reference and definition of what can or could or will be and refuses to see that uncertainty is as much a certainty as anything we claim to “predict” or “know.”

Arherring:

Black Swans strike at the critical vulnerability for which there is no defense because we are not even aware we are vulnerable.
[…]
So, what exactly is a Black Swan event?

“First, it is a outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.”

[10] http://www.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2005/07/5gw_effectors.php

Update: Corrected some typos.

Caturing My Thoughts: How could Demographic warfare be used with 5GW?

I wrote this at D5GW:

Here’s one way:

The 5GW actor (perhaps a group with-in the state bureaucracy [1]) would create and support policies and institutions that create mechanisms and incentives for the subtle long-term movement of demographically targeted types of people (the Prawns [2] [3]).

The goal of the 5GWers is not the movement of the people for some immediate benefit to the 5GWers (or their cause or their state).

The goal is to shape the outcome of a possible/potential/unknown future conflict by creating for those future decision-making leaders tools and options they would not have otherwise. In a conflict, the decision-making-leaders only have options based on whatever stuff (e.g. tools, capabilities, culture, institutions, willpower) are at their disposal right then (or I suppose in the very near future to them).

This is much different then trying to do 5GW where the 5GWers change the minds of a group of people to take on an identity and pursue goals as the identity groups that also lead to outcomes that the the 5GWers want.

Advantages:

1) Security: Future Enemy can’t counter the 5GWers, their changes have already been made.

2)Secrecy: The 5GWers action, if detected even by historian, will resemble politics or perhaps conspiracy-theory nonsense.

3) Adaptability: The 5GW’s effects could aid the state in ways the 5GWers didn’t think of originally

Disadvantage:

1)Will it hit the target? It is hard to aim or focus this type of 5GW.

2 Will it be ready in time? The long-time lines make precision timing impossible.

[1] TDAXP calls this the “state-within 5GW”
http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/08/01/kinds-of-5gw.html

[2]
http://www.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2008/06/comment_on_tdax.php

[3]
http://www.dreaming5gw.com/2007/09/thinking_and_nonthinking_5gw.php#comment-702

Seerov challenged me to come with a fictional scenario, which I have not yet done.

I developed something else, which I will post after reviewing again.

The non-kinetic 5GW jihad against the US continues

My stalker might not want it to be public knowledge, but the non-kinetic 5GW Jihad against the US continues.

Example 1: the Swift plant in Greeley, Colorado

The Muslims will not compromise one bit, and will press their case under the “reasonable accommodation” provision, and will probably win, but their victory in part depends on their not speaking about such distasteful elements of Islam as the death sentence mandated for those who insult the religion. Of course, the judge — if this case goes to a judge — will know nothing about all that, and will assume (and CAIR will be right there working to ensure that he assumes) that the Muslims at the Swift plant don’t believe in any of that business. Oh no, they reject terrorism, they reject the oppression of women, they reject it all, they’re just good hard-working pious people who are asking to be allowed to pray.

And the judge, of course, will also know nothing about CAIR’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and about the Brotherhood’s “grand jihad” of subversion within the United States — its long-term effort to force Americans to accommodate Islamic law, and to accept in principle that whenever American law or custom and Islamic law conflict, the Americans must give way. [Link]

Example Two: Stealth Islamic Practices for the Masses

The Berkeley chapter of the Muslim Students Association seems to have hit upon a fresh idea for luring in naive new students: They’ve re-branded Ramadan as an apparently secular event called “Fast-a-thon.”
[…]
There is an Islamic concept called dawah, which means prosletyzing Islam to non-Muslims — similar to “evangelism” and “fellowship” in Christianity. From all appearances, it seems that Fast-a-thon is an attempt at crypto-dawah — getting people involved in Islamic practices unwittingly, and perhaps only after the fact letting them know that they have participated in a Muslim religious ritual.
[Link]

Example Three: Influencing A Presidential Political Candidate

This is a couple of weeks old, but I don’t recall anyone remarking upon it. Barack Obama’s Muslim Outreach Coordinator, Mazen Asbahi, resigned under pressure in August after it was revealed that he was “a frequent speaker before several groups in the U.S. that scholars have associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, of course, is engaged “in America [in] a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” — Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” May 22, 1991

And now it turns out that Asbahi hasn’t really quit at all…
[Link]

Example Four: Abu Dee and Abu Dumb for Supreme Court Justice for Michiganstan

Recently, I told you about Judge Diane Hathaway, the Detroit-area judge who sentenced avowed Hezbollah terrorist Houssein Ali Zorkot to probation. As you’ll recall, Zorkot was caught in a Dearbornistan park practicing maneuvers with his AK-47, and announced on his pro-Hezbollah website that he was beginning his personal jihad in the United States. As I noted, because Hathaway gave him probation, Zorkot–a medical student–can likely still become a licensed doctor in Michigan and elsewhere.

