5GW Theory and practice:

Dreaming 5GW articles

5GW Effectors effector A molecule, chemical, or structure that regulates a pathway by increasing or decreasing the pathways reaction rate. An organ (a gland or muscle) that becomes active in response to nerve impulses. A nerve fiber that terminates on a muscle or gland and stimulates contraction or secretion. Actions carried out by nervous impulses and hormones that are activated by receptors. [Biology-Online.org] end effector In robotics, an end effector is a device or tool connected to the end of a robot arm. The structure of an end effector, and the nature of the programming and hardware that drives it, depends on the intended task. [Whatis?com] effector n. One who brings about a result or event; one who accomplishes a purpose. [via Websters Online Dictionary, The Rosetta Edition] Long Preamble Recently, I suggested at tdaxp the possibility that successive, seemingly random events might be used against an enemy to weaken or destroy that enemy as a strategy in fifth-generation warfare: I was thinking more along the lines of a scenario in which multiple, seemingly unrelated events hurt one nation (or a group of nations) repeatedly, as if the hand of God were behind those events: say, one major terrorist act, one major financial crisis, one upsurge in bird-flu, one natural disaster, one powergrid failure, and a case of a targeting error in some ongoing conflict (killing many innocents), over the period of 9 or 15 months. At first, Dan considered the possibility that the SecretWarrior would walk without rhythm to avoid attracting the worm, until it occurred to him that random occurrences have a tendency to draw attention, something the SecretWarrior would not want: Because randomness is very attractive, a succession of random catastrophes striking a nation will be very, very suspicious. People are superstitious they are gifted with fingertip feeling or Fingerspitzengefuhl and will implicitly decide that something is doing this to them. To a 5GWarrior, who cannot afford to have her cover exposed, a paranoid victim is a dangerous victim.

These considerations led me to wonder about the type of activity that would be utilized in 5GW and what kind of actor. Dan gave an example of a Plain Jane who does not draw attention to herself as she attempts to kill the Yakuza Boss on a dance floor and my first question was whether a Plain Jane would be allowed into the party or the club, although I didnt ask it at the time. Instead, I wondered whether randomness, when expected, would serve to obfuscate whatever patterns might actually be present: the target who expects randomness is less likely to see hidden patterns, especially when occurrences do have a seeming randomness to them. The expected randomness, because it is expected, would create the regularity Dan said might lull the target. On the other hand, the Plain Jane (were she even allowed into the party) most likely wouldnt approach the yakuza boss directly, in a straight line aimed at him. Her movements would be random: she would take an offered drink, she would walk to the man who bought it for her to chat him up, she would dance to a song, she would go to the bathroom to powder her nose (heh, not Pulp Fiction, but Kill Bill vol. I), etc. A straight line to the yakuza boss would be an easily definable rhythm, one foot after the next on the path to her prey. Dan gave an example of randomness that is attractive, attention-grabbing: a radio station that plays music from several different decades in no particular order. I thought that the random song wasnt likely to be Egyptian, German, etc., or classical music: the randomness still has a definable, indeed an expected, parameter. Surrounding these thoughts came others: 1. The yakuza boss, when killed, would no longer appear to be alive. That is, if an action occurs, its effects are always observable, even if we dont happen to see the action itself. 2. What kind of effects will a 5GW warrior desire? What kind of activity will the 5GW warrior attempt in order to obtain the results desired? Specifically, why would a 5GW warrior engage in activity the results of which are entirely unobservable; would such results truly be results, if they do not produce cascading effects or a changed reality? 3. If results are observable, to what degree can the secret in terms such as SecretWar and SecretWarrior, obtain or persist? In fact, I began to wonder if an entirely secret SecretWar is possible, and I wondered if maybe the concept of an absolutely secret SecretWar has led some of our recent brainstorming on 5GW down the wrong path. If, indeed, absolute secrecy is impossible, then a SecretWarrior might need to shape the processes by which her opponent reacts to the effects of 5GW. Crossing the Rubicon When the yakuza boss is dead, hes dead. Anything that happens after Plain Janes action will not change the fact that hes dead. His closest associates will likely know that hes been assassinated, unless his death is made to look natural in all respects. In fact, Plain Jane might not care if his associates know hes been assassinated, because the world after his death will no longer be what it was before his death, and that would have been her objective after all. His associates may scramble to fill the vacuum, possibly warring with one another and laying blame for his death on one another. A rival gang may see the power struggles and attack, entirely

destroying or subsuming the now-leaderless gang. If the dead yakuza boss already had an appointed heir, that heir may be of inferior quality or have plans for the gang which vary greatly from the dead yakuza bosss method of running the outfit. Alternatively, the heir may follow entirely in his predecessors footsteps and refuse any suggestions for improvements or variations on the preexisting scheme. What exactly follows the yakuza bosss death isnt particularly important, because Plain Jane already knew what would happen following the death: that is why she killed the man. The SecretWarrior will not care if the effects of 5GW activity are apparent if the effects leave her adversaries on the other side of the rubicon. This would be a case of knowing too late, in that the sudden revelation that a SecretWar had been underway in no way mitigates whatever position in which the target now finds itself: The target would have a new set of circumstances requiring immediate attention which could not be ignored, and from which the target is unlikely to emerge unscathed. A successful 5GW will leave the target on a downward spiral into insignificance. The targets knowing it has been a victim wont save the target from the spiral. At the same time, some effects of 5GW pre-conclusion may be apparent to the target, thus influencing the target to cross the rubicon, although the target will not know that hes about to cross such a rubicon. Motivating the target to move down to the river, and to cross it, would require observable effects, problems to solve, the solving of which can only be effected by going to and then across the river. If the target at any time senses it is being manipulated down a path, the target will resist and the SecretWarrior risks being discovered. The SecretWarrior as Benefactor Phil at tdaxp has recently offered thumbnail character sketches of possible SecretWarriors: In 4GW the enemy attempts to use the target countrys media as a vehicle to sap the peoples and political leaders will to fight. In 5GW the enemy actually becomes the media and the political leadership. In 4GW a terrorist organization might attack a school or a courthouse in order to show that the government cant defend itself; in 5GW the enemy would become the teachers and judges. It doesnt get much deeper than that. Like the first commenter in that thread, I immediately questioned the sketch work. It has the Red Scare sound, brings to mind the House Un-American Activities Committee, and such a comparison would serve to distinguish 5GW warriors from what has gone before: even the smallest hint of variation in character, philosophy, or creed will out the SecretWarrior, or at least attract too much attention. So Dans Plain Jane has this limit. In the yakuza bosss world, plain would likely be only too obvious. A Plain Jane probably wouldnt be allowed into the type of club the yakuza boss frequented; if she was, shed likely stand out from the other women. The best person to assassinate the yakuza boss undetected would be an associate or someone with whom the yakuza boss is on very close terms. The assassin might even be a Brutus, the yakuza bosss best friend. Dans consideration of rhythm and randomness is important in the way it brings framing into the discussion of 5GW. (See Anger Managements recent considerations on framing here and here.) The radio station that randomly selects songs from different decades nonetheless selects songs within a certain framework pop and rock, or country western, English language songs, etc. and the randomness enjoyed by that stations listener seems particularly random because so many other radio stations do not select their music the same way. The common thread running through

those songs goes unquestioned because that thread already conforms to the listeners most basic expectations (inner framework); whereas, the expectation of a limited selection (per other radio stations) is subverted in the selection of songs from many different decades (outer framework). In order to remain secret, the SecretWarrior would need to avoid drawing the attention of the targeted society, NGO, or nation. Anything, anything which might suggest an unusual motivation will draw attention. When considering Phils thumb sketches, I realized that a 5GW warriororganization isnt likely to be able to insert so many operatives into the schools, government agencies, churches, etc., because 1) the more people who are in on the plan, the more chances for leaks and switched loyalties, and 2) chances increase that the internal framing opposition to the target of those operatives will lead to external displays of that framing, and suspicion of the operatives will occur. A single 5GW intelligence the mastermind will not even consider planting so many operatives into a targeted society. One feature of HUAC was its targeting of media, particularly of Hollywood, in the search for Commie Sympathizers. In modern America, the media is consistently the target of speculation and paranoia, more so now perhaps than before. Any 5GW warrior who sought to use the media to influence or turn a society runs into the barrier of skepticism, particularly when whatever message is chosen is likely to have so many opponents within the society. The easiest use of media would be to inspire internal strife and conflict, especially given the tendency toward skepticism. Using the media to create unsuspecting pawns may actually be effective, and this may lead to terrorist activity or other covert activity against a target within its own society; but, again, many within the society will be suspicious of medias role and at least somewhat aware that some members of its society have been so affected by the media: such opposition to the society is not 5GW activity, anyway, although it may serve to distract the target. I was very aware of Phils suggestion that our neighbors will be SecretWarriors, and this plays into what Dan suggested about the Plain Jane. It also plays into the consideration of one of the commenters at tdaxp, who suggested that jujitsu tactics will be used, or a targets weight will be used against the target. The only type of SecretWarrior who will be able to move freely about without ever raising suspicions will be the one whose activity most matches the expectations of the targeted society, the internal and external framework most shared by the members of that society: most likely, that society itself. No society is 100% homogenous, but the most influential members of the society (whether the society is a small group or a nation) are those who can promise the most benefit to the other members of society, whether the benefit is material in nature or psychological or social. To give an example: should a string of natural and not-so-natural disasters occur, those leaders, thinkers, and other members of a society who are able to mitigate or nullify the effects of those disasters are most likely to have the freest reins. They are certainly more likely to avoid suspicion if, and only if, their efforts actually seem to lead, and ultimately do lead, to benefits. A society that believes its moving toward a better future is a society less suspicious. The distrust of leaders (whether governmental or academic or social or business), combined with uncertain forecasts, elevates suspicion, doubt, and resistance; but a society in which vast numbers of its members believe they are co-authors of the success, co-conspirators in progress, will happily walk to the river and the Promised Land on the other side of that river. In order for a target of 5GW to never have a suspicion that a war had ever occurred, that target would need to be left with the impression that it had succeeded in its endeavors. So while a successful 5GW might leave a target in a hopeless downward spiral all too obvious to the helpless victim it might also leave the victim with the feeling of success, albeit a success much

smaller than would have been achieved if 5GW had not occurred. Tao Te Ching #17 The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects. Next comes the ruler they love and praise; Next comes one they fear; Next comes one with whom they take liberties. When there is not enough faith, there is lack of good faith. Hesitant, he does not utter words lightly. When his task is accomplished and his work done The people all say, 'It happened to us naturally.' [trans. D.C. Lau]

Preamble: Auden, Emerson There are two kinds of political issues, Party issues and Revolutionary issues. In a party issue, all parties are agreed as to the nature and justice of the social goal to be reached, but differ in their policies for reaching it. The existence of different parties is justified, firstly, because no party can offer irrefutable proof that its policy is the only one which will achieve the commonly desired goal and, secondly, because no social goal can be achieved without some sacrifice of individual or group interest and it is natural for each individual and social group to seek a policy which will keep its sacrifice to a minimum, to hope that, if sacrifices must be made, it would be more just if someone else made them. In a party issue, each party seeks to convince the members of its society, primarily by appealing to their reason; it marshals facts and arguments to convince others that its policy is more likely to achieve the desired goal than that of its opponents. On a party issue it is essential that passions be kept at a low temperature: effective oratory requires, of course, some appeal to the emotions of the audience, but in party politics orators should display the mock-passion of prosecuting and defending attorneys, not really lose their tempers. Outside the Chamber, the rival deputies should be able to dine in each others houses; fanatics have no place in party politics. A revolutionary issue is one in which different groups within a society hold different views as to what is just. When this is the case, argument and compromise are out of the question; each group is bound to regard the other as wicked or mad or both. Every revolutionary issue is potentially a casus belli. On a revolutionary issue, an orator cannot convince his audience by appealing to their reason; he may convert some of them by awakening and appealing to their conscience, but his principle function, whether he represents the revolutionary or the counterrevolutionary group, is to arouse its passion to the point where it will give all its energies to achieving total victory for itself and total defeat for its opponents. When an issue is revolutionary, fanatics are essential. [W.H.Auden, The Poet & The City] These exacting children advertise us of our wants. There is no compliment, no smooth speech with them; they pay you only this one compliment, of insatiable expectation; they aspire, they severely exact, and if they only stand fast in this watchtower, and persist in demanding unto the end, and without end, then are they terrible friends, whereof poet and priest cannot choose but stand in awe; and what if they eat clouds, and drink wind, they have not been without service to the race of man. But their solitary and fastidious manners not only withdraw them from the conversation, but from the labors of the world; they are not good citizens, not good members of society; unwillingly they bear their part of the public and private burdens; they do not willingly share in the public charities, in the public religious rites, in the enterprises of education, of missions foreign and domestic, in the abolition of the slave-trade, or in the temperance society. They do not even like to vote. Amidst the downward tendency and proneness of things, when every voice is raised for a new road or another statute, or a subscription of stock, for an improvement in dress, or in dentistry, for a new house or a larger business, for a political party, or the division of an estate, will you not tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land, speaking for thoughts and principles not marketable or perishable? Soon these improvements and mechanical inventions will be superseded; these modes of living lost out of memory; these cities rotted, ruined by war, by new inventions, by new seats of trade, or the geologic changes.But the thoughts which these few hermits strove to proclaim by silence, as well as by speech, not only by what they did, but by what they forbore to do, shall abide in beauty and strength, to reorganize themselves in nature, to invest anew in other, perhaps higher endowed and happier mixed clay than ours, in fuller union with the surrounding

system. [Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Transcendentalist] Considerations by the Way The title of this subheading is also from Emerson. For visitors who have waded through the lengthy preamble, I will try a shorter list of considerations. I have been delinquent in my blogging, for the last however many days, because recent discussions concerning fifth-generation warfare have left me unsatisfied to the point that other considerations, on other topics, have seemed pointless. Often when Im in a muddle, I withdraw to Emerson and others, in an effort to reacquaint myself with all the old arguments that have thus far shaped my outlook (pro- or con-); and certain irregularities in the discussion of 5GW seem to have been clarified in my reading of those works. First and foremost, the consideration that 5GW entities would likely be small but determined forces seemed too fanciful: Small 5GW forces would defeat whole societies; but, whole societies are composed of many small forces. Secondly, if attacking the intelligence is the primary modus operandi of the 5GW force, that force would need to be, er, quite intelligent indeed in order to have any hope of success. Intelligence can take many forms, but whatever form is operative would need to be highly developed. Moreover, that intelligence would need an extraordinary understanding a fundamental comprehension of the targeted society or force. Thirdly, as mentioned in my last entry on 5GW, no society is homogenous. Any 5GW entity would need to target the most influential members of a society (thereby spreading the 5GWarriors influence, as with a megaphone or a ripple effect) in an effort to influence that societys dominant decision makers, or would need to create situations most likely to influence those who vote for or otherwise support the decision makers but in an open society such as Americas, or indeed almost certainly in any society, individuals or groups of individuals will exist who are not so easily fooled: the disenfranchised, the sub- and counter-cultural groups in short: those who do not subscribe to the worldviews shared by most members of that society. Some 5GW discussion has addressed the types of defense required to protect a society from fifthgeneration warfare. The greatest defense is the overwhelming unlikelihood that all the people will be fooled all the time, and it is a natural defense. The chance that some small but highly organized force will have the intelligence and knowledge required to fool most of the people of a much larger society most of the time is similarly small. Larger 5GW forces (say, nations), though they may have a larger supply of highly intelligent operatives or masterminds, will draw more attention because they have more fingers and more fingerprints: another strike against 5GW activity. The greatest weakness for a democratic society in combating 5GW say, America is the doctrine of majority rule. Those who do not participate in the system or indeed who oppose the political system also do not wield the power that has been concentrated (consecrated) at the topmost level of that majority. A 5GW force, should one of sufficient ability ever form, would only need to influence the majority and the leaders of that majority, or indeed create a majority will via stimuli such as catastrophes (natural or man-made), and sit back to watch the application of a force which it knows will rebound on that society. The disenfranchised (whether by self-determination or by exterior exclusion), the subcultural or countercultural elements, the criminals and hermits of a society, are likely to be the canaries in the mine: A 5GW force will use the weight of the dominant segment(s) of society against that society

and not waste effort on the seemingly powerless members of that society, and the oddball elements of a society are more likely to be sensitive to changes in the majority opinion than those who hold the majority opinion. (Im not excluding the 5GW potential for using criminal elements and homeland terrorists against a society, however.) I can easily imagine the formation of a counter-5GW development in a targeted society: If a small 5GW attacker succeeds in manipulating the wielders of conventional power and the conventional power brokers, a small 5GW defender may mobilize within the targeted society. The oddness of such an event is quite pertinent: The 5GW defender may or may not know of the true attacker; but either way, the defender may appear to be attacking the dominant elements of the society to which he belongs. (Those dominant elements have already been motivated to follow a self-destructive path, if a 5GW attacker has been successful.) A brilliant 5GW attack might indeed include, perhaps will require?, instigation of civil war, particularly if the targeted society is a large, highly developed and complex society; but then, perhaps there would still exist the possibility that the counter-5GW force will win and then turn on the original attacking 5GW force?

At one of the online poetry workshops I occasionally visit, the moderator, Rob Godfrey, made a parenthetical comment while discussing the political after-effects of Katrina: (obviously it would have been very easy for terrorists to blow/breach the New Orleans levees). I dont know the accuracy of the supposition, but suppose myself that causing such a structural failure would have been relatively simple if explosives had been placed at the right points. In earlier 5GW discussion, particularly also related to the Chinese concept of Unrestricted Warfare, the possibility of man-made natural disasters was mentioned. At the time, I wondered what sort of natural disaster, beyond viral epidemics, could be effected by a 5GW entity, from a practical point of view. Now I have a better idea. As I said to Rob, bin Laden is probably taking notes, among others.

Hugo Chavez: 5GWarrior The title of this entry may be misleading, but only because its sensational. Actually, an entry on NewsHog by Cernig suggests a possible attempt at psychological and economic warfare by Venezuela, through the wholly state-owned oil company CITGO: It seems that Chicago Transit Authority have kept secret an offer from Venezuela and its oil company, CITGO, to provide discounted fuel oil - 40 or 50% below the current price - for CTAs fleet of buses. The one stipulation, at the bidding of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was that the CTA, in turn, pass those savings on to poor residents in the form free or discounted fare cards. [link: Chicago Turns Down Discounted Venezuelan Oil.] This is stunning, actually. But Cernig berates Chicagos Transit Authority and offers a quote from a poor resident of Chicago: This is going to hurt the poor and the minority people, like me. So not only is Chavez attempting to spread his vision for a socialist society via an export of his particular brand of populism, he may also be stoking the fire of racism (or at least, minoritism.) Yes, folks, HUGO CHAVEZ LOVES YOU, unlike those corporatist American government officials whod rather raise transit fees by 25 cents than lower fees for the poor.

To use Dans words (read here to see how he comes to these conclusions): * 1GW was defined by conflict centered around an enemys ability to decide and act * 2GW was defined by conflict centered around an enemys ability to orient and decide * 3GW is defined by conflict centered around an enemys ability to orient * 4GW is defined by conflict centered around Observe and Orient. Dan concluded that 5GW will center around an opponents ability to OBSERVE: In 5GW, secrecy is vital for success. While this has always been true on some levels, secrecy has never been vital on the grand-strategic level before 5GW. In 5GW the enemys knowledge of your existence all but ends your plans. Dan illustrated his point with a 5GW scenario where NATIVISTS play the US GOVERNMENT off of AL QAEDA to get tighter border control with Mexico. In fighting false-flag organizations who they think is Al Qaeda, the US GOVERNMENT cracks down on immigration and the NATIVISTS get what they want. The US GOVERNMENT doesnt even realize what the true war was. Dans concept of 5GW is centered on one opponents misperception of the enemy. The sides in conflict are focussed on each other to the exclusion of key players in the conflict. Now, I think I might have come up with an alternative vision of 5GW, but one that remains within the OODA loop rubric Dan has previously outlined. I look forward to hearing Dan and Marks input on this (and anyone else who cares to slog through this stuff). Emergent Networks and 5GW First of all, much of this came from reading John Robbs excellent Global Guerillas. Distributed networks are how we normally think of the latest phase of terrorist organizations. Networked cells of agents come together ad hoc to pull off an attack and then disperse into the population. This a major breakaway from the hierarchical organization of revolutionary guerillas of Maos era. But what happens in the case of a different kind of network? Follow me through this narrative: Al Qaeda started off as a dense network of highly connected individuals that conducted training etc in the hills of Afghanistan. Once they were smashed by the US and ran to the hills the amount of direct control held by bin Laden diminished greatly. Direct interaction was replaced by globally distributed passive communication that outlined the groups objectives, and an even more distributed network was left on their own to do what they can for the cause: we had the disappearance of Al Qaeda the terrorist organization, and the appearance of Al Qaeda the movement. There were all sorts of groups that stood up to claim membership to the greater network of AQ after committing some act. Look at Al Qaeda in Iraq and other regional franchises of the organization. Copycat groups like the London bombers also appeared. Now, maybe a core organization of Al Qaeda still exists, but there seems to be a much more loose global community surrounding the AQ idea. This begs the question: could AQ 2.0, or even some future terrorist organization, be the result of an emergent community? Emergence is a bottom-up organization of complex systems, where a number of agents operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviours as a collective. See this interview with Steven Johnson for more examples of emergence.

What if the next war on a noun we face, isnt even a true organization, but whose activities look like the results of an organized adversary? What if we end up fighting something that doesnt actually exist? Thus the terrorist organization has struck deep into our OODA loop, rendering us unable to even OBSERVE our enemy correctly. That would be a truly formless adversary. As the Hagakure says: Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase Form is emptiness It reminds me of The Usual Suspects and the legendary crimelord Keyser Soz. Was he an actual person or simply a myth resulting from a series of loosely related crimes? The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didnt exist. Could the opposite be true? Could the greatest trick a terrorist movement ever pull is convincing the world that it did exist? I could see how warring on this myth (effectively a figment of the paranoid imagination) to the ends of the earth could definitely bankrupt a state. So, to recap, Dans version of 5GW has a key player acting behind the scenes that cannot be OBSERVEd. Younghusbands version has a non-existent actor that is being perceived as OBSERVEable. Thoughts?

I won't say that between Sun Tzu, Musashi, and tdaxp, you shall learn everything you need to about 5GW. But add VNV Nation's Matter + Form, and you probably will. In this article I will show how important elements of the 5th Generation of Modern Warfare were described by Sun Tzu and Miyamoto Musashi. I will tie these into my own previous writings on this blog. Additionally, just as Myke Cole reflected 5GW theory off cartoons, I shall shine it through music to emphasize the key points. I've been reading a lot of educational psychology for my studies at UNL, such as Elkind's All Grown Up and No Place to Go and Weisberg's Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius. I wanted to reading something meatier, so I turned to DNI's Suggested Reading List and found Dr. Chet Richard's Riding the Tiger. The article goes on to describe how to use the OODA loop in business, but to me the first part was most interesting, because it seemed to focus on 5GW. 5GW, or SecretWar, is the next generation of modern war. In my first post on 5GW, I wrote: If traditional war centered on an enemy's physical strength, and 4GW on his moral strength, the 5th Generation of War would focus on his intellectual strength. A 5th Generation War might be fought with one side not knowing who it is fighting. Or even, a brilliantly executed 5GW might involve one side being completely ignorant that there ever was a war. It's like the old question of what was the perfect robbery: we will never know, because in a perfect robbery the bank would not know that it was robbed.

and in my second 5GW post: In 5GW, secrecy is vital for success. While this has always been true on some levels, secrecy has never been vital on the grand-strategic level before 5GW. In 5GW the enemy's knowledge of your existence all but ends your plans.

So I was delighted, while reading Richard's Riding the Tiger, to see similar themes in Sun Tzu: Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness; Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness; Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.

Soundless. Formless. Remember those. And Sun Tzu's Japanese doppelganger, Miyamoto Musashi (as summarized by Richards) Yet, he specifically intended for his words to apply to more than just swordplay, and even there, he insisted that victory would go to the master of strategy, not to the strongest swordsman, nor to

the fastest, nor even to the fighter with the most polished technique. ... The focus, however, is never on defending, but on regaining and using the initiative so that you can lead your opponents where you want them to be.

Polished. Leading. Remember those. These themes are echoed in VNV Nation's new track, Chrome Soundless: I'm saying nothing for the good of myself but I'm still talking and you're not listening

Formless: resort to shadows till your body expires

Polished: for each and all a chrome disguise... embody promise in a sheen so pure

Leading: prompts for action force reaction

I've also discussed these elements in detail on tdaxp Soundless: But of course if parts of the world know they are being attacked, they will try to fight back. ... So to win the SecretWarrior must walk without rhythm to avoid the worm of hurtful information.

Formless:

In contrast to "hearts and minds," 5GW focuses on the enemy's "fingertips and gut." "Fingertip feeling," what the Germans called fingerspitzengefuhl, is the ability to know without thinking. This is what Americans call "gut feeling." To a certain extent, it means a commander trusting his intuition. It is critical in 5GW because fingertip feelings, or "hunches," will be the only way for the enemy to sense the fighter.

Polished: To put it in OODA decision cycle terms, the guard Observes a loosely dressed woman, orients this with knowledge of previously so-dressed women, acts by watching more, observes information in the context of believing he is watching a loose woman, etc. Thus the SecretWarrior gets inside the head of the Yakuza boss's guards. The 5GWarrior rearranges the mind of her enemy, changing his fingertip-feelings into something better for her.

Just as the 5GWarrior must struggle with her physical appearance to be only a girl, the SecretWarrior must also struggle with her beliefs to appear to be only a girl.

Leading: SecretWar, or 5th Generation War, relies on leveraging power while minimizing visibility. A successful 5GW operation would be able to subdue or subvert a government without being noticed. Therefore it is appropriate that Stratfor, started by the author of America's Secret War, outlines a way for SecretWarriors to subvert corporate America: shareholder activism.

A polished 5GW army will soundlessly and formlessly his enemy to where he wants him to be: and that will be the end of the 5GW. The loser will never know he lost. A repeated 5GW victim may sense his illness, but with 5GW attacking his Observation capacity, the victim's response will probable make his situation worse. in desperation dreams any soul can set you free and I still hear you scream in every breath, in every single motion burning innocence the fire to set you free your actions turn conquest to dust in portents of fate you foolishly place trust

And that is the 5th Generation of Modern Warfare.

RIDING THE TIGER: WHAT YOU REALLY DO WITH OODA LOOPS Dr. Chester W. Richards There was a moment when Detroit recognized that Americans were beginning to buy large numbers of foreign-made cars...The time for decisions was then. Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, Europe, January 29, 1993 If you consciously try to thwart opponents, you are already late. Miyamoto Musashi, Japanese philosopher/samurai, 1645 Version 4 October 2002 I. A New School of Thought Time has become the latest fad in business strategy. Thanks to a series of articles and books by gurus like George Stalk, Thomas Hout, and Tom Peters, probably no student of the subject is unfamiliar with the idea that speed or time can somehow be used as a competitive weapon. Yet, one's first impression is usually something like: So what's new? The early bird has always caught the worm. Early to bed and early to rise has always made one healthy, wealthy and wise. And wasn't it one of those Civil War generals who always got there "fustest with the mostest" (whatever that means)? Proverbs and Confederate raiders aside, all this attention to time is a fairly recent development, dating back no further than perhaps 1986, when Richard Schonberger published World Class Manufacturing. Until then, writers cycled through any number of secrets of competitiveness. You may recall such techniques as clever use of debt leveraging, or portfolio management (stars, dogs, and cash-cows), or most enduring of all, simply sizeto exploit efficiencies and economies of scale, and enshrine one's company in the Fortune 500. Note 1 (Stalk and Hout 4-37) I cannot explain why business analysts took until the late 1980s to discover time. As many writers take pains to note, the original idea comes from the philosophy of war, where it represents a strain of thought dating back at least 2,500 years. In other words, it has been lying around for a quite a while, and it is indeed true that some business leaders, particularly in the Japanese auto and electronics industries, have used time-based strategies for years. Still, you might expect that since the theory, if not the practice, of time-based competition in business is new, there might be areas where its military counterpart is still more advanced. In fact, the best military strategists have always had far more powerful results in mind than what is now appearing in the business press. The key to the military notion of time lies in how practitioners of the art of war view strategy. Great commanders down through the years have used time-based strategy to cloud their opponents' understanding and destroy their morale so that the battle, if it must be fought at all, is relatively quick and painless. In the language of conflict, we say that they move their opponents where they want them to be. Leaders in business and industry can do the same thing and with similar results. This paper explores this notion, first by looking at what today's most avant-garde business theorists claim for the concept of time, and then comparing that to what the most successful generals and strategists aim to achieve. Finally, we will the translate the military goals and objectives back into

the commercial world and look for examples where it actually worked. II. What Proponents Claim What does fast cycle time, or any other time-based technique do for a business? The claims are truly miraculous: Conventional Claims for Fast Cycle Time * Internally: enhance innovation, increase productivity, and improve quality * Externally: better anticipate market trends, more quickly respond to competitors' actions, enhance customer loyalty * Leading to: increased market share and improved margins As Hamel and Prahalad put it: Building one new business after another, faster than the competition, is the only way to stay ahead. ("Imagination" 82) These are all, therefore, worthy goals, fully supported by experience, and certainly embraceable by the CEO of any Fortune 500 company. Note 2 In fact, this list contains so many of the corporate virtues that it is difficult to see how anyone could improve upon it. III. You Can LoseNo Matter Who You Are Over the course of the 1980s and 90s, many of America's premier companies announced initiatives to reduce the time it took them to develop and produce product. They had the resources to implement any means necessary to maintain their competitive positions, and many of them did invest heavily in programs such as automation, total quality management, and enterprise resource planning with goals similar to those noted above. Unfortunately, neither size nor financial power (and with it, the ability to marshal whatever degree of management and consulting talent thought appropriate) has ensured the success of American business. GM, for example, has seen its market share drop some 20 percentage points since 1980, and during the 1990s, IBM eliminated about 40% of its capacity (and 25% of its people). America's next largest computer company at the start of that decade, Digital Equipment, lost $3.4 billion in 1990 and 1991, retired its founder, laid off 25% of its staff, and finally just disappeared into Compaq. (Collingwood 35; McWilliams 34; "GM's Revolution" 21) Tom Peters now writes almost apologetically about ever having called any large company "excellent." GE seems to loom as the sole exception, the last of its breed. The point is that these companies had every advantage believed to be important by the strategists of their time. The fact that so few of them are doing well, or even survive at all, might lead one to imagine that there is something missing from our list, a suspicion reinforced from the theory of strategy itself. For one thing, a real strategist doesn't like words like "respond" and is dubious about "anticipate." These are passive sorts of things that are associated with a paradigm like:

Something happens: * We observe it * We understand it * We react to it more quickly than the competition So when IBM reorganized its personal computer operations as a separate company, the respected London business paper, Financial Times, explained that, "The computer giant has established the IBM Personal Computer Company as an independent business unit with freedom to react as swiftly as necessary to rapidly changing market demands." (Keyhoe 11)(emphasis added) Now it is true that fast reactions have their placeif your opponent catches you by surprise, for example. Competence in this tactic, such things as staying cool, using the other side's momentum against them, and so on, form an essential part of any competitor's tool kit. Problems arise when, as in the above paradigm, reaction becomes the goal of strategy. First, under such an arrangement, if we don't see anything, we don't do anything. So much for initiative. For another thing, a reactive focus accepts the idea of a time lag. Each of the steps takes time, so there is a delay, or lag, between "something happens" and "we react to it." It seems obvious that there must be a delay, so the only thing we can do is minimize it, which is what all the management books are advising. But the fact that something is obvious does not make it right. Before just-in-time production systems, for example, it was obvious that a factory needed a sizable inventory of parts to cushion against unexpected demand and the inevitable bad component. People were locked into tinkering with the current system and were not creating ways of eliminating the source of the problems altogether. So it is with strategy. If your mindset is to observe carefully and then respond, you will always incur a lag, and the focus of your efforts will be on finding ways to shrink it. But suppose there was a way to compete that didn't generate a lag in the first place. Before considering how this might be, let's look at a couple of examples from the art of war that illustrate the dangers in strategies of response. How Warriors Think If you have anything of an entrepreneurial streak, this whole idea of waiting and responding should make you very uncomfortable. And in fact, the experience of military strategists suggests that your fears are well placed. When the French and British faced the Germans in 1940, for example, their position looked surprisingly strong: Allied Advantages * Number of forces * Overall quality of tanks *

Selection of the battlefield * Immunity from surprise Many people find this table difficult to accept, so let us consider its elements one at a time. Number of forces: The forces were roughly equal, at a time when conventional wisdom said one needed a three-to-one advantage to ensure a successful attack. The French actually had a commanding superiority in artillery, which had been the big killer on battlefields since the 1600s. Quality of tanks: As for tanks, the Germans had been prohibited from developing them by the Treaty of Versailles and really had not done much until 1933, when Hitler came to power. By May 1940, the Germans had only 627 tanks that could be considered modern (PzKw IIIs and IVs.) (Batchelor, 8-10; Jones 511-513; Macksey 35; Orgill 59; Roseler; Deighton) Selection of the battlefield: The battlefield was where it had to be, because the French Maginot Line forced the German attack into the 200 mile gap between the end of the Line and the sea. Both sides understood this. No possibility of surprise: Finally, there could be no major surprises since everybody knew there was war on (Germany had attacked Poland on September 1st of the previous year) and the allies were fully expecting an attack. With all this going for them, how could the allies lose? So the French felt safe and confirmed in their strategy of waiting for the Germans to make the first mistake. Unfortunately, only ten days after the attack started, the Germans reached the English Channel, a trick they could not achieve in four years of bloody brawling 25 years earlier. Far better armies than the French of 1940 have succumbed to the same fate. Consider Israel in 1973. Along the east bank of the Suez Canal, which formed the frontier with Egypt, the Israeli Defense Force had established the Bar-Lev Line, a chain of fortresses intended not so much to stop but to disrupt and channelize any attack. In the desert behind the line, the IDF's renown talent for mobile warfare (in contrast to the pre-WW II French, who showed hardly any appreciation for maneuver) would permit them to isolate and then annihilate Egyptian units that penetrated into the Sinai proper. It was a plan that capitalized on Israeli strengths in maneuver, training, and morale, and the fact that it left the initiative with the Egyptians was obviously not considered crucial. The Israelis had every other advantage, and in any case, once the Bar-Lev Line had identified and isolated the initial attack, the IDF would seize the initiative back and proceed to victory. In a sense, the Israeli scheme worked. After a close few days, the IDF did contain the Egyptian thrust and then launched a brilliant tactical counterstroke that recrossed the canal. But it took days instead of hours, and the final results failed to come anywhere near the decisiveness of 1948/49, 1956 or especially, 1967. And at the strategic level, costs were much higher than before, as the aura of Israeli invincibility, along with her ability to awe potential Arab foes, was dimmed forever by Egypt's crossing of the canal. (El-Shazly) Israel, in analogy to Pyrrhus, could hardly afford more such victories. The point is that the Israelis lost the initial phase of the battle not in spite of the Bar-Lev Line, but because of it, and if it can happen to the IDF, it can happen to anybody. On the military side at least, it has proven dangerous to sit back and concede the initiative to one's competition, no matter how brilliant you think the rest of your doctrine is. Reaction as a strategy may temporarily avoid defeat;

it rarely delivers victory. The same is true for business, but before we consider the world of commerce, it will prove useful to examine what the military originators of the strategy of time as a competitive weapon had in mind. IV. A Tiger Among Sheep If you truly are riding the tiger, you should be able to do more than parry the designs of sheep. You should be able to go in and clean them out, a goal of strategy going back as far as we have writings on the subject. It is remarkably well developed in the earliest extant treatise, and one with which every strategist, military or otherwise, should be conversant. This is the famous Art of War, attributed to a certain Sun Tzu and dating from around 400 B.C. Note 3 Sun Tzu's goals are anything but reactive: Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness; Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness; Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate. (emphasis added) Sun Tzu's strategy was not to wait for his adversary to make a mistake and then spring an ambush (although that might be a perfectly appropriate tactic if circumstances warranted), but that by means of your strategy, you are going to put your opponents where you want them. Sun Tzu also took aim at Maginot Line strategies: "Preparedness everywhere means lack everywhere." (108) In other words, a strategy of preparing and reacting, no matter how comforting it may seem to civilians, contains inherent vulnerabilities, a fact known to Sun Tzu and demonstrated countless times since. As an aside, Sun Tzu is perhaps best known for his enlightened views on the role of violence. He insisted that, "To win without fighting is best." (66-67) It would not be an overstatement to summarize The Art of War as an uncompromised indictment of generals whose only ideas of strategy are frontal assaults and battles of attrition. It is a viewpoint that would have served the Western World well over the last 200 years. Sun Tzu's proactive philosophy reached an apex in another famous strategist of that school, the samurai Miyamoto Musashi (1584 - 1645). He is a national hero of Japan one of World War II's largest battleships was named after himand his legend so typifies some aspect of the Japanese psyche that a long novel based on his life is widely known as the Gone With the Wind of that country. (Yoshikawa) A romantic figure to the point of clich, he won some 60 sword fights, most of which ended in the death of his opponent, then retired to lead the life of an unkempt hermit. Along the way, he wrote one of the true gems of strategy, A Book of Five Rings. (Nihon) Note 4 It is so widely studied in business schools on both sides of the Pacific that you typically find it in the management section of bookstores. The translators of one edition, Nihon Services, subtitled it "The Real Art of Japanese Management." Musashi is interesting because he deals in the most elemental form of strategy, how to win one-onone when the alternative is death. He is the Old West gunfighter, Japanese style. For this reason, many people are repulsed by the crudeness of Musashi's goalliterally getting the opponent to die by hacking him to bitsand fail to see any relevance to the modern business world. This is a mistake. We do not have to identify with Musashi's grisly vocation to see that his methods are powerful. Indeed, they worked time after time against some of the best trained and most skillful swordsmen Japan ever produced. Yet, he specifically intended for his words to apply to more than just swordplay, and even there, he insisted that victory would go to the master of strategy, not to the strongest swordsman, nor to the fastest, nor even to the fighter with the most polished technique.

