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Thread: 4th Generation Warfare

  1. #1
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    4th Generation Warfare

    I've met a number of converts to 4GW theory. I'm not sure I'm buying into it all the way. Seems to be a rehash of COIN and FID as practiced by Combined Action Groups and SF A-Teams only mass produced and distributed without support elements. The Chinese seem to figure into it pretty heavily in the background, at least according to Poole. I guess the gist is we need to scrap conventional and "go country." I do agree wholeheartedly that the US needs to pay more attention to C. and S. America.

    What are your thoughts on 4GW? Bunk, valid or somewhere in between?

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    Red Seven,

    not sure i agree with the idea that 4GW is a replacement for 3GW.

    WWII had a mix of 3GW and 4GW concepts, with the majority of the fighting weighted towards the former. vietnam and the iraq war also had this mix, but the weight was to the latter. hell, 4GW has existed since people started fighting.

    but i'm pretty sure the US military, while taking steps to become more proficient in 4GW, will not go all the way. we all saw what happened to the british after the boer war.
    The human mind cannot grasp the causes of phenomena in the aggregate. But the need to find these causes is inherent in man’s soul. And the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions of phenomena, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, snatches at the first, the most intelligible approximation to a cause, and says: “This is the cause!"

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    Quote Originally Posted by astralis View Post
    Red Seven,

    not sure i agree with the idea that 4GW is a replacement for 3GW.

    WWII had a mix of 3GW and 4GW concepts, with the majority of the fighting weighted towards the former. vietnam and the iraq war also had this mix, but the weight was to the latter. hell, 4GW has existed since people started fighting.

    but i'm pretty sure the US military, while taking steps to become more proficient in 4GW, will not go all the way. we all saw what happened to the british after the boer war.
    Even with current US emphasis on COIN renamed 4GW, the emphasis seems to still be on RMA and the information battlefeild. From Force XXI battle management systems to SUTER systems along with old standbys like RIVETS, JSTARS, and even the satellite constellation the emphasis on technology and information management is alive and well.

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