Well, Saturday, at the Michigan Democratic Party convention, Democrats nominated Hathaway as their candidate in November for the Michigan Supreme Court.
[…]
You see, Hathaway’s opponent, sitting Michigan Supreme Court Justice, Republican Clifford Taylor, took campaign money from open Hezbollah supporter and key American Hezbollah agent Ali Jawad, who pleaded guilty in federal court to a giant insurance fraud scam involving various members of the Islamic community. In April, John McCain dumped Ali Jawad from his Michigan campaign finance committee.
[Link]

Small steps, relentlessly over time is a strategy  that may work the enemy.

“5GW Deception Operations And The Soviet Precedent”

Somehow I missed this great post by A.E. at Dreaming 5GW when it came out.

In it he brings out lessons for 5GW from the Soviet experience:

So what lessons can we take from the Soviet example?

– 5GW operations on the operational level will consist of deception operations designed to sow confusion among the enemy, influence decision-making, and undermine the enemy’s unity.

– 5GW organizations will utilize pseudo-operations as a countermeasure against opponents seeking to use penetrate their organizations.

– The perquisites for defense against 5GW are holistic thinking, avoidance of mirror imaging, and a healthy—though skeptical—patriotism.

Read the whole post.

I made a comment but it seems to have been marked as spam :-(.

Here is that comment:

“If it still retains operational secrecy and surprise, the 5GW organization may simply create a dummy front that can be used as a kill vehicle. Once entrapped within the dummy front, enemy operatives can either be misdirected or liquidated. “

I like this idea. I think misdirection might be better then liquidation. Dead bodies might lead to further investigation by the 5GWers adversary.

“The Soviet Union’s main covert strategy involved in use of “Active Measures”—extensive attempts to undermine the West’s unity and influence its decision-making. The battlespace was truly worldwide…”

I think “Active Measures” is a good example of how states can apply 4GW (4gw is more than just evolved guerrilla warfare + info war). It is also a going to be a big carry over to 5GW. There is a book out there from an ex-soviet intel officer called I think “The World Was Going Our Way”. The officer claims that the Soviet active measures where working in turning the third world (and much of the first world) against the US. I think the vibrations of these campaigns are still felt today. Interesting, you could claim that the Soviet “Active Measures” driven 4GW was defeated by the 5gw that Anti-Soviet Western 5GWers created in the form of institutions that continued to oppose the Soviets even as the world turned against them and their own populations lost the stomach for the Cold War.

Another security control the Soviets successfully built in the west is that anybody point out the “Active Measures” would often be dismissed as a (pick your favorite): Right-Winger, John Bircher, McCarthyite, Conspiracy-monger, red-baiter, etc. This fits in quite well with 5GW theory [1].

The Soviets Active Measures were long-term focused, they were not trying to defeat the US/West with one broad stroke. They were willing to try lots of little actions tailored to different groups as needed. That all fits in with my view of one of the essential properties of 5GW [2].

This is a great post. I can’t believe I missed it when it came out.

[1] https://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2006/05/30/5gw-will-hide-in-the-sea-of-conspiracy-theories-to-avoid-discovery/

[2] https://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2006/05/22/boiling-the-frog-5gw-style/

Any other thoughts?

“Unrestricted Warfare” (URW) and XGW / 4GW / 5GW

I have been meaning to write this for awhile. Zenpundit’s mention of “Unrestricted Warfare” and 4GW/5GW got me to type it:

The ideas from URW haven’t quite made there way into 4GW/5GW…there is a lot of richness in the its ideas. There is more in URW then is in Lind’s 4GW. So, does that make URW a better source for 4GW, or just for how states might fight 4GW? There is a lot of 5GW-ish stuff in there to. Maybe URW concept should be distilled and and treat as a separate category in XGW.

I leaning toward the 4GW category being shorthanded as “Full Spectrum Conflict” with the ‘Weaponization of things not thought to be weapons” being key.

Maybe it is best in XGW to treat URW as an additional generation between 4GW and 5GW though.

What do you all think?

[Cross-Posted to Dreaming 5GW]

Book Notes: John Poole’s Dragon Days: Time for “Unconventional” Tactics

John Poole‘s Dragon Days is mostly about 4GW and a little bit about what I call 5GW (aka SecretWar).

The Interesting points to me where:

– US light infantry should add criminal investigative techniques

– US light infantry should all add real SERE capability so they don’t need 2GW-ish bombardment (with its 4GW blowback) if they get into a fix.