(27) Despite the fact that he is widely studied in Japan and the US, his strategy is easily misunderstood. Even a group like Nihon Services advises that the Musashi method of starting negotiations is to "simply sit, wait, and say nothing ... waiting for the opponent to make the first move." It is a simple ruse, one probably thought suited to unschooled Westerners. Musashi does describe the tactic, called "Tai no Sen," but it is not at all the core idea of his method. In fact, he concludes his analysis of opening maneuvers with: "It is generally advisable to be the one to initiate the attack and thereby put the opponent in the defensive position." (63) Also: "In the path to victory in Heiho (his school) taking the initiative at all costs is the most important thing." (90) Musashi would laugh at Clausewitz's endorsement of the defense as the stronger form of combat. Note 5 What if opponents act first? Let's not be arrogantyour opponents are thinking human beings and can also employ the basic strategic tools of surprise, deception, and ambiguity. Then, advised Musashi, you have to stifle their plans immediately. The focus, however, is never on defending, but on regaining and using the initiative so that you can lead your opponents where you want them to be. (64) Time and again, Musashi denounced anything that would let opponents regain control: Merely striking opponents as they come forward (author's note: no matter how rapidly you do it) leads one into the frame of mind of just waiting, and this is useless. (50) Trying to take advantage of an opponent's unguarded moment always places one in the defensive so that ... one can be led on by the opponent. (88) I dislike the defensive spirit which is inherent in a stance. (88) To put this into a more modern context, the Bar-Lev and Maginot Lines were, of course, stances. Classical Zen carries this philosophy to the extreme of the "no sword maneuver", where the notion is not merely to counter a slashing sword, but to take the weapon away and turn it against the opponent. Thomas Cleary, perhaps today's most active commentator on the roots of oriental strategy, notes that this maneuver neatly sums up Japan's national policy in competition with the industrialized West. (58) Where Time Enters In The Toyota Production System, quite simply, is about shortening the time it takes to convert customer orders into vehicle deliveriesToyota Motor Corporation, Toyota Production System, 1992. The notion of employing time as a weapon is woven through Sun Tzu, Musashi, and the other members of this school. In fact, it forms the central theme of their concept for seizing the initiative and finishing off the opponent. Sun Tzu had proclaimed that the ability to think and act rapidly is the essence of war. (Cleary's trans. 152) Ho Yanxi, a commentator from the 12th century, noted that a commander must "change tactics a hundred times at every pace." (Cleary 82) Sun Tzu and his commentators also talked about sowing confusion by not giving opponents time to plan. (152) Musashi endorsed this as a goal, but in many ways took a more sophisticated approach to time than merely as an adjunct to speed or rapidity. He conceived of combat as dominated by "rhythms," whereby victory became inevitable if one could employ strategy to throw off the rhythm of an opponent. (23-24, 72, 93) In particular, one could manipulate time and rhythm to unhinge an opponent's mental and moral composure: You use "an advantageous rhythm to arrest the powerful determination of the adversary's motivation." (Cleary, Japanese, 81) This was, he insisted, an essential step before engaging in physical combat. It is a stunningly powerful observation, for

demotivated opponents are defeated opponents, no matter what weapons remain in their hands. Warriors using Musashi's techniques could create gaps, which the Japanese call "suki," in their opponent's attention, during which one could attack a fully armed samurai with a fencepost (as Musashi once did) and win. (Nihon 31) In modern times, a corollary notion has been synthesized by the American strategist, the late Air Force Col. John R. Boyd. Like Musashi, Boyd got his initial ideas from one-on-one combat, in his case, jets over Korea. After pondering this experience, and studying the results of engagements from Sun Tzu to the present, Boyd derived the OODA loop, for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. It has been described for business by Bower and Hout, Stalk and Hout, and Peters. Note 6 The ability to execute rapid OODA loops is called "agility," and it now generally recognized that the more agile organization will build-up increasingly decisive advantages over its opponents. In particular, it will gain all of the advantages noted by business strategists in Section II. But Boyd, like Musashi, has more than this in mind. Here is an extract from his major briefing, Patterns of Conflict, where he describes what the side in a conflict with the faster OODA loops can do: Strategy la Boyd * Probe and test adversary to unmask weakness * Interweave menace, uncertainty, and mistrust * Move along paths of least resistance * Exploit differences, frictions and obsessions (within) the adversary * Subvert, disorient, disrupt, overload, or seize adversary's critical connections, centers, and activities (emphasis in original) The conclusions of Boyd, Musashi, and others of this school suggest a paradigm something like A Modern Paradigm of Conflict 1. If necessary, immediately frustrate opponents' designs so that we may 2. Use agility (rapid OODA speed) to: * Confuse their decision processes *

Damage their morale * Open up vulnerabilities * Exploit vulnerabilities 3. Continue with Step 2 until the enemy surrenders or is defeated. It is worth repeating that this is not a theoretical construct, but a proven strategy for winning in armed conflict. It provides a framework much more powerful than merely reacting to opponents, but one might reasonably ask whether it applies to anybody but a soldier? More to the point, businesses don't directly combat each other. Instead, they compete for the attention, and money, of customers. Can businesses employ OODA loops and the other tools of time-based competition to achieve anything like the effects of Sun Tzu, Musashi, and Boyd, and if so, how is this going to help them survive and grow? V. Moving Markets: The Samurai Approach to Business We can now return to our original question, that of whether there is an alternative for businesses to the rapid response mindset, with its attendant focus on management of lag times. Warfighters, as we have seen, use mind-and-morale destroying techniques to create and exploit opportunities for collapsing the enemy. In business, things are fundamentally different. War has opponents; business does have its analog of opponentscompetitorsbut they are of secondary importance next to a new god-like entity, the customer. You can use Musashi all you want, but if the customer buys a competitor's products or services anyway, you lose. It turns out, however, that there is money to be made by focusing the strategies of Sun Tzu, Musashi, and Boyd not directly against the competition, but on the customer. Not to destroy his or her mind, of course, but for the purposes that lead to success in the marketplace. To get an idea of what these techniques do in the commercial world, let's examine a famous business "war" described in detail by George Stalk. ("Time" 44-45) Briefly, Yamaha had built a huge new factory and planned to take the title of "World's Largest Motorcycle Manufacturer" away from Honda. Honda responded not with a head-on frontal assault, say by building an even larger factory, but by maneuvering in the time arena. Over an 18-month period, Honda turned up the product development wick and introduced 113 new models to Yamaha's 37. Yamaha's margin and market share began to drop rapidly so that at the end of the period, Yamaha made a public (and one must believe humiliating) surrender. From the standpoint of strategy, there are at least two key points. The first, made eloquently by Stalk, is that Honda's basic structure gave it a faster cycle speed that enabled it to out-develop Yamaha by roughly a factor of three. Thus it experienced all the benefits of Section II. But Stalk's analysis actually reveals an even more powerful conclusion. He also points out that the end of H-Y War, Honda had made newness an object of customer desire in and of itself: Next to a Honda, he reported, a Yamaha looked drab and unimaginative. There is a world of strategic significance in this simple observation. It is, in fact, the exact analog of Musashi's seizing the initiative and leading the opponent, except that since business is not war, due to the mediating effect of the customer, what Honda led was the marketplace. Actually it is more accurate to say that Honda played the major role in shaping the marketplace, since, over the

eighteen month span of the war, both Honda and the customer were changed by their frantic, mutual interaction. Honda did not wait to see what Yamaha was going to do, nor did it simply ape Yamaha's strategy of bigness. It used its faster OODA loop speed to seize the initiative with decisive effect. Yamaha, cobbled by its slower cycle time, denied itself the benefits of shaping the marketplace and so could only follow along. I have no record of what was going on inside Yamaha during this period. One can assume it was not pretty. A quick glance at the business press uncovers many cases of companies using agility to shape the marketplace. Another of Stalk's examples is Wal-Mart, which made Sam Walton the richest man in America by servicing a market most everybody else had written offrural America. Although WalMart watches K-Mart and Sears very closely, and will immediately steal any good idea it finds, its strategy is not based on "rapid detection of market trends" but on creating those trends in the first place. It uses its ability to "almost instantaneously convert ideas into action" to re-invent the Fiveand-Dime and so slide the market right out from under its competitors. In other words, Wal-Mart is not simply a better K-Mart, but has created a market nobody believed existed, it has turned itself into something structurally quite different. (Stalk, Evans, and Schulman; Saporito "Week"; Saporito "Walton") What about the mind-destroying effects described by Sun Tzu, Musashi and Boyd? There is little in the business press on this question, probably because writers have been focusing on the remarkable, if passive, attributes noted in Section II. But anecdotes and circumstantial evidence abound to support what military strategists and practitioners have found. Anybody who has ever been on a losing team, or worked for a failing organization, knows Boyd is right. Here is a classic description from one of the founders of the modern quality movement, Joseph Juran: Lacking victories over their competitors, and unable to defend themselves from their bosses, they lash out at each other, making unity of purpose even harder to achieve. (74) Or this, from the former chairman of General Electric, Jack Welch: This internal focus has wasted our time, wasted our energy, frustrated us, made us so mad some nights over some bureaucratic jackass boss that we'd punch a hole in the wall. (Sherman 46) An organization falling victim to the Boyd Treatment will enter a tightening spiral of internal conflict. As it falls further behind in the marketplace, and its successful moves (as determined, of course, by the customer) become rarer and rarer, all the wonderful chaos and bickering beloved of military strategists follows. Interviews with members of such organizations will reveal witch hunts, strict adherence to directives and procedures (with a total lack of risk-taking), and so on. Inevitably, people split into camps and start apportioning blame, and the company turns ever more deeply inward (Welch's "internal focus", Boyd calls it "folding your adversary in on himself"). Usually, Stalk and Hout observe, traditional managers never understand what hit them. When attacked by a time-based competitor, cost-based managers rarely figure out why, despite what their spreadsheets are telling them, they are suddenly losing market share and why more robust cost-cutting isn't restoring profitability.(264) The key point is that for business, these effects are icing on the cake. They do not, in and of themselves, produce products that customers will buy. The primary active effect of time-based strategy in business is the symbiotic shaping of the marketplace that agile companies participate in. VI. Here's a Hint: The Tigers Are The Ones With Claws

The company that can identify what technologies are needed, introduce them quickly, and commercialize them will succeed. Hiroshi Okuda, President, Toyota Motor Corporation (Business Week, June 15, 1998) Ask any CEO, "Is your business philosophy reactive?" It's like asking if his marketing plan is to wait by the phone. Even the French of 1940, that wonderful source of what-to-avoid examples, liked to brag about how their lan would sweep away the Teutonic invaders. Of course, as they were soon to learn, talking a good fight was not the same thing as actually doing it. And so it is with the world of business. Policies are one thing, but companies that have the power to shape the market are structurally, as well as philosophically, different. Note 7 Stalk had noted this in his analysis of the H-Y War, where Honda could generate faster OODA speeds because it had instituted structural changes, for the most part simplifications, beforehand. Structure is so intimately bound up with strategy that it is difficult to imagine how one could make any lasting change in an organization's behavior without first making equally profound changes in its systems. To illustrate, let's look at two areas, interaction with the customer and innovation, where there is great temptation to promote change not by really changing anything, but simply by ordering the troops to "Get to know the customer!" and "Come up with some great new ideas!" Predatory Eyes on the Customer At the highest level of business strategy, meeting the needs of the customer should provide focus and direction to all activities of the company. Note 8 It is in this key area where we find perhaps the most visible differences between companies that claim to be proactive, and those that actually are. Reactive companies want to detect market opportunities. They engage in traditional market research, things like questionnaires, focus groups, and the like. Basic to their attitude is the idea that the customer is "out there" and we are "in here." To bridge this gap, they will put a lot of effort into going out to Customer Land and "finding out what they want." One problem with this approach, of course, is that the customer often doesn't know. As marketing executive and author Alan Magrath points out, who in 1976 thought they needed a personal computer? In fact, few people did need the machines that were available back then. Anybody remember MITS? But along came Apple and the customer started to respond, then the IBM PC, laptops and notebooks, the Mac, Windows, and so on, to where today hundreds of thousands of these things are sold every month. (Hamel and Prahalad, "Imagination" 85; McGrath 47) With growth in PC sales beginning to level off, the big question now is "What next?" I don't know - offer me something. To get fast enough to lead the market, companies have had to, in the words of consultant Mack Hannan, "marry the customer." (77) This phrase certainly has the potential to sink into clich, if not nausea, but whereas we all claim to put the customer first, the very structure of most companies limits how intimately involved with the customer they can become. One obvious example is a Marketing Department that jealously controls customer contact. Or a policy of basing sales and project people in a home office rather than with their customers. Or an accounting system that sees customer service as a cost, that is, an attractive candidate for cutbacks when times get tough. Tom Peters' 1992 follow-on to Thriving on Chaos, the 800-and-something page Liberation Management, carries this thesis to its ultimate conclusion: Most of today's management systems and practices preclude the intensity of customer involvement that companies will need in order to survive. Therefore they must be eliminated. What's left is variously known as an "enterprise web" (Reich) or "virtual corporation." (William M. Davidow and Michael S. Malone, cited in Byrne,

"Futurists" 41) The idea is that if hierarchies and bureaucracies aren't there, they can't slow things down or choke off initiative. This is a radical prescription for most enterprises, and shifting to such a structure will be difficult, if not impossible for them. The reason is not lack of intelligence or even will, but the collective and understandable reluctance of managers to dismantle the system that has worked for them and their companies in the past. The amazing thing is that it has been done. At highly agile Nike, for example, which owns roughly one-third of the US sports shoe market, The Economist observes that "barriers between the firm, its customers, and its suppliers have almost disappeared." ("Networks") Interested readers will find pages (chapters) of examples in Peters' book. Just going virtual, however, does not guarantee that you will become a proactive market shaper: To explain the driving forces behind the new concept, for example, Business Week's cover story began with "Big companies can't react fast enough." (Byrne, Brandt, and Port) Innovation and Initiative If we stop innovating and stop bringing new electronic devices to the market, we'll die. We'll become just an ordinary, plain-vanilla companySony Executive. (Hamilton and Landro A1) Another frequently mentioned attribute of a market-shaping company is its obsession with innovation. It should be obvious that to move the market in a new direction, you have to offer the customer a product or level of service or something that isn't there today. We noted in Section II that companies with rapid decision cycles are often good innovators. Partly this is because most innovations are actually incremental improvements on an original idea, what Hamel and Prahalad call "expeditionary marketing." ("Imagination" 86-92) The more rapidly that a company can sense how the customer reacted to its last offering and make changes accordingly, the better job of innovation it will do. Note 9 This was the core of Honda's strategy in the H-Y War. This is fine, but does not disturb a reactive mindset. A more powerful reason that innovation is related to market shaping goes back to the military idea of the initiative. Companies take the initiative in the marketplace by offering a stream of new products and services. Where do new products and services come from? The only answer possible, discounting elves and gamma rays, is through the initiative of the people who work for and with the organization. A market creator uses the almost symbiotic relationship all of its people have with its customers to generate ideas for new features or capabilities or whatever. Stalk and Hout were dead on, when in the middle of describing how agile companies become entwined with their customers, they observed that "Sometimes it's difficult to know who's leading whom." (Stalk and Hout 264) Incidentally, this is the same principle underlying maneuver warfare, where an army puts out tens or hundreds of small "feelers," then uses its fast OODA loop speed to identify and reinforce those that begin to penetrate. This remarkably successful concept has been used to great effect by such leaders as Erwin Rommel, George S. Patton, Vo Nguyen Giap, Moshe Dyan, and Norman Schwartzkopf. In industry we have 3M, which encourages its people to spend 15% of their time working on ideas outside their formal projects, and measures its managers against a formal goal of deriving 25% of sales from products less than five years old. (Jacobson 39). And one of the world's other premier innovators, Sony, holds "science fairs," where people with ideas for new products can show them off to top management. (Schendler) On the manufacturing side, "lean production," which is based on these same principles (and can therefore be considered as an implementation of the principles of maneuver warfare), has displaced mass production, which relies on synchronization and control, in every marketplace where the two compete. As of late 2002, lean producer Dell is the number one US PC manufacturer, Southwest

Airlines is profitable while old warhorses like Delta, American, and United are losing billions, and Toyota is the world's most profitable car company as GM, Ford, and DiamlerChrysler continue to founder. Note 10 (Womack & Jones) Toyota, whose system is generally considered the foundation of lean production, expects initiative at all levels and in all processes. Even on the factory floora "shut up and do it my way" purgatory in many companiesToyota puts the responsibility on employees for establishing such fundamental practices as standard work procedures. "The paperwork is minimal," reads the official Toyota description of the system, "the efficiency is maximal. And the employees themselves are completely in charge." (Toyota, 29) In addition to establishing procedures and operating the famous kanban system for just-in-time production, shop floor employees give Toyota some 35 suggestions per capita per year for improving the operation. (Peters, Thriving 72) The typical US manufacturer would be lucky to get one, and you don't have to look far to find the reasonhierarchies are set up to "control" employees, not, as one of the fathers of modern maneuver warfare doctrine put it, to "unleash them" on their competition. (Wyly 18) The Illusion of Defense Still, the company hasn't come up with any blockbuster innovations as of late, long an HP hallmark ... Instead, current and former executives say that HP has become so focused on protecting its existing businesses that it has taken its eye off the critical job of creating tomorrow's new markets. (Burrows, 17) Unfortunately for US competitiveness, initiative is often honored but not practiced. Far too many companies demonstrate the fatal flaw noted by Sybase co-founder Robert Epstein: An established company's true major goal is to defend what it did last year. (Deutschman 84; Hamal and Prahalad, "Imagine" 83) No company, of course, admits to such a philosophy, but you can usually detect a reactive mindset. For example, when you read their annual reports or listen to statements by top management, you might find such phrases as "barriers-to-entry" and "core competencies." Note 11 These are business versions of the Maginot Line. Now remember the key fact, that the Maginot Line did what it was designed to do: It kept the Germans out of that part of France. However, France lost the war anyway, in large part because top French military leaders did not develop a doctrine of maneuver warfare, and failed to promote officers like DeGaulle who did. They did not understand the needthey had the Maginot Line. As strategist Basil Liddell Hart pointed out, the Maginot Line permitted, and the enormous expense of its construction virtually required, that the French retain the trench-warfare staff culture and procedures that shattered when hit by the Blitzkrieg. (Liddell Hart 131-132) The same thing can happen to a company. Until very recently, for example, size was thought to be a barrier from attack. Large companies could get away with being "fast followers": They had deep financial pockets, extensive R&D efforts, and predatory legal staffs and so could duplicate the offerings of upstart competitors at lower costs or tie them up in a costly court battles. (Hamel and Pralahad, "Imagination" 86) Looked at individually, these are formidable weapons, but taken as a whole, they spawn a mentality that eventually destroys their own wielders: Protected initially by its sheer size, GM was slower than Ford and Chrysler to react to the assault mounted by the Japanese. (Dickson 21) Note 12 One might at this stage glance back over the advantages the allies had at the start of the blitzkrieg. Taken together, they locked the allied leaders into outmoded patterns of thinking about war. On May 19th, for example, Churchill proclaimed that there was no way the combined army of three or

four million men could be defeated by what he termed a "raid of mechanized vehicles." The next day, the panzers reached the coast and the French who had survived, which was most of them, in a vast pocket to the north of the German thrust, had no choice but surrender. The Maginot Line mentality is deadly and yet it is so appealing that it may not be recognized until it has sapped the company's competitive strengths. Consider, for example, what can arise when a company bases its strategy around the things it does the bestits "core competencies." Ideally, according to Hamal and Pralahad, these should be things the competition will find difficult to emulate. It's a comforting thought, a profitable meal ticket for consultants, and proclaimed by Business Week as the secret to survival in lean times. ("They Came") But while it is certainly true that at any given point in time a company has to do the best with what it has, this is the definition of "tactics," not strategy. Basing a company's future on any particular resource is a business version of a stance, and so a false and fatal strategy. Perhaps the most obvious objection to a core competencies strategy is that the market might not happen to be buying what you're good at. In the 1970s and '80s, DEC grew fat on minicomputers, because it made an outstanding product and understood the customer for minis very well. As the number 2 computer company, it must have felt that it was too competentand too bigto fail. Unfortunately, it lost $2.8 billion in 1992 alone as the overall market accelerated a move to a different set of customers, for PCs and workstations. (Madigan 48, Verity 36) By 1998, it had become a division of Compaq and then disappeared entirely when Compaq was swallowed by HP. Note 13. The lure of technology or some other internal "competence" as the source of fundamental competitive advantage is strong, even among observers who know better. Wal-Mart's ability to gather and process sales information so impressed Peter Drucker, for example, that he proclaimed it to be the bedrock of that company's success. (8) Actually, members of the late Sam Walton's family still occupy top spots on Forbes' richest list because the people in their stores greet you at the door, the places are clean and modern, they carry what their customers want, and you have a hard time beating the prices. Unarguably, computers and communication systems helped, and Wal-Mart was a pioneer. But these information systems today are all the results of Wal-Mart's highly agile management system operating over many years. Grafting any one of them, including the automated inventory and ordering processes, onto Sears or K-Mart is not going to change the bureaucratic mindsets that caused them to fall behind Wal-Mart in the first place. It is worth keeping in mind that Wal-Mart is a market shaper and creator, not merely a market responder, and thus agilityrather than the specific products of itis its "core competence." Note 14 Suppose that you define "competence" not as a specific technology or mastery of an internal process, but as high up the strategic chain as possible, something like knowledge of the customer. Unfortunately the same dangers lurk: a belief that you have any type of unique capability is the siren song of complacency. In fact, a belief that you have some kind of difficult-to-emulate ability to know the customer is simply arrogance, which is even a faster-acting poison than mere complacency, and this tends to be true of all high-level business (as opposed to technical or physical) functions. You must assume that your competitors are just as good at the business basics as you are, and you would be better served to assume they are already ahead. Former Intel CEO Andy Grove was right: Only the paranoid do survive. It is so tempting to believe that "we have these facilities" or "we have these great capabilities", and therefore we are safe. You are never safe, and the first hint of a belief that you are safe marks the start of your decline. Only a management that can constantly challenge comforting beliefs, even if they are unstated, will lead its company to survive and grow year after year. Remember when Enron used to proclaim itself "The World's Best Company"?

Reality Eventually Wins According to the ancient warriors of the Sun Tzu school, the real situation is even worse than complacency-invites-decline. That, at least, is well within our own tradition. Musashi proclaimed that any manifestation of the stance mentality, even if assumed with vigilance and paranoia, will always generate a defensive spirit and so will open vulnerabilities. One might do better to emulate the Zen warriors who knew that the only resource that will ensure victory is resourcefulness itself. (Cleary, Japanese Art of War, 77) So the bottom line is yes, you can prosper by restructuring your operations to become a fast reactor to market trends. You may have to prune things some, which it's probably time for anyway, but you won't need to do great violence to your underlying systems and culture. And everything will probably work out OK, unless, of course, you meet up with a competitor who is determined to shape the market and who is structurally able to do so. Then 2,500 years of experience say that you are going to have a problem. And word is getting out. "Boldness," writes Fortune's Rahul Jacob, "may very well be the preeminent competitive advantage in this slow growth decade." (74) After all, whom would you bet on, a fast sheep or a fast tiger?

EMERGENT INTELLIGENCE IN OPEN SOURCE WARFARE Open source warfare, like what we see in Iraq and increasingly in other locations, relies on networks of peers rather than the hierarchies of command and control we see in conventional militaries. This structure provides an open source movement with levels of innovation and resilience that rigid hierarchies can't match. Unfortunately, these attributes are likely not constrained to merely local tactical activity. Open source movements can exhibit emergent intelligence that guides the movement's collective actions towards strategic goals. Emergent Intelligence What is emergent intelligence? It is a form of macrointelligence that arises from local interactions. It isn't merely the simple stigmergic interactions (Stigmergy is a term used in biology -- from the work of french biologist Pierre-Paul Grasse -- to describe environmental mechanisms for coordinating the work of independent actors) necessary for the coordination of the swarm activities of local autonomous agents. Rather, it is a form of group intelligence that learns, achieves goals, and engages in self-preservation. There are five simple requirements for emergent intelligence (a good starting point for those that want to dive deeper into this subject is Steven Johnson's book "Emergence"): * A critical mass of participation is necessary. A certain minimum number of participants, either individuals or component groups, is necessary for micromotives to translate into macromotives. It also means that without a minimum number of interactions between these participants, the statistical nature of macrointelligence won't emerge. More is different. * A local focus is useful. Open source actors are mainly focused on local activity. The simplicity of this focus is a feature and not a bug since it prevents activity that may upset the entire organism's operation. Local action, global impact. * Random interactions are necessary. Random interactions between groups and individuals outside is a necessity (this assumes a certain level of mobility and communications capability). These interactions provide a fluidity to the learning process that finds and responds to new information quickly. * Pattern matching from stigmergic communication. The ability to see patterns of activity from simple signs is a necessity. Gradients of activity provide "maps" to areas of focus for individual actors or groups. * An openness to interaction. A willingness to interact with others is required. This assumes some commonality between actors that bonds them to each other. What does this mean? Analysis of the Iraqi insurgency indicates that emergent intelligence is evident. A complex series of local interactions has led to shifts in its behavior that reflect complex learning, goal attainment, and self-preservation despite a lack of a leadership hierarchy. What this means to the outcome of the war is as follows: * The insurgency will continue to improve over time. Despite losses, the macro behavior of the Iraqi insurgency will become more complex (virulent) the longer it operates. As a result, it will be difficult to dislodge with each passing month. We will see less activity where it has little impact and more where it matters. Further, this activity will become more efficient. * Breakout is possible. While it is unlikely that the insurgency will spread horizontally to other countries in an incremental fashion, it is very likely that those trained in this environment will seed other movements (and inevitable that the knowledge of this will initiate activity). Further, this breakout can occur globally and in unexpected locales -- since this neutral method isn't tied to any single motive, it can be applied to any cause. It is impossible to discern the motives of this movement (UPDATED). The motives of

individual actors are easy to discern. A global motive is impossible to uncover, particularly since it is the culmination of thousands of local interactions. Even observations of the movement's global pattern of activity might be fruitless, since the time horizon is likely too short for accurate measurement. The movement is in a constant process of maturation in response to evolving environmental conditions.

5GW: Greek Tragedy Recent conversation at Coming Anarchy has motivated me to revisit the subject 5GW: fifthgeneration warfare, with a slightly different focus than I have already used and, generally, with a different focus than has been used by Dan of tdaxp and most recently by Younghusband of Coming Anarchy. Much of the prior focus has outlined the most general aspects of theoretical 5GW. For instance, both Dan and Younghusband have recently focused on a broad outline of how 5GW might operate, paying attention to OODA loops and how the loops can be used or, even, subverted by the 5GWarrior. Dan tdaxp, as can be surmised from the title of the link to tdaxp above, has, in particular, devoted much time to the theoretical qualities of 5GW: soundlessness, formlessness, polish, leadership and secrecy. These are qualities that may inform the actual decisions and activities of 5GWarriors, they are pointers for anyone wishing to engage in 5GW or wishing to defend against 5GW, but they are not themselves the actual decisions and activities we might expect in 5GW. At the recent Coming Anarchy thread, one commenter wondered about something that has been asked before at tdaxp in discussions concerning 5GW: how does 5GW differ from 4GW? 4GWarriors are often fuzzy, may be quite indistinct, and use tactics to confuse their opponents or overwhelm their opponents control over a situation. 4GWarriors may be involved in loose networks, with cells hardly cooperating directly with one another, and largely depend for their success on an emergent order over which they, themselves, have little individual control. [Tangentially, John Robbs concept of emergent intelligence speaks to this last point also contemplated here at P.C.in Emergence and Warfare: Notes and Hypotheses.] When speaking of secrecy and formlessness, the fuzzy image we have of 4GW insurgents or global guerrillas, who may hide among civilians and have few known identities and known locations, may lead us to question how 5GW can be distinguished from 4GW. If leading our opponents to where we want them to be is a description of 5GW, it is nevertheless also a description of 4GW and a tactic utilized in even earlier forms of warfare. Polished warriors have been the best, going as far back as human conflict. In comments to the thread at Coming Anarchy, Dan reintroduced the concept of greater effectiveness for succeeding generations of warfare a 5GWarrior would, theoretically, be 20x as strong as a 4GWarrior, or able to kill (or neutralize) 20-times more 4GW opponents as a 4GWarrior would his 5GW foes. Whatever the actual number, such a concept makes sense, or else there would be no evolutionary reason for succeeding generations of warfare. But the concept makes claims which have yet to be supported in our theory of 5GW, since we do not have a clear concept of how the 5GW neutralizes 20x 4GW opponents if the two are in combat. I mentioned this problem at Coming Anarchy: Dans broad characterization of the effectiveness of 5GW forces who are fighting priorgeneration forces is a little too abstract or even inconsequential, since it does not describe exactly how a 5GW force may fight a 4GW force. Im talking, nuts and bolts. Consider the effective 4GW forces that have emerged in modern times; then ponder how a shadowyindeed, a formless5GW force will fight a 4GW force in order to achieve the 20x advantage. I.e., I know that previously Ive been considering how a 5GW force might defeat a society or NGO or coalition of stateswithout giving much thought to how the force would combat other actual military forces. Its much easier to see how a 5GW might destroy a state than it is to see how a hidden organization might defeat a fuzzy 4GW force. This is a major problem in the theory of 5GW. Although we have a working theory of broad

qualities of 5GW, I wonder if we can think our way through proofs of these qualities. In Greek tragedies, some disguised god or goddess would lend a strategic hand or lay traps for the protagonist; and, in 5GW mythology, we so far have dreams of such gods and goddesses who accomplish their tasks with magic. We do not really know how they do it. 5GW: The Power of the Gods I have previously approached consideration of an outline of definite actions for 5GWarriors in two of the linked P.C. entries listed above. In the first, I considered effectors, which, for a theory of 5GW, is a pretty good term: effector n. One who brings about a result or event; one who accomplishes a purpose. [via Websters Online Dictionary, The Rosetta Edition] In order to develop an idea of actual 5GW activity, we must have a realistic concept of 5GW actors. However, in discussions with Dan tdaxp, I have previously mentioned the god-like quality of these actors: I was thinking more along the lines of a scenario in which multiple, seemingly unrelated events hurt one nation (or a group of nations) repeatedly, as if the hand of God were behind those events: say, one major terrorist act, one major financial crisis, one upsurge in bird-flu, one natural disaster, one power grid failure, and a case of a targeting error in some ongoing conflict (killing many innocents), over the period of 9 or 15 months. Dan thought that such a repetition of disasters however unrelated on the surface would tip off a target that something unnatural was happening; but, I thought that these types of disasters stood a good chance of accomplishing some goals for a 5GWarrior, since in the first case, a targeted nation would be forced into a reactionary stance to each disaster would be occupied mitigating the destruction and in the second case, these things might each suggest a multiplicity of causes. A nation suffering these disasters might even be prone to blame itself; indeed, a lot of internal bickering about laying the blame could distract the nation from discerning a SecretWarrior. In another slim post (broadly called 5GW Tutorial linked above), I contemplated the possibility that bin Laden and other actors on the world stage may have taken the Katrina Disaster Lesson: just look at how America can become self-preoccupied as a result of natural disasters. Was the disaster in New Orleans a natural disaster? Yes, some will say: The hurricane was an act of God. Others may say: No, we failed to prepare in advance, we neglected the levies, we have a very bad system of state and federal response to disasters, residents of New Orleans failed to leave the city when warned; the disaster was a result of human failure. Was it a natural disaster? If we are to consider how a 5GW effector may lead an opponent down a destructive path, or how a 5GW effector may distract an opponent in potentially disastrous ways, we cannot dismiss the possibility of man-made natural disasters. But catastrophes have the potential of outing 5GWarriors. When writing the entry about Katrina, I pondered the possibility that a terrorist could have placed bombs at strategic locations along the levees in New Orleans and set them off as the hurricane hit. This would have offered the best chance that he might have had to accomplish the task without being discovered but such an action would have risked discovery anyway as debris was examined. (Those studying why the levees failed would have noticed burn and blast marks.) A viral epidemic could be created by a 5GWarrior, but some geneticist could perhaps track the spread back to a source nation or a source lab.

