Thread: Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) - Back to the Future or Fraud?

I think your both drawing eroneous conclusions. America is not being outfought in Iraq. The US Army and USMC win where they are. The insurgents are like darkness. It cannot exist in the presence of light, likewise the insurgents never manage a stand vs the US Military and they have tried repeatedly.

Quite simply, the US Military is to small for the mission. This has nothing to do with generational warfare and everything to do with economics. The challenge the US faces is not a new style of warfare, but how to fight the oldest of warfare styles mated with digital awareness with its own new technology and ideas.

America botched Iraq early on by not establishing order and providing jobs. The keys to winning any peace are the same- the promise of prosperity, the reality of security. We didn't win the peace early on before there was an organized insurgency. Now with state actors (Iran, Syria, KSA, Turkey) making plans or acting to insure thier own national interests time has run out.

WECIV, you might not think that raizing and salting is acceptable, but I pose this question to those who feel as you do. Is the 100,000- to half million civillian deaths over 4 years of bloody secterian strife any better? I hold that front-loading the killing and doing all the damage upfront hard, fast, heavy, and brutal to induce population shock is the best way to create the conditions in which security and rebuilding can flourish.

Of particular note I point to Japan, subjected to a blockade as devestating as the one imposed on Iraq and then subjected to a realtively short-sharp campaign aimed at its populations center of gravity saw no meaningful insurgency.

In iraq the politcal process has failed, forgien goverments are meddling (America's included) and the economy is in the toilet. Do we really want a Somalia sitting on top of such a vital resource? Can we stomach 3 million dead over the next 10 years as bloody civil war rips the country apart? or can we crack down and use raw force to knock the combatants into shocked inaction and then impose order and an inclusive political process on the situation backed by the promise of renewed industrial scale carnage if they dare cross the line of civilise behaviour.

The insurgents use violence becuase violence works, and until it stops working they won't stop. We need to make the cost of violence to high to contemplate for the combatants.

Originally Posted by zraver

I think your both drawing eroneous conclusions. America is not being outfought in Iraq. The US Army and USMC win where they are. The insurgents are like darkness. It cannot exist in the presence of light, likewise the insurgents never manage a stand vs the US Military and they have tried repeatedly.

Quite simply, the US Military is to small for the mission. This has nothing to do with generational warfare and everything to do with economics. The challenge the US faces is not a new style of warfare, but how to fight the oldest of warfare styles mated with digital awareness with its own new technology and ideas.

America botched Iraq early on by not establishing order and providing jobs. The keys to winning any peace are the same- the promise of prosperity, the reality of security. We didn't win the peace early on before there was an organized insurgency. Now with state actors (Iran, Syria, KSA, Turkey) making plans or acting to insure thier own national interests time has run out.

Z,

I don't disagree at all with the fact that we have never had the right # of troops. However, grand strategy requires more than just the M in DIME (or MIDLIFE, whichever acronym suits one's fancy), and unfortunately, that's been the default go to strategy for the most part thus far in the GWOT, meaning that we aren't firing on all cylinders. While you correctly allude to this, I'd argue that more troops is a necessary but not sufficient condition (with the troops not being used to raze and salt to send a signal, but to be used to enforce the normalty of law).

Simply razing and ransacking portions of Iraq to send a signal would not work. It would simply be more fodder for the propaganda films, would alienate tribes with links throughout Iraq, and give more credence to AQ and OBL that there really is a clash of civilizations occuring.

Shek,

The idea is not to just raize and salt, but raize, salt, and raise ala Germany and Japan post WW2. The propaganda is going to be there regardless so why worry about it. Screw OBL and his ilk and instead do what is needed to restore order so we can then rebuild the country, turn it over to the Iraqies and go home.