– China seems to be the PuppetMaster behind lots of the conflict and enemies the US is facing – so China is sort of engaged in a non-kinetic 4GW and maybe a 5GW (though he doesn’t use that term) against the US

– Poole thinks that the release of the book Unrestricted Warfare was a deception operation to get the US focused on hi-tech warfare (which makes me think he really didn’t read it)

Briefly: Fifth Generation Warfare and Super-Empowered Individuals

Let me state for the record, that while I think SEIs (Super-Empowered Individuals) are a type of actor that can undertake 5GW:

5GWers do not need to be SEIs.

SEIs can do more things then 5GW.

There is some overlap in the thinking and the people doing the thinking on 5GW and SEI.

They are not the same thing!

Note: This is my current working definition of 5GW…

5GW is the secret deliberative manipulation of actors, networks, institutions, states or any 0GW/1GW/2GW/3GW/4GW forces to achieve a goal or set of goals across a combination of socio, economic, and political domains while attempting to avoid or minimize the retaliatory offensive or defensive actions/reactions of 0GW/1GW/2GW/3GW/4GW powered actors, networks, institutions, and/or states.

..and this is a good (as any) definition of an SEI (from ZenPundit)…

A super empowered individual, in my view, is autonomously capable of creating a cascading event that grand strategist Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett has termed a ” system perturbation”; a disruption of system function and invalidation of existing rule sets to at least the national but more likely the global scale. The key requirements to become “superempowered” are comprehension of a complex system’s connectivty and operation; access to critical network hubs; possession of a force that can be leveraged against the structure of the system and a willingness to use it.

…which is distinct from a Strategic Citizen…

Ordinary individuals and/or Super-Empowered Individuals who
successfully make use of any of the technological, socio, economic, or political domains to have a strategic impact on the world.

…and Strategic Citizens may or may not undertake Strategic Citizen 5GW as a possible range of activities. The Strategic Citizen 5GW style is defined as:

The purposeful action of 5GW by Strategic Citizen (SC) actors who are unconnected in any way except for the desired related end effects to be achieved through the sum of the individual actions.

As Arherring wrote at Dreaming 5GW, SEIs have a range of possible activities:

This is how super-empowered individuals relate to Fifth Generation Warfare theory. Super-empowered individuals may choose to follow any doctrine they desire: 4GW, Global Guerillaism, socialism, tribalism, terrorism, anarchism or capitalism. They may apply their leveraged knowledge in the manner that best suits their goals and aspirations. It makes sense that Super-Empowered Angry Men are most likely to choose the most violent and destructive doctrine within their means. I do not think the essential nature of Fifth Generation Warfare with its long-term planning horizon fits that description. For super-empowered individuals with a strategic mindset, 5GW may be an attractive doctrine and super-empowered individuals may prove to be 5GWs most effective practitioners

Questions? Comments? Additions? Correction? Disagree? Agree? What say you?

Purpleslog on Covert Radio – Topic: “5th Generation Warfare – What does it all mean?”

My voice is disguised by a heavy cold, I talk way to fast (as I do in real life when excited), and I didn’t sleep much the night before, but none the less, an interview I gave on 5GW for Brett Winterble’s Covert Radio has been published. The time runs 18m40s.

The interview covered the following:

– How we got to 5GW thinking

– My current 5GW definition

– Mentioned most of the USA’s opponents are 4GWers and briefly discussed Hezbollah vs Israel, and that domestic USA terror groups are 4GWish also.

– I covered the anti-Soviet 5GW (the 1947ers) documented by TDAXP and suggested establishing a similar 5GW (as originally suggested by TDAXP) to shrink the gap (if Thomas Barnett‘s Grand Strategy for the US is to be adopted) to put gap-shrinking on automatic pilot so future USA leaders will have the right tool they need then to make short term decision which will tend to be gap-shrinking.

-I suggested that Sun-Tzu thinking was in harmony with 5GW.

– When asked about a possible 6GW I didn’t think it was likely…I wasn’t sure were the XGW could go for there to be a 6GW.

Some other notes:

– If I was writing out my responses I would have worded things differently

– I am proud I did not swear or use an evil laugh

– I don’t why I kept re-enforcing “institutions” over and over again

– The interview went so quick, I had lots of material left over

– Hope TDAXP is okay with me promoting his stuff

– The host, Brett Winterble, was gracious and easy to work with.

– I had lots of fun

– I hope I get invited again!

I would appreciate feedback on the content and the style.

Update: This is the new link to the podcast.

[Cross-Posted to Dreaming 5GW]

5GW Links – 9 May 2008

You may find these 5GW-related links to be interesting…