In Effectors, I posed three questions Ill reintroduce here: 1. The yakuza boss, when killed, would no longer appear to be alive. That is, if an action occurs, its effects are always observable, even if we dont happen to see the action itself. 2. What kind of effects will a 5GW warrior desire? What kind of activity will the 5GW warrior attempt in order to obtain the results desired? Specifically, why would a 5GW warrior engage in activity the results of which are entirely unobservable; would such results truly be results, if they do not produce cascading effects or a changed reality? 3. If results are observable, to what degree can the secret in terms such as SecretWar and SecretWarrior, obtain or persist? In 5GW discussions, I and others have contemplated the utility of playing forces against each other. Younghusband in the recent Coming Anarchy thread considered something similar: It reminds me of The Usual Suspects and the legendary crimelord Keyser Soz. Was he an actual person or simply a myth resulting from a series of loosely related crimes? The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didnt exist. Could the opposite be true? Could the greatest trick a terrorist movement ever pull is convincing the world that it did exist? I could see how warring on this myth (effectively a figment of the paranoid imagination) to the ends of the earth could definitely bankrupt a state. So, to recap, Dans version of 5GW has a key player acting behind the scenes that cannot be OBSERVEd. Younghusbands version has a non-existent actor that is being perceived as OBSERVEable. In that last paragraph, the Hidden Actor and the Observed Chimera are really two sides of the same coin. No organization could trick an opponent into seeing the chimera if it, the hidden organization, did not exist because non-entities cannot act! Now, whether the Observed opponent is real or imaginary will make real difference in the 5GW, since different goals will have different requirements for how the target should be misled; but in general, the end results will be the same as far as the 5GWarrior is concerned. So a non-natural natural disaster could be laid at the feet of a real or imaginary proxy or patsy, although, again, one must wonder if a real patsy would stand up and say, Uh, we hate you, but we did not do it! In fact, the 5GWarriors best option in such a case may seem to be the creation of an imaginary foe for its victim to fight, just as Younghusband described. No actual foe could be found because the non-existing Observed Foe does not exist. The paradox of such an action, unfortunately, undermines the 5GWarrior: as the victim attempts to outline its Observed Foe in greater detail, the victim will be looking for the 5GWarrior! They are the same coin. So explosives, viruses, etc., will be examined, and there is always a chance that some bit of forensic evidence will lead back to the actual 5GWarrior. Thus, the better bet for a 5GWarrior would be to frame an actual organization but an organization that the victim will not believe no matter the number of denials issued by that organization. But the best bet would be to first find an organization that hates the primary target and is more than willing to accept responsibility for whatever disasters beset the victim. The problem with this tactic is simply the fact that the patsy might eventually have a change of heart or might be destroyed by the primary victim; out of desperation, the patsy may deny ever having been complicit. But then, as mentioned in Effectors in answer to my own question about ultimate secrecy, the 5GWarrior may not care if his designs become fully known if the primary victim has already been

forced to cross the rubicon. If the victim is already in a downward spiral from which he cannot emerge, then no revelation of deception will do the victim any good. Many unnatural natural disasters are of a type that require immediate attention that will serve to preoccupy a target or force a dissipation of powers to the point of allowing no exhaustive search for Actors real or imagined, anyway particularly if there are successive disasters. But such an application of forces might indeed be godlike, perhaps beyond the powers of any potential 5GWarrior organization (especially if the target is a highly developed, resilient target.) Whispers in the Ear: 5GW Epiphanies In considering unnatural natural disasters, my primary focus, though unstated, was a consideration of the use of physical force: how could a 5GWarrior utilize physics to goad a target down a path, confuse a target, and ultimately create effects beneficial to the SecretWarriors war on its target. But each of the methods mentioned or implied has a weakness, since the creation of unnatural natural disasters, the application of terrorist acts, etc., are traceable. Such acts have effects which are not only obvious thus, may raise suspicion but because they rely on the physical world, they allow the target to piece together physical evidence and, thus, they allow the target to build a clearer picture of the cause. They allow the target to observe what is real even though a target may fail to do so and therefore may fail to properly piece together the physical patterns. Framing a patsy or proxy may serve to confuse the target for a time; it might be an effective tactic, leading to a false puzzle as pieces of physical evidence are joined; but as already implied, the 5GWarrior may not want to depend so much on a patsys complicity and, physical evidence never lies, though a victim might fail to hear the truth. How does a 5GW force initiate activity; or, put another way, how does a 5GW force influence its targets to take the steps toward self-destruction? One way may be through some application of physical force, but a direct application risks discovery. Framing a patsy risks discovery. What if, however, another organization committed the act? What if al Qaeda or some domestic terrorist organization could create the disaster the 5GWarrior wants to inflict (as a goad) on the target? But then, how do you get that organization to do it? One way might be a cross-framing, which is an old method: simultaneously commit acts against two parties who already hate each other, but make it look to each of them as if the other did it. Done well, such a framing or, multiple framings in quick succession could lead to the escalation of conflict between the two parties, and once the conflict reaches a certain tempo, the original acts are nearly forgotten. Cross-framing is a risky enterprise, however, because unless conflict escalates at a very quick rate, the target of 5GW may have time to observe the physical evidence of the terrorist acts. For instance, 9/11 has been observed and studied, over and over, in the current GWoT; if al Qaeda had been framed a favorite conspiracy theory chances are good that we would have discovered this fact and tracked the evidence back to the actual perpetrators. At the very least, we would be looking for those perpetrators. What things are hardest to track? Answer: memes. I think that it may only be fitting for 5GW to derive its difference, its evolutionary superiority, from the greater role of meme transference in our modern world; and that, in general, successive generations of war have developed as technologies and societies developed. The quick media cycle has observable effects on policy and decision-making, and 5GWarriors will make full use of media. Dan tdaxp, quoting a song by VNV Nation: Soundless:

Im saying nothing for the good of myself but Im still talking and youre not listening Why are you not listening? You are not listening, because you are already deciding, adding your voice to the chatter (if only mentally.) Listening is a different function than hearing. The 5GWarrior may still be talking, you may be hearing, but you are not listening. Why? Because you already agree or disagree with what is being said Im saying nothing for the good of myself. The 5GWarrior is speaking so that you have an opportunity to agree or disagree; he is giving you the opportunity to take a position and, thus, is making you free. In Effectors, I contemplated on one nature of the SecretWarrior: The SecretWarrior as Benefactor: No society is 100% homogenous, but the most influential members of the society (whether the society is a small group or a nation) are those who can promise the most benefit to the other members of society, whether the benefit is material in nature or psychological or social. To give an example: should a string of natural and not-so-natural disasters occur, those leaders, thinkers, and other members of a society who are able to mitigate or nullify the effects of those disasters are most likely to have the freest reins. They are certainly more likely to avoid suspicion if, and only if, their efforts actually seem to lead, and ultimately do lead, to benefits. A couple of successive comments on the Coming Anarchy thread point in a similar direction: arherring said: I agree that 5GW will be a networked organization, but I think the main weapon it will wield will be the idea of connectivity. I imagine it to be sort of viral, with each person in the organization being a vector to spread the idea be they a soldier, a diplomat, an engineer, or a relief worker. John Robb said: Id like to offer an alternative to the above. What if GGs ignore the decision making of the government entirely (their entire OODA loop) and focus directly on the population/economy. This is the equivalent of turning the governments decision making loop into a tire in mud. You can work perfectly, but it cant get any traction. A 5GWarrior may indeed focus on the population and may suggest methods of connecting, by offering new methods to arouse agreement or disagreement depending on the effect he wants. How direct will the offering be? We certainly cannot discount the possibility of a messianic politician, celebrity, or religious figure for a 5GWarrior nor, some powerful celebrity scoundrel, who offers the negative to reinforce our positive. But there may be other ways to do it: a new book is published, a new movie made, a new pop song is created, which strikes the right chord and influences large numbers of people; then, the SecretWarrior is not seen, because that actor is thought to be some member of the intelligentsia or is an artiste just doing his thing, and the new idea introduced is just an idea whose time has come. The 5GWarrior may operate in relative isolation, as well, as some adviser to a politician or business mogul, as a ghost writer, or as a friend or inspiration to an artist, who whispers in the ear of (media) power. This may be the most effective form. Certainly, this will be the least traceable form. He might be the friend of the adviser; there could be networks spanning across many fields. Thinking of John Robbs implication in Emergent Intelligence (but also my follow-up

conceptualization) that individual members of an emergent system may not even know they are members of that system they are focused on local effects and activities, but their activities lead to the large-scale emergence leads me to wonder if whispers in the ear might be tracked back to 5GW operatives by individuals. Those who have heard the whispers may later be able to know and remember who whispered, but because they are not fully aware of the total emergence in advance, they cant put 2 and 2 together until its much too late to do any good. But on the other hand the 5GW network will use physical force in a way that is not traceable to the 5GW network, because others will choose to be the actors. The patsies have chosen to be patsies, but they think they are doing their own work. What happens when you introduce the idea of a clash of civilizations, in the right way to the right people? For instance. [Not that this is actually what happened.] So this 5GW theory is not mere politics, diplomacy, business, or punditry. Actual force, and particularly the reaction to force, are methods utilized by 5GW actors. The 5GW force, in order to be effective, will look for emergence in advance, and will create the memes that will lead to the desired emergence. Emergence in advance is potential, unformed, noform. In order to be effective, the 5GW force will highlight inequalities and insufficiencies which are already present although perhaps largely ignored; they will be market creators: A more powerful reason that innovation is related to market shaping goes back to the military idea of the initiative. Companies take the initiative in the marketplace by offering a stream of new products and services. Where do new products and services come from? The only answer possible, discounting elves and gamma rays, is through the initiative of the people who work for and with the organization. A market creator uses the almost symbiotic relationship all of its people have with its customers to generate ideas for new features or capabilities or whatever. Stalk and Hout were dead on, when in the middle of describing how agile companies become entwined with their customers, they observed that Sometimes its difficult to know whos leading whom. [ed. emphasis added.] [Chet Richards, Riding the Tiger] The Tao also describes the phenomenon, when describing the best leaders: Hesitant, he does not utter words lightly. When his task is accomplished and his work done The people all say, It happened to us naturally. [last lines of #17, cited in Effectors] Dan tdaxp, quoting himself in an earlier entry: Formless: In contrast to hearts and minds, 5GW focuses on the enemys fingertips and gut. Fingertip feeling, what the Germans called fingerspitzengefuhl, is the ability to know without thinking. This is what Americans call gut feeling. To a certain extent, it means a commander trusting his intuition. It is critical in 5GW because fingertip feelings, or hunches, will be the only way for the enemy to sense the fighter. I think, however, that the target will not sense the fighter for a slightly different reason. The 5GWarrior does not subvert fingertip-feeling or confuse it. He utilizes it. The target has a true fingertip-feeling, but he is put in the position of having that particular hunch by the 5GWarrior. Part

of the positioning is the introduction of data which then causes a click in the psyche of the target. The data can be a meme, and so influence rather directly; or, the data can be a physical manifestation of power created by the person who has been influenced by a meme. Such data can play into ignorances, biases, and bigotries, much in the same way that the introduction of a new product on the market can play into insecurities, fetishes, and hungers. Hunches are sometimes proved wrong too late. (So when I say, true fingertip-feeling, Im relying on this aspect of hunches.) In order to influence the largest number of people however, the data must be true if partial. Its partiality may serve to confuse in a larger system, and debate may then paralyze the target; but it is certainly true from some perspective, or the debate would be resolved rather quickly. Ideology and religion are powerful tools of the 5GWarrior, but the trappings of science may also serve the fighter. Once these things have taken hold of a society, tracing them back to the origin is nearly impossible. So, then, how could a hidden 5GW force defeat a fuzzy 4GW force? Influence it to fight another force, one it already despises and, preferably, one it cannot defeat. Or, introduce dispute within it, of the sort that would paralyze its activities, create massive amounts of in-fighting. Or, befriend it; give it real accomplishments (perhaps by surreptitiously influencing other parties who can give them these) which, nonetheless, lead to final outcomes quite different than it originally intended. Because a 4GW force tends to be decentralized, dependent on local actors and local activities, focus on influencing them. Do not try to destroy the 4GW force; focus on changing it. 5GW: No Gods, but Men. And Women. And Others. Structure is so intimately bound up with strategy that it is difficult to imagine how one could make any lasting change in an organizations behavior without first making equally profound changes in its systems. [Chet Richards, Riding the Tiger] I think that, unlike 4GW networks, 5GW networks will not tend toward emergence but will consciously utilize emergence. They will not focus on local activity and a repetition of tactics on local scales hoping for an emergence of Victory!, nor will the masterminds simply deliver grand objectives to focus their low-level warriors on those local tasks. Because the direct application of force will rarely be a tactic used by 5GW operatives and psychological manipulation will be a primary role, each operative will be required to be a mastermind of sorts. Secrecy will require less communication with the actual mastermind if such a person exists, although networks of communication might be established between operatives which will be the typical communications networks for the positions they have secured. If low-level operatives are utilized, they will not realize they are being utilized, or at the very least they will not be aware of the 5GW organization. Similarly, close-knit cells may or may not exist in 5GW networks, since quite possibly each 5GW operative will be assigned one person to influence, and operatives may be spread far apart. Such cells may form eventually as centers of power are created; but as this occurs, the cells will become dormant for a time or at least the operatives within them will be much less active. (If they act, they risk the discovery of the entire network.) Whatever nodes are created, in the form of close-knit cells, may be abandoned after a certain objective is achieved; i.e., these nodes may be receptors of information which will be used by other operatives in other places. Operatives in these cells will no longer work on manipulation, but will provide the information for those in other places who do manipulate. However, individual operatives may be assigned to individual targets within a single organization to better gain influence within that organization they are essentially operating alone, however, on individual targets. (Each strategy of manipulation is highly dependent on the character,

intelligence, and history of the target.) Unlike 4GW networks and the organizations of other types of military organizations, 5GWarriors will utilize 4GW, 3GW, etc., forces to accomplish their goals, as well as financial organizations, NGOs, artists, journalists and celebrities. This might not necessarily be an attempt at destruction of any of these other entities, since the 5GW network might actually benefit from the ascension of another force. The strategy of a 5GW force, in utilizing emergence, is the shaping of new paradigms which will shape the geo-economic-social-political framework. The only theater of operation is global; and the only goal is global domination. But most people will not realize that they have been dominated.

Yesterday, while earning a little cash as an election judge in a local election, I had the opportunity to begin reading a book Ive owned for about six months but had put off reading: Pattern Recognition, by science fiction and technology guru William Gibson. So far, Ive only made it to Chapter 9; but Chapter 7 surprised me, because Gibson, through the character of advertising mogul Hubertus Bigend, describes 5GW, with a little help from the main protagonist Cayce Pollard: [Bigend] This business of ours is narrowing. Like many others. There will be fewer genuine players. Its no longer enough to simply look the part and cultivate an attitude. Cayce has imagined something like this herself, and indeed has been wondering whether shes likely to make it through the narrowing, into whatever waits on the other side. Youre smart enough, he says. You cant doubt it. Shell take a page from his book, then. Caltrop time. Why are you rebranding the worlds second-largest manufacturer of athletic shoes? Was it your idea or theirs? I dont work that way. The client and I engage in a dialogue. A path emerges. It isnt about the imposition of creative will. Hes looking at her very seriously now, and to her embarrassment she feels herself shiver. She hopes he didnt notice. If Bigend can convince himself that he doesnt impose his will on others, he must be capable of convincing himself of anything. Its about contingency. I help the client go where things are already going. Do you want to know the most interesting thing about Dorotea? What? She once worked for a very specialized consultancy, in Paris. Founded by a retired and very senior French intelligence type whod done a lot of that sort of work on his governments behalf, in Germany and the United States. Shes a spy? Industrial espionage, though thats sounding increasingly archaic, isnt it? I suppose she may still know whom to call, to have certain things done, but I wouldnt call her a spy. What interested me, though, was how that business seemed in some ways to be the inverse of ours. Of advertising? Yes. I want to make the public aware of something they dont quite yet know that they know or have them feel that way. Because theyll move on that, do you understand? Theyll think theyve thought of it first. Its about transferring information, but at the same time about a certain lack of specificity. And theres so much more. Cayce is a footagehead, a member of a worldwide subculture cutting across other subcultures, who are addicted to analysis of a series of short, anonymous video releases appearing on the Internet. No one knows who is creating those videoclips, whether a full and completed feature is being released piecemeal or is being continually created as each clip is released. The MSM has largely ignored the phenomenon; or, when trying to present coverage of the phenomenon, fails utterly to reproduce the same excitement elicited by the release of the footage. Bigend, being the marketing guru he is, wants to learn more about the author of those clips; i.e.:

[Bigend] Im not asking vis--vis segments of a narrative, but in terms of the actual sequential order of uploaded segments. Cayce isnt used to thinking of the footage in those terms, although she recognizes them. She thinks she knows where Bigend is probably heading with this, but opts to play dumb. But they clearly arent in a logical narrative sequence. Either theyre uploading them randomly Or very carefully, intending to provide the illusion of randomness. Regardless, and regardless of everything else, the footage has already been the single most effective piece of guerrilla marketing ever So far in the book, the footage is being characterized by Bigend as guerrilla marketing. But many chapters are left, and the novels introductory blurb gives a fuller picture: Cayce is soon traveling through parallel universes of marketing, globalization, and terror, heading always for the still point where the three converge.

Punditry and 5GW I will want to take a closer look at this topic. I once remarked that, We certainly cannot discount the possibility of a messianic politician, celebrity, or religious figure for a 5GWarrior nor, some powerful celebrity scoundrel, who offers the negative to reinforce our positive, and in hindsight, I am recognizing the truly difficult task of separating the messianic figures from the celebrity scoundrels. How, indeed, could we possibly know that the overt message is the key message, rather than, in the case of scoundrels, the negative to reinforce our positive? I ask, because Gus Van Horn, in his latest post on his eponymous blog, fisks a theocratic pundit who bemoans the lack of government sponsorship of Christianity Not only will the liberals aggressively work to prohibit the State from green lighting and recognizing Christianity as a legitimate and positive force in our land, they will also attempt to stifle Christians from influencing the path of government. [Emphasis added ed.] [Doug Giles, on Townhall.com] Of course, this sounds just like a messianic message for Christian believers to come to arms but, really, if it were a conscious 5GW move, would we be better served to consider the possibility that it is a negative to reinforce our positive? 5GW tactics will be similarly confusing, purposely, and intended to make us think one thing while reinforcing another. I doubt this is such a move by Doug Giles, however; but it does raise questions for the future of 5GW in our media age. This ties in to my last post, obviously, on 5GW and Christianity. Ill return to it when I have more time.

Its nice to know that while I piddle about, dependable bloggers continue their heroic output. Mark Safranski of ZenPundit has been reexamining globalization and the problems that come with globalization Network Theory, Noise and Al Qaida and PNM Theory and the Question of Metrics with a host of links in either post that should keep readers busy. I confess to being both inspired and daunted. Sometimes, the ideas circling among the intelligencetypes and Blogospheric foreign affairs analysts appear to continue suggestive work while missing too many points. But when I consider what is missing from these explorations, I am assaulted by vague impressions and then, thinking I should add my own interpolations, I am left dreading the prospect. Three points: 1. Whether networks, waves, noise, complexity, influence, etc., the forces of globalization are almost always explained in ways that should make solidification of the process impossible. Once they are solidified, they are no longer networks, waves, noise, complexity, nor influence at least, on that last point, not subtle influence. 2. Despite the apparent and assumed impossibility, assumptions are also made that these processes can be explained or discovered. Paradoxically, the more detail that is used to explain them, or to explain the discoveries, the further away from reality these theories appear to draw. At least, for me. 3. At heart, the attempt to isolate, quantify, and qualify the processes of globalization leave me thinking that what is really happening among the intelligence-types and foreign affairs analysts is the imposition of order onto complex/chaotic realities: sometimes, the attempts appear to be ye old love of hierarchy and hierarchical perhaps, scaled modes of operating being expressed in new ways or, at best, circuitously. I have myself circuitously approached such criticism before, usually with some significant incoherence. For instance, in that linked list of notes and reactions, I questioned John Robbs assertions that the emergence of global open source guerrilla movements will be too complex to isolate in advance mostly because he then goes on to make qualitative (and somewhat quantitative) predictions related to such an emergence. Which is it, impossible chaos or mere complexity? Often, I seem to detect a belief in demons or angels that will operate on the world stage, which will be too vague to call anything else, combined with a wish to declare how they will appear and what they will do and what we can do in reaction to their appearance. In another, older entry, I compared Thomas Barnett with Alexander the Great: Alex either truly believed in improving the world by bringing Macedonian culture and structure to that world while incorporating the useful structures other cultures suggested or Alex merely wanted to control the world. (Historians disagree.) I have also stumbled over the term rule set, since any utilization of the term rule leads quite naturally to thoughts of rulership and rulers of a very human nature. But since Ive made the point several times, Ill not link any given entry. But, I will say that so much depends on whether those rules are naturally organic we discover them or are mere mortal creations. And, I will say that the efforts of Blogospheric theorists on the subject tend to incorporate both

kinds. Thus, all the effort expended on creating definition for globalization and globalism appears to be the work of Grand Masters and their proxies although, who is who is not as easy to discern and, as a response to emerging paradigms and conflicts, has a very, very, very 5GWish aspect.

Skinning the Gap The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future. [from Collective Sayings of MuadDib by the Princess Irulan (Frank Herbert, Dune)] Elsewhere in Dune, MuadDib is said to be half-ogre, who ordered battle drums made out of the skins of his enemies; and throughout the book, particularly the latter half, we are given signs that Paul MuadDib feared the things he knew would be done in his name, but that he went ahead with progress anyway. So the saying seems to be a defense of his choice, as if he chose to confront the terrors of the future directly while letting others find solace in the idea of progress.

In my couple of years of Blogospheric reading, I have often noted the sentiment of an element on the American Right, that those on the Left preach progress while constantly standing in the way of progress. On the matter of the WoT which some call the GWoT the Left is said to be susceptible to dreams of dhimmitude, called by them progress, while ignoring the terrors dhimmitude would bring. The Rightist theory could be broadly restated: The Left would like to synthesize with the Islamist culture, or at least with Muslim culture, rather than see that culture for what it is, an antithesis to the Western political, economic, and cultural progress that has been effected for millennia now. Meanwhile, that particular American Right would like to destroy Islam utterly. That, they say, would be real progress. I mention these things by way of introducing a few blog posts I have been following in the last few days, in which notions of progress, and the terrors they bring, have perturbed the writers. But Ill have to warn in advance, also, that Im only using this post to introduce those other posts and a few reactionary thoughts I have had while reading them. This is begun as no comprehensive essay, merely a kind of note-taking, although given my penchant for verbosity. Hard Expansion of the Core Mark Safranski at ZenPundit led me to the first, an exploration on Amendment Nine of some methods of concerted integration that many in our present world would find distasteful: Maps versus Hands. In that post, Federalist X considered the colonial American method of integration of a then-Gap, the Native Americans, and compared it with Thomas Barnetts PNM theory of integration. In such a comparison, the genocide and relocation of Native Americans is to be considered a warning for contemporary Americans: Forced integration of our own Gap might follow the same methods. The motive behind Federalist Xs consideration seems to be to inspire terror of such progress as Thomas Barnett would promote: And the practical implication of colonizing the third world is that America will need to once again be ok with burning villages, slaughtering women and children, and doing it all at night with no pretext. In response to the post, I remarked at ZenPundit that Federalist X had entirely ignored the

missionary work and economic integration which also served to integrate the colonial American Gap; to which, Federalist X responded that he intended to introduce those points in a later post, that he was only focusing on a dichotomy that existed then and a dichotomy of Gap/Core that exists now. I.e., even the title of Federalist Xs post attempts to show up the dichotomy: the difference between drawing maps in isolation and implementing those maps on the ground. Unfortunately, he used dichotomy and a similar withdrawal from ground realities to make his point, by entirely ignoring the other methods of integration utilized by colonial Americans. This should be considered a rhetorical mistake, one to be avoided in the future unless he wants to be forever misunderstood. (Perhaps sensationalism, via gross simplification, was intended to increase reader response?) But as I noted in my response at ZenPundit, Thomas Barnetts theory of integration appears to rely on a very careful implementation of hard expansion [of the Core] and soft expansion, and I have no difficulty imagining that anything other than a careful balance of the two could lead to worst-case scenarios not unlike those proposed by Federalist X. Barnett is an idealist whose ideals might actually prove successful, if followed and implemented; but as even Ive said repeatedly, he seems to have ignored the reality of internal gaps of Core nations and general ground realities in his idealism. Native Americans are Militant Muslims Part of the problem of Federalist Xs approach centers on a desire to ignore concepts of progress altogether. Another blogger has picked up the meme for exploration by snatching onto the comments of one of Federalist Xs readers: 4GW, Nation-Building as Soft-Colonization,Time Ranges in War/Conflict, and Meme Wars, at PurpleSlog. By ignoring progress altogether, I mean the desire to view the past and the present as synonyms. What we call Gap and Core have always existed, to some degree. 4th Generation War has always existed in some form, as has 5th Generation War and, well, pretty much everything being talked about by contemporary war-and-peace theorists. Expansion of the Core today will be exactly like expansion of the Core yesterday, though we give it another name. Etc. In exploration of this meme, Purpleslog has snatched up the banner of J Smith who said, in part, But that just makes it all the more plain dont it? The only way to when a 4GW war or a 5GW war or whatever the fuck they are calling it these days, the only way to win a war against an insurgent native population is, heres the punch line, to colonize them! And this country just doesnt have the stomach for the grueling and vicious nature of colonization. We arent an empire because our people dont want to be one. So lets stop it with the warfare evolution mumbo jumbo and just be honest and acknowledge that fact. Certainly would make my life a lot easier. What we are witnessing is not 4GW. It is a failed soft colonization policy which over and over again throughout history has been shown to be completely worthless. Many points exist to be examined in J Smiths world view; but Purpleslog narrows it down to an agreement with the notion that time does not happen, nor that progress of any sort happens: I am leaning toward the idea of 1GW thru 5GW have always existed (and dropping the PreModern war idea, or re-characterizing it as 0GW). The way to think about them is not historical time periods or types of technologies, but general methods and the part of the OODA they center on.

This, interestingly enough for me, recalls to mind my recent comment here at P.C. that focusing on the larger schemes to the exclusion of a consideration of fundamental human natures might lead our theories astray. It also reminds me of my attempt to consider Alexander the Great and Muhammad as early examples of 4GWarriors, in comments at ZenPundit. I.e., a consideration of fundamental human dynamics might lead us to realize that human interactions, and general social emergences or, call them social emergencies recur, throughout human history. And this might lead us to assume that there really is nothing new under the sun. While I find these notions persuasive, I am not convinced. I myself will no doubt continue to dissolve new theories in my attempt to find the common themes behind them and behind human history, but at the same time, I think that the tendency to dissolve all into one may also lead us astray. I had mentioned, in response to Federalist Xs assertions, that I would rather view hard expansion and soft expansion (of Core and/or Gap) as a continuum, which I would also do when considering 4GW and 5GW and other human dynamics. I.e., in the case of expansion of the Core, I might look at it like this 10% Hard / 90% Soft 20% Hard / 80% Soft 30% Hard / 70% Soft 40% Hard / 60% Soft 50% Hard / 50% Soft 60% Hard / 40% Soft 70% Hard / 30% Soft 80% Hard / 20% Soft 90% Hard / 10% Soft only, time has produced a tendency, in human dynamics, for resolution of friction in an opposite direction to the list above, from more Hard to more Soft, in the Barnettian theory, for various reasons related to what we might call progress or can call, if we do not like metaphorical use of that word, a change in capabilities, ground realities, etc. For instance, I once remarked that future ground realities may make Hard Expansion a much less effective tactic for states, simply because the advance in weaponry technology all around might mean that hard warfare would lead to successes which could hardly be called successes: The present question is whether we are approaching a time when the costs of pre-5GW types of wars will far outweigh any potential benefits. If so, pre-5GW wars will not disappear because madmen, idiots, and egomaniacs dont always do a cost analysis before initiating violent conflicts! but perhaps democratic nations (at least) have more checks on such madmen, and advances in technology and knowledge in general would unearth the net loss which high-tech pre-5GW wars promise. For instance, wars over the control of natural resources might offer a good payback, but not if infrastructure is too destroyed to make use of those natural resources! (Not to mention the possibility that the loser in any such conflict would almost certainly engage in industrial sabotage, terrorist activity, etc., further increasing the cost of such a war for the victor.)

Another example, more closely related with Core-Gap dynamics, would be the attempted use of genocide to wipe out that Gap:

1. The Gap has many more people, spread further over designated targets, than it had in colonial America; these people are better able to move out of the line of fire, thanks to modern locomotion; 2. While Core powers have nuclear weapons capable of true mass murder, some Gap nations might also have these or biological and chemical weaponry capable of a return-mass-murder. The Native Americans, on the other hand, did not have such a capability, which made the idea of the destruction of villages, women and children, etc., much more cost effective for colonial Americans than they would be for the modern-day Core; 3. And, whats more, many of the Gap populace already reside deeply placed in todays Core, as either immigrants or sleeper cells, unlike the Gap populace of colonial America. Thus, todays Core may find they cannot utilize genocide, etc., etc., on the Gap without reaping much destruction of the Core as well. There are of course other factors, such as world opinion and the existence of New Core players, which were not so much a factor in colonial America. Thus, soft expansion might actually be more effective, today, even than hard expansion was in colonial America or any other time in the past. (Of course, at other places, in other times, the mix might have been closer to 40% Hard / 60% Soft, or 70% Hard / 30% Soft, or some other mix.) On the issue of 5GW and what Purpleslog called Meme-Based networks and MBN vs MBN warfare, I would have no difficulty equating them, since both are paradigmatic conflicts, except that they are not the same thing. Yes, I do think that certain tactics of 4GW and 5GW have always been utilized. The difference between now and then, however, would be in 1. the degree to which these methods are utilized, based on 2. the change in ground realities influenced by technology, science, and present general knowledge and social structures, and 3. vis-a-vis general knowledge, the degree to which these methods are consciously utilized, now, rather than merely supplemental tactics that may have been utilized before. That last point is particularly pertinent. To say that now is then is to say that human knowledge has not increased whatsoever in the interim: a blatantly false assumption. I am sympathetic to the notion that human wisdom is no better off now than it has ever been, and possibly even suffering more now than in previous times; but knowledge has certainly increased, including the knowledge of previous attempts at warfare, previous battles, historical models, etc., etc., which were not available to the revolting classes in Rome or the invading Mongol hordes of China. One might even say that the explosion of knowledge has gone far to limit human wisdom or our ability to choose between multifarious tactics; but this, also, would be a sign that now is not then. Hard, Soft, Core, Gap Something I want to explore in more depth later, notes I made after reading the Federalist X post: 1. Three scenarios:Hard expansion of the Core 2. Soft expansion of the Core 3. Failing these, the expansion of the Gap into the Core.

1. Three corresponding outcomes:Mostly Old Core homogeneity worldwide 2. Mostly Core homogeneity worldwide, but this is New Core rather than Old Core 3. Something else not quite the other two; a synthesis of Core and Gap. (Think: the American Revolutionarys incorporation of Gap warfare and Gap social structure opposing the Old Core hierarchical structures of Britain, France, and Spain.) I.e, frictions have a way of dampening energy, over time. These scenarios are just addenda to this post, things to be explored later, a bit of fingertip feeling expressed in barest manner.

Rethinking the OODA First, does the word orientation in the phrase [homosexual orientation] match up with the orient of OODA? Most gays who use the phrase actually use it to describe the physical being (or preconditions) rather than as we might use the word in OODA: Were born that way! Its genetic! etc. In this case, orientation does not match up with orient. [CGW] Unless a strict genetic determinist model is being argued here, the words orientaiton are being used the same way. Genetic factors are part of Orientation, as they are in life. But so is conditioning, cultural factors, synthesis and analysis, etc. [Dan, tdaxp] No, I do not believe so. I think you are dead wrong on this, and I think that diagrams like this diagram are either wrong or perhaps misleading. [CGW] Introduction The conversation excerpted above took place in Part Two of my series on Homosexuality and Globalization Homosexualism vs Homosexuality vs Heterosexualism as an interpolation to debate over whether exclusive adult male-adult male homosexual relationships occurred before modern times. That series has been temporarily postponed while Ive considered the significance of our disagreement over the placement of genetic heritage within the Orient phase of the OODA loop not because our disagreement has derailed that series but because the new subject will likely have a large bearing on the subjects of homosexuality and globalization, and other subjects, and deserves special attention. Dans understanding of John Boyds OODA loop may be a reflection of diagrams such at this diagram at Wikipedia or perhaps this variation of that diagram at Value Based Management.net. In these diagrams, the decision-making process first outlined by John Boyd shows four primary stages Observe, Orient, Decide, Act and various subprocesses such as Feedback and Implicit Guidance & Control, shown here in an original diagram inspired by those and closely following those: Specifically, the idea that genetic heritage influences the decision-making process most in the Orient stage may be a reflection of Boyds more detailed schematic of the Orient stage shown in those linked diagrams but excluded in my simplification above; i.e., This description of the Orient process may seem to meet the needs of commonsense, because a persons physical being (as influenced by genetic heritage) pre-orients a person, or sets very real limits on a persons relation to the world. Everything from I.Q. to mental disease to physical deformity to sex to skin-deep appearance may affect a persons orientation within the world as well as a persons ability to organize and consider data for purposeful orientation (i.e., decision-making.) Similarly, a persons cultural traditions will have great bearing on a persons orientation within society, whether his own society or some other society. Unfortunately, this schematic of the Orient phase is quite misleading. In fact, the diagrams I have linked are also quite misleading, considered as wholes, and perhaps deserve revision. John Boyd, First I do not want to refute John Boyds characterization of the decision-making process. OODA has

proven useful for many scenarios, and in many ways, utilitarian; but at the same time I cannot help considering the context of Boyds conceptualization. As a fighter pilot, Boyd had to react quickly to unfolding situations, and his enemies were individual pilots; these two considerations alone point at the way his concept of OODA always had preconditions: Boyd with his genetic heritage and cultural traditions and his enemies with theirs; Boyd in a fighter jet and his enemies in theirs. I.e., in any person-to-person combat, or in fact in combat between large groups, these factors would already be long-set, influencing each partys ability to make decisions. Plus, quick-thinking and short reaction times, and the very environment of being the operator of a fighter jet or helicopter, etc., already eliminate many factors that might influence a persons actions. (For instance, using a pistol would have been long ruled-out in any confrontation between fighter pilots.) Similarly, previous experiences in different combat situations would have been long-set, for Boyd and his enemy. When Boyd considered observation, then, that observation would be temporal and quite conditional. The fighter pilots cultural traditions are not much on his mind, in the sense that he would need to observe his own cultural traditions he has observed them long ago, when a child. No, what he needs to observe will range from weather conditions, time of day, the instruments on his craft, his enemys maneuvers, etc. However, not having a long personal memory of his enemys cultural traditions would perhaps require an abstract observation or consideration of his enemys background as the fighter pilot makes decisions during combat, even if such consideration is not on the forefront of the pilots mind. His own past experiences might or might not be at the forefront, depending on the unfolding situation; if not consciously considered, those experiences might nonetheless influence quick reactions . On the other hand, a conscious consideration or observation of his enemys past experiences, if these are known, might be very much on the pilots mind. The Wikipedia article linked above actually includes a similar consideration of the Orient phase; cultural traditions and genetic heritage are assumed to refer to the enemys traditions and heritage, not the pilots. We see in Boyds diagram for Orient these long-set factors: genetic heritage, cultural traditions, previous experience. It is less clear to me that new information would be long-set; but obviously, new information would interact with our memories of past experience, cultural traditions, etc., to affect a persons ability to orient to any given unfolding of circumstances. In fact, Boyd seems to have desired a consideration of Orient in which all these factors interact to form a type of understanding of how one should act. Analysis & Synthesis is the fifth element included under Orient that the diagram at Wikipedia goes a step further in drawing the subprocesses of Orient as a well-defined pentagram, is interesting, because of the mystical implications. These are assumed subprocesses, each interacting with each of the others, but unlike Dan, I do not see these things as being co-equal in the Orient phase. That is, ones cultural traditions or genetic heritage are not analogous to the processes of analysis and synthesis. They influence analysis and synthesis; or, analysis and synthesis use the information provided by these others. As a mystical diagram a fuzzy schematic of what happens during Orient Boyds concept might be better imagined as a Magic Cloud. Dan of tdaxp has addressed the magic of Boyds cloudy diagram before: Quality 5, The Magic Cloud. Following Boyds diagram of the Orient phase, Dan redrew the diagram to show Orient as individual subprocesses interacting with Observe, Decide, and Act: But such a consideration of Orient would be messy, confusing, especially since we do not know exactly how each of these assumed subprocesses interact with each other; in Dans words, But this becomes a mess we dont really understand how the different parts of Orientation work together, and all the excess information confuses the eye. Plus, each of the new boxes are truly

unknown themselves genetic heritage is an area of new research, not known facts, etc. We know each of the new boxes are sub-processes genetics dont stop, nor does reconstruction of old experiences, but how do they work? Unknown. [Dan, tdaxp] Such a consideration may lead us to think of Orient as a Magic Cloud. The process may be cloudy, but we know that something happens within the mind during the thought process, in which all these pieces interact to orient us; and thus, this cloudy understanding is magical: we dont understand it, but it understands or continues to operate. Unfortunately, Ive never liked magic clouds, because so much superstition can be similarly lumped together through the magic of what is commonly called faith. How can we have faith that our limited understanding of the decision making process is not in fact incorrect or misleading? To what degree can we have an accurate understanding of these things, if we are in fact ignorant of much that occurs within our minds? Most importantly: How can we use the fact of our own ignorance as we move toward making decisions of what to do about that ignorance? Grossly Speaking: Metaphysics and Physics John Boyds concept of OODA obviously assumes preconditions for any action, but within a localized environment, many preconditions can be safely ignored. If one is in a fighter jet, one does not need to consider sand traps on a golf course several miles below the dog fight (unless, of course, one does not want to shoot down an enemys plane while people play oblivious belowthat might not be the most important decision, however.) Rethinking the name given to a pink flower by Grandmother when one was seven-years-old is also going to be unnecessary. In fact, it would be distracting. Thus, context plays a major role in the OODA diagram put forth by John Boyd. Others have since attempted to utilize Boyds OODA for describing other phenomena. For instance, I introduced the subject of OODA when debating homosexual orientation. Business persons have found much in OODA of a utilitarian nature, which was not the original intent of John Boyd. Dan of tdaxp has recently hinted at a use of OODA for understanding Thomas Barnetts concept of SysAdmin work and even for handling insurgencies, among other things, by considering genetic factors and memetics. Applying the Loop to general theories of cognition would stretch the original concept even further particularly when we fall into the orthodoxy that cultural traditions are somehow always long-set for people, even from birth. For Boyd, the point at which fighter pilots come into conflict occurs after much learning; but for a general consideration of OODA in human cognition, we cannot avoid a consideration of how humans in fact learn cultural traditions. During intense combat, much observation will concern the concrete world unfolding circumstances & outside information whether that observation is of weather, the enemy plane, or the instruments of ones own jet; much less time will be spent in conscious introspection, except for a consideration of past experiences, perhaps. In general life, however, such fast-thinking will not be as necessary much of the time, and much more time may be spent in introspection. Boyds Loop confuses the exterior world and the interior world, or the concrete world and the abstract world. These things are addressed in the Loop, but their demarcation is not clear. The lines between them are blurred, and this can lead to misunderstanding. Lets take another look at Boyds OODA Loop:

Most everything after World is intended to represent the abstract Middle English, from Latin abstractus, past participle of abstrahere, to draw away : abs-, ab-, away; + trahere, to draw. i.e., we may think of this as drawing in the mind of the concrete world, even if that is the wrong draw; or we might say that after observing the World, we then draw away from that world and begin to consider it abstractly. We analyze these abstracts, synthesize them, think about them, and make decisions about them, whether consciously or subconsciously. Not everything after World is abstract, however; Act is a physical action, and Unfolding Interaction w/ Environment [UIE] is how we make changes in the concrete world based on our considerations of abstracts of that world. Thus, I consider the feedback line from Act to Observe as being somewhat a blurring of the concrete and abstract, since in all actuality, our action upon/within the world changes that world. The line should have been drawn back to World, and then we would follow the line from World to Observe for an observation of our unfolding action upon/within the World. [This, incidentally, will figure significantly in my consideration of EBO, or Effects-Based Operations, in the second part of this series.] That blurring of lines between the concrete and abstract becomes even more problematic when we consider the other feedback loops. In the Feedback shown leading back from Act to Observe, no distinction is made between ones physical act upon the world [UIE] and ones consideration of that physical act. Thus, we might wonder if the two types of feedback would be confused. For instance, 1. if I decide to take out an enemys supply route because that would greatly interrupt that enemys ability to act, 2. I follow through and actually take out that node, 3. then I may think, Ah, success! The enemy is greatly disrupted! 4. but if I have not continued to observe the actual physical effects of my action, I many not see that the enemy has not been greatly disrupted after all! Perhaps he has several alternative routes he is using I.e., #3 is the result of my abstract thoughts about the effects of my action, largely pre-formed before I even decided to act. #4 would be an observation of unfolding interaction with my environment, if I kept looking at that objective environment. The first is an abstract observation, or quite within the mind; the second, an objective observation, or concrete observation. Boyds loop actually includes both types of observation but blurs the lines between them. We might say that a person actually following the loop consciously would have an abstract and a concrete observation of the effects of the action, would see that they do not match, and would then choose some other type of action the next time around. But all too often, such careful consideration does not occur, particularly when life-threatening situations involving a necessity for quick action are not involved; i.e., during strategy and longer-lasting operations. The feedback loop from Decide to Observe is almost entirely abstract. Boyd listed the subtitle hypothesis for Decide, in which case we hypothesize an action and then observe the effects of that theoretical action, against the physical situation, before acting: quite abstract observation, there. If our action fails and we see that it has failed, we may seem to have a feedback from that Decision after the fact, but only in a situation requiring quickly looping OODA; and, that isnt so much a direct feedback from Decide as it is a combination of UIE and a memory of past activity or past experiences. But this process of remembering a past decision is not clearly addressed or delineated in Boyds OODA loop.