That will be the best propaganda there is. Sure there will be the odd nutjob that calls for the death of the west for our actions. But the majority will see Iraqies driving cars, going to school, living safe and propserous, getting medical attention etc. France doesn't hate us for bombing them flat, Italy doesn't hate us for riping thier coutnry to shreds even Germany and Japan don't hate us for turning thier countries into moonscape. As painful as the destruction we visited on them was, it was the right thing to do to prevent even greater suffering in the long run.

It is this long suffering that needs to be avoided. The silly nay.. crimminal belief that the use of less force can somehow make war less evil needs to be rubbed out of our collective mind. War is a battle to the end, it must be fought without reservation and without remorse. The only goal is to force the enemy to cry uncle and quit the fight.

Look at what the modern concept of limited war has achieved. An era with zero victories to offset the massive deaths and treasure spent.

Korea, millions live in bondange beucase Truman didn't have the will to war, and preferred a stalemate with the PRC over victory. A single B-47 with an A-bomb glassing the Chinese-Korean yalue bridges would have ended the war witha victory for democracy.however, now a nuclear armed North Korea has the ability to kill 20 million in one fell swoop.

Vietnam, 10 years of limited war, millions dead, billions spent, one nation betrayed, another nation ruined and isolated for decades, and neighboring countries wrecked by the detrius of that conflict. How much of that could have been avoided if Line Backer II had occured in 65 instead of Rolling Thunder.

Kuwait, the failure to force Saddam from power has now killed as many as 2 million people, cost nearly a trillion dollars directly, trillions more globally in fuel price fluctuations, and knocked a modern country into the stone age.

When we compare these decades long boils of suffering to examples of total war we see the contrast. Germany and Japan: knocked flat, divided, and totally spent are now two of the worlds leading economic powerhouses. same goes for most of Western and Northern Europe. We front loaded the killing didn't hold back won the war and used the exhaustion the war caused, and billions in well spent dollars to create a lasting enviroment where each country could chart its own future.

Exactly how many examples of limited war do we need before we admit that the only way to spare lives in war is to be as hard and nasty as possible in the begining so that the other side harbors no thoughts of resistence, or if they decide to fight gets overwhelmed as quickly as possible.

50,000 dead today is preferrable to 500,000 dead tommorrow. Front loading the killing will also force politicians to confront the enormity of the task at hand. Knowing that letting slip the dogs of war means tens of thousands will die in a matter of days as the American military machine rolls into action will force them think twice and then a third time before embarking on the farce called war for profit.

What America and the world needs is a 4th GW based on the hyperwar principle. One where America and its strategic partners has the ability to hit any nation on earth so hard and so fast on so many levels as to remove thier ability to function as a nation state for as long as war continues. 4th GW should the first style of warfare in history that leaves the long suffering infantryman at home, until after the bullets stop. We have the ability to cripple any nation, without destroying it and in keeping it crippled until it concedes that is 4th GW. From pinpoint attacks on command nodes to, carbon fibre attacks on powergrids, to nuclear strikes on large military reserves, to cyber attacks, economic attacks, etc.

4th GW should be the US and its partners automatically going for the throat of its adverseries. if an enemy's cente rof gravity is its population then wipe out a city. if the center of gravity is its navy then sink everythign it has afloat. If it is the politcal leadership then gut a city to insure they are rubbed out. No rmeorse, no mercy, and no warning.

At the same time 4th GW involves creating a multi-polar world where America and its allies do not act alone, but rather America acts on behalf of the common good in conjunction with as many of the P5 as are willing.

Z,
We'll never agree on the "crush your enemy, see him driven before you, and hear the lamentations of his women" method for setting the conditions for the peace for Iraq. German and Japan were 100% mobilized for total wars; Iraq was not. They were worn out by conflicts that had lasted years, not weeks. They had lost millions of people, not tens of thousands. They were homogeneous entities, Iraq is not. Simply put, there wasn't a sense of national defeat, but solely defeat of a regime that the vast majority of Iraqis had no buy-in to. Wanton destruction post-regime fall wouldn't create a sense of national defeat.