Each of the Implicit Guidance & Control shortcuts are intended to represent the way a persons orientation may affect either his observation or his actions in a subconscious manner. Perhaps in considering the direct step from Orient to Act, Boyd wanted to show how a fighter pilot might act instinctively, without having to hypothesize or decide an action. These are truly Magic Cloud material, because they represent largely subconscious or even unconscious processes in the Loop which are not well understood. Part of the reason the Implicit Guidance & Control steps were introduced to the diagram may be the inclusion of things such as genetic heritage and cultural traditions in the Orient stage, even of past experiences in that stage. Suppose a person is born blind; his blindness will greatly affect his ability to observe the world as well as his ability to act upon it, below or beyond his conscious decisionmaking process/ability. But such a consideration also points at the way the concrete, objective world has been blurred with the abstract in Boyds OODA, since physical blindness is quite obviously a matter of the concrete world even if those who are blind have built up abstract considerations of their own blindness during the course of a life. Other things, like extreme mental retardation, may be entirely physical, especially if those having such conditions are incapable of introspection about those conditions. Boyd, when considering the decision-making process of fighter pilots did not need to consider congenital blindness or extreme mental retardation, however. The inclusion of cultural traditions and past experiences within the Orient step represents abstractions; but how those abstractions have been formed is not clear from the OODA loop as it is normally diagrammed. These things may well subconsciously influence a persons observations and actions, simply because they represent either habitual thought patterns or limitations on past observation of the concrete world. If one has not experienced the taste and physical effects of a particular berry, he is not going to know if it tastes bad or is extremely poisonous, when he is trapped in the wild behind enemy lines. But he might eat it anyway if he is starving (a physical condition) and if it looks a lot like a blackberry. He might not. If he bases this decision on his limited past experience with berries, he is basing his decision on an abstract, and he might come to regret that decision if he has never before experienced the effects of eating such berries. In a different situation, the same man might not be very hungry and might avoid taking the risk. His state of being starved, or not starved, is not a long-standing condition, nor an entirely abstract condition, but a relatively new physical condition, even if it is also a result of genetic heritage. We are also not able to draw a distinction between the subconscious or unconscious decisionmaking process implicit in Implicit Guidance & Control and the conscious decision-making of Boyds OODA loop. A cultural tradition may have larger sway over one individual than another within the same culture, for instance. The Magic Cloud of Boyds Orient does not discount this possibility, but neither does it attempt to clarify such a possibility for those not engaged in live-ordie dog fights. Thus we might attempt to use Boyds OODA loop for understanding how a particular element within a culture can be coerced into engaging in some particular activity (EBO, 4GW, 5GW) but severely mistake that persons cultural traditions for personal obsessions which are in fact not present. I.e., going back to the consideration of interrupting supply routes, we may have a very abstract idea about cause-effect, based on abstractions of others abstractions, without considering exactly how an unfolding action upon the environment may greatly influence that other persons abstractions (his relation to his cultural traditions.) Without a careful observation of that particular enemy in reaction to similar concrete actions (UIE), we may greatly misjudge, misdecide, and mis-act. Furthermore, lumping cultural traditions, genetic heritage, and past experiences with analysis and synthesis greatly blurs the real-world environment and the abstract processes of the mind. Analysis and syntheses are mental processes, but genetic heritage is a physical condition/process, and past

experiences and cultural traditions have a direct precedent in a persons objective environment (even if these two have subsequently been idolized or ideologized into abstractions.) By considering an enemys abstractions without also considering an enemys physical environment, we are assuming a cognitive process for our enemy that is entirely ab- stract: i.e., a cognitive process entirely drawn apart from concrete reality. This is a severe confusion between the abstract and the concrete, and may lead to the belief that our abstractions of the enemy and even our enemys abstractions are in fact concrete realities when they may have very little relation to objective reality. The degree to which a person may live in the abstract (at its extreme: ideologues, fanatics, the insane) rather than according to objective observation is not clearly addressed by Boyds OODA. In fact, his loop almost entirely addresses the abstract portion of the decision-making process which is why things such as genetic heritage and feedback from Action to Observe are left rather cloudy or inexact. Boyd seems to have wanted to address both the abstract and the concrete, but by using cloudy feedback loops to combine the two worlds and types of process. Re-Vision of the OODA In consideration of the above, I have tentatively redesigned the OODA to address some of the cloudier aspects. Obviously, not every process is clearly understood, by me or by anyone; but in particular Ive wanted to address a division between the concrete world and the abstract world, or between what exists and our thoughts about what exists: * between the concrete and the abstract processes of observation * between concrete and abstract decisions/hypotheses and acts/activities * between conscious, subconscious, and unconscious observation and activity.

This is a first reworking of the loop, and I have largely kept Boyds terminology even though later clarifications might necessitate a new set of terms, preferring to build upon Boyds Loop rather than replace it it is a good starting point. As you can see, I have attempted to separate the objective and concrete from the subjective and abstract, resulting in two different OODA loops. The first OODA loop represents the concrete: * WORLDExterior Physical Environment * Personal Genetic Heritage (Body) * OBSERVESensory Stimulation * Genetic Information * ORIENT(Abstract OODA) * DECIDEChoice-Act * ACTPhysical Act

In actuality, this is a move from the concrete world, to the concrete interaction between world and

person (reception of information), to the abstract decision-making process (contemplation/analysis of information), to a physical act with a potential choice-act, or conscious and focused decision to act upon the physical world. So it is movement beginning and ending with the concrete world. Unlike Boyd, I have included Genetic Heritage in the exterior environment. In the first place, when considering future warfare, we will need to consider potential viruses and biochemicals capable of altering the genetic structure similar to the way that present methods of warfare may alter injure, destroy a persons body or other parts of the concrete world like infrastructure; such alteration affects a persons observation, and hence decisions and activity, but it does so through acting upon the physical environment, or concretely. In the second place, a thinking being must exist before cognition may occur, and Orient is a process of cognition. Also, because human beings are dynamically alive, genetic information is always new information, consistently feeding into the abstract portion of the OODA. We may think that the information is static, but it is not; e.g., genetically I am a male, but that could change due to physical alteration (whether genetic or not) its just that, until a physical change has occurred, the same genetic information is continuously passed and continues to affect the later stages of the OODA loop. Genetic heritage affects not only ones ability to observe via the senses e.g., congenital blindness but also continues to inform the process of cognition via other genetic information, such as mental retardation, biochemical differences between the sexes, and through biological signals for starvation, pain, etc. When considering the decision-making process, it will be important to remember the distinction between concrete information and what Ive called old information in the abstract OODA loop of the ORIENT stage. Both types of information feed into the Abstract Observation stage (within ORIENT), and different individuals in different situations may well give more weight to one type of observation than the other. Mark Safranski of ZenPundit has recently written on the subject of paying attention: As poorly as we sometimes are at paying attention extrospectively - we could benefit far more by greater attention or some old fashioned Zen mindfulness being directed inward. Metacognitive regulation requires an introspective monitoring of ones thoughts and ideas, which means active, conscious, effort to pay attention. [Mark Safranski, ZenPundit] I suspect that such Zen mindfulness, though on the surface seeming quite introspective, is in fact a method of disentangling oneself from inordinate focus on abstract thoughts. I.e., we are often viewing our own thoughts when we think we are engaging in extrospection really, we are not distinguishing between the two and by making ourselves more aware of our internal cognitive processes, we may become better able to separate what is real and what is only a memory or pale imitation of past extrospection (if even that.) Interestingly, Mark mentions master Yogis and Zen monks who were able to effect significant physiological changes merely by focusing inwardly. This may seem like a refutation of the Revised OODA loop, in that mind acts directly on the physical world rather than the other way around, but its not. In fact, such a decision and act are methods of acting physically upon the world, or upon ones own physiological being; our minds have brains and a body of electro-chemical processes which may act upon the world just like hands and feet may act upon the world. So these Yogis and master Zen monks have an ability to Observe the physical world their genetic heritage, or bodies and act upon it. Clearly, however, a wide gulf separates such Zen mastery and wishful or superstitious thinking, probably since the latter remains focused more on past information than new information; i.e., on ideology or memory or other mental constructs rather than on ones own physical being or any other

aspect of the present and concrete world. I have loosely defined three types of action: the impulsive act, the focused act, and reflexive or habitual acts. Within the abstract OODA of the primary ORIENT stage, I have attempted to show (loosely, again) how each type of act flows from the cognitive process. Specifically, I have given two abstract worlds: * Mental Constructs which tend to be longer-lasting information and sets of information, probably reinforced via multiple iterations of the entire OODA process but which are set by the Abstract OODA loop. * Conditional Constructs which are short-term: individual present ideas and new but hypothetical sets of ideas, which one reviews before coming to an understanding of the information or even a formal ideology built from multiple sets.

Reflexive and Habitual Acts originate from previously formed mental constructs and are loosely analogous to Boyds fighter-pilot reaction to familiar situations. One might wonder if such a quick-looping through the Abstract Act phase can occur, but remember that the cognitive process is generally rather quick. I.e., before the Abstract Act stage, information has fed from the outside (his enemys actions) as well as from past experience (Mental Constructs), they have been compared (Analysis & Synthesis), the fighter pilot may decide the comparison fits rather nicely (and so not question it through another OO cycle), and then may come to an Understanding (Abstract Act) before acting. In fact, we will likely find that habitual acts tend to occur most often when quite familiar situations occur frequently; i.e., when physical Observation of the World quickly matches up with whatever Mental Constructs we have previously formed and, thus, not requiring further contemplation or hypotheses. (However, the viewer may be mistaken about the World, due to subterfuge; as will be considered in part two of this series.) Focused Acts also come from an Understanding, informed by Memory and Past Experience and perhaps Ideology, but are not reflexive or habitual probably because whatever information is entering the ORIENT phase from the outside World includes unexpected information. This might be because: the viewer is in a new environment; an old environment has changed; or perhaps a viewers sensory ability, or physical Observation, is quite new. Consider what happens when the power goes out in the middle of the night and we must make our way to a flashlight or a fuse box in complete darkness. Or, consider what would happen if we suddenly went blind for no reason or what we would do if we heard a very large animal outside our tent! Impulsive Acts are quite different than the other two, although they may appear to be related to either. Retailers know the importance of placing novelty items within quick and easy reach of shoppers. And, twentysomething partygoers may end up in a bed they never expected to see, regretting their decision later. Many impulsive acts have some relation to Mental Constructs Oh, so-and-so wears that cologne, and everyone likes it; I must buy some too! but this is because those past experiences feed into the Abstract OODA; when the person comes to decide an action, on the spur of the moment, he usually does so from a belief that his hypothesis is an understanding: If I wear that cologne, Ill get laid! If such a decision-making process is made in advance (he goes to the store planning to buy the cologne), it would be a Focused Act, whether it leads to a desired changed World or to some disappointment. But if the act flows from suddenly new information without passing into a resilient understanding and careful decision-making process, it is an Impulsive Act. Arguably, Conditional Constructs and Mental Constructs could be combined within the internal

OODA, since both are created through operation of the Abstract OODA, but to do so would, I think, obscure the decision-making processes. For instance, consider a different Impulsive Act: While at the Mall, a person suddenly hears lots of gunfire near him, sees people falling, and rather than quickly duck behind a convenient metal barrier starts running around, screaming and, gets shot. But a person who has been in combat situations might quickly duck behind the barrier: a reflexive act based more on past experience than on present new information and sudden ideas of impending death. From There to Here and Beyond Many of the distinctions I have just made could be made in consideration of Boyds OODA conceptualization. In fact, without Boyds conceptualization, I might not have begun to consider these distinctions. It is only in futher consideration, of new applications of the OODA loop, that new distinctions need to be made. For instance, Dan of tdaxp has previously theorized an overlap between Boyds OODA loop and William Linds theory of generations of warfare, in Go Deep (OODA and the Rainbow of Generational Warfare). That is a post that I will address in the second part of Rethinking the OODA. For instance, if we theorize a 5GW that works on an enemys ability to Observe, are we thinking of the primary, physical Observe or the internal, Abstract Observe? If 4th Generation warriors work on the enemys OODA between Observe and Orient, as suggested by Dan, which OO are we discussing? Furthermore, which are we considering when we decide to make war on an enemy: his primary, physical OODA loop? his Abstract OODA? Both? Or do we sometimes mistake our own Abstract Constructs for a physical observation of his loop(s)? These are questions Ill address in part two of the series along with a consideration of Effects-Based Warfare and, if I can manage it, Network-Centric Warfare [pdf link].

EBO is Everything in War Almost Effects Defined Effects consist of a full spectrum of outcomes, events, or consequences that result from a particular action. An effects based approach to operations stresses the value of connecting all actions (political, diplomatic, economic, and military) to operational and strategic outcomes. In the most basic sense, effects-based operations are planned, executed, assessed, and adapted to influence or change systems or capabilities in order to achieve desired outcomes. The three essential features of effects-based operations (EBO)planning, employment, and assessmentcannot be separated from one another. [Sonny, at FX-Based, in Deployment (From Hell)] Dr. Challans critique of [EBO] reminds me of criticisms I have made against Objectivists and I am not surprised by this: Objectives/Objectivists. My central criticism is that Objectivists often fail to acknowledge 1) their limited sensory perceptions (experience), 2) their limited ability for analysis (which may be genetic; which may be a result of cognitive insularity), and 3) the objective reality of subjectivity (we do not have an objective theory of mind, but only hypotheses), while supposing that they have everything they need to make grand pronouncements on the shape and functions of the world and to prognosticate future events. [CGW, Phatic Communion, in Emergence and Warfare: Notes and Hypotheses] Introduction I have previously approached a criticism of Effects-Based Operations at the link immediately above in a cursory review of an essay by Dr. Tim Challans titled Emerging Doctrine and the Ethics of Warfare made available by the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics (JSCOPE). In that essay, Dr. Challans uses philosophical arguments to attack the notion that EBO can be successfully applied as a strategy in warfare to subvert or defeat an opponent: But just as philosophers of science consistently demonstrate that the scientists themselves are not aware of the deep structures of their own practices, the same is true of philosophers of social science and social scientists. This difference in viewing the concept of causation as it relates to human action has perhaps always separated those who approach human activity philosophically from those who approach it scientifically. Within the effects-based approach, the military is attempting to cause effects outside the realm of the physical world; they are trying to bring effects about in the realm of human activity. Causation is not the proper concept when dealing with human activity. Many advocates of the effects-based approach have even attempted to make their so-called scientific approach to appear to be philosophical by looking toward the philosophical literature on causation. They mistakenly believe that something as complex as human activity can be rendered and reduced and mutilated to fit the Procrustean bed of behaviorism, choking the mental realm into lifelessness with their chains of cause and effect. This attempt by EBA [effects-based approach] advocates is both pseudo-scientific and pseudo-philosophical. The deep assumption here is that people can be caused to behave, and modifying behavior is simply a matter of adjusting input to get a different output. Action theory recognizes that the mental realm falls outside the normal physical realm of cause and effect. One simply cannot cause another person to act a certain way; people act for reasons, not causes. [Dr. Challans]

This makes much sense, which is why critics of EBO have such solid footing. Who hasnt attempted to modify the behavior of a child, a spouse or significant other, or employee by introducing a change in the physical environment only to have an entirely unexpected and undesired effect when the subject of our experimentation decides upon a course of correction we did not anticipate? Sonny of FX-Based has recently responded to critics of EBO particularly, to an essay by Ralph Peters titled Bloodless theories, bloody wars; Easy-win concepts crumble in combat with a defense of EBO in three parts: Part One, Part Two, Part Three (with more to come.) Sonny writes one of the top-notch military blogs around, and his arguments against various assertions made by Ralph Peters are highly recommended reading. Essentially, Sonny argues that EBO is not a strategy involving high-tech attacks on the infrastructure of our enemy, per se, but a broad approach to warfare which recognizes the very real reality of cause & effect during wartime activities. Dr. Challans may be quite correct when he suggests a difference between causes and reasons for human activity, but by disregarding any relationship between concrete effects and the reasons humans choose for acting is to disregard humanity entirely: man may not live by bread alone, but without it or some substitute, he will die. I.e., We live within the world and reason from it. Consider again the child or the spouse. We have sufficient proof that the threat of physical force, particularly if it follows previous applications of physical force, can modify a childs or spouses behavior. Children locked in cycles of physical abuse, just like spouses locked in those cycles, may submit; or, maintain the secrecy of the situation while acting according to the will of the abuser. Their reason for doing so is a memory of the consequences of not doing so, consequences which have a very concrete nature. However, we must ask if a new spouse or newly adopted child unfamiliar with such consequences will submit to a new threat or a new and unexpected act of violence; perhaps the child or spouse will run away or in fact attempt to kill the attacker. Thus, are the limits of EBO, very broadly stated, limits which will make more sense if we consider more fully the Revised OODA loop Almost Everything In Part One of this series, I redrew John Boyds OODA loop to more fully take into consideration the distinctions between the concrete world and the abstract world: Boyd left the distinctions ambiguous; he blurred them, perhaps as a result of the limitations of his combat experience, since so much observation and activity during a dogfight occurs within a very localized (limited) environment between individuals with very specific limitations already long-set. The fighter pilot only has so much concrete data to observe, within very limited time frames, and will be engaged in very conscious observation of that data while putting much abstract observation on autopilot. The past experiences, genetic heritage, cultural traditions of both pilot and his enemy operate in the background i.e., on autopilot and would have only tangential affect on Observation and Activity, so Boyd did not need to more fully consider how these affect observation and activity even if he did manage to include their effects within his Loop through hazy subprocesses. It was enough to say that these factors have an effect; but the concrete realities of weather, instrumentation, and enemy maneuvers were primary. Boyds decision-making process as a fighter pilot, because it occurred within very limited milieux, did not need to more fully take into account the distinction between the abstract world and the concrete world, since the abstract world only had tangential effects on the concrete activities of either fighter pilot. Either would be much more focused on a shared concrete domain (i.e., the sky,

the fighter jets.) Changing an enemys relation to his past experiences and cultural traditions would have been largely unimportant during a dogfight, even if these factors were exploited: The pilot would exploit long-standing factors, but would not need to more fully engage those factors. It was enough that they were there. Unfortunately, for any confrontation beyond the immediate e.g., in longer campaigns such long-standing factors would affect so many other variables, in so many directions, that putting a consideration of them on autopilot would likely prove disastrous this, in a nutshell, is Dr. Challans criticism, Ralph Peters criticism, and the general criticism of EBO. When we consider Effects-Based Operations, then, we need to consider more fully: 1. How a concrete action can change the concrete world 2. How such a change is observed by the enemy 3. How the enemy further interprets that observation, in order to react to it. Of these three, we have much more control, or decision ability, over #1. Every time we act physically, some part of the concrete world is changed. Because of the complexity of the real world, our acts may not always change that world in expected ways, however. But if we decide to bomb a bridge, we are likely to be able to do that, since our own past experience in combination with our physical arsenal enables us to do that. We have some control over #2, because humans in general including us, including our enemy view the concrete world similarly. If a bridge is blown up, both parties are going to see that in fact it has been blown up. But observation for humans is two-fold, since it includes not only concrete sensory perception but also how that concrete information is turned into an awareness within the brain. The old argument about the tree falling in the woods with nobody present would serve as a good example. Does it make a sound? Technically, no, since it creates vibrations in the air and ground and nearby objects, and it is only our mind that interprets the presence of these vibrations as sound. That is a facile example, and most humans have very similar interpretative abilities would be aware of sound if present at the trees falling but the process of cognition is very quick and will include many more things during the individuals observation of phenomena, such as previous experience of phenomena. Thus our control over an enemys observation, or #2 above, is only partial, because his past experience was long set before we blew up the bridge. Furthermore, the enemys concrete observations of things other than the bridge, which also enter his decisionmaking cycle, may alter his awareness of what has occurred or limit his awareness of the blown-up bridge. (If hes deeply entrenched in a bunker, he may feel the vibrations through the ground without being aware that the bridge itself was destroyed.) We have the least amount of control over #3. Although we may have some idea about our enemys habitual thought patterns, experiences, etc., these tend to be things which are previously set for our enemy and, for us. I.e., we may easily create a concrete effect in the world, but we cannot so easily go back to our enemys childhood and reconstruct his memories and past experiences, his cultural traditions, up to the point of that concrete effect, in order to give that concrete effect an interpretation (by the enemy) of our choosing. The enemy may have past awareness past experience of tunnels he uses for supply routes and may interpret the destruction of the bridge as an only incidental occurrence. In particular, our own history of observing that enemy intelligence information may seemingly give us more or less control over #3, although even the smallest gaps in our intel could produce resulting gaps in our ability to control our enemys interpretation of events. Plus, quite idiosyncratic and personal behavior may be quite unknown to us, at least the extent to which such behavioral traits might influence enemies; e.g., Saddam Husseins megalomania (or, Hitlers, at the time of WWII.) These factors correspond to the Concrete OODA of the Revised OODA:

[Concrete OODA] Note that although I have not drawn a direct line from Act to World, the line is implied, since our physical acts alter the concrete world. Also note the most obvious and most important implication: that our ability to affect an enemy always stems from manipulation of the physical world. Until psychic powers are realized, this will remain the case. (And even then, I would bet that stimulation of brain waves by some mechanical means, from outside an enemys body, would best be considered a physical act. If such a thing ever comes to pass.) Finally, note the degree to which such a consideration ultimately confounds many theories of 4GW and 5GW or at least limits them and the way such a consideration severely limits what may be accomplished via EBO. On that last point: Too often when reading theory of 4GW, 5GW, and EBO, I detect a belief or, call it a faith that we may directly affect an enemys abstract processes. For instance, when we talk of moral and morale manipulation as methods used by a 4GW fighter, some mystical direct link is implied: 4GW insurgents sap our will to fight. That is putting it too simply, however, and risks devastating illusion by putting too much faith in that illusion of a direct link, or of a direct operation on our own abstract processes by the enemy. This is not to say that our morale cannot be sapped, but it is giving the enemy too much credit for that effect. Sonny of FX-Based, in his defense of EBO, gives a very good example of the process in his response to Ralph Peters: strategic bombing preceding D-DAY did play a crucial role in Nazi Germanys defeat. The main problem was that one of our main pre-war suppositions proved to be incorrect: the German industrial infrastructure proved to be more resistant to attack than what we originally expected. However, the USSBS showed that aerial attacks had actually worn out the morale of the German people and had increased absenteeism to some extent in the later phases of the war. The attacks conducted by the AAF and the Royal Air Force (RAF) from July to December 1943 did not obliterate all of the German industrial machinery, but they did compel the Germans to disperse manufacturing functions at a critical point in the war. [ed. emphasis added] [Sonny, at FX-Based, in In Defense of EBO] We might argue whether such an EBO effect lowering morale would be inevitable in every situation, including possible future scenarios; and, we would be right to do so. For instance, I suspect that the German response was also a result of comparing past status to the status created by aerial attacks and seeing a major difference but some future enemy might never have had a highly efficient and safe environment prior to such bombing, and the morale-sapping effect might be less. I.e., this future foe might not have had a previously bloated image of self due to a productive environment, thus would not be as greatly affected by having that environment systematically destroyed This is the ascetic bin Laden hiding in mountains effect. Other factors might limit the drop in morale; consider, for instance, Britain and Churchill under repeated bombings. The arguments against EBO are really arguments against limited deployment of EBO. I.e., they are arguments against robotic, ill-conceived, limited and repetitive operations regardless of environment and enemy, and such arguments are spot-on. Although to some degree we can anticipate very similar reactions for most people in response to large-scale devastation we are all human the limitations on devastation imposed by modern warfare strategies and the general socalled laws of war severely limit our ability to affect large numbers of people successfully. So much that is common between people that would give us a better understanding of reactions to operations also becomes a barrier to what we may do to a people. The Golden Rule has limited EBO warfare. When Ralph Peters uses the phrase sterilized techno-wars, he is on the right track

 especially also since those we most need to affect, the enemys military, may be quite separate from the people, or hidden among the people, and even less susceptible to the manipulation of a concrete environment than the person on the street: The abstract processing of those in the military forces may be quite unlike the abstract processing of the typical citizen of a society. High-tech bombings may terrify and disrupt the person on the street, but guerrilla fighters might go underground and wait it out worse, such a bombing campaign may not affect everyone in the general populace the same way and could lead to larger numbers of guerrilla recruits. At the same time, the link between cause and effect in the concrete world is omnipresent and difficult to refute; as Sonny at FX-Based has said, An effects-based approach is a common-sense and intuitive way to conduct operations. [Sonny, at FX-Based, in In Defense of EBO - Part Two] How, pray tell, can we conduct a war without creating changed concrete environments through physicial acts whether it is EBO, or 4GW or 5GW? Everything in war is effects-based almost. Reason Is Almost Because Its just that cause and effect are omnipresent, the World is complex, and Observations whether concrete or abstract are going to be limited, stretching from the past through the present and into the future. Thus, reason is limited. When Dr. Challans criticized EBO, this was his primary argument, if not stated in so many words. Our errors in war are, in effect, errors in effects-based operations, and they have come about because we failed to know our enemy well enough to be able to anticipate foreknow how that enemy would react to our acts upon the world. Almost. Because the only sure way to know how our enemy will react to our actions is to kill him. EBO as a theory is a theory of how to cause a living enemy to do what we want, whether it is to make a horrible move or to surrender, and the desire to understand EBO well enough to employ it comes from an understanding that we cannot completely and utterly destroy our enemy physically, at least not at the moment. If we could destroy him utterly through a physical act of our own, we would not need to have an EBO theory. Although we may act only physically upon the world despite the superstitious theory that we are all somehow connected via a network and able to act upon each other metaphysically or outside the realm of physics we have some limited ability to Go Deep into the enemys abstract processes or gain an objective understanding, even if limited, of those processes. In order to do so, we must remember how those abstract processes occur and not leave such things as cultural traditions and past experiences cloudy and completely removed from a consideration of the physical world. [Abstract OODA] All mental constructs previous experience, memories, ideologies, understanding are a result of information flowing from the exterior world over a lifetime, which has been analyzed, synthesized, perhaps re-examined multiple times (Decide-Hypothesize), and no doubt often corrupted, before becoming imprinted within the mind. (Remember, genetic heritage, including all physical processes meaning even those shaping analytical ability are a part of the concrete world constantly feeding into the Abstract Observation of a person. We are dynamically alive, and such factors can change throughout a lifetime.) When we act upon the physical world, changing it, that new information enters the enemys Abstract OODA in the Abstract Observation along with old

information previously imprinted. Dr. Challans argument that human activity should be considered from an understanding of reason rather than of cause-effect is only partly true, since many concrete causes have shaped our mental constructs; but reason is limited because our life experiences are limited by such factors as: our physical being (including sex, including the functioning of our senses, including our mental capacities); our family and early environment; and the dominant culture(s) of our society. Thus, we might often act from reason more informed by old information than by new information; or, vice versa. So there are two processes occurring, which might or might not align: our action upon the world and our enemys reaction to the changed world. EBO is what we do, but EBR or effects-based reaction is what the living enemy does in fact, is what we ourselves may do in reaction to that world we have changed, when we observe it. EBO is not everything in war, just as the Concrete OODA is not all that occurs for humans: Cause and reason. But since reasoning will almost certainly include old information, the strict physical cause-effect basis of some EBO theory is insufficient for understanding the successful employment of EBO, since our enemy will not be reacting strictly to the changed environment or to that physical cause but also on the basis of prior learning, cultural traditions, and experience, etc. So more properly speaking EBR should be renamed EIR, or effects-influenced reasoning. To contemplate an EBO approach without first considering the mental constructs of our enemies largely by ignoring how our enemies environments have shaped their mental constructs should not be considered an effects-based operation whatsoever. It is really an ideologically-driven operation, since we are operating more from our own pre-built abstractions of our enemy, and how our enemy will react, than from an actual understanding of that enemy. This is the argument Ralph Peters makes when he criticizes certain high-tech and sterile approaches to warfare advocated ad infinitum by certain Pentagon officials. Essentially, whether he knew it or not, Peters was criticizing our tendency to approach our enemies as if they were all carbon-copies of each other likely to always react in the way previous foes have reacted to such effects-based operations. I.e., those carbon-copies are just our abstractions of the enemy more likely, our abstractions of the enemys Abstract OODA rather than actual enemies. Incidentally, however, Peters may have some carbon-copy alternatives himself, since he appears to assume that the approach is always doomed to failure or often doomed to failure, at least against the foes we are likely to confront in the short term. (He may be correct in this; but thats a subject for a different post. I doubt that he should make a universal evaluation of such a limited EBO campaign, however.) Sonny at FX-Based, as quoted in the lead-in to this post, has expanded the concept of EBO beyond Peters consideration, and would not limit EBO to only one style of fighting: An effects based approach to operations stresses the value of connecting all actions (political, diplomatic, economic, and military) to operational and strategic outcomes. [Sonny, ibid.] This is good as far as it goes, but it should not go without a consideration of the Abstract OODA. I.e., as we decide which actions upon the world are required for influencing an enemy that we arent simply wanting to utterly destroy and able to utterly destroy, we must remember that an enemys past will filter every observation of the world that we have altered by our acts. We must know his cultural environment, his past environments, etc., as well as we can before drawing any conclusions about how he will react to our actions. And, while we might read in a textbook or hear a lecture about cultural influences, past experiences of our enemy, and the like, these remain mere abstractions for us until we have been able to witness them in action in the concrete world; thus, some amount of experimentation, or preliminary acts, might be required in order for us to draw a

conclusion that an enemy will react the way we think he might react. Like the enemy, our abstract processes are our own, but we may see in the physical world concrete manifestations of those abstract processes or, Acts. There is at least one universal truth we might draw from the Abstract OODA, however, vis-a-vis EBO. Impulsive Acts are those committed with more of an eye on unfolding circumstances than on past experience and other mental constructs (even if these also influence such action.) I gave this example of an Impulsive Act in Part One of this series: consider a different Impulsive Act: While at the Mall, a person suddenly hears lots of gunfire near him, sees people falling, and rather than quickly duck behind a convenient metal barrier starts running around, screaming and, gets shot. But a person who has been in combat situations might quickly duck behind the barrier: a reflexive act based more on past experience than on present new information and sudden ideas of impending death. [CGW, Dreaming 5GW, Rethinking the OODA] Present new information and sudden ideas of impending death. One we might create by our action, if only we can know that the new information is really new for a target; the other is a common fear for most people but not all. As a metaphor, however, this would suggest how rapid changes within a concrete environment, of a certain type, might cause an enemy to react impulsively. True, we might have no firm understanding of exactly how he will react, but the fact that his action will be impulsive might be enough, particularly if we could create a quick recycling through O-O-D(Hyp.) and back to O of the Abstract OODA of our enemy. He would be forced either into paralysis or into committing an impulsive act. And Again, Beyond I had intended only two parts for this series, but this look at EBO warranted a post of its own especially since, as I would assert, all warfare beyond absolutely destructive warfare is EBO or ought to be considered such. We act through the concrete World and we seek a corresponding beneficial reaction from our enemies. EBO is not a so-called generation of warfare, although I am beginning to believe that understanding the concept of EBO will be very important in understanding William Linds Generations of Warfare. I intend to address those generations, in further consideration of the Revised OODA, in a third part to this series, since this post has already grown to asufficient length.

Observing the Maturing World Introduction In the second installment of this series on Rethinking the OODA EBO is Everything in War Almost I made some claims which will further bear on the subject of the generations of warfare as conceived by William Lind: 1. I would assert [that] all warfare beyond absolutely destructive warfare is EBO or ought to be considered such. 2. [A]lthough I have not drawn a direct line from Act to World [in the Concrete OODA of the Revised OODA], the line is implied, since our physical acts alter the concrete world. Also note the most obvious and most important implication: that our ability to affect an enemy always stems from manipulation of the physical world.such a consideration ultimately confounds many theories of 4GW and 5GW or at least limits them and severely limits what may be accomplished via EBO. 3. [T]he link between cause and effect in the concrete world is omnipresent and difficult to refuteHow, pray tell, can we conduct a war without creating changed concrete environments through physicial acts? 4. EBO as a theory is a theory of how to cause a living enemy to do what we want, whether it is to make a horrible move or to surrender, and the desire to understand EBO well enough to employ it comes from an understanding that we cannot completely and utterly destroy our enemy physically, at least not at the moment. If we could destroy him utterly through a physical act of our own, we would not need to have an EBO theory. 5. Its just that cause and effect are omnipresent, the World is complex, and Observations whether concrete or abstract are going to be limited, stretching from the past through the present and into the future. Thus, reason is limited. These points suggest both, the significance and the limitations of Effects-Based Warfare. The significance of EBO is simply this: that, despite superstitious belief in metaphysical acts that can directly change the physical world, all our actions upon the world are physical in nature, and any effort toward a concrete goal vis-a-vis warfare must therefore be conducted by physical means. That goal is the effect we wish, upon which we base our operations as we strive toward it. In other words, An effects-based approach is a common-sense and intuitive way to conduct operations, as explained by Sonny at FX-Based. The limitations of EBO are of two natures, both of which are concrete although one also takes into account the objective reality of subjectivity: * Points #1 and #4 above imply that complete destruction of an enemy is really beyond the realm of our modern EBO theory. True, we might consider the utter destruction of an enemy to be an effect which we wish to create via applied physics thus, it would be an effect-based approach to warfare of the purest sort but to do so would confuse two very different approaches to warfare. As already stated, all warfare directed against a real enemy, because it must be conducted through physical means, could be considered EBO; but this would make the very concept of EBO worthless as a theory of warfare, since it broadens the scope of EBO theory to encompass everything in warfare. Furthermore, if we are going to discuss EBO theory, we should not forget that most current warfare strategies already rule out the purest sort of effects-based approach absolute destruction of our enemy except as a very last resort, and only then if we are capable of utterly destroying every single enemy in the enemy host. Thus, to give EBO meaning and utility in our present theory and present world, we must consider limitations on the physical effects encompassed

by that theory. * Points #2, #3, and #5 above reflect the influence of subjectivity in warfare operations, whether our own or our enemies subjectivities. We may act physically upon the physical world, and so must put our faith in the reality of cause and effect, but reasons motivate humans and reason operates not only in relation to present actions, present effects, and the present world but also in relation to past acts, past effects, and past physical realities. In effect, our actions upon the world may alter the shape of the present and the future concrete world but may never alter the shape of the past concrete world which has already had its role in shaping subjectivities and reason. And, more to the point, human acts which operate on the present physical world are motivated by reasoning which is informed by the past. While an EBO approach may take into consideration the past world and the subjectivities resulting from it, abstractly and at a distance from the past, the operations in an EBO approach are focused on altering the present environment in order to create future results. Thus, as an approach, EBO is limited in what it can accomplish via the influencing of a living enemy, by the past upon which it cannot directly act but which nevertheless continues to motivate human activity and thus, ultimately, future concrete realities. Point #5 above, in particular, may be applied to both of these limitations on EBO and may suggest how specific effects-based approaches have differed or developed in the history of warfare. Our ability to reason, although it has always been limited by our correspondingly limited Observation of the concrete World, has nonetheless been altered as our World has matured We Observe, We Orient, We Decide/Act Its just that cause and effect are omnipresent, the World is complex, and Observations whether concrete or abstract are going to be limited, stretching from the past through the present and into the future. Thus, reason is limited. [CGW, Dreaming 5GW, EBO is Everything in War Almost] Thus, our conscious Acts are shaped by our reasoning, which in turn has been limited by our Observation of the World or, more to the point, by our concrete ability to observe the world. Our acts and decisions will always be limited by what we observe and may observe, and thus are shaped by the concrete reality of the world, of which our own physical reality our genetic heritage is only part. Dan of tdaxp has previously utilized John Boyds OODA Loop to gain a better understanding of William Linds framework for the generations of warfare, in a post called Go Deep (OODA and the Rainbow of Generational Warfare). In that post, Dan considered primarily the part of the abstract, or subjective, cognitive process most targeted by each generation of warfare, shown here in an image modeled on his but using a closer approximation to Boyds Loop: Dans theory is that each succeeding generation of warfare represents a focus deeper into the enemys OODA decision-making process: 1GW was defined by conflict centered around an enemys ability to decide and act. 2GW was defined by conflict centered around an enemys ability to orient and decide. 3GW is defined by conflict centered around an enemys ability to orient. 4GW is defined by conflict centered around Observe and Orient.

[Dan, tdaxp, Go Deep] Technological and observational capabilities predetermined what could be accomplished on the battlefield. William Lind addressed the technological factors in The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation: First generation warfare reflects tactics of the era of the smoothbore musket, the tactics of line and column. These tactics were developed partially in response to technological factors the line maximized firepower, rigid drill was necessary to generate a high rate of fire, etc. Second generation warfare was a response to the rifled musket, breechloaders, barbed wire, the machinegun, and indirect fire. Tactics were based on fire and movement, and they remained essentially linear.Perhaps the principal change from first generation tactics was heavy reliance on indirect fire; second generation tactics were summed up in the French maxim, the artillery conquers, the infantry occupies. Massed firepower replaced massed manpower.Technological factors included von Moltkes realization that modern tactical firepower mandated battles of encirclement and the desire to exploit the capabilities of the railway and the telegraph. Third generation warfare was also a response to the increase in battlefield firepower.Aware they could not prevail in a contest of materiel because of their weaker industrial base in World War I, the Germans developed radically new tactics. Based on maneuver rather than attrition, third generation tactics were the first truly nonlinear tactics. the addition of a new technological elementtanksbrought about a major shift at the operational level in World War II. That shift was blitzkrieg. In the blitzkrieg, the basis of the operational art shifted from place (as in LiddellHarts indirect approach) to time. [Lind, The Changing Face of War emphasis added.] In that 1989 essay, Lind also postulated technology-driven 4th Generation War. 4GW might operate through increased direct energy to directly destroy small targets behind enemy lines or within societies, through robotics and remote-piloted vehicles giving warriors greater access to the enemy, and through the increased reach of media which Lind uses to postulate an idea-driven 4GW. Dan of tdaxp, in explaining his determination of where on the simple OODA each generation of warfare sought to attack an enemys decision-making process, also included brief considerations of the observational capabilities of both attacker and target: [1GW] Information was relatively symmetrical precise locations of either army were unavailable to any commander, while general knowledge of the land was known to all commanders. [2GW] You know exactly where you are, exactly where the enemy is, and exactly where you are going to die (in the razorwire and minefield, hit by enemy crossfire). Thanks to telegraphs and modern communications, commanders are flooded with a tsunami of almost meaningless facts. Thinking now centers around where and when it makes sense to try to break through, as well as the how to move to advance evenly. [3GW] Victory in 3rd Generation Wars required the ability to instill madness to mess with the enemys minds. [ed. i.e., not only knowing roughly where you and the enemy are, but knowing the enemys orientation beyond the simple bi-polar trench-line or strict front warfare, or

knowing nodes and connections between individual units and battle placements, and being able to insert oneself quickly amidst that orientation via blitzkrieg maneuvers.] [4GW] If older generations of war were like fluids, 4GW was like a gas. It spreads [ed. observes, among other things] everywhere yet regular armies have a hard time even finding battles. [5GW] A 5th Generation War might be fought with one side not knowing who it is fighting. Or even, a brilliantly executed 5GW might involve one side being completely ignorant that there ever was a war. [Dan, tdaxp, ibid.] Unfortunately, Dans consideration of these factors is rather brief in that linked post, as are Linds considerations (in his linked essay) of the effect of technology on the generations of warfare. As mentioned at the beginning of this section, our conscious Acts are shaped by our reasoning, which in turn has been limited by our Observation of the World, and I would like a closer look at the way observational capabilities have altered effects-based approaches over time. While it is true that 1GW forces had a bit more observational capability reconnaissance capability than Dans brief assessment allows, ones own scouts or the spies in an enemys encampment would have been greatly limited in what they could observe and report. In the first place, their reports would have been old news by the time they were received by ones generals perhaps months old in the case of espionage activity; perhaps days old if movement from the enemy forces to ones own force (to report) required days. Individual movements on the battlefield once battle had commenced would be too chaotic, ever-shifting, man-to-man, making the scout relatively useless. Furthermore, a limited range weapon must still be targeted, and targeting elements behind the enemy lines or beyond the range of those weapons would have been relatively useless. In the case of limited long-range capabilities, the targeting mechanisms then in use were relatively primitive; it was enough if the cannonball or shell hit somewhere the enemy was if it hit behind the front line. 2GW observational capabilities were improved by speed of communication as well as targeting of weaponry. The telegraph and railway sped up long-range communications, and rifles and artillery had better aim as well as better reach. Primitive air forces also increased, and sped up, observational capabilities. Greater fire power in artillery and aerial bombings meant that one could more accurately target more enemies whenever one used these things (unlike, say, a cannonball in the previous generation that might have hit nothing when it fell or only one or a handful of enemies. I.e., increased destruction capability actually helped limit the need to know an exact enemy placement.) 3GW also saw the improvement in observational capabilities a necessary improvement if one is to know where ones enemy is, exactly, and how that enemys forces and strongholds are organized, in order to know how to maneuver most effectively to disrupt and overcome that enemys defenses. Again, improved air forces, communications technologies, transportation, and firepower improved ones observational range and speed. Keeping ones own forces in contact, and operating efficiently and not at cross-purposes, also required quicker communications and observational capabilities. 4GW continues the trend. The Internet, for instance, is being used by 4GWarriors even as I type this. Satellite communications, cell phones, thumbnail disk drives, and the net of media sources criss-crossing the globe allow the fast transmission of data, increasing observational capability. Despite this fact, 4GW insurgents and terrorists are often quite separate from their enemies: they

may live among an enemy society, but they have yet to infiltrate into the Deepest realm of their enemies forces; i.e., be among those forces without being detected. (Admittedly, infiltration of the Iraqi defense forces has somewhat occurred, and in all likelihood infiltration of the Iraqi government has also occurred at some level. But infiltration of the U.S. armed forces or government? Unlikely, although the theft of databases such as the recently-stolen armed forces personnel database and intercept communications might give 4GW forces a window-peek into the U.S. operations. Or else, the New York Times will boldly publish details of those operations.) 5GW, as broadly outlined by Dan at tdaxp in the linked post and as Ive theorized, might seek an even broader-ranged observational capability than that currently available to 4GW forces; namely, very deep-level infiltration of a society, a societys armed forces, and a societys institutions and government, or else open communication of intentions from proxy warriors who are nonetheless unaware that they are being so used. Furthermore, a consideration of these generations of warfare should not forget to look at the way other aspects of society beyond technology have developed across the years. For instance, at a time when many societies were organized on the basis of land-ownership rather than interstate commerce and trade, they tended to be insular (as well as self-sufficient), and an individual stranger was more quickly identified by differences in physical appearance and language, while an enemy states operations were occluded by distance and their own insularity. As interconnectivity has increased, flows of information have increased in number; but while these increased flows of information have improved observational capabilities vis-a-vis enemy state activity, they have also multiplied factors to be considered, creating a complexity that may blind us, particularly when trying to distinguish individual enemy operatives. (That last may be applied particularly to the theory of 5GW, but these considerations may also touch significantly upon 4GW and even 3GW tactics.) In each of these cases, a forces ability to observe its opponent enables or disables types of action available to that force, by allowing or disallowing a more complete and accurate orientation in relationship to that enemy and, thus, better decision-making ability. Because greater observational capability may lead to successful deeper actions against an enemy, that enemy may be forced to adjust his decision-making process in reaction to those deeper acts. Essentially: * The nearer one strikes at ones enemy, particularly with successive acts during war via a physical alteration of the concrete world the more immediate, numerous, various, and defined the observations that enemy has of ones actions. * The deeper into enemy territory we go, the less that enemy has to observe more deeply into our territory to see what we are doing; in fact, a focus on the present near activity may limit that enemys ability to observe further into our territory if he is preoccupied with reacting to what we are doing. Both of these factors shape an enemys decision-making process. By broadening the field of battle, including deeper into enemy territory as a result of broader observational capabilities each succeeding generation of warriors forced their enemies to broaden their own observational activity and thus affected their decision-making processes by the multiplication of factors to be considered. This, I think, is the reasoning behind Dans diagram of these generations and the OODA loop. Going Deeper into OODA I.e., * 1GW could only operate on the basis of a shared, symmetrical concrete plane, including roughly symmetrical technology but also including the lay-of-land. Maneuvering on the basis of an

enemys organization would have been severely limited simply because the ability to observe that enemys organization was severely limited as a battle occurred so keeping a formation together and moving together became very important for ruling out whatever moves were available to the enemy. The enemy had to attack that formation while ruling out the same thing by doing the same things. Geography was utilized as much as possible, in advance, to improve whatever observational advantage one could devise; but when battle occurred, it was man-to-man, and changing the physical environment particularly, the physical beings of the enemy host; i.e., killing as many as possible was the primary strategy. Because either side of two 1GW forces would operate mostly on the basis of the unfolding physical environment, either only had to judge that physical environment when making a decision. Thus, one attempted to affect most directly the enemys process of deciding actions by altering that physical environment especially, by taking initiative to change it first and, if possible, most. * 2GW operated similarly, but increased communications ability via the telegraph and railroads, etc., allowed one to know better at any given time the direction of an enemys approach, an enemys location, and so forth. Improved observational ability gave one the option of where to attack: a 2GW force need not hit the enemy all at once on the same plane of activity, nor defend all at once, like 1GW forces, but could focus defenses where needed and assault the enemy where it would be most beneficial. Two 2GW forces, then, would tend to form stable fronts of concentrated force while trying to exploit weakness where they were observed. Because greater firepower could quickly decimate forces where they were weakest in their defenses, movement became more limited than 1GW, more cautious, and this led to developments like trench warfare. Initiative was gained by observing a weakness first and exploiting it before the enemy could strengthen his defenses; by doing so, a 2GW force would turn his enemys observation to that point on the line. Or else, the 2GW force sought initiative by overburdening the foes resources through successive strikes along the line of defense. In effect, successive strikes were direct strikes against an enemys ability to decide. By altering the number of factors to be considered for any decision by changing the concrete environment in multiple places, in multiple ways the 2GW force produced many different potential decisions, and a foe could be forced to weaken other areas as he strengthened some in reaction. On the diagram above, this effect is shown between Orient and Decide. * 3GW utilized this process of multiplication of factors to be considered, because the 3GW force itself was able to consider multiple factors in order to strike in the most beneficial way. Improved observational ability (and thus, planning ability) suggested ways of striking where the foe was weakest and in a way the foe had not fully anticipated, and improved technology made such strikes possible. The 3GW force knew its moves were not fully anticipated. Thus, when the foe was hit, the foe would be forced into an attempt to orient to the sudden new information. 3GW was much quicker than 2GW, less cautious with defense and more audacious in attack; it had to be, or else the enemy might observe a 3GW forces actions toward it and orient to defend (Act) against those actions. The foe would see it happen as it happened, but because it happened more quickly than his previous experience of warfare could allow him to anticipate, he would have difficulty settling into a corresponding understanding of what was needed to defend against it. Whatever decision he made would be too late. By driving deeper into enemy territory, in force, the 3GW attacker also forced the enemy to observe sudden new information in rapid, near, and various quantities, and thus attacked the enemys decision-making ability primarily on Orient. * 4GW forces are typically already among their foes. Wars against occupation which are fought by 4GW forces are a good example. But as interconnectivity between societies increases, the ability to be among foes also increases; the process of globalization means an increasing single plane of activity. Being among represents not only physical proximity, but also observational ability and, thus, the ability to act, for the 4GW force, on many levels. And because these forces are typically among their foes, they can confuse their enemies ability to separate cause and effect, foe and friend, actions committed by the 4GW forces and those committed by the target of 4GW. If a 4GW force kills lots of civilians and then quickly hides among other civilians, the demarcation between 4GW force and the populace of a nation becomes blurred for the ultimate target of 4GW

i.e., the observer outside that force who may commit acts which may be inseparable from those of the 4GW force, in the minds of other observers and even of themselves. As Dan of tdaxp explained it, Like 3rd Generation Wars, 4th Generation Wars focus on the picture inside the enemys head. But while 3GW tries to destroy the picture, 4GW builds a new one. By attacking a targets ability to Orient, a 3GW force impedes decision and action in its target, but a 4GW force wants to force an orientation of its liking and wants its target to decide and act but in the manner of the 4GW forces choosing. This is accomplished by feeding information into its target while limiting the influence or significance of other information: the 4GW force kills or destroys, but then hides again or in fact becomes just another part of the populace. This role affecting what moves between Observation and Orient is shown in the above diagram. Since 4GW forces are seen but as apparitions, and yet their actions are known to be 4GW actions, their influence may seem unstoppable for the observer, and they may ultimately weaken the desire to wrest control of the OODA back from them (i.e., morale.) through the impossibility of finding them and destroying them. * 5GW, as implied in the diagram, is the deepest of all, so entrenched within the target, the target does not know that the 5GW force exists. When the target makes any decision, the target believes it is in full command of its decision-making ability. The 5GW force merely creates information in relation to other information-sets it has not created; the target observes all information available and continues on his way toward making a decision and acting. Selective information creation will be the 5GW forces modus operandi, and the 5GW forces goal is to have the target act on that information. The 5GW force will have an action or set of actions in mind before it decides what information will be created for the target of its efforts. Thus, the 5GW force acts primarily on its enemys ability to Observe. Alas, going deeper into the enemys OODA must be achieved via physical acts, because psychic abilities do not exist. I.e., we cannot really act directly upon an enemys abstract processes, but are confined to the creation of new information by altering the concrete world being observed by the enemy and must contend with the information that enemy possessed before we act. We must also contend with multiple sources of information within the concrete world over which we have little ability to shape in fact, may have little ability to observe directly whenever we attempt to affect an enemys decision-making process. But as outlined at the top of this post and in Part Two of this series, thats exactly what we must do if complete and utter destruction of our enemies is out of the question or beyond our ability: EBO. But different effects will require different operational styles. And, even the same effects in a changing World may ultimately require new limits or new directions for operational choices; by altering what and how we observe in that World, that changing World may give birth to new operational approaches. And Deeper I began this series of posts because I was not comfortable with the OODA loop as presented by John Boyd. Primarily, I did not like the fact that the Orient phase was written mystically, or as a magic cloud: as if genetic heritage, cultural traditions, and new information originated in the Orient phase of the decision-making process, a phase that seemed to represent entirely an abstract process. This, combined with fuzzy feedback loops and implicit guidance and control loops (as in the images above this image of Orient), blurred the distinction between concrete reality and what we make of that concrete reality when we witness it. So I revised the loop to account for the influences of both, the concrete and the abstract, by separating them and yet joining them as two concurrent processes. Ive looked deeper into the subject of EBO in EBO is Everything in War Almost to better come to grips with how, indeed, we may act in warfare to create beneficial effects. And, Ive found limits to EBO, which Ive outlined in more detail at the beginning of this post.

Essentially, causes and reasons are two separate things, although colloquially we tend to equate them. But though different, they bear a relation to one another. To say that any action we may commit in warfare can cause a person to decide and act a certain way may miss the distinction between cause and reason some other subjective thought, or more likely many thoughts, about the present concrete environment or even a past concrete environment, could well be the primary foundation upon which an enemy chooses to act but nonetheless, we reason from the concrete. If we change the concrete world, our enemy may well be forced to reason from it, if only partly from it. We can view an enemys Acts to get a better, perhaps more objective, understanding of that enemys abstract processes. Human acts are the physical manifestations of these abstract processes. To the degree that we can form a true understanding of an enemys abstract processes, we may present him with information likely to run the course of his abstract processing in ways that will lead to beneficial acts beneficial to us. But even given the possibility that we can somewhat objectively come to understand an enemys thought processes, the World is complex, with much information feeding into our own and our enemys Abstract OODA beyond our direct control. The World has always been complex, but we are only now, in modern times, beginning to appreciate the level of complexity. In my second post in this series, I commented on a contemporary superstitious belief in metaphysical acts by referencing the superstitious theory that we are all somehow connected via a network and able to act upon each other metaphysically or outside the realm of physics [CGW] and although I stand by the description, I recognize the difficulty inherent in assessing the current shape of human affairs in toto. We speak of such complexity in the shorthand when we refer to networks but it is a shorthand with some basis in concrete fact, I am sure. If cause and effect are indeed omnipresent in the concrete world another claim from that post then everything might truly be connected, perhaps in multiple ways and through mulitple chains of relation but affecting everything else in a very concrete manner. Im just not able to suggest with sincerity that human beings are able to consciously affect everything or even anything through the same allconnecting tissue. (Except, we tend to connect everything we observe abstractly by finding a place for each thing in our general world-view.) Plus, the omnipresence of cause and effect, in combination with the complexity of the concrete World, may well mean that our physical acts, though minutely directed or focused on only part of the world, change parts of the concrete world we are as yet incapable of seeing in any present situation: that is the Butterfly Effect so commonly touted. Given these considerations, and notwithstanding the perhaps futile process of simplifying the complexity to gain a better understanding of complex human interactions, Ive attempted to overlay the generations of warfare onto the Revised OODA presented in Part One of this series: Some notes on this diagram: * First to be considered: Each generation, 1 through 5, actually affects the enemy through physical acts. These acts change the concrete world, but perhaps in different ways, thus offering different types of information, or different types of sets of information, for the enemys consideration. * Enemy OODA Target, then, merely means the intended portion of the enemys OODA to be most affected by our methods of concrete manipulation of the World. Because everything in the OODA feeds from information of the concrete world, every part of the OODA will be influenced by

our every action in manipulating, or changing, that world; but certain portions of the enemys decision-making process will be where we plan the greatest influence. * Desired Information Flow merely points at the subprocesses we intend to utilize or, more accurately, to be utilized once we have created new information for the enemy. * Although I have not made the point before: The Conditional Constructs and Mental Constructs can occur simultaneously, but either one or both together represent the state of orientation at any given moment. To say that actions flow from either is merely to say that actions flow from the state of orientation. And, each of the three loosely-name types of action is drawn from the type of construct most dominant at the time of action. * Each of the generational Enemy OODA Targets [EOT] is placed roughly where they were placed by Dan of tdaxp in his model, and for roughly the same reasons given in my contemplation of that model, above. * The biggest exception in EOT placement is that for 1GW. I took my cue from Linds essay, Operational art in the first generation did not exist as a concept although it was practiced by individual commanders, most prominently Napoleon. [The Changing Face of War] and from the consideration, outlined above, that 1GW attempted to affect the enemys decisionmaking process primarily by destroying that enemy, or by altering the physical environment, without as much consideration for the abstract processes of that enemy. To change the World was the attempt at forcing a decision and an action surrender or retreat, etc. but this is still not the type of utter destruction of all enemy units that would be beyond the scope of EBO. * The other slight exception in EOT placement would be for the next generation, 2GW. John Boyds OODA, as stated multiple times, blurred lines between the abstract and the concrete; but Ive attempted to separate them. While very concerned with altering the physical environment, 2GW specifically sought initiative by trying to overburden an enemys Abstract Decision. Ideally, the Abstract Act that would follow would be, I must surrender! but it could also be the weakening of one point in the front as the target attempted to strengthen another. Multiple choices were not so various and immediate as offered by the later 3GW, so the 2GW could orient relatively static fronts helped but upon analysis of the situation the target of 2GW would have to decide between options, and the 2GW force would hope the decision led directly to the Abstract Act of an understanding. (Greater hypotheses and reviewing of decisions might lead to an undesirable understanding, or an understanding beneficial to the target, not the 2GW force.) * 3GW is really the oddball of the five, from one perspective. A quick succession of acts deeper into enemy territory produces too much new data (relative to past experiences) for any Abstract Decision-Abstract Act to occur. As Dan said, a 3GW tries to destroy the image in his foes mind. The result is either a constant looping from Abstract Decision(Hypothesis) - Conditional Construct Abstract Observation i.e., paralysis or into an impulsive act based on Conditional Constructs (or images produced primarily by that new data, chaotic and a bit incoherent, unsettled). Incidentally, anyone who has read John Robbs theories about Global Guerrillas ought to recognize how this consideration of 3GW does, in fact, seem to describe what he has postulated for those GGs. (Although, theres still some doubt to be offered on that possibility.) * 4GW and 5GW greatly differ from the other three in the abstract processes an attacker wishes the target to utilize when making a decision. Both approaches tend to operate over a longer time frame than 1GW, 2GW, and 3GW, vis-a-vis an enemys cognition loop relative to any given actions. Thus, each attempts to influence the enemy to form Mental Constructs in line with the 4GW message or 5GW paradigm, to be utilized by the target when analyzing or synthesizing future new information. This is a kind of attrition directed toward an enemys thought processes, and is represented by the Information Flow back to Abstract Observe from Mental Constructs. 1GW and 2GW plan for the enemy to come to a specific understanding, as well; and, any future Abstract Observation will be influenced by that understanding; but either of those approaches depends more on a heavy influence by new data and less on the influence of abstract data, or Old Information, in

their approach. 4GW and 5GW, however, are not likely to be approaches made successful merely through the application of great force, or great and widespread manipulation of the physical world. * Incidentally, another significant note: Any of the three types of action may occur during any war, regardless of the generational tactics being employed; but, like the Enemy OODA Target, the type of Acts being marked are the intended primary acts one wants an enemy to make. For instance, Impulsive Acts committed by an enemy are almost always going to be beneficial to the attacker. Its just that 3GW is an operational style which depends more on that type of act if paralysis isnt achieved than any of the others. (For one thing, 3GW cannot risk an enemys being able to decide on a course of action that would severely infiltrate the 3GWs home territory while the 3GW force is making its audacious moves about the map.) * Thus, all generational approaches besides 3GW would primarily seek a Focused Act committed by an enemy, through a Choice-Act just one that is influenced by the attacker and to the attackers benefit . * except for 4GW and 5GW, which would also seek Habitual or Reflexive Acts. Remember, in Part One, the description of such Acts: In fact, we will likely find that habitual acts tend to occur most often when quite familiar situations occur frequently; i.e., when physical Observation of the World quickly matches up with whatever Mental Constructs we have previously formed and, thus, not requiring further contemplation or hypotheses. The process of helping an enemy to form particular understandings of the world would lull the enemy into repetitive thought processes greatly informed by those Mental Constructs, and thus into reflexive or habitual acts. 1GW and 2GW, because they depend more on changed New Information for influencing an enemys decision-making process (and less on operational art as termed by Lind if at all) do not focus as much attention on the creation of repetitive thought processes. By George, Thats It! Well, probably not it, but it for now. This post may undergo revisions annotated to fill in blanks and perhaps clarify a few things: After about 14 hours, I think its time to hit Publish! even if I have spelling errors or garbled syntax. Three last notes. First, although I believe that 3GW still has great utility technological advances may easily allow a force to impede a foes ability to Decide (and thus, to act in any way but impulsively) the ability of any future 4GW or 5GW attacker to strike deeply into a 3GWarriors homeland may be quite significant, given the processes of globalization well under way. John Robbs Global Guerrilla theory may or may not be 3GW; if 3GW, it is merely the GGs ability to strike deeply and quickly, confusing enemies by overloading Orient, on a scale unlike anything weve yet seen from 3GW. Technological advances developed for use by individual operatives, such as nanotechnology or even new uses for biological, chemical, or nuclear warfare on such a localized scale, may make GGs or their equivalents the epitome of quick-moving 3GW forces able to paralyze a foe. (3GW infantry forces.) 4GW forces and even 5GW forces may also be able to use these technologies to strike deeply and quickly into a typical 3GW states homeland. Im less sure that a 3GW state will be able or even likely to attack another 3GW state effectively, save though a much superior technological advantage: too much observational ability on either side, with no clear advantage. Too much chance for mutual destruction. Second: Technological advances may actually threaten war outside the realm of EBO. Complete and utter destruction of all entities in the enemy host may well be possible, if not quite now then in

the future. Anything other than such destruction is likely to fit within a 3GW, 4GW, or 5GW framework. 1GW and 2GW really do seem to be things of the past, save for isolated and quite localized pockets in underdeveloped regions. Third: There are other ways to change the concrete world besides warfare. Thomas Barnetts approach, for instance, may alter the concrete world in ways that may greatly influence targets OODA loops, leading to acts beneficial to those who would employ TBs EBO. It is still to be seen, perhaps, if similar forces as TB would employ will have an unguided effect similar to those effects he would set as his operational goal. 5GW theory, in some respects, also suggests way of manipulating the concrete world through non-violent means, although violent means are also often discussed by 5GW theorists. In fact, TBs theories also skirt the bounds between violent and nonviolent means.

Unto the Next Generation While bouncing the ball between 4GW and 5GW theory has proven more than interesting for me and may prove quite useful in negotiatiing the future its important to remember that force warfare has a long history for a reason. If you kill a man, or cut off his supply of food, or physically destroy an enemys infrastructure, while preventing the same being done to you, you automatically gain an extraordinary advantage. Man may not live by bread alone, but without it or some substitute, he dies. I have approached a theory of 5GW that recognizes these factors at a distance, since human actors quite often must think before they act as often, have long trains of thought leading to actions and influence over their patterns of thought can lead to acts of a beneficial nature; but, still, at the end of the day, those acts and particularly the physical world they create are the primary goal. I do believe we are moving toward a world design that will severely limit the direct use of force warfare but a world entirely without such warfare may be a long, long time away. Often, I worry more about surprise asteroids, viruses, global warming, and other BIG THINGS which are far less manageable than even human motivations, certainly less manageable than bullets and missiles. In our exploration of generations of warfare, it will be important to remember the true nature of force warfare. Whatever else we might like to think of open source guerrilla movements or 4GW movements popping up all over the place and their homemade bombs and black market machine guns and RPGs a single state or organization with the right force advantage may exert extraordinary influence on the physical world, thus influencing world affairs and even these guerrilla movements. Similarly, anything short of an adept 5GW entity may find that states with extreme force advantages and force structures change the world in ways the 5GW entity cannot counter or significantly influence: though they spin paradigms however they like, the state with the right advantages may force paradigms quite contrary to the designs of the 5GW entity. These thoughts have been percolating in my mind but are brought to you now after reading Nanotechnology in Global Security and Economics on Genetic Engineering News (GEN), written by Patrick Lin, Ph.D. and Brian Wang. The opinion piece is not comprehensive, and the few things mentioned may seem like science fiction Bionic suits for superhuman strength and capabilities; more effective battlefield medicine; more powerful and lighter energy sources; faster production of military assets, i.e., force multiplier; and enhanced weapons of mass destruction, e.g., bio-weapons that can target specific DNA. but it should intrigue anyone interested in security and warfare. Globalist theorists might begin to wonder if all the theories about globalization now being bandied about are non sequiturs. The authors of the piece offer an estimate of the near-term growth spurt of nanotechnology, $1-trillion within five to 10 years, and also a vision of a (perhaps) more distant non-globalized world: Additionally, like other revolutions before it, we can expect nanotechnology to radically change many elements of society in the distant future, if not earlier. Particularly, if the predictions are right and nanotechnology, in its advanced form of molecular manufacturing, can enable us to create objects from the bottom up, i.e., one molecule at a time, then whats our incentive to trade if we can create nearly anything we want? Would that make entire industries obsolete overnight and lead to massive displacement of workers? Further, would that encourage an isolationist economic and political policy, and what problems might come from that? I.e., if the simple molecules found in dirt can be made into anything we want, why trade with other dirt-producers, given our own supply?

I found the link to this opinion piece at Responsible Nanotechnology, an extremely interesting blog written by Mike Treder, co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. He has also written an intriguing analysis of the future repercussions of nanotechnology for Future Brief, titled, War, Interdependence, and Nanotechnology From the dawn of the nuclear age until the present day, we have relied on two mechanisms to protect us from World War III: the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), and the growing interdependence of nations. However, in the very near future we may not be able to count on these controls. The tenuous balance of MAD and the worldwide network of commercial trade are both threatened by the rise of advanced nanotechnology. Mike Treders thoughts touch on many things, including: the end of interdependence and trade as we know it; the rise of super-powered, competing special interest groups within nations, which means civil wars, coups, and great devastation; extreme unemployment rates, as hyper-production capabilities become even more automated. But without the tensions created by competition over natural resources, and with the ability to reconstruct the world more efficiently, great peace and prosperity are possible, too. 4GW networks and 5GW networks may utilize nanotechnology in the truly next-generation warfare, in ways we can hardly envision; or, nanotechnology may one day eliminate the very networking which gives birth and force to 4GW and 5GW: imagine, self-sufficient and forceful entities not requiring all the benefits we associate with human networks.

On China and Hard/Soft Power An interesting cross-view of Chinas increasing global influence can be found at The Council on Foreign Relations: Chinas Soft Seduction. Much of the information is not new, although perhaps more focus on individual perspectives may be occurring. Interestingly, the articles author, Esther Pan, had this to say about Chinas role in Latin America: And this Congressional Research Service report (PDF) details Chinas growing investments in Latin America, where many governments have been receptive to the Chinese message that bringing millions out of poverty is the best example of respecting human rights. I have addressed the Chinese involvement in Latin America a few times. Most recently, a thought experiment inaugurated by Purpleslog, concerning a possible 5GW-style effort by Hugo Chavez and others in the immigration protests, led me to offer an actor-behind-the-actor hypothesis to the thought experiment: China. So of course, the next question in the thought experiment would be, How has Chinas message in Latin America been filtered into action by Chavez and Morales and Castro? I read the article only a few hours after reading the Pentagons recent news release on Chinas modernization of its military, with its suggestion that within China, debate may be occurring concerning Chinas previous no first use rule on using nuclear weapons. (One wonders if recent rumors of the U.S.s policy on nuclear weapons, vis-a-vis a potential strike on Iran, have influenced the debate in China.) The Pentagon story also makes much of another Chinese maxim first put forth by Deng Xiaoping and still being repeated (apparently) by senior Chinese analysts: Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership. Naturally, all of those dicta would support a 5GW mentality Displaying the Pentagons tendency to fight the last war, Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, has only focused on one phrase in the maxim for this news report: The phrase that strikes me, of course, is hide our capacities and bide our time. I think this encapsulates whats Chinas strategy is. They are very patient, Rodman said. Of course, Chinas modernization of its forces should not be ignored what bits the Pentagon is able to determine, that is, like anti-satellite and long-range ballistic missile capabilities but I think that the entire maxim should be taken together. Plus, the news report also stresses the fact that the Pentagon is not going to overestimate Chinas capabilities (while also not underestimating capabilities.) This alone should be a pointer that Chinas progress might promote, at present, greater efforts within China to understand asymmetric warfare.

The Thunder Pig Thunders after getting a little hot air from Michelle Malkin: Michelle Malkin uses 5GW to strike back Michelle Malkin has a new weapon in her arsenal. It is called Hot Air, yeah right, like a hydrogen bomb emits hot air! Her latest vlog post is called Freedom is not free. Amen, sister. Today, I was introduced to a concept (5GW) that should have been self-evident. The link to Phatic Communions Initiating 5GW is on the word flailing. Heh. Well, the Thunder Pig finally found something by Lind to make a vertical line through the chaos essentially, Lind suggests that any consideration of a fifth-generation of war is pointless because we are still in the very early stages of 4GW, and, Attempting to visualize a Fifth Generation from where we are now is like trying to see the outlines of the Middle Ages from the vantage point of the late Roman Empire. [Lind: Fifth Generation Warfare?] because, yknow, now is then as every vertical thinker knows. Oh, wait! Lind was making a metaphor! So it wasnt vertical Reading the short commentary by Lind which, it should be noted, was written in early 2004 I realized that most of his points have been addressed already. In fact, this very commentary has already been included elsewhere in consideration of 5GW. That consideration, at tdaxp, inspired most of my own. I even posed the possibility, as others have, that nanotechnology might bring in the truly next-generational warfare. One thing troubles me about Linds 2004 commentary: One reason for the confusion may be a misapprehension of what generation means. In the context of the Four Generations of Modern War, generation is shorthand for a dialectically qualitative shift. As the originator of the framework, I adopted the word generation because I was speaking to and writing for Marines, and dialectically qualitative shift has more syllables than the Marine mind can readily grasp When he speaks of generation this way, he seems to be suggesting a singularity, or the point at which a phase shift occurs. I.e., it is almost as if he imagines a single point in time at which the dialectically qualitative shift occurs. Before that shift is one generation; after, the next. Plenty of commentary since has focused on the possibility (I say, the certainty) that tactics associated with each of Linds generations have probably always been around indeed, that is the main criticism of Linds Four Generations of Warfare. I have attempted to also consider a type of shift, but one not so easily chopped into segments of time, by thinking of the generations of warfare as periods when warfare can be described in terms of refinement of tactics, inspired by shifting ground realities (including technology), when those tactics most come into prominence. (One visualization already linked above, of a continuum, is an attempt at describing such phase shifting.) Lately, I have also been contemplating what most 5GW theorists, and even Lind, have already been saying but perhaps without realizing the significance of what we are saying: that these generations of warfare come into conflict. I.e., when Lind said, One simple test for whether or not something constitutes a

generational shift is that, absent a vast disparity in size, an army from a previous generation cannot beat a force from the new generation. what he meant was, both styles of fighting, both generations of warfare, are contemporaneous. There is no clean break between them in a practical time/space sense they must both exist, in order to be in conflict but rather a broad period occurs when one generation and the following generation, responding to ground realities, might coexist at a relatively equal strength. The ground realities favor neither one. During such a period, there may be stalemates. But the same ground realities that have inspired the next generation to form in response to them both are relatively new may continue to develop, and at some point, the ground realities will favor the new generation over the prior generation, and we will see that qualitative shift Lind mentions. Even so, the old generation style of warfare continues as long as some ground realities justify it; thus, we might even consider the advent of a next-generation of warfare that is a mutation of the prior, during which tactics of previous forms of warfare are still utilized even as new tactics are born. When critics of the concept of generations of warfare say that these styles of warfare have always been around, they are not far wrong: similarly, the genes which make me have been around for a long time, but I am no pre-sapiens. Its just that new arrangements of genes, and mutations in genes, have given rise to a qualitatively different being. If we think of the generations of warfare in this manner rather than believing that they occur on separate sides of singularities in time, we will be able to see how next-generation warfare might already be forming now. The tactics and strategies of 5GW are already occurring as shifts in ground realities occur. Heck, Ive also already contemplated the role of pundits in 5GW. Thunder Pig and I may be having the same dream, but its a response to ground realities we have both witnessed from different perspectives, across different domains: It is consilient thinking in action or metaphorizing the objective world, looking for the thing behind the things. UPDATE: It seems that Purpleslog has already met the Thunder Pig, in much the same way: by being linked by him. Amazing how quickly a meme can spread

Lind, Robb, Dan, PurpleSlog, CGW Preface As regular readers probably already know, debate over the characterization of John Robbs Global Guerrillas has been spotlighted in various places around this tiny section of the web. PurpleSlog initiated the recent debate in Am I Understanding the Gist of the Global Guerilla Concept? and remains truly objective throughout the debate. With Dan tdaxp, PurpleSlog arrived at the consideration that the GG movement might be a type of 3GW which seemed a good characterization from my perspective: Is there a reason a Light Infantry variant of 3GW could not appear? [PurpleSlog] As even Lind said in The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation, Third generation warfare was also a response to the increase in battlefield firepower. However, the driving force was primarily ideas. Aware they could not prevail in a contest of [material] because of their weaker industrial base in World War I, the Germans developed radically new tactics. Based on maneuver rather than attrition, third generation tactics were the first truly nonlinear tactics. The attack relied on infiltration to bypass and collapse the enemys combat forces rather than seeking to close with and destroy them. The defense was in depth and often invited penetration, which set the enemy up for a counterattack. [William S. Lind] The blitzkrieg characterizes the change toward greater maneuverability; but could greater maneuverability be achieved at the infantry level, in response to the superior material force of an opponent? The Global Guerrilla Debate I joined the debate agreeing with Dan and Purpleslog, that our limited understanding of GG as expressed by John Robb at Global Guerrillas and his personal weblog would characterize it as 3GWexcept that, as Robb has described GG, it seems more like a phenomenon to me than any coherent movement or generation of warfare: Part of my evolving concept of GG is this: That Robbs describing an emergence similar to the emergence of a higher incidence of cancer when more carcinogens are pumped into the air. There is no Global Guerrilla movement, nor will be, because if there were it would be something like a combination of 3GW-mutated and 4GW. (One describes the tactics lightning whereas the other implies the glue, or motivation, behind it.) As such, the GG phenomenon is just that, a phenomenon. Not a new generation of warfare. Not a movement. And, it is this understanding of GG that I most agree is possible or perhaps likely if other things are not also considered. [CGW] I once made the same argument at Coming Anarchy, and here on PC in response to Robbs claim that, Coming Anarchy on Louis Beam and leaderless resistance. The big problem with the theory is that it assumed a need for a cohesive motivation/doctrine. It doesnt. [John Robb, on Louis Beam] The discussion at Coming Anarchy led to a consideration of Robbs claims that GG would not need

a common motivation which seemed to suggest, to me, that these disparate groups of guerrillas might eventually fight each other since they lack cohesion. Rather than forming some sort of Global Guerrilla movement, the disparate groups would be a type of broad emergence in different places of different groups that, lacking a cohesive motivation/doctrine could as easily fall to fighting each other as fighting the Core-ish networking and systems of globalization. Since Ive already mentioned forms of advanced communication in this post, Ill go ahead and quote my early metaphor in response to Robbs comment: The global guerrilla phenomenon could be considered an emergence similar to the emergence of broad cell phone usage or the emergence of city-states from nomadic tribes. Different people are motivated in different locations to form networks of one sort or another, or to act in similar ways, without ever knowing each other, merely because a root desire is shared by all. In cell phone usage, for instance, the need to communicate quickly is shared by businessmen, or by teeny-bop gossipers, or by terrorists, even if they may seem to have no shared motivation. This is game theory, or the theory that people are probably much more alike than unalike and will tend to act in similar ways, leading to a kind of emergence of group activity. (Paths cross.) [CGW, Anarchy, Dissonance, and Emergence] If indeed these disparate groups share no common motivation, we might think of the appearance of guerrilla movements around the globe as a type of incoherent emergence, a phenomenon, rather than any sort of collective movement or generational pattern of warfare in toto although each group might operate in a 3GW or 4GW method on the local scale. John Robb responded to that post on PC by saying, Different motivations but a similar objective is what he meant; to which I responded, A similar objective is a similar motivation, insofar as objectives motivate individuals or groups. [Unfortunately, right about the time of that thread of conversation, Phatic Communion experienced a technical glitch making further commenting impossible; so, it ended there.] It is my belief that this desire to see a coherent movement out of disparate, incoherent phenomena leads John Robbs theory astray. But I can only judge this on the basis of what I have read on his blogs and various comments he has left around the Blogosphere. His book on Global Guerrillas is finished and perhaps will give a better outline to his theory than the hit-or-miss method of blogospheric activity. The difficulty in 1) saying, for instance, that these movements will emerge in unpredictable ways, remain in-coherent, while 2) predicting how they will emerge and what they will be like [see Emergent Intelligence in Open Source Warfare on Global Guerrillas], or presenting a coherent description, may make Robbs rhetoric untenable (and bodes ill for the book), and it is this disjunction that has previously led me to ask, Which is it, impossible chaos or mere complexity? In the PurpleSlog debate, I also pointed to the fact that John Robb will postulate the emergence of nodes of stability and resilience but consistently fails to consider the possibility that the incoherent sea of chaos he predicts will fail utterly in competition with the new forces of stability and resilience: One of those things, which Robb considers from time to time but does not quite fold into his primary concept (it seems) is the potential emergence of forces for stability and resilience. He will say that cities or neighborhoods will begin to form secure enclaves, he will say that multigenerational households, which are on the increase, are a similar phenomenon, but he will not go so far as to hypothesize a contemporaneous emergence of stability at the local level in reaction to the environment of an emerging GG. To do so would admit the possibility that GG will never even get off the ground, at least not in the way he appears to imagine it will. [CGW]

John Robb joined the PurpleSlog debate to say, in essence, merely that Global Guerrillas is 4GW because, well, Lind said so. As if that meant something. Generations Redux Dan tdaxp opened a thread at tdaxp to further the debate Global Guerrillas is 3GW (and not Global) and received a comment by Phil Jones outlining the case for GG as global 4GW, which John Robb picked up and reprinted on his weblog and Mark Safranski of Zenpundit also reprinted. Hows that, for a display of the forces of disruption in competition with the forces of stability/resilience in open source networks? John Robb should take note of the persistence of networks and stability by examining his own methodology. But I digress This insistence on labeling GG as 4GW as if the label is far more important than a consideration of what actually occurs, and as if the number or personage of whoever agrees with the labeling is so very, very important may result because of the disagreement over our understandings of those generations and the labels meant to signify them. PurpleSlog has neatly dissected Phil Jones outline of GG on tdaxp to show the gaps in that theory (or the gaps in our understanding of that theory) and has taken an objective look at our disagreements in comments on his own weblog: I think we all agree that GG tactics resemble classical Guerrilla tactics and therefore resemble 4GW. I think the split in opinions (GG is 4GW view, vs. GG is 3GW that looks a bit like 4GW view) is along the seems of alternative definitions of 4GW. Hammes (The Sling and The Stone) characterizes 4GW as sending messages at all levels (strategic, operational, tactical, and additionally mental, physical an especially moral) to convince your opponents to quit fighting, quit opposing your aims, and to go home and do something else. Every action of the 4GW operator is psychological warfare. This also maps to attacking the observe/orient parts of the OODA [ed. - link removed]. Folks following this view (4GW is sending messages and is against a particular part of the OODA), will have problem characterizing GGs as 4GW. They will see the GG focus on physical infrastructure rear areas as a 3GW viewpoint. 4GW could also be described more generally as using guerilla techniques against the rear areas (mostly) of ones opponents to confuse, disrupt, and collapse the opponents. Folks having this view (4GW is advanced guerilla warfare) will not have a problem seeing GG as 4GW. I think this would be Linds implicit view (but I dont know for sure and googling didnt turn up anything). [PurpleSlog] I recently took a look at Linds concept of Generations in The Thunder Pig Thunders. In that thread, I promoted the following: 1. [Qualitative Shift as a description of refinements of tactics.] thinking of the generations of warfare as periods when warfare can be described in terms of refinement of tactics, inspired by shifting ground realities (including technology), when those tactics most come into prominence. 2. [Generations may be contemporaneous.] these generations of warfare come into conflict both styles of fighting, both generations of warfare, are contemporaneous. There is no clean break between them in a practical time/space sense they must both exist, in order to be in conflict 3. [The Qualitative Shift may not be instantaneous.] a broad period occurs when one generation and the following generation, responding to ground realities, might coexist at a relatively equal strength. The ground realities favor neither one. During such a period, there may be stalemates.

4. [The Qualitative Shift may but may not happen, eventually.] the same ground realities that have inspired the next generation to form in response to themmay continue to develop, and at some point, the ground realities will favor the new generation over the prior generation, and we will see that qualitative shift Lind mentions. 5. [The prior generation may continue but perhaps as part of the new.] Even so, the old generation style of warfare continues as long as some ground realities justify it; thus, we might even consider the advent of a next-generation of warfare that is a mutation of the prior, during which tactics of previous forms of warfare are still utilized even as new tactics are born. This is a little of old-hat, since Lind in The Changing Face of War also outlined elements that carry over. Elements That Carry Over Earlier generational shifts, especially the shift from the second to the third generation, were marked by growing emphasis on several central ideas. Four of these seem likely to carry over into the fourth generation, and indeed to expand their influence. The first is mission orders. Each generational change has been marked by greater dispersion on the battlefield. The fourth generation battlefield is likely to include the whole of the enemys society. Such dispersion, coupled with what seems likely to be increased importance for actions by very small groups of combatants, will require even the lowest level to operate flexibly on the basis of the commanders intent. Second is decreasing dependence on centralized logistics. Dispersion, coupled with increased value placed on tempo, will require a high degree of ability to live off the land and the enemy. Third is more emphasis on maneuver. Mass, of men or fire power, will no longer be an overwhelming factor. In fact, mass may become a disadvantage as it will be easy to target. Small, highly maneuverable, agile forces will tend to dominate. Fourth is a goal of collapsing the enemy internally rather than physically destroying him. Targets will include such things as the populations support for the war and the enemys culture. Correct identification of enemy strategic centers of gravity will be highly important. [Lind, ibid.] These are things which have characterized previous generations (before Linds 4GW) but perhaps have been refined, and thus have received greater emphasis, in the next generation (Linds 4GW.) The qualitative shift is not instantaneous because 1) much of the prior generations have gone forward, although refined and 2) the conflict between generations along with shifting technologies has spurred that refinement. This takes time. But is it any wonder then, that arguments can arise over when a qualitative shift has occurred and what that shift is, when the past extends into the present and the future? In that post addressing Thunder Pigs concerns, I commented that my own evolution might be a good metaphor for the evolution of warfare: When critics of the concept of generations of warfare say that these styles of warfare have always been around, they are not far wrong: similarly, the genes which make me have been around for a long time, but I am no pre-sapiens. Its just that new arrangements of genes, and mutations in genes, have given rise to a qualitatively different being. [CGW] In asking what constitutes 4GW as a new generation, I would be looking for:

1. What tactics and strategies have continued into the present from 3GW. 2. To what degree have these tactics and strategies been refined. 3. To what degree have these refinements resulted in greater utility, and thus greater prominence. 4. To what degree have the tactics and strategies of 3GW mutated rather than merely been refined. 5. And what new tactics and strategies have been added to 3GW perhaps prompting whatever mutations have also occurred. In looking at Robbs Global Guerrillas, I would also ask these things if I wanted to determine whether GG was a 4GW style of fighting, a mutated 3GW style of fighting (3GW+), or merely the tail end of 3GW. But John Robb has said, already, that Lind calls GG a 4GW. Keeping in mind my previous criticisms of Global Guerrillas, outlined above, consider what Lind said in The Changing Face of War directly after listing his elements that carry over: In broad terms, fourth generation warfare seems likely to be widely dispersed and largely undefined; the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between civilian and military may disappear. Actions will occur concurrently throughout all participants depth, including their society as a cultural, not just a physical, entity. Major military facilities, such as airfields, fixed communications sites, and large headquarters will become rarities because of their vulnerability; the same may be true of civilian equivalents, such as seats of government, power plants, and industrial sites (including knowledge as well as manufacturing industries). Success will depend heavily on effectiveness in joint operations as lines between responsibility and mission become very blurred. Again, all these elements are present in third generation warfare; fourth generation will merely accentuate them. [ed. - my emphasis] * widely dispersed = Possibly, global. * largely undefined + no definable battlefields and fronts = Possibly, in-coherent. * nonlinear + Actions will occur concurrently throughout all participants depth = Crossdomain, open source. * Success will depend heavily on effectiveness in joint operationslines between responsibility and mission become very blurred = Disparate entities act together for success, although they may have different missions and thus different responsibilities (each to his own understanding, motivation.) From such a perspective, GG does appear to be Linds concept of 4GW but, it appears to be the advanced stages of Linds 4GW, or, the idealized version, with a few differences. In looking at terrorism, Lind wrote that It is not a new phenomenon, and so far it has proven largely ineffective. He then considers what happens when terrorism is combined with new technology and postulates three additional elements to be added to what has already been: 1. A non-national or transnational base, such as an ideology or religion. Our national security capabilities are designed to operate within a nation-state framework. Outside that framework, they have great difficulties. The drug war provides an example. Because the drug traffic has no nationstate base, it is very difficult to attack. Non-state actors check! But John Robb has gone far to postulate absolutely no base. For instance, ideology and religion or any other sort of common motivation is ruled out in the GG scenario. One may wonder if the Bazaar of Violence may promote a type of common ideology

shared by all of Robbs GG but Robb wouldnt. Not quite. 2. A direct attack on the enemys culture. Such an attack works from within as well as from without. It can bypass not only the enemys military but the state itself. The United States is already suffering heavily from such a cultural attack in the form of the drug traffic. Drugs directly attack our culture.Some ideological elements in South America see drugs as a weapon; they call them the poor mans intercontinental ballistic missile. They prize the drug traffic not only for the money it brings in through which we finance the war against ourselves but also for the damage it does to the hated North Americans. At first, this sounds more like a 5GW operation, at least as far as 5GW has been considered. (A little more on this later) But again we have mention of ideological elements, and we can see that Lind is hypothesizing coordinated attacks made by coherent entities with a coherent and common motivation. So, Robbs theory of GG fails this comparison as well. 3. Highly sophisticated psychological warfare, especially through manipulation of the media, particularly television news. Some terrorists already know how to play this game. More broadly, hostile forces could easily take advantage of a significant product of television reporting the fact that on television the enemys casualties can be almost as devastating on the home front as are friendly casualties. If we bomb an enemy city, the pictures of enemy civilian dead brought into every living room in the country on the evening news can easily turn what may have been a military success (assuming we also hit the military target) into a serious defeat. Again, this at first seems very 5GWish. But Robbs GG are more interested in system-disruption than psychological or morale warfare. So, nope, GG does not fit this new tactic, either. These three potential new tactics proposed by Lind in October 1989 are meant to give an example of what Lind called synthesis in the essay, a synthesis which the prior generation of warfare could not successfully combat. I.e., looking at the fifth point in my consideration of generations of warfare, these tactics might promote a mutation in 3GW, and the synthesis of the new and the mutation could lead to a qualitative shift. Perhaps in reviewing this essay, however, we should consider very carefully what Lind meant in the last phrase of that essay: what will the fourth generation be? Quite possibly, some other things now being considered as catalysts for mutation would lead to the actual 4GW and not these three. Or, perhaps one or two of these three with other things. I made a comment at PurpleSlog which I would repeat here, but with a twist to follow: This is also why, when Robbs whole argument in this thread was Lind said so! I reacted more or less with disdain. The argument from someone elses authority is hardly persuasive when discussing ideas and terminology. The term, 4GW, must describe the phenomenon or methods rather than a system of understanding entirely enclosed within anothers head: I.e., we must be able to apply it on our own if it actually describes what is happening, but claims of ownership of ideas will invariably reduce those ideas to useless orthodoxy quite removed from actual phenomena. The twist is in how orthodoxy has already set in for 4GW theorists. Some appear to consider these last three potential new tactics as the gospel of 4GW: 4GW has some unifying ideology or religion. These are those who will most disagree with John Robbs theory that GG is 4GW. Others, however, take the earlier mentioned aspects of 4GW those bold phrases I highlighted above and may insist that GG fits very nicely with Linds description of 4GW. Lind himself may have fallen into orthodoxy as well since 1989, perhaps as a result of seeing many of his predictions come true in the

intervening years. But there is one Lindian orthodoxy I must categorically despise, and it is one he himself should also despise, if he would only review his own 1989 essay. On Seeing 5GW Besides his argument to authority concerning GG as 4GW, John Robb also threw in a reiteration (talk about stability/resilience!!) of Linds 2004 assessment of 5GW theory: Curtis, I agree with Lind in that it is too early to call 5GW. [Robb] Attempting to visualize a Fifth Generation from where we are now is like trying to see the outlines of the Middle Ages from the vantage point of the late Roman Empire. [Lind: Fifth Generation Warfare?] And I quipped in response, [T]o say that it is too early to call 5GW presupposes a type of 5GW already that cannot be called. I.e., merely shutting ones eyes might easily lead to the impression that nothing can be seen. [CGW] My statements, I realized, were a bit of mish-mash. In the first, I meant that one cannot say a thing is not visible unless one already has an image of it in mind not seeing that image, one would then say, Its not visible! In the second statement, I meant to explain the first; namely, that having that image in mind becomes unnecessary for a declaration of invisibility if one merely closes ones eyes to preclude having to compare image with the appearance of the actuality (thus precluding the admission of having such an image in mind!) In the past, Ive explained this phenomenon of seeing and not-seeing via use of the word ignorance. We are all ignorant of some things, perhaps each to his own domain of ignorance, but the word itself comes from the verb to ignore. I had a brilliant high school physics teacher who explained it this way: There is a difference between stupidity and ignorance. We are all ignorant, to some degree, since none of us is omniscient. But some people choose to remain ignorant, and I call that stupidity. It would seem that trying to make the noun by doing the verb is stupidity. But normally, I prefer not to use the word stupidity and stick to the use of ignorance. My latest comment at PurpleSlog addressed something Ive been considering about 5GW for some time but had not quite been prepared to address. As a follow-up to PurpleSlogs consideration of the different definitions of 4GW, I wrote this comment in consideration of 5GW: Incidentally, I wonder if youve come close to proposing something Ive been pondering, that our ideas of an OODA-driven 5GW may in fact be a kind of mutated 4GW perhaps not quite a new generation although not quite the common understanding of 4GW (of either type of understanding of 4GW.) Even Lind, in The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation, says that, Psychological operations may become the dominant operational and strategic weapon in the form of media/information intervention. Logic bombs and computer viruses, including latent viruses, may be used to disrupt civilian as well as military operations. Fourth generation adversaries

will be adept at manipulating the media to alter domestic and world opinion to the point where skillful use of psychological operations will sometimes preclude the commitment of combat forces. A major target will be the enemy populations support of its government and the war. Television news may become a more powerful operational weapon than armored divisions. But this is related to some things Ive previously written, when discussing generations of warfare. Not only has Lind said that some tactics carry over to the next generation [which I say may lead to mutations in styles of warfare] but in the text cited here, and in that essay in general, he implies that psych-ops will be supplemental, where skillful use of psychological operations will sometimes preclude the commitment of combat forces. [my emphasis.] Our working and general concept of 5GW goes a bit beyond that, and its quite tempting to say that Lind has anticipated 5GW even if he is not aware that he has. In fact, separating the generations into distinct styles might itself be only an artificial construct we use to understand what occurs because, it would be just as easy to say that what we think of as 4GW is merely a mutation of 3GW (but not, strictly speaking, 3GW, since it is a mutation; so it is 3GW+) on the way to what weve been calling 5GW. [CGW] In my previous consideration of phase shifting, although discussing Core-Gap hypotheses I also considered the question of generations of warfare by considering supplemental use and a refinement and greater prominence for various tactics. [Skinning the Gap] A kind of continuum occurs during the evolution, and we might look back, as Lind has done, and make constructs of generational difference which are always somewhat artificial, believing that we see distinct creatures. In some ways, these creatures are distinct; in fact, each creature may be entirely unique and individual Although GG in many ways appears to be another name for global revolution, at least as it is often described, there will be differences. But we are not incapable of predicting the growth of these individual creatures in advance. John Robb certainly appears to do so, since GG is not yet fully realized (heh). Even Lind, as we can see by the final phrase in his 1989 essay, was making prophecy by looking at the present. Significant to this prophecy-making is our ability to spot slight variations between the present and the past, or to detect new phenomena as they happen but before they have flowered or so we hope, because we cannot always predict how they will flower or if some new species will destroy them before they have had the chance to flowerand even germinate. Lind has already pointed at an area that may have significant refinement in the future, whenever he has written of psychological warfare, the power of media, and attacking a societys culture. But in 1989 he believed these things would be supplemental. Others since have focused on a limited use of these, since 4GWarriors in theory would influence societies in only a small handful of ways via media and culture warfare. They have seen these things, because media has always been extraordinarily important to human societies, whether merely in the form of language, or of poetry, or of edicts, or of scientific texts, or of Theses nailed to Church doors, or of holy words and texts preserved for millennia. These things direct society; but, these things come from many, many directions particularly more so in the modern world and thus represent a complexity that seems impossible to control and direct. Actually, they were far more controlled, in some ways, in previous times (say, before the printing press was invented, but also before the Internet was invented.) We naturally seek to control others via media transmission. How do we naturally seek to control others via media transmission? Well, did you begin to consider all the ways of control when reading that? Heh. Questions are incredibly powerful forces of control. Thats part of the reason why so many men dread hearing the question, Do you love me? Ysee, we naturally respond to questions by trying to find the

answers, or at least trying to find the answers we think others are wanting to hear. Try going through an entire day without responding in the slightest to any question asked of you I mean by slightest, also without even thinking about the question and potential answers. Resisting their influence is very, very difficult. This is because almost everything we consider society is a result of meme transference. Human networks in our modern world would be quite impossible without meme transference, as would be all our present systems of commerce and warfare. Controlling societies (whether national societies or societies of global guerrillas or friendship networks; etc.) via refined meme transference might seem fanciful; but ask advertisers and marketers and politicians how it is done. Some of these are better than others. But even Lind said, in his 1989 essay: All of these elements already exist. They are not the product of futurism, of gazing into a crystal ball. Because the Memosphere is so complex, especially in our globalizing world, it is often easier to control by influencing rather than by destroying: still difficult, but not impossible. Lindian 4GW forces are doing something similar now, since America and the Core are not destroyed, nor are our military forces, but are greatly influenced and disrupted by these dispersed 4GW entities. I once postulated that our very concept of creation has been greatly modified: I also have a musing on a type of creationism at P.C. you might find relevant: nowadays, most Americans make via ideas rather than objects. Most of us dont weave our own cloth or forge our own tools, thus we dont need to know how to do those things. With cheap products, we dont need to know how to repair our own possessions as long as we can buy replacements without too much effort. (We dont rebuild cars but buy new cars, or repair televisions but buy new televisions, etc.) There are creators of these things; but the ratios are different now, since fewer creators can supply for more consumers. But as I am doing here, many Americans create via ideas: songs, art, novels, financial portfolios, blog posts, legislation, and other immaterial items. So capitalism has developed hand-in-hand with the expansion of Liberal Education in some odd co-evolutionary matrix. [CGW, at tdaxp] and this shift is directly related to our social shift toward the Memosphere and away from material connections for forming human networks. True, the material connections make this other possible hence, the Lindian and Robbian concepts of dispersed but disrupting agents but they operate in the background or else intensify the lean toward the Memosphere, e.g., in the idolatrous notion that material possessions reflect the social worth of the individual. This is dangerous, quite dangerous, when we are faced with the threat of either a Lindian 4GW force or a 5GW force that utilizes 4GW proxies and pawns. But if we examine things more closely, we might also begin to see how Lindian 4GW forces have also so shifted are ideologically driven and yet also rely on material connections the Bazaar of Violence for continuing that ideological advancement. And, really, I wonder if Lind could have realized in 1989 the full extent of the Internet and how it would influence the development of 4GW? Because the Memosphere is widely dispersed and largely undefined, nonlinear with no definable battlefields or fronts and is quite open source, with people interacting on a daily basis for their own peculiar reasons and motivations, we could come close to considering these concepts of 5GW as merely another form of 4GW, perhaps 4GW+ or else it is 4GW while GG and Lindian 4GW are merely 3GW+. Ysee, thats the difficulty. But given the further-reaching aspect of theories of 5GW, I am more inclined to believe it is a real qualitative shift one that is occurring and already in conflict with previous generations of warfare, but without yet quite breaking out of stalemate with those or not yet reaching that stalemate.

Two things seem likely, however: 1. Lindian 4GWarriors tend to have an orthodoxy of ideology. This is the glue that ties them together and leads them to act toward a common purpose. This orthodoxy is thus far rather limited, sure to always have opponents (whether other orthodox ideology-motivated opponents or pluralistic factions opposing their orthodoxy), and this limitation on their expansion is rather severe. Their opponents always have the option of employing similar tactics, but with more potential force at their disposal for seeing those tactics or perhaps entirely new tactics through to ultimate longterm victory. But should these 4GW forces begin to succeed, they will consolidate their power and becomenon-4GW forces, although perhaps retaining what they have learned in their pursuit of victory. 2. Robbs GG may be far too dispersed, possibly inter-warring, to compete with the forces of orthodoxy or pluralistic factions. I.e., the forces of stability, order, and resilience may simply outweigh the forces for disruption, ultimately. Incidentally, this does not mean that states will do this; but, it could be quite local like the GG forces. Because the emergence of GG is phenomenal, I rather doubt any predictions made in advance by GG theorists, and I rather doubt we can say definitively now that an emergence of stability and resilience in reaction to that phenomenon would necessarily be weaker than the emergence of those forces for instability. 5GW forces, because they will work with and within chaos to establish paradigms, and will do so consciously, will be forces for stability, resilience, and organization which is qualitatively different than either Lindian 4GW or Robbian 4GW.

New 5GW Wikipedia Article Today I discovered a visitor referred from the Norwegian version of Wikipedia to my post 5GW and Christianity. The article is on fifth-generation warfare and includes links to tdaxp, ZenPundit, Global Guerrillas, PurpleSlog, and Coming Anarchy. (All of which can be found in my blogroll on the main page of PC.) So naturally, I searched for the English language version, and found one. The article appears to be only the bare outline for a new article, and the English version does not include a complete list of the many external links included on the Norwegian page although the numbers for those external links do link to articles on the blogs already mentioned. The English article may also be subject to deletion for violating the Wikipedia No original research policy. A discussion has in fact begun today concerning deletion. That discussion is also quite bare, as yet. The article needs some work to make it Wikipedia-compliant. I wonder how much sourced material is necessary, and of exactly what variety, quality? The idea behind 5GW is quite new, after all, and may be only theoretical, bouncing as yet between only a handful of interested bloggers. The no original research policy clearly states the following: However, it also includes new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, or concepts including that which would amount to, in the words of Wikipedias co-founder Jimbo Wales, a novel narrative or historical interpretation. On the other hand, the line between reputable sources and other sources is growing thin, as the Blogosphere and the Internet in general grow. For instance, the Wikipedia policy also states: Wikipedia articles include material on the basis of verifiability, not truth. That is, we report what other reliable sources have published, whether or not we regard the material as accurate. In order to avoid doing original research, and in order to help improve the quality of Wikipedia articles, it is essential that any primary-source material, as well as any generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of information or data, has been published by a reputable third-party publication (that is, not self-published) that is available to readers either from a website (other than Wikipedia) or through a public library. It is very important to cite sources appropriately, so that readers can find your source and can satisfy themselves that Wikipedia has used the source correctly. [ed. my emphasis] Most of the blogs cited in the article are self-published, but in the Blogosphere, certain sections of each blog article may be republished in other blogs. The third-party publication may not be reputable (as it often is not) if that third party is a blog; but deciding a definition for reputable may become more of a problem in the future, and one wonders if blog rankings might eventually be the scale used to determine reputability. The Wikipedia policy also makes clear that source-based research is perfectly fine: Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed. However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not original research; it is source-based research, and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia. But one may wonder, as I have, if every topic on the Blogosphere must have its own article in WikipediaIn any case, the article as currently written does not objectively present the different

concepts of 5GW being bandied about the Net. I think that a healthier discussion of 5GW, including pros and cons of many particulars from many more sources, ought to precede a Wikipedia article, in order for that article to have true objectivity in selecting sources and presenting the idea of 5GW to those new to the concept. It may be too early. UPDATE 6-17-06: The article has now been deleted by Wikipedia. We might view this as an example of network resilience. Or not.

5GW in Disinformation, Etymology, and Network Centrality Humans have been organizing themselves into complex social networks simce they emerged from the stage of tiny hunter-gatherer bands. They did so naturally and unconsciously without understanding how this pattern mirrored that of other complex systems. There are already attempts to understand networks in terms of terrorism and military strategy and these efforts to exploit this information in order to reap a comparative advantage will only proliferate, perhaps exponentially. In other words, as complex network theory meets cultural evolution, humans will attempt to consciously steer the evolutionary devlopment of social and, eventually, biologically engineered networks. [Mark Safranski, ZenPundit, in What happens when networks meet The Logic of Human Destiny ?] All of these elements already exist. They are not the product of futurism, of gazing into a crystal ball. [William Lind, The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation] Lind has already pointed at an area that may have significant refinement in the future, whenever he has written of psychological warfare, the power of media, and attacking a societys culture. But in 1989 he believed these things would be supplemental. Others since have focused on a limited use of these, since 4GWarriors in theory would influence societies in only a small handful of ways via media and culture warfare. They have seen these things, because media has always been extraordinarily important to human societies, whether merely in the form of language, or of poetry, or of edicts, or of scientific texts, or of Theses nailed to Church doors, or of holy words and texts preserved for millennia. [Phatic Communion, Lind, Robb, Dan, PurpleSlog, CGW] Etyma and Logic Etymology can often point at networks and connectivity that span not only different cultures but also different cultures in time. I would revise Mark Safranskis point to include the existence of complex networks within hunter-gatherer bands, since these bands no doubt formed complex interactions and social structures through the vehicle of language (among other things), but in any case, we can easily see how early languages have continued to shape human cognition and social networks even as early settlements, city-states, and empires formed and fell. The ability to communicate with our brethren, within our tribe or culture, played an integral role perhaps the prime integral role in the formation of complex societies. Because language is always dynamic, always evolving, it represents a fundamental cross-domain domain that may bind many peoples together not only within the present but also across the ages; and as such, language is a vector for resiliency as well as consilience. Perhaps, in fact, the type of resilience language promotes is consilient. Language, as Ive proposed before, always represents a logic, even if that logic is masked by time and subjective observation, subjective use. For instance, folk etymology might change a words spelling because of what Ill call cross-domain association. Such association may be entirely phonetic but is more likely to include also the type of consilience we find in metaphors [see: MishMash on PC]. E.g., the word cesspool would seem to originate from a combination of earlier forms leading to cess [perhaps akin to the Italian cesso, or privy] and pool, but in fact most likely descends from a Middle French word, souspirail, which is derived from Latin suspirare, or

sub- + spirare, to breathe that made its way through French to the word for air vent or a pipe leading to what we would today call a cesspool. But associations with cess and types of pools have altered the spelling and, quite likely, modern associations in English because of a nearness in meaning and sound.[1] But other types of networking in language, across the ages, follow a much more linear path, usually as a result of scholarly work. Scholars (including early theologians) have taken directly from Latin, German, French, etc., in creating terminology, and their terms may persist into the common culture. In the case of Latin, the type of grammatical construction has proven very adaptable and flexible to new use, so that even if many modern-day English words are not themselves direct descendants of complete Latin words, many of their parts actually do descend directly from Latin and retain their basic meaning. Interactions between cultures have also led to a popular adoption of terms which persist in meaning for later generations. Some poets have utilized a process similar to a combination of both, scholarly domain-crossing and folk etymology; for instance, Shakespeare appears to have created hundreds if not thousands of words currently in use in Modern English, often by slightly altering words then in use, with a deep knowledge of present use and etymological history. So while we ponder the way that new understandings of the centrality of networks in human society may serve to shape society, we should not assume that human society has never been shaped via conscious exploitation of network centrality. I view the type of media exploitation used by 4GW forces as very basic, old, and rugged: certainly, not refined. Alexander the Great and other classical military leaders have understood the significance of sending messages by massacring large numbers of enemies or betrayers and mutineers. A Detour through Poetry Poets and authors of religious texts, however, have always sought to refine the use of media to exploit the basic centrality of language in complex human societies. Sometimes, poets may not have realized the full measure of their influence, and Edwin Markhams poem The Man with the Hoe might serve as an example; after being published in 1899 in the San Francisco Examiner, it was widely reprinted in newspapers across the world because of its revolutionary spirit of protest, netting its author more profit than almost any other single poem in history. Other times, poetry was acknowledged for its power to influence large numbers of people, such as the poetry included in the Holy Bible or even modern-day attempts like that being conducted in Yemen to fight the influence of extremist Islam. (In fact, the Arabic world has a long tradition of public poetry that is central to their culture. Newspapers in the Middle East frequently publish poetry prominently, unlike newspapers in the West.) Because language is central to complex human societies, its centrality and exact operation often go unacknowledged. We are quite familiar with our own language; thus we often fail to notice its operation when we or others are using it, and the power that language has over us, a power closely related with the way logic is formed via language during communication, may also go unacknowledged. Perhaps this is why Percy Shelley thought that Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world a fingertip feeling of much more: But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible order, are not only the authors of language and of music, of the dance, and architecture, and statuary, and painting: they are the institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society, and the inventors of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true that partial apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion. Hence all original religions are allegorical, or susceptible of allegory, and, like Janus, have a double face of false and true. Poets, according to the circumstances of the age and nation in which they appeared, were

called, in the earlier epochs of the world, legislators, or prophets: a poet essentially comprises and unites both these characters. For he not only beholds intensely the present as it is, and discovers those laws according to which present things ought to be ordered, but he beholds the future in the present, and his thoughts are the germs of the flower and the fruit of latest time. Not that I assert poets to be prophets in the gross sense of the word, or that they can foretell the form as surely as they foreknow the spirit of events: such is the pretence of superstition, which would make poetry an attribute of prophecy, rather than prophecy an attribute of poetry. [2] Interestingly, the idea most often opposed to Shellys, in contemporary disputes over the role of poetry, was proposed by another poet, W.H. Auden, In Memory of WB Yeats: For poetry makes nothing happen You were silly like us; your gift survived it all: The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives Would never want to tamper, flows on south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth. A way of happening, a mouth that survives / In the valley of its making and flows everywhere. Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that all language is fossil poetry because we borrow our logic from so many who have gone before. I.e., those original creators of words neologisms, at the time were the true poets, assigning sound and logic to what they had witnessed. If we combine all three perspectives, we might wonder how the full body of any language may be a fossil poem, or a resilient network, which nonetheless expands through new neologisms and cross-pollination from other cultures and thus operates in a consilient manner, not entirely fossilized. In any case, Auden did not bother not writing poetry even if it makes nothing happen. That is like saying, Really, really folks, dont look at me; Im not doing anything!! An unacknowledged 5GWarrior? (After all, his poem still has an influence today; Im writing about it, arent I?) A Detour in Logic This post was inspired by my recent discovery of an entry on disinformation in The MerriamWebster New Book of Word Histories (1991 edition). As further proof that the current theories of 5GW are indebted to the past, we might consider carefully what the entry says in very plain and direct English: In a political cartoon published in the 1980s, a befuddled-looking man reads a sign that contains the words U.S. Office of Disinformation with an arrow pointing left. It is obvious to the reader that the man will certainly be lost if he follows the arrow; the reader can see what the man cannot, that the U.S. Office of Disinformation is really just around the corner to the right. The man in the cartoon will not be severely affected by this encounter with disinformation. He may wander around until he stumbles upon the office he is seeking. In real life, of course, disinformation has much more severe repercussions, and it can be every bit as debilitating to public opinion as its cousin, propaganda. Like propaganda, disinformation is associated with the covert system of public-opinion manipulation through the dispensing of selective information long believed to be practiced by the

Soviet Union and its sophisticated intelligence network, known to us as the KGB. So strong is this association that the term disinformation is thought to be a literal translation of Russian dezinformatsiya, which means misinformation. Dezinformatsiya is purported to have been the name of a department of the KGB formed in 1955, which oversaw the dispensing of propaganda to international media and government organizations. The reported use by the Soviets of disinformation for purposes of international domination is worthy of our juiciest spy novels. According to one-time CIA director William Colby, the Soviet disinformation bureau would plant a fictitious story in a leftist publication. The story would circulate to a Communist journal, and eventually be printed by the Soviet news agency, which would subsequently attribute the information to undisclosed sources. In this way, a lie would circulate around the world in the guise of an officially documented news item. Whether or not our word disinformation does indeed come from Russian dezinformatsiya is a matter open to speculation. As early as 1939, years before the Dezinformatsiya agency is reported to have been formed, the word disinformation appeared in a description of German intelligence activities prior to World War II: The mood of national suspicion prevalent during the last decade in contemporary Europe is well-illustrated by Gen. Krivitskys account of the German Disinformation Service, engaged in manufacturing fake military plans for the express purpose of having them stolen by foreign governments. The English word disinformation may even have developed independently of Russian dezinformatsiya out of our own mounting concern with the spread of propaganda and practices of misinformation that perhaps began in the years just before World War II. In that case, disinformation may have originated as a noun form of the verb disinform, which in turn is derived from the combination of dis- and inform, just as misinform is derived from the prefix mis- and the verb inform. In this age of increased hostility between political factions at home and abroad, disinformation is becoming an increasingly popular word. No longer do we perceive the Soviets as having a monopoly on this form of deception. Increasingly, the word is being used in reference to alleged covert practices of U.S. government officials. Tad Szulc, writing in The Washingtonian magazine (March 1974) tells of a CIA agent in Thailand faking a letter from a guerrilla leader to the Bangkok government: This is a classic example of the disinformation technique, intended to embarrass the guerrilla leaderand thus weaken the subversive movement. Regardless of which side of the Iron Curtain the term hailed from, disinformation is a powerful manipulative tool in the constant battle for world domination. [1] All of this is old news. New news, however, reaches more and more people than ever before, much more quickly than ever before. Im particularly interested in this 1991 consideration really, that 1974 Washingtonian consideration of how 5GW might work to weaken a guerrilla fighter. What seems clear: We act according to the logic we have developed after observing the world around us, even if that logic is partial or incorrect; and, language and media in general have a profound effect on our logic. While our very language may alter according to what we have seen and the logic of what we have seen, at the same time our language gives us a framework for forming new logic a framework we might not even realize we are using, thus leading to reiterations of very old logic. Logic, after all, has an intimate etymological connection to the Greek logos, or, word, speech. leg-. To collect; with derivatives meaning to speak. [3] That Indo-European root is interesting, considering how language may have served to help bind complex societies of disparate individuals.