Also, I would point out that Japan and Germany were very strong and capable economies/societies prior to WWII. It is not a surprise that they recovered over time and moved to where they were - this is not a result of some magic American touch on their economies. Conversely, Iraq was and has been a third world economy since the 1980s, after having flirted with progressing along during the 1970s.

The insurgents use violence becuase violence works, and until it stops working they won't stop. We need to make the cost of violence to high to contemplate for the combatants.

Theoretically, perfect.

Practically, impossible.

It is impossible to know who is a terrorist and who is not in a population that looks, reacts and behave alike. It is more difficult for troops who are alien to the culture, ethos, language etc of the people from within whose ranks the terrorists are sprouting.

Kill one by mistake and there is hell to pay and the govt puts greater restrictions making the task more difficult. Can't blame the govt since they have to also keep in mind the political repercussions!

Kill one innocent and there will be hatred and more terrorist will germinate.

True one could raze. But how much of troops would be required to take over after the razing? After all, once again life will go along as normal and this time those who have lost their own will find life meaningless and will vow revenge and join the terrorists.

And the cycle repeats.

Germany and Japan fought wars. They did not participate as terrorists.

Shek, Ray

Then we might was well admit we have a Somalia on our hands excpet its right in the middle of our the worlds energy breadbasket. You might not agree, but it works. Everyone else is advancing ideas and so far they have all failed and people keep dying. So why not use a system that works, thats been proven to work time after time.

And Iraq did suffer a national defeat. 10 years of brutal conflict followed by over a decade long national siege, 2 million+ dead, and economy in ruins and forgien troops in every major site in the country. You don't get anymore defeated than that.

Z,

Let's put your raze and salt as a precursor theory into practical terms. Let's look at Mosul in May 2003. You've just settled into your AO, and whatever looting occured just prior to your arrival has long since ended. You only have a handful of attacks each week and are considering switching from Kevlar to soft cap across the AO. How do you respond to those handful of attacks?

Sheck, low insenity is a law enforcement issue. Mosul is a Kurdish city and the Kurds have a working goverment, and are US allies. Most attacks are thus probably outsiders coming in. Sorry not falling for the Red Herring. Now if you want to talk Basra or some other sadr controlled city or Anbar province...

The simple fac tthat Warlords feel secure enough to openly challenge the US and UK is pretty self evident that limited war isn't working. I guarentee that if you make weapons a shoot on sight, and loss of all family property offense crimminal offence in Basra and force the madhi's to choose between thier families and thier lives or Sadr's twisted vision. catch a membe rof death squad- kill his family in front of him and then strangle/hang him in front of those he sought to kill. Catch workers in a bomb factory- blow thier familes up in front of them. Make them feel the horror of war in their very bones.

Originally Posted by zraver

Sheck, low insenity is a law enforcement issue. Mosul is a Kurdish city and the Kurds have a working goverment, and are US allies. Most attacks are thus probably outsiders coming in. Sorry not falling for the Red Herring. Now if you want to talk Basra or some other sadr controlled city or Anbar province...

The simple fac tthat Warlords feel secure enough to openly challenge the US and UK is pretty self evident that limited war isn't working. I guarentee that if you make weapons a shoot on sight, and loss of all family property offense crimminal offence in Basra and force the madhi's to choose between thier families and thier lives or Sadr's twisted vision. catch a membe rof death squad- kill his family in front of him and then strangle/hang him in front of those he sought to kill. Catch workers in a bomb factory- blow thier familes up in front of them. Make them feel the horror of war in their very bones.

Mosul is not a Kurdish city. It is on an ethnic fault line with Sunni, Shia, Assyrian, Kurdish, and Turkomen (this is a very small minority) populations. Your assumption is dead wrong - this is not a red herring.

Its still a red herring, you don't ravage a city for isolated acts but for willful rebellion.

As for being Kurdish, I was recalling Kurds calling for the city to be included in thier region. My apologies.