Al-Qaida Goes 5GW or not 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. [PurpleSlog, 5GW Will Hide in the Sea of Conspiracy Theories to Avoid Discovery] So, then, how could a hidden 5GW force defeat a fuzzy 4GW force? Influence it to fight another force, one it already despises and, preferably, one it cannot defeat. Or, introduce dispute within it, of the sort that would paralyze its activities, create massive amounts of in-fighting. Or, befriend it; give it real accomplishments (perhaps by surreptitiously influencing other parties who can give them these) which, nonetheless, lead to final outcomes quite different than it originally intended. Because a 4GW force tends to be decentralized, dependent on local actors and local activities, focus on influencing them. Do not try to destroy the 4GW force; focus on changing it. [Phatic Communion, Initiating 5GW] Lets interrupt the theorizing and consider some specifics. Insofar as I can follow 5GW theory, the 9/11 attack could be called a 5GW operation. [Alan Sullivan, commenting at Phatic Communion] Hello Alan. Ive been trying to put my finger on the 5GW aspects of al-Qaeda activity. The present insurgency in Iraq, the followup bombings in Madrid and London, the bombings in Egypt (and the abduction of foreign diplomats in Iraq) have the hallmark of a 4GW war: the effort to sap the will of the targeted enemy. In Madrid, al-Qaeda succeeded. 9/11 was something else, since it really initiated so many present countermoves by America, rather than sap Americas will. Most of America didnt realize we were fighting jihadists until 9/11. [CGW, responding]

Are we on the cusp of a revolution in warfare? I have received today an email from regular reader arherring, pointing my attention toward the recent release of a document purported to have been seized in Al Zarqawis safe-house: Text of alZarqawi Safe-House Document [AP, via BREITBART.com]. The document apparently addresses a need to revise operations in light of American and Iraqi successes in combating the Iraqi insurgency: The situation and conditions of the resistance in Iraq have reached a point that requires a review of the events and of the work being done inside Iraq. Such a study is needed in order to show the best means to accomplish the required goals, especially that the forces of the National Guard have succeeded in forming an enormous shield protecting the American forces and have reduced substantially the losses that were solely suffered by the American forces. This is in addition to the

role, played by the Shia (the leadership and masses) by supporting the occupation, working to defeat the resistance and by informing on its elements. As an overall picture, time has been an element in affecting negatively the forces of the occupying countries, due to the losses they sustain economically in human lives, which are increasing with time. However, here in Iraq, time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance for the following reasons: 1. By allowing the American forces to form the forces of the National Guard, to reinforce them and enable them to undertake military operations against the resistance. 2. By undertaking massive arrest operations, invading regions that have an impact on the resistance, and hence causing the resistance to lose many of its elements. 3. By undertaking a media campaign against the resistance resulting in weakening its influence inside the country and presenting its work as harmful to the population rather than being beneficial to the population. 4. By tightening the resistances financial outlets, restricting its moral options and by confiscating its ammunition and weapons. 5. By creating a big division among the ranks of the resistance and jeopardizing its attack operations, it has weakened its influence and internal support of its elements, thus resulting in a decline of the resistances assaults. 6. By allowing an increase in the number of countries and elements supporting the occupation or at least allowing to become neutral in their stand toward us in contrast to their previous stand or refusal of the occupation. 7. By taking advantage of the resistances mistakes and magnifying them in order to misinform. I find #3, #5, #7 to be particularly related to tactics of 5GW which al-Qaida, it would seem, have recognized being employed against them. (Possibly, #6 as well.) This is related to comments I previously posted concerning a 5GW method of defeating a 4GW force: dont try to destroy it, but focus on changing it. Of course, destroying the insurgency by actively attacking nodes has also been recognized: #1, #2, #4. It is not clear to me, however, that the document is legitimate. Arherring also pointed me toward a discussion on Newsvine about the document and an AP story which reports, The al-Qaida in Iraq document was translated and released by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie. There was no way to independently confirm the authenticity of the information attributed to al-Qaida. Although the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the document was found in alZarqawis hideout following a June 7 airstrike that killed him, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the document had in fact been found in a previous raid as part of an ongoing three-week operation to track al-Zarqawi. We can verify that this information did come off some kind of computer asset that was at a safe location, he said. This was prior to the al-Zarqawi safe house. [ed. emphasis added]

[Sameer N. Yacoub, AP Writer, Papers Show Gloomy State of Insurgency] But I will return to this question of authenticity in a moment. The purported al-Qaida paper continues by addressing each of the 7 points listed above: Based on the above points, it became necessary that these matters should be treated one by one: 1. To improve the image of the resistance in society, increase the number of supporters who are refusing occupation and show the clash of interest between society and the occupation and its collaborators. To use the media for spreading an effective and creative image of the resistance. 2. To assist some of the people of the resistance to infiltrate the ranks of the National Guard in order to spy on them for the purpose of weakening the ranks of the National Guard when necessary, and to be able to use their modern weapons. 3. To reorganize for recruiting new elements for the resistance. 4. To establish centers and factories to produce and manufacture and improve on weapons and to produce new ones. 5. To unify the ranks of the resistance, to prevent controversies and prejudice and to adhere to piety and follow the leadership. 6. To create division and strife between American and other countries and among the elements disagreeing with it. 7. To avoid mistakes that will blemish the image of the resistance and show it as the enemy of the nation. It would seem that al-Qaida in Iraq may be attempting to counter the effective American and Iraqi moves by also developing 5GW strategies, although these might not always aligned in opposition to the 5GW tactics being used by America and the national Iraqi forces: #1 show the clash of interest between society and the occupation and its collaborators, #2, #6. I list this point in #1 simply for the fact that Im not sure how they would show these things, but assume that some refined meme transference would be involved. The media is referenced, but at the same time, this may also be a 4GW move, or an attempt to take the moral high ground via use of the media, to improve its image and attract supporters. #5 & #7 are 4GW concerns, and #s 3 & 4 address nodes. But what follows this list of areas of improvement is most certainly a 5GW strategy, even if some elements of 4GW thinking and Network thinking are also considered. Here is the entirety of what remains in the document, with emphasis added: In general and despite the current bleak situation, we think that the best suggestions in order to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces into another war against another country or with another of our enemy force, that is to try and inflame the situation between American and Iraq or between America and the Shia in general. Specifically the Sistani Shia, since most of the support that the Americans are getting is from the Sistani Shia, then, there is a possibility to instill differences between them and to weaken the support line between them; in addition to the losses we can inflict on both parties. Consequently, to embroil America in another war against another enemy is the answer that we find to be the most

appropriate, and to have a war through a delegate has the following benefits: 1. To occupy the Americans by another front will allow the resistance freedom of movement and alleviate the pressure imposed on it. 2. To dissolve the cohesion between the Americans and the Shia will weaken and close this front. 3. To have a loss of trust between the Americans and the Shia will cause the Americans to lose many of their spies. 4. To involve both parties, the Americans and the Shia, in a war that will result in both parties being losers. 5. Thus, the Americans will be forced to ask the Sunni for help. 6. To take advantage of some of the Shia elements that will allow the resistance to move among them. 7. To weaken the medias side which is presenting a tarnished image of the resistance, mainly conveyed by the Shia. 8. To enlarge the geographical area of the resistance movement. 9. To provide popular support and cooperation by the people. The resistance fighters have learned from the result and the great benefits they reaped, when a struggle ensued between the Americans and the Army of Al-Mahdi. However, we have to notice that this trouble or this delegated war that must be ignited can be accomplished through: 1. A war between the Shia and the Americans. 2. A war between the Shia and the secular population (such as Ayad Alawi and al-Jalabi.) 3. A war between the Shia and the Kurds. 4. A war between Ahmad al-Halabi and his people and Ayad Alawi and his people. 5. A war between the group of al-Hakim and the group of al-Sadr. 6. A war between the Shia of Iraq and the Sunni of the Arab countries in the gulf. 7. A war between the Americans and Iraq. We have noticed that the best of these wars to be ignited is the one between the Americans and Iran, because it will have many benefits in favor of the Sunni and the resistance, such as: 1. Freeing the Sunni people in Iraq, who are (30 percent) of the population and under the Shia Rule. 2. Drowning the Americans in another war that will engage many of their forces. 3. The possibility of acquiring new weapons from the Iranian side, either after the fall of Iran or

during the battles. 4. To entice Iran towards helping the resistance because of its need for its help. 5. Weakening the Shia supply line. The question remains, how to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is not known whether American is serious in its animosity towards Iraq, because of the big support Iran is offering to America in its war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Hence, it is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger and to convince America and the west in general, of the real danger coming from Iran, and this would be done by the following: 1. By disseminating threatening messages against American interests and the American people and attribute them to a Shia Iranian side. 2. By executing operations of kidnapping hostages and implicating the Shia Iranian side. 3. By advertising that Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons and is threatening the west with these weapons. 4. By executing exploding operations in the west and accusing Iran by planting Iranian Shia fingerprints and evidence. 5. By declaring the existence of a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups (as termed by the Americans). 6. By disseminating bogus messages about confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that there are attempts by the Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the west and against western interests. Let us hope for success and for Gods help. 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 Irans 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 anothers 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.

Dreaming 5GW: In Surround Sound First, I would like to welcome visitors to Dreaming 5GW, a new cooperative blog focusing on various theories of fifth generation warfare. Over the course of the last year and a half, Ive been both, intrigued by various blogospheric discussions concerning 5GW and often inspired to address the subject myself on my blog Phatic Communion: inspired by bloggers Dan of tdaxp, Mark Safranski of ZenPundit, and Younghusband of Coming Anarchy. Discussions of 5GW have ranged between these excellent blogs and have led to conversations on Phatic Communion as well, through which I have had the good fortune to engage in related discussion with others who have also discovered the subject in much the same way I did and found it fascinating. Lately, however, I have felt the need to consolidate the conversations in whatever way I could. Perhaps this was a result of seeing so many searches for 5GW in my blogs stats which never developed beyond the quick hit on my weblog by strangers who may or may not? have found what they were looking for; but I think the desire to find a home for 5GW theory has come from my own wish to explore the topic in more detail without having to constantly travel the Blogospheric Highway piecing together the conversations. (Or, indeed, without needing to search Phatic Communion for the 5GW-related posts and conversations every time I wanted to revisit the topic!) At the same time, the conversations on 5GW which had inspired meinspired me greatly because they approached the topic from angles I had not considered. Trying to suss out what the next generation of warfare will be is like trying to predict exactly what some future language will be after who knows how many cultures, geopolitical and geologic events, and technological innovations have first occurred: it will probably have some relation to modern English but is unlikely to be exactly like the English I am now using. (Indeed, who knows how much of a typical conversation from the year 2340 would be intelligible to a 21st century American?) Thus, I recognized the need to maintain the diversity represented by cross-blog conversations on the topic, and I decided that a similar approach would be valuable for Dreaming 5GW. It is my hope that the different angles provided by the contributors to Dreaming 5GW each with his own eye training on the wide-ranging WWW, on the world, and indeed on what Thomas Barnett has recently called the AllSpace that each individual contributor OODA, will provide a better composite angle on 5GW than I could possibly accomplish on my own.

The sandwich generations-of-war strategy Thomas P.M. Barnett 5GW and Ruleset Automation Dan, of tdaxp. A Strategic Dagwood Mark Safranski, ZenPundit. Speaking of Thomas Barnett I had planned to take a day or two off after completing the designs and setup for Dreaming 5GW (a somewhat tedious affair) but from the blue comes an intriguing correlation with something I had only tangentially suggested previously: That Thomas Barnett may actually be a 5GWarrior. 5GW theory may indeed be vague, various, and a little unsettled at least, in comparison to what

the fifth generation of warfare will actually be but much of my own approach to the subject is via a consideration of meme transference, or meme engineering, and the ability of a 5GWarrior to accomplish his goals without having to actually do anything more than create the necessary memes to motivate actors who will shape the world as the 5GWarrior desires. Broadly speaking. Secrecy will be key, or else the 5GWarrior risks becoming an observable manipulator whom the target rejects instinctively or with calculated force; and, the hardest thing in the world to track is a meme. The goal is to have the target believe he is acting entirely under his own free will (which he actually is) while not realizing that another has influenced him to act in a particular way. Ultimately, a cascading series of acts committed by multiple targets perhaps in collusion or in confrontation will lead to a paradigmatic shift not only in general world views but also in the concrete world (which is constantly being shaped by acts motivated by world views.) Such a consideration has previously led me to consider the possibility that Thomas Barnetts PNM theory is very 5GWish. At the end of a long exploration of the OODA and the Generations of Warfare on my blog Phatic Communion, I had noted that other methods for changing the world exist beyond mere warfare, and had linked Thomas Barnetts PNM theory to 5GW by considering the way both may depend on violent means as well as non-violent means There are other ways to change the concrete world besides warfare. Thomas Barnetts approach, for instance, may alter the concrete world in ways that may greatly influence targets OODA loops, leading to acts beneficial to those who would employ TBs EBO. It is still to be seen, perhaps, if similar forces as TB would employ will have an unguided effect similar to those effects he would set as his operational goal. 5GW theory, in some respects, also suggests way of manipulating the concrete world through non-violent means, although violent means are also often discussed by 5GW theorists. In fact, TBs theories also skirt the bounds between violent and non-violent means. Almost exactly one month ago, PurpleSlog, Arherring, and I had more directly discussed the connection in a conversation on PurpleSlog which began as a consideration of, believe it or not, Bizzaro Fred Phelps and 5GW Speculation: CGW: as 5GW is refined and the costs of a major 3GW outweigh the benefits picture a U.S. vs China scenario 5GW efforts will require more precise control over situations and prove more cost effective. Actually, the Barnettian pseudo-5GW heh, PNM theory would operate similarly, since 3GW forces would begin by establishing a localized stability and order, and then capitalist and democratic forces would kick in to allow for an expansion of that order (within a nation as well as across nations.) Arherring: Is 5GW Barnetts sysadmin? I dont know. It could be. I can imagine scenarios where it is, but I doubt any U.S. government has the focus to do it. CGW: Now, of course, typically when we speak of 5GW, we think of secrecy; but see how much is often kept secret from the public, whether our own or our targets public, although certain platitudes are bandied about to give the populace something to think about. The processes havent been refined, but the effort to establish paradigms by altering aspects of the world Barnetts PNM theory has a very 5GWish aspect to it when you consider the fact that he wants to establish rule sets that are basically those broad and widely shared paradigms. In fact, PNM may not be quite refined yet (not to mention that it has never really been tried!) Arherring: One thing that really strikes me about Barnetts PNM theory is that (as he staes in his book several times) His new map is not about war within the context of war but war within the context of everything else. Also, that the PNM thoery doesnt focus on the horrible possible futures,

but the a future that is a goal to work toward.In this way I see Barnett as being 5GWish on a grand-strategy scale. 5GW is goal-oriented. It seeks to create situations. It seeks to create outcomes. It seeks less to prevent events than it does to steer them, augment them or place them in a particular context leading to the next step in a proression, a chain of events if you will.As for the secrecy theoretically inherent in 5GW. I think it entirely possible to work on a strategic scale so globally vast like Barnetts that it cant be appreciated and demonstrated except in history books. PurpleSlog: I think we have two different possible 5GW organizations emerging from the discussions on this and other blogs: 1) The Secret Puppet Master 5GW - which infiltrates and manipulates other organizations secretly (among other things) 2) The Master Social/Paradigm Entrepreneurial 5GW - that shapes the future with ideas and grand strategies and new ways of thinking/framing. All of this of course occurring at a distance from the man himself, until his recent post on The sandwich generations-of-war strategy, posted yesterday, October 8, 2006, in which he consciously and perhaps for the first time directly connects his approach to 5GW. Mark Safranski and Dan of tdaxp follow-up with commentary on their respective blogs. For now, I would like to post a few thoughts on Barnetts post and expand on them when I have more time. My immediate thought is that he gets it all wrong. This is not a criticism of PNM, per se, but a criticism of the way he connects PNM and Development-in-a-Box, etc., to 5GW. Much of my criticism can be encapsulated by Barnetts single assertion, It means we deny evolution toward 5GW in those parts of the Gap we deny to our enemies The evolution of warfare does not occur so much as a self-contained linear progression, where one force moves directly from, say, 3GW to 4GW to 5GW, as a result of its own internal impetus, but instead occurs as a result of friction between forces. New warfare strategies and tactics are created, or old strategies are refined and actually, its usually both in order to meet and address and ultimately surpass those of the foe. So when Barnett trumpets the superiority of the U.S. 3GW forces and the superiority of a certain set of rule-sets, and so forth, he is only describing the forces with which a potential foe will have to contend. I.e., as these become established within the Gap, anyone who would oppose them will need to surpass them. By Barnetts own admission, U.S. 3GW force is so great, if it is applied as he prescribes then no one will be able to oppose it; and, the Development-in-Box which will introduce the rule-sets he prescribes will make 4GW even more unlikely to succeed than it now is; and that leaves only 5GW for the opposition in the Gap. Barnetts prescription will create 5GW opponents, as conditions for viable 3GW and 4GW opposition continue to deteriorate. On the other hand, the idealized version of Barnetts system would likely produce it is hoped a world view paradigm shift within a significant portion of the Gap populace that would serve to preempt opposition Development-in-a-Box really gets you into 5GW because it alters the observed realitypreemptivelyin a sort of bribe-the-proles mode that steals the thunder of the 4GW warrior of today in the same way that social welfare nets and trade unions stifled the rise of socialism in Europe. [Barnett]

I.e., thats a little bit like providing enough luxuries to Americans so that a significant portion of them stop caring about going out to vote. It isnt that he is wrong in believing that a changed world will change perceptions, and perceptions will change activities, and activities will then change the world again in accordance with those perceptions; this is why I have thought that his approach is very 5GWish. But the decision to step forth to create those changes openly and then to keep a security apparatus of some sort in place within the Gap until those changes have taken hold is not very 5GW, simply because the cards held in hand are displayed openly for whatever opposition exists at the outset, and because 5GW will be about having others make the decisions and act as if they were acting entirely on their own. That kind of decision to believe in a reality is the kind most likely to stick. It is in fact the kind of decision, leading to perseverance, any opposition within the Gap will have. None of this is to say that Barnetts prescription is without merit, but only that its not really 5GW. 5GW within the gap will be what happens as a result of Barnetts plan if it is implemented or, perhaps naturally regardless of whether Barnetts plan is ever fully utilized. So when he says, you win by extreme transparency: you democratize observe for the world, for nations, for individuals. I wonder how much freedom to observe he really wants for the world, for nations, and for individuals. Does he believe that a common and identical World View will be held by all, since everyone will be seeing everything and that democratized observation will return identical evaluations by everyone; or does he mean that it is merely enough if they all observe the same world but evaluate it differently? The latter is what is already happening, quite often; the former is a form of totalitarian wish which has never been fulfilled. Mark Safranski of ZenPundit, in his commentary on Barnetts post, introduces some similar questions: Vastly increasing the connectivity and transparency of a Gap state also increases the opportunities and parameters for John Robbs Global Guerillas or superempowered individuals - we can see this in how the Islamist insurgency makes use of, for example, the internet. On the other hand, it expands opportunities for millions of others at the same time who will use the increased individual choices (which most insurgents are fighting to deny) in constructive ways. But in 5GW, the millions acting on their own individual choicesin constructive ways may well be greatly influenced by the handful of superempowered individuals feeding them a steady diet of preselected media and world changes; and is it possible that this is the desired paradigm? I.e., 5GW conflict in which few die but some rise while others fall, unbeknownst to the majority, in largely non-violent conflicts? Or might superempowered individuals actually influence those millions to occasionally fracture and war upon one another via 3GW and 4GW, in order to break up an existing paradigm and make way for a new? Dan of tdaxp questions the automation of rule sets by quoting: As the founder of the greatest capitalist revolution in human history once remarked, No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.. Which is to say, rather than an automation of rule sets, or of One Common World View, some stable dynamic which allows for multiple world views and perhaps different applicable rule sets might be required. If one likes mice, one does not want a mice-catching cat, and being supplied with the

choice of a white mice-catching cat or a black mice-catching cat and being forced to have at least one of these will produce conflict, whether 3GW, 4GW, or 5GW.

Surround Sound: Follow-up Lots of interesting commentary on 5GW over the last day. It is this type of chatter, more than anything, that led me to question Dans assessment that The American System of Government is as brilliant at defending itself from 5GWs as from 4GWs. as well as the idealized version of Thomas Barnetts paradigm-shifting strategies for preempting opposition within the Gap, questioned in yesterdays post. How much democratization of the OODA observe will be allowed by grand strategists and grand paradigm builders? As social systems move away from concrete totalitarian structures and the decision-making process becomes more democratized, more complex, the field for 5GW ripens; the board becomes set by becoming perpetually unsettled. The OODA is not merely the O; no, it involves other levels of cognition and reasoning, reasoning is always from a limited observational capability which removes it from the strict lines of cause & effect, and although the World may be the same for everyone, individual assessments of it will differ. Complexity introduces perplexity. Thomas Barnett considered this in another recent post, Fifth Generation (political) warfare, in which he considered the plight of Conrad Burns from Montana: Constant observation of the foe. Unrelenting surveillance. Every gaffe exposed and then run ad nauseum on the web. His ability to orient himself as desired in the race is disrupted. Conrad Burns, the incumbent, is trailed everywhere on the campaign by a young operative for the Dems who videotapes him non-stop every chance he gets, waiting for the screw-up. Why does this sort of preemption of the OODA work? Because one set of possible observations Conrad Burns legislative history, his political epistemology in action; and his family interactions, etc. is usurped by the constant introduction of new data sliced quite separate from that history. Ive discussed this sort of thing before, in my posts on the Revised OODA; in a way, it is a 3GW cognition attack on the undecided voters, who, being offered a constant stream of new data, are being forced to make snap judgments impulsively. Or else, for the Democratic party faithful, it is the 4GW reinforcement of an old assessment of Burns, leading to yet more habitual assessments. (And actually, what starts as a 3GWish attack on orientation may over time become a 4GW reinforcement of assessments, if the data is sliced along the same parameters regularly enough.) Ad agencies do it, and the process is none too new for political parties. Ministers and weblog pundits do it as well. (Can anyone say, Ms. Malkin?) It is so old, we have the example of Cato: Delenda est Carthago! One might attempt the same in a totalitarian system; but the populace, lacking power to do much to change the status quo, are not as apt to act on their assessments, and the head of the totalitarian state is not as apt to follow whatever popular assessment is being whispered on the streets. In a democracy, things work differently. Notice how Mark Safranski picks up on the importance of surveillance for a state wishing to defend itself from 5GW: The state in turn, is vulnerable to a proliferation of such superempowered individuals and will have to defend itself with a combination of surveillance and active cultivation of primary loyalties ( reducing the motivation for such individuals to act out in antisocial ways). This may actually be true of any state, if we are to think of state-citizen interactions in terms of social contracts. In any case, the totalitarian state certainly wishes to defend itself from

superempowered individuals i.e., from individuals empowered by rights to privacy, the right to vote and demonstrate and meet, the right to carry arms, and so forth. So this too is nothing new. The 5GW trick has been to give the populace the belief that it is the state, although Mark appears to separate the two in offering his prescription for the states consideration. (In a perhaps not-toowell considered post on Christianity and 5GW, I once suggested that the founders of America had pulled off a 5GW coup. I also suggested that dispensational premillennialism was introduced into Christianity in order to combat the socialist tendencies of amillenialist Christianity: Give people the power to assess the level of their own personal salvation, the power to achieve it on their own while disregarding the spiritual welfare of others, and you have superempowered people who will believe they act entirely of their own free will, and that they may act powerfully. I.e., you set the 5GW chessboard.) These things are why I say that Thomas Barnetts system for change in the Gap and the world is more likely to lead to 5GW opposition than squelch it. John Robbs more right than wrong when he contemplates perpetual chaos for the future, which he usually does. However, as I contemplated yesterday, some shadow lies over the exact shape that the future will take, and this constant lack of settling this chaos may not be perpetual violence. I.e., Barnett would introduce the sort of political chaos he has described for America into the Gap: remove totalitarianism and insert democratized OODA loops, and you therefore remove totalitarian methods (concerted violence) while introducing democratic conflict (mass and constant chatter.) If 3GW and 4GW always threaten world destruction, particularly as technology advances, then even 5GWarriors may be more inclined to find non-violent methods for domination. Shloky has in fact postulated post-5GW conflict that results from the technological singularity predicted by Kurzweil et al. My first impression is that all the bets of current 5GW theory are off once such a major change occurs; this includes the advent of advanced nanotechnology. I.e., if Im alive when these things occur, Im quite certain Ill revise my assessment of the fifth generation of warfare. However, until humans stop being humans, the process of observe - orient -decide - act will continue to shape human activity, and I expect 5GW to adapt & grow with these changes. UPDATE: Speaking of democracy, it would appear (and has appeared for some time) that advocates of democracy work into their designs 5GW methods as a matter of course; check out Developing a Strategy for Fifth Generation Warfare on Democracy Project. (HT: ZenPundit.) I.e., using commercial advertising and focused messages to insert members of ones own party into key positionsis fundamental to the operation of democracy as currently practiced.

Welcome to the World of 5GW First off I would like to give a big thanks to Tom Barnett, Zenpundit, TDAXP, Purpleslog, John Robb and many others (especially Curtis Weeks!) for setting the perfect stage to introduce Dreaming 5GW. We couldnt have arranged it better ourselves or did we? Yes friends, welcome to the world of 5GW, land of conspiracy theory, confidence game, warfare by proxy and all good things that keep the royalty checks rolling in for Action / Adventure / Spy / Thriller novelists the world over. Come! Come out of the bright light and into the shadows, the realm of misdirection and sleight of hand. I am Keyser Soze, your guide, your friend. I have 31 flavors of 5GW for your pleasure. Take all that you wish but beware, sometimes that which seems most bitter is sometimes merely the least sweet Your first flavor: Memetic Engineering. Behold the power of an idea. It can open closed doors and closed minds. It can build bridges both figurative and literal. Is it thought control or controlled thought, spread like a virus, contagious to those with the weakest minds and wills, each in turn becoming a vector for its spread. The viral meme cannot be destroyed. It cannot even be truly contained for it is as ephemeral as air, and as patient as water, always seeking its level and flowing through the smallest of cracks, at first a trickle, then a deluge. Indoctrination is the only immunity and temporary at that. Where is the 5GW you ask? Ahh yes, 5GW is a memetic symbiote. It strengthens and disperses the meme to new populations, promotes and entices new hosts. It is the Pied Piper playing a memetic flute. Where will it lead and who will follow? Your second sample: The Super-empowered individual. The Black Swan glides gracefully through the air, drifting toward the placid blue-green water of a quiet pond. As it lands, its feet and body break the calm surface. The waters part, whipped into a pale green froth that rises and curls, becoming a wave that travels toward the distant shore. Strangely, the wave seems to grow stronger and move faster, rising, looming ever higher to finally crash against land with the furious force of the tsunami. How does one deal with a madman, especially one holding the power and lethality of a weapon of mass destruction / disruption. A system perturbation of this magnitude benefits only those who have prepared for it, strengthened themselves mentally and physically for it. Who is this who has such foresight, such vision to divine the future? Is it 5GW or the madman himself. A third helping: The Sysadmin, the Department of Everything Else, and Development in a Box. You build roads, and schools. You create a stable power grid. You establish communications networks that bring those who are far away, near. The streets are safe with the citizens secure in the knowledge that the guardians stand ready nearby and at the gates, to protect and defend. Are you an urban planner, an engineer, technician, policeman or soldier? Yes to all, but are you 5GW as well? Where do the roads run? Who and what do the schools teach? Who provides the power? Who is connected and who is not? Who defines the laws and marks the borders?

5GW, indeed, are those who create the rule-sets and establish the places where they grow. Rule-sets, like roses, must be pruned and shaped for the plant to flourish. You drive roots deep, anchoring to what, at the core, makes the system work. The goal is connection and empowerment. You build and create with purpose and in doing so you destroy that which is ineffective and harmful. You encourage all those around you who will benefit to contribute. In doing so you add strength, determination, and diversity, increasing resiliency and a imparting a sense of ownership. This 5GW operates by the axiom that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Ahh, three tasty treats. It is just enough to whet the appetite and get the juices flowing. How do they taste? Are the flavors very much the same to you or are they vastly different? No matter, there will be more, I assure you. 31 flavors I promised and many more besides. All the colors of the rainbow are here, with tastes strangely familiar and tastes yet to be named. They will tantalize and tease, provoke and please. I hope you enjoyed yourself. Next time bring your friends. We have plenty for everyone. Do, please, come again.

Where is the war part? A commenter at John Robbs Weblog asks the question, If 5GW is getting others to do what you want them to do of their own free will (though maybe that is not the best definition?), where is the war part? [Ryan Luke] The question is in two parts and inspires a third. On Free Will First, the question of free will seems to assume that merely because a target acts according to the dictates of his own free will, he must have perfect freedom. Without going into a long philosophical treatise on the subject of free will, Ill just point out that whatever will is exercised will be exercised in relation to the environment surrounding and having surrounded, in the past the target. To the degree that his capability for observation is and has been limited, his reasoning will also be limited, and the will to act flowing from that reasoning will be limited. This is accordance with the operation of the Revised OODA, and why I repeat that reasoning operates outside the strict lines of cause & effect. For instance, Americans and Iraqis may interpret the destruction of a mosque in different ways and come to different conclusions and ultimately decide on different acts responding to such an attack. Or, think of a church being destroyed in America and a mosque being destroyed in Iraq, or a cartoon attacking Christianity being published in America and a cartoon attacking Islam being published in Europe: While true that the actual act is slightly different in each case one is a church, one a mosque; one attacks Christianity, one attack Islam; one is in America, the other is in Iraq or Europe the actual acts are quite similar but the reasoning utilized to come to an understanding of such events will be informed by past observations including upbringing, tradition, past experiences, etc. which are not as similar. You might argue that cause & effect is ubiquitous and can be used to understand the differences in conclusions reached by different people and, many network theorists put their faith in such an argument but even though the universe operates by cause & effect, increased complexity and human cognition result in lines of cause & effect between observation and act which span multiple time frames and multiple environments outside the strict lines of present time and present environments. Moreover, for any individual the chances for observation have been limited by his mortality and his ever-real limitations in perceptual observation, regardless of the time he has lived and the environments he has witnessed. His will to act will also be bounded by these limitations. So much for free will. For a philosophical treatise, read Plato, who thought that the leaders of the Republic should often lie to its citizens simply because those citizens would create lies of their own quite naturally anyway, and that the Republic would be better served insuring that the lies believed by the citizens were productive and beneficial for the Republic (and thus, for the citizenry). There are those who hate the thought but their faith in free will requires faith in human omniscience and human omnipresence. (One might make a utilitarian argument for such unbounded faith in free will, or even a 5GW argument, however.) 5GW effectors will recognize the bounds of human observation and thus the bounds of free will. On the war part? This manipulation of observation would appear to be non-war by traditional definitions. The glory of dismembering bodies and destroying infrastructure in the pursuit of showing the enemy whats what! would seem to be sidelined. In fact, the question seems almost to come from a 1GW perspective, and I have occasionally witnessed the greatest disdain for 5GW theory coming from

soldiers and their officers in the field. They have after all been trained to dismember enemies and destroy battle placements, or to wipe out an enemys operational capability through a quite limited EBO which seems less limited simply because the devastation can be directed over large areas through targeted aerial bombings and missile strikes. We are witnessing the effectiveness of these strategies in Iraq and on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, are we not? The ability to motivate an enemy to surrender or to take that reaction out of the equation by utterly destroying the enemy will prove less and less effective as that enemy host disperses over a larger battlefield and hides its fluid dynamic placement. You may destroy Zarqawi utterly, but his death is not the death of Muhammad or bin Laden or any of any number of other enemies lurking elsewhere who may in fact be motivated to continue fighting by their personal salvation from the fate that came to Zarqawi. Showing that enemy whats what! is exactly what you are doing: I can kill this person quite easily, see! (but you, alas, have been able to escape me.) Or: See how easily I destroy weapons depots, bridges, and roads! (and how easily you can maneuver around these losses). Whats what is the question in 5GW, really. Giving your enemy the free will to act is not giving your enemy an unbounded freedom to act, although because 5GW does not rely on being able to utterly destroy the enemy or infrastructure or at least dismember that enemy, it would seem to be something other than war to those whose concept of war is not in the context of anything else. Fifth Generation War It may be that those who understand war through a limited context of concrete destruction will prove by their belief to be the very best methods by which a 5GW effector can accomplish his goals. In response to that comment on John Robbs weblog, I referenced an old post on a purported al-Qaida document discovered in Iraq after Zarqawis death: Al-Qaida Goes 5GW or not. In the document, al-Qaida operatives consider the possibility of embroiling America in another war against the Shiites in general, or against Iran in particular in order to weaken America. I.e., if Americas concept of showing the enemy whats what! remains what it appears to be, then an organization such as al-Qaida (who operates similarly) might well depend on Americas faith in concrete destruction of perceived enemies. Help America to perceive new enemies, and you motivate America to dedicate the type of resources America believes will be necessary for destroying that enemy. Changing that enemy may be less of a concern for America than destroying that enemy; or, rather, the only methods for change understood by the American Administration are methods of direct physical change via a limited EBO, etc. So, then, how could a hidden 5GW force defeat a fuzzy 4GW force? Influence it to fight another force, one it already despises and, preferably, one it cannot defeat. Or, introduce dispute within it, of the sort that would paralyze its activities, create massive amounts of in-fighting. Or, befriend it; give it real accomplishments (perhaps by surreptitiously influencing other parties who can give them these) which, nonetheless, lead to final outcomes quite different than it originally intended. Because a 4GW force tends to be decentralized, dependent on local actors and local activities, focus on influencing them. Do not try to destroy the 4GW force; focus on changing it. [Initiating 5GW] of course, such methods may be quite effective if the target of EBO the perceived enemy has a quite similar concept of warfare. However, the 5GW effectors who have motivated America to utilize EBO in such a manner can sit back and watch the devastation caused by that EBO, to both

parties. So while I hypothesize an ultimately non-violent low-grade-fever type of 5GW sometime in the future, the fact remains that any 5GW organization will need to work with and within the belief systems currently in place. You motivate by triggering faith or else by creating a new faith; and as long as faith in the war part remains what it is, plenty of dismembering and devastation may play a role in any 5GW plan. My reason for hypothesizing a development toward 5GW planning now lies in the growing general understanding that 3GW and even 4GW will prove less and less effective because the devastation possible in either type grows exponentially as technology advances and because global society is becoming interdependent (what some call networked.) So for instance China might be modernizing its military, preparing a kind of MAD stalemate for third generation warfare between great powers, and any sort of move China would like to make for advancing its influence in the world would be informed by the understanding that 3GW between great powers would be counterproductive. As the technology increases destructive capability, more and more actors on the world stage may see this as a signal for both: 1) avoid open confrontation yourself, 2) but embroil your enemy in such confrontation with a third party, if possible.

Micropowers and the Art of 5GW Or is that, the Arc of 5GW? On Coming Anarchy: * Swish for Saakashvili * Becoming a Micropower * Georgia: Little Engine that Can? On ZenPundit: * Chirols Micropower On Global Guerrillas / John Robbs Weblog: * Can Georgia become a MicroPower? * More on Micropowers Some interesting 5GW-related discussion With Georgia on his mind, John Robb wonders, Georgia does have a way out of the predicament. It could adopt the global guerrilla methods (aka fifth generation warfare) and use system disruption as a strategic weapon to coerce Russia to relent. Like the Ukraine found out (I suspect unwittingly), the best way to coerce Russia is to disrupt its export of natural gas/oil. Fortunately for Georgia, Russias vast distances yield a pipeline transport system that is both heavily concentrated and extremely vulnerable (Ive done the network analysis and it would be very easy to do, it is rife with systempunkts). A dozen small teams (2-3 at most, my personal choice would be mercenaries to enhance plausible deniability) dedicated to blowing up sections of these pipelines (either within Russia or in 3rd party nations like Poland and Ukraine), would likely yield a 20% to 30% sustained reduction in Russian exports.

I find it a little odd that he has called GG methods 5GW when elsewhere he has said they are 4GW but not so odd that the question of any distinction ceases to be important to the discussion of GG. I havent read the book and do not know the full scope of Robbs theory of GG. In other respects, GG seems 3GW. Of course, this inability to tag GG with a neat designation would itself suggest a possible 5GW reality, or for those squeamish of such designations, perhaps a 4GW+ reality. For my part, the argument against a 5GW categorization of the tactics Robb suggests for Georgia is two-fold: 1. Directly hiring terrorists / mercenaries to carry out the operation may be old school very shortly. It allows too much opportunity for tracing the activity back to the employer, threatens the very secrecy necessary for running a successful 5GW operation. So while Robb considers the necessity for plausible deniability, the consideration itself suggests to me that the methods are not 5GW at all. A 5GW method would be to influence al-Qaida or some other anti-Russian group to come to the conclusion all on their own to destroy those pipelines.

2. System disruptions may be a useful tool of 5GW planners (although the actual operatives doing so are not those 5GW effectors nor their hires), but creating a forward-looking paradigm for the target is not much mentioned in this scenario. Again, we have the standard GG and 4GW negativity approach, of merely: disruption, chaos, confusion, destruction. 5GW may indeed use these things, but the ultimate goal is not so much systempunkt as the creation of new orders that will continue to operate long after the 5GW force has finished its operations. Disrupting a longstanding and typically resilient system may be the first step in creating a new paradigm destroy the old to make way for the new but as Ive said before, 5GW will be much more about establishing order rather than inaugurating perpetual chaos. On that last point: John Robb gives his idea of the ultimate goal of systempunkt: Within a market, an attack on the systempunkt destabilizes the psychology of the market to induce severe inefficiencies and uncertainties. The ultimate objective of this activity, in aggregate, is the collapse of the target state and globalization. That, to me, suggests a 4GW mindset. Of course, in the very localized version described above, Georgias ultimate goal would be to create a new paradigm: mainly, that Russia should not fwith Georgia while Georgia secures a place in the West John Robb suggests Georgia adopt GG methods to attack Russias energy infrastructure which would provide just that. His analysis of Russias vulnerability and the ease of attack is spot on, but he misses the bigger picture, namely that Russia would have to know Georgia was behind it but Georgia would have to deny it vehemently. [Chirol, Coming Anarchy, Georgia: Little Engine that Can?]

A 5GW approach might prove much more effective. System attacks on Russia conducted by a third party would weaken Russias standing in the world Is it or is it not a 3rd-world nation or a Core nation, is it reliable and stable, able to defend itself, etc. which would not only diminish in the eyes of the world whatever moves Russia might make but would also make Georgias move toward the West entirely reasonable (in the minds of everyone but Russia.) No plausible deniability would be required. The paradigm being built is: See how the West is a much better option, all in all? And of course, this same paradigm might prove seductive for Russia as well, given a successful 5GW operation. We see something of the opposite right now, in the way the U.S. standing has been repeatedly attacked, although to be sure the attacks on the U.S. have been much too limited to make that particular paradigm stick. So far. In fact, the discussion concerning micropowers raises many questions for 5GW theorists. If these powers are indeed small in many respects, they may easily see how open confrontation with others might work against them but open confrontations between those others could benefit them. Chirol gives a very neat example in his list of characteristics of micropowers: Create external vulnerability and thus internal stability. [Becoming a Micropower]

He explains this idea better at John Robbs Weblog: Im also unsure today as to whether the second to last point was clear. It reinforces earlier points that by making outsider players vulnerable if you go offline you create internal stability. [Chirol, commenting on More on Micropowers]

By doing so, the micropower may succeed at turning eyes away from its own operations as long as it appears to remain connected; the exterior forces see an attack on that micropower as an attack on themselves, whether such an attack comes from outside the micropower or from within the micropower as an effort to disconnect itself. And this may potentially leave the micropower in a state of suspended animation a rock of stability in an otherwise unstable region. I.e., conflict between those outside the microstate will consume most of the attention. (I hope my interpolations do not detract from Chirols very interesting point!) Mark Safranski of ZenPundit adds a twist to the discussion: geographic micropowers that are economic macropowers. He gives Singapore and the U.A.E. as examples; but recent reading on Thomas Barnetts weblog would inspire a third: Qatar. If you can believe that. These considerations of states in suspended animation provoke in me a consideration much in line with these other considerations: that the most effective positioning tool may be studied noninterference. It isnt that the states are not animated, so much as that they continually highlight how they generally benefit their neighbors and the world while seeking to offer no objections to the roles they have assumed. This is in stark contrast to the U.S. PR campaign, and even to Russias since Russia quite openly appears to wish to be seen as one of the energy top-dogs everyone must placate. Even China risks too open a display of its centrality in world dynamics. States like Iran and Venezuela also appear to be falling into this trap of inviting opposition. So the rise of micropowers may set the stage for 5GW activity. Open activity confrontation, expansion, power projection becomes detrimental. This dynamic closely resembles the move from totalitarianism to democratic reforms, or the move from centrally dictated paradigms to a broadly dispersed field for paradigm growth: I.e., control becomes much less of an issue than influence, and the complexity created by dispersing centers of influence allows and may require a round-about route toward gaining ground. Give the little guy the feeling that he may operate freely he will surely claim such a right, anyway and you gain another hand in the field. But tell him or show him that he must supplicate before the Greater Power, and you alienate him.

Rule-Sets, System Perturbations and 5GW System Perturbation: A situation that causes a break down in, or invalidation of, a system level ruleset Rule-Set: The underlying principles (groups of rules) that define and govern norms of behavior and conduct. Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW): The strategic mindset premised upon creating or manipulating a system perturbation in order to change an existing rule-set or replace an obsolete rule-set. (10/14/06 Arherring) As 5GW is an emerging and developing theory, trying to carve it in stone at this point would be foolish. For the purposes of this discussion, however, I am going to stick the above definition as my working definition. The definitions of system perturbation and rule-set are taken from Tom Barnett among others but reflect my personal understanding of the concepts. As I wrote previously in Welcome to the World of 5GW, there are multitudes of ways people are approaching the theory of 5GW. These approaches are mostly focusing on the execution of 5GW rather than its underlying principles, what it will look like more than why it looks like that. I can understand the reasoning for this approach though I notice that what people see in 5GW execution seems to reflect a great deal of their previous theories. The three example scenarios I used in Welcome to the World of 5GW were; memetic engineering, the super-empowered individual, and Sysadmin. I will confess that in the interests of appealing to as many readers as possible I was attempting to make them sound as different as possible. They are not. In reality they are virtually identical Way down deep at the very core each of them is, in effect, creating or reacting to a system perturbation and seeking to create either a new rule-set defined by the 5GW organization, or a defined situation where a new rule-set will emerge. Memetic Engineering: It does not matter what the meme is as long as it causes a desired system disruption. It can be E. Coli in the spinach or an anti-war movement. If it suits the needs of the 5GW organization that meme will be propagated until it invalidates the desired rule-set. The 5GW organization will then move to either establish the new rule-set or influence those who will. Rule-set System perturbation New rule-set Super-empowered individuals: A catastrophic Black Swan certainly would cause a great many rule-sets to be placed in flux. Whether or not the 5GW organization is actually responsible for the Black Swan is irrelevant. I am sure some organizations will be ruthless enough to do so but as far as theory goes it isnt a necessary element for the 5GW organization to perform, the system perturbation and the resulting 5GW opportunity is.

Rule-set System perturbation New rule-set Sysadmin: The example put forward by Tom Barnett in The Pentagons New Map involves the dichotomy of Leviathan and Sysadmin. In this example unless a system perturbation already exists (MoOTW) the 2GW / 3GW Leviathan is responsible for the system perturbations where and when deemed necessary by preemptively fighting the battles. Afterward it is the job of the 5GWish Sysadmin to fight the peace, a lasting peace imposed at the rule-set level, not at the barrel of a gun. Rule-set System perturbation New rule-set In summary, as I see 5GW right now, this progression of; rule-set, system perturbation, new ruleset, is what defines 5GW. The methods can, and will, vary so greatly that they will in many ways appear completely different, but their effects are the same. A spreading meme or a Black Swan, or a Sysadmin operation without this progression is merely pop-culture / sensationalism, terrorism, or an ineffective reconstruction effort.

Barnett and Robb Short on time today and tomorrow. Too bad, because 5GW discussion has been ratcheted up in our little neighborhood on the AllSpace. Here are some links and a few remarks; but I will definitely be returning to these shortly, when I have the time to properly address them! Thomas Barnett has posted his Own Personal 5GW Dream, in which he heavily references Dreaming 5GW! So much is given in this build-it-as-you-go post, I feel almost ashamed offering only minor observations while I wait for the time (a day or two) I need to really dig into the post. But that would be point #1: 1. So much is given in this build-it-as-you-go post. Not very secret, is it? Reading the post, I felt those intransigent but highly active fingertip feelings squirming within me. This post is like Barnett throwing down the gauntlet, and it might have been too early. The dream he gives will terrify enough people, if it were given in Congress (just imagine! But I dont know his readership; it might already be!), the opposition to his dream would be mobilized. (As it has been; but thats another blogger, whose recent activity Ill address in a moment.) 2. I do like Barnetts thinking, however, and hes far more right than wrong (something Ive been saying a lot lately, about not only Barnett.) The biggest problem with his dream may be seen in how various commenters around the web are responding to it: Ok, so America assumes a false failing in order to motivate China to become more active; that sounds 5GW, but Barnetts a little too blas about this. In order for America to emerge fat, rich, and safe for the long haul, a country named America needs to still exist by the end of things. We were fortunate that we had time to readjust to our disillusionment after Vietnam; I doubt we have that luxury now. So when he says, all this talk of winning-while-appearing-to-lose simply wont wash. You simply cant manipulate people and countries like that. I wish he would stop thinking about other countries for a bit and think about the American psyche. This is not to say that it cannot be done, but only that it would need to be managed a little better than that. America must be occupied in feeling quite successful, even as other nations China, in particular gain motivation from Americas seeming failure in areas like the Middle East. (Heh, side-thought thats been bouncing around in my head: If we were to annex Mexico, or at least some Mexican states, the introspection required to turn eyes away from failure in the Middle East, as well as a reinvigoration and a feeling of American worth i.e., expansion could both be achieved. Hmmm.) Speaking of naturally motivating opposition This talk of 5GW has motivated John Robb to rechristen his Global Guerrillas as 5GWarriors: THE CHANGING FACE OF WAR: Into the 5th Generation (5GW). He let slip the GG as 5GW meme in the post before that post, which I addressed here in my last D5GW entry. His method is disingenuous, to say the least, since he has previously: 1. Argued that GG is 4GW; because Lind said so. 2. Argued that its just too, too early to call 5GW. (And this less than a week ago!) Even worse, he usually says such things while saying, in effect, I agree with Lind: too early to call er! 3. And now, he pulls a Lind, steals a title, and his destruction-oriented mythical creatures have become 5GW Warriors because, I think, the idea of 5GW must be coopted since much 5GW discussion concerns building order, and Robb sees that such a framework will shut his forthcoming book out. Any theory of perpetual, unstoppable chaos & violence must necessary disregard any notion of emergent order.

On that second point and link: If you follow the comments, you can see how clearly Robb has been motivated to do #3. After a consideration of prematurity, given by Mark Safranski of ZenPundit, Robb comments, Zen, then we are likely seeing it in some of the evolutionary behavior I have documented on GGs. You see the wheels turning, there. But, as Ive said Ive said a lot lately, Robb may be more right than wrong, at least on some particulars; and I can see how his wheels have been greased. Ive addressed the GG debate before Lind, Robb, Dan, PurpleSlog, CGW and come now to the same conclusions. Robb appears to have a fairly good grasp on a phenomenon we may face in the future, but he is describing an environment more than a generation of warfare or any coherent operational dynamic (i.e., if you take the GG in toto; however, some methods of GG are clear and coherent, if taken piecemeal.) He may not be seeing the entire dynamic; but clearly seeing some aspects of it, hes taking those aspects and drawing logical conclusions. Robb actually responds directly to Barnetts dream by calling it Totally unreal and Barnett has responded with a field of flowers and weeds. I wrote a comment on Barnetts response, which has not posted yet (its in moderation; for some reason, my Typekey login did not click from the preview page), which Ill repost here. After another commenter questions Barnetts statement, that he [doesnt] see nonstate actors, nor their networks, becoming stronger over time, I wrote this: I dont know what Barnett sees, but perhaps stronger for these specific non-state actors is relative to the forces of stability. In GG and similar theories, there appears to be an assumption that approx. 99.9% of the world population (or more!) will just sit back and let the forces of chaos reign, that even the kind of devastation possible by a superempowered individual will outweigh any kind of potential response to such devastation. Chaos is assumed to emerge, but order is not. The biggest problem with such a theory (of many) is this assumption of passivity for the vast majority of the human population. Whereas, every single bit of technology, from the low-tech to the futuristic high-tech, will also be available to those 99.9%. Methods of social organization (e.g., open source) will also be available to those 99.9%. In fact, many of those 99.9% will also be superempowered, just like Robbs mythical GGs. So a better vision of the future would take these factors into account: From a Wild West perspective, the chaos will not only be about bestial strangers (demons) appearing from nowhere to destroy all the hard-built homesteads, leading to perpetual wilderness, but also about the efforts of those building their livelihood amidst the chaos. And that metaphor, btw, makes no difference whether you take a nativist or a homesteader p.o.v., since either group worked hard to establish their own particular sense of order. Despite all the chaos that came from conflict, an order emerged. So when Robb will argue on the one hand that these demons popping up all over the place will have no common motivation but destruction, and on the other hand that they will somehow manage to work together in a stable bazaar of violence funded by a stable black globalization and developing into virtual states first they are disconnected 4GWarriors he says, then when 5GW discussion kicks in, his GG are somehow suddenly 5GWarriors rather than 4GW I think he is only trying to work around the fact that even these pseudo-demons will have tendencies toward order: i.e., establishing their own sort of order. They are not endless chaos generators.

Barnetts far too easy on John Robb. GG, in order for it to actually become a reality, has been twisted into a self-sustaining prophesy powered by selective but obstinate ignorance i.e., by ignoring large realities. If you believe real demons exist, and moreover that they are entirely unstoppable because no real angels exist, youll buy into the prophecy being given by Robb. On the other hand: and this is important: as Ive argued before, Robbs outlining a phenomenon rather than a generation of warfare or any type of coherent operational methodology. When I read GG, I pay close attention to what Robb is saying, because he is in large part describing a significant aspect of the environment that will face us (who are the 99.9% he generally disregards.) There is of course the possibility, I think, that some one GG faction or handful of superempowered individuals will succeed in a major strike at order, fueled by destructive high technology, causing everything to collapse globally; a particularly vicious virus might do it. So there is that to keep in mind. Organizations like Lifeboat (and many others) are keeping that in mind, however. More will come, when I have more time!

Global Guerrillas as 5GW Warriors I am leaping ahead in this post to a summarizing look at John Robbs Global Guerrillas, fueled by my own thoughts concerning the recent Barnett-Robb 5GW debate as well as a bit by Mark Safranskis thoughts on the matter. Mostly though, I see that some of my most recent characterizations had latent within them a possible answer to the debate, something I find intriguing enough to justify this leap. Anyone who has not followed the debate is encouraged to read my last Barnett-Robb post and follow the links from there to the pertinent entries on either mans blog. Perhaps it is the Zen in the ZenPundit that has led Mark Safranski to ask, 5GW Emergent But What is It? while maintaining neutrality between the opposing views. Neutrality is of course the wrong word, since he views both approaches with interest and not a little agreement either way. However, it is Marks addendum on system perturbations and addendum #2, linking to Arherrings consideration of system perturbations here on Dreaming 5GW that holds the first key for linking the opposing points of view under the heading 5GW Key #1: System Perturbations Anyone with eyes to see will see that John Robb and Thomas Barnett accept not only the reality of system perturbations, but also their utility. Robbs a little less clear on their utility, because he focuses on the destructive, chaos-generating aspects without offering much in the way of explanation for why his GGs will create chaos. This causes his theory to appear incoherent: it is a theory for demons. However, without delving deeply enough into this aspect of his own GG theory, Robb does offer an explanation of utility: 1. His GGs will have a fairly stable bazaar of violence, 2. That bazaar of violence will be maintained via a fairly stable black globalization, 3. And these will lead to virtual states. So both theories actually suppose a utility for system perturbation. As Arherring wrote in his post, the over-arching operational dynamic in both theories can be summarized thus: Rule-set System perturbation New rule-set. Key #2: Both Will Operate in Secret Mostly This is where Robbs theory cleaves more closely to 5GW thought than Barnetts, although TPMBs most recent brainstorming session offered a dream of secrecy (quite publicly!!) However, whereas GGs themselves fade into the woodwork, the operative forces in Barnetts dream are quite invisible: democracy and capitalism. You might think that Barnetts Secret Warriors are entirely visible, especially when he takes great pains to discuss absolute transparency; but dont believe it. In the same way that GGs fade into the woodwork but their effects are quite visible (destroyed oil pipelines, for instance), democracy and capitalism are very powerful memes whose effects will be visible. A dollar is only an idea, even if we attach that idea to paper. So is this GG idea of bazaar of violence: there may be a market or a black market, and weapons for sale; but it is the idea of having access to these things, as well as the idea that they may be used in particular ways, that is the real bazaar. Globalization and black globalization are similar memes. I have said many times: the hardest thing to track is a meme. But I have never given an explanation for why this is so. Here it is: memes do not travel. They are not transmitted. They emerge. Within individuals. This is OODA. Network theorists might postulate a series of concrete effects, or causes, leading to such emergence, and collectively call each set of effects meme for explaining how quite similar memes emerge in diverse locations; and theyre welcome to do so, because that itself is a useful meme. However, these network theorists should keep in mind this from Mark

Safranski: SPs [System Perturbations] can also be natural (Tsunami, Hurricaine Katrina) and unintended ( Crash of 1929) or emerge from a confluence of lesser events acting in synergy. Network theory will not make tracking the emergence of memes any easier, most of the time, although it might suggest ways to promote the emergence of very similar memes in a broad-scale albeit untargeted manner. (Think current EBO practices and guided missiles: those missiles are much easier to target than these complex sets of meme-creating SPs.) And besides this consideration of the emergence of memes, Barnetts secrecy can also be ascertained in the way that he wants to sell a particular brand of interconnectivity to a particular segment of the world population without also revealing to them how such interconnectivity also brings heavy responsibilities and a limitation on freedom of action. So far, those intransigents within the Gap (and perhaps a few in the New Core, and maybe some in the Core) are not likely to be fooled by the message he is giving perhaps because he has forsaken secrecy by advocating so much transparency via his transparent and very public activity. (None of this should be taken as a proof that transparency cannot be a deceptive meme enabling secrecy, however) Key #3: Emergence and Generations of Warfare The latest round of conversation on 5GW is, I think, a signal of the much deeper dynamic now emerging globally. Barnett and Robb have both been recently inspired to tie their theories to emerging theories of 5GW. Hitherto, they have been developing their theories to address environments which already appear to be emerging, without trying so much to tie their theories to Linds generations of warfare model: and thats the way it should be. New generations of warfare emerge, as a consequence of what has gone before (the prior generation of warfare) but also in response to emerging dynamics in other areas and on the world stage. True, Robb has been more motivated to consider Linds framework while developing his theory; but any careful reader can see that his primary focus has been upon the world, not Linds framework. In fact, I think it might be fair to suggest that Robbs incoherent references to generations of warfare GG is 4GW; no, its 4GW+; no, its 5GW have been more the result of his desire to market his theory than a result of anything else. When he says, most recently, that what you call GG is not so important as what he has been outlining over the months, you begin to see how the references to Lind have only ever been tangential, to this point. However, ironically, marketing GG may be a 5GW move. 5GW will occur not because we have theorized it, but because the situation on the street leads to its development or emergence. I think, then, it would be fair to consider both Barnetts theory and Robbs theory with this in mind: that they have both been looking at the world, trying to develop coherent models to describe what they have seen. Beyond fairness, I think that any understanding of 5GW will need to account for the emerging global dynamics in order to have any utility. To the degree that you, the person reading the work of these two strategists, can see a valid consideration of these global dynamics even if much static is also presented you must consider how those valid considerations will tie into 5GW. Key #4: Superempowerment of the Individual This phrase is bandied about altogether too much. This phrase is very, very important for understanding what future awaits us. Taking the phrase seriously, we should also say that this phrase is very, very important for understanding what future we will create. I.e., the future is not merely something awaiting us; if it is filled with superempowered individuals, then that future may be what those individuals will be creating. I say the phrase is bandied about too much, because I do not believe we always have a very clear concept of what it means and may therefore tend to use it in a limited sense to support whatever biased prediction we are promoting.

Anyone conducting 5GW must necessarily have a very strong faith in the superempowerment of the individual. For Robbs part, his faith is in the destructive capability, fueled mostly by technology but also by advanced social organization of individuals. For Barnetts part, the empowerment is fueled not only by technology but also by increased democratic and capitalistic freedoms. Now, who can say that these two theorists are so very, very different? I know that Christian Soldiers RevG also has faith in the coming reality of the superempowered individual. Readers of Dreaming 5GW must also by now know that my tendency to look at 5GW through the lens of memetic engineering, coupled with what I have said about memes above, means I must also have a strong faith in the power of the superempowered individual: memes emerge within individuals; if you gain hands in the field, you are conducting 5GW properly. I have recently criticized Robbs theory by suggesting that a belief only in demons is myopic theorizing; one must also believe in angels. But never forget the demons. Unlocking the Door: GG 5GWarriors From these keys, we might finally unlock a future for Global Guerrillas theory. The reason that Robbs theory has repeatedly sustained charges of incoherency is simply that he has not considered angels, or superempowered builders of order and stability, even while accidentally suggesting something similar via his three pillars of GG: a bazaar of violence, black globalization, and virtual states. GGs will develop within and as a result of emerging global dynamics but they will have in mind very specific orders they wish to create; or, in Barnett-speak, rule-sets. However, these various GG rule-sets will emerge in multiple places, as the result of slightly or perhaps very different observations or of different immediate concrete effects / environments. In Robb-speak, this means that the various GG factions will have no common motivation. He once said that they will have a similar objective; and, I responded at the time that a similar objective is a similar motivation, insofar as objectives motivate individuals to act. But lets say that the similar motivation is very broad: it is the creation of an order, or of viable and successful rule-sets, although the specific natures of these may not be alike across the groups and the scale may be quite local rather than global. The different GGs may appear to have different motivations and may be acting separately to achieve them or occasionally together, because the superempowerment of the individual allows this. They are then less dependent on each other or on large and complex networks. Secrecy also allows this, whether it is their physically hiding in the woodwork or their memetic engineering through selective system perturbation. Much of this will by now sound very 5GW, of course. Heres the final key, which will move our consideration from the clicking lock to the creaking of hinges; and, I take it from Robbs general negative outlook: Key #5: Incoherence and Chaos in a 5GW World If we are considering the emergence of 5GW, in collusion with the increasing superempowerment of individuals who are themselves developing a growing awareness of emerging global dynamics, we should have no problem postulating the emergence of many 5GW warriors. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear may be motivated to try their hand at shaping future rule-sets, by whatever means possible. This, of course, may make the job of Grand Strategist 5GWarriors (Barnett et al.) so much more difficult, since system perturbations not of their own devising will modify the emergence of concrete effects as well as the emergence of memes in unpredictable ways. More

importantly: all this activity will make the job difficult for the various independent 5GW warriors emerging as well. Sound like a chaotic situation? Robbs GG will be the inept ones: causing perturbations will be the easy part, but accomplishing the new rule-sets may be beyond them.

Future Starlight An intriguing post from Kents Imperative that may have major implications for conducting fifth generation warfare: Searching Starlight One of the other very key Insights from the Proteus study was the concept of Starlight the complex and variable effects of time and distance on perceptions of information about events; and the impact of those effects on intelligence problems. The metaphor is meant to remind us that the pattern of stars we see in our night sky is in fact not the reality; it is the past reality. (Given how much time has passed since the light first left those stars.) When we witness events in the world, the same sort of delay may happen: we are only seeing a past emergence, but whatever confluence of forces caused that emergence has since passed on (although those individual forces may still exist). It might even be supposed that those forces have been altered by the newly emerged situation to which they helped give birth Im sure many other thoughts might spring from thinking of Starlight for instance, the way people respond to order vs the way they respond to chaos; what they are seeing is a past order or, really, multiple past orders. They may be acting upon that perception even before they are aware that new orders have since emerged from new confluences. The post links to another considering Google, the level 50 magician , particularly how Google is amassing information and not only enabling better ways of compiling that information but also probably ahead of the curve, itself, on compiling it. In closing, Kents Imperative links this, the future of the Intelligence Community, and Starlight: Foresight and uncertainty management become the objects of the intelligence cycle in the future; the task for the Intelligence Community, therefore, is not merely the cataloging of events, but more the recognition of patterns. As a result, given finite resources, sensors may be less important than new ways to analyze complex data Ah yes, pattern recognition Acting without that ability, or with a very limited ability for pattern recognition, may be a hallmark of the inept ones. However, Im not certain that recognizing past patterns, even if we recognize that they are past patterns, will always enable a prediction of future starlight, on this our global scale: not all stars are visible to the naked eye.

Some interesting commentary on that post. I wanted to highlight the commentary and my reactions, but this, it turns out, requires a lengthy post; so follow below the fold The Zen Pundit Mark of ZenPundit has followed up with two parts of a series looking at perturbations: On System Perturbations and the System Builders, in which he considers the importance of, well, keeping an open mind. Being able to look at any problem from multiple points of view may facilitate understanding and may be something that the intelligence community desperately needs to do. I tend to agree; although, there is always the question of having too open a mind, or one incapable of making actionable decisions. This may be a problem not only because action is forestalled, but on the contrary, because those analysts most willing to offer a solid decision choosing one of two points of view are more likely to be listened to by those who are in a position of having to act. The decision-makers are sometimes called wafflers and accused of being too nuanced if they cannot offer solid understanding as a basis for action. Analysts willing to cut through the chaos with a solid analysis therefore gain more currency in politics: This will have a bearing on 5GW activity. Further Reflections on System Perturbations, in which Mark takes a look at the issues of memes and perturbations previously discussed here on D5GW, but also looks at RevGs consideration of ensembles acting with authority. We had some interesting back-and-forth on the question of emergence for memes. I think that network theories of meme transmission are useful but have a limited usefulness, because a world with multiple local environments and local histories will limit the effectiveness of transmission, particularly if superempowered individuals and smallish ensembles are also emerging. Thought, operating holistically, will alter whatever messages are being delivered, because prior information also has an effect on the emergence of memes within individuals. Thus, the Long War may indeed be long, generational. And chaotic. But we seem to have more need of a theory of memetic engineering that can account for the macro-levels as well as the micro-levels and a better theory of what makes up a meme, since in theory no two memes are identical although they may be similar, depending on how memes are defined and identified. This is an open question. Mark also made a distinction I did not make concerning perturbations: Generally, Global Guerillas will not manage to set off system perturbations, such events are rare things, but their destructive actions will add to the aggregate amount of noise in the system. The noise or chaos ( or entropy or novelty) is the the disintegration of the old system which creates a certain fluidity or space in which people will naturally seek out rules to create certainty. The weakening of the old systems authority makes the construction of new rule-sets both easier and harder while creating the necessity to do so. So Global Guerillas might have a common effect. And should they succeed in setting off a system perturbation what is accomplished is a dramatic acceleration of the process. It is true that I have used a very loose definition of perturbation. When Mark suggests in commenting on RevGs post that increased speed (or modulation of speed) is a strong possibility but is not the only way to get inside your opponents OODA Loop, he is approaching my own consideration of perturbations. Again, the macro- and micro- levels are less distinct than perhaps they should be or should they be? Another open question. Tying this to the consideration of memes, the question becomes one concerning the effectiveness of Big Bang perturbations vs the effectiveness of smaller bangs for successful memetic engineering. Also, I think we must also keep in mind something mentioned by Mark in a comment on D5GW concerning perturbations: that they may emerge from a confluence of lesser events acting in synergy.

The Christian Soldier In Toward Ensembles Acting with Authority, RevG of Christian Soldiers offers some intriguing analysis. On novelty: Those who act upon fundamentals analysis require relatively stable systems or at least ones where system perturbation can be anticipated. System perturbation creates novelty, a kinder term than chaos or entropy but functionally identical. Their fundamentals analysis apprehends a historical view anticipating traditional cause and effect chains to continue intact. Yes, and sometimes I think we would be better served by thinking that chaos is always only cognitive. Such a thought may require a different kind of fundamentals analysis, since a true lack of chaos (except in our cognition) would suggest mere complexity of physical realities or orders. This might in turn promote skepticism while we search for those fundamental orders affecting a system. However, the possibility exists that we will prove incapable of finding those orders and understanding their interactions, in which case cognitive chaos may continue and our functionality (we are in the system) will be the same as if actual concrete chaos, rather than mere complexity, shaped the world about us. This has lead to the emergence of unpredictable secondary effects due solely to there being vastly more cause and effect chains. This proliferation of the number of cause and effect chains, this increase in complexity, has contributed to a higher level of novelty. Orders emerge, change, dissipate (into other orders), beyond our observational range. Even if chaos is only cognitive rather, because it is we fail to anticipate newly ordered particulars and are thus faced with novelty. It may be argued that these new confluences, new orders, are by nature novel; or, it might be argued that novelty is also largely a cognitive assessment, like chaos. Hmmmm. On interconnectivity: Now extend the analogy of cause and effect chains to see that with the increase in both the number of chains and the length of the chains that the chains also may be increasingly interconnected. Interconnectivity creates supportive cause and effect links when system perturbations introduce novelty into historical relationships. Interconnectivity creates the illusion of historical relationships by maintaining cause and effect. Interconnectivity redistributes novelty. This is intriguing. Im tempted to suggest that a certain class of meme forms to address the illusion of historical relationships: generalizations. Generalizations may dismiss many particulars if the aggregate effects of so many distinct particulars, operating in so many directions down so many chains of cause and effect, nevertheless lead to greater, perhaps encompassing, orders formed by the complex soup of cause and effect orders that we can actually see or at least believe that we see. A hope exists that generalizations like democracy and capitalism and freedom will help to bind people together, but these generalizations often fail to address individuals simply because they are formed to address the aggregate of all these individuals, or societies. E.g., a free society nevertheless has individuals who are not free, such as prisoners and children. (Can children act with freedom, or must they act only within the limits prescribed by parents and the laws of that society? Can children provide for themselves, or must they depend upon the constraints of their environment like everyone else?) So individual interpretations of democracy and capitalism and

freedom may differ from person to person, because each person is forming that generalization from a particular perspective within the complex system. Arguments even exist, some of them valid, that a limitation on freedoms for individuals will promote a generalized freedom for everyone within a society: as long as the aggregate effect is a greater degree of freedom for each individual than would be produced in some otherly ordered system. Contrary to at least one out-front strategist, RevG suggests that interconnectivity of cause and effect chains may quite limit fundamentals analysis, or what can be achieved through faith in those fundamentals, particularly when system perturbations also exist. Such interconnectivity and perturbation are likely to lead to greater levels of novelty, chaos. All of this reminds me of an old post on Phatic Communion, in which I considered The Gaps in Globalism. It also reminds me of my consideration of the Conservative in a PC post called Flu(n)x: In essence, a high degree of flux may lead to a loss of stewardship control of the resources of thought, because those resources are overburdened or inadequate for operating within the flux. So it would seem that increased interconnectivity creates a disadvantageous environment for traditionalists everywhere, regardless of their form of traditionalism. On the other hand, the power of generalization its ability to make light of many particulars while presenting a seemingly coherent model may operate as a powerful motivator when chaos becomes too vague for shaping goals and legitimizing them. If we believe we cannot act in every direction at once, we are more likely to pick one out of many. On authority to act: Human society is rapidly approaching the condition where the authority to act must be located in the specific environment being analyzed. This is the result of a trend in human development that once required a vision spanning generations to fully appreciate. Current conditions no longer need rely upon multigenerational knowledge to support this conclusion. Current events outstrip the conclusions of historical precedent. History only serves to show us that which is no longer relevant. The need for speed to action, the need to analyze current constantly changing conditions, has been created by novelty. The great irony in this is that those very people whose endeavors have most accelerated the growth in novelty also have the most to loose by circumstances created by its growth. I wonder if business models might tie into this thought. Yesterday I read an analysis of Wal-marts plan of action: They have perhaps expanded too quickly and now are turning their attention back to the stores they have already built, in order to make them better revenue generators, individually. Competition from Target and other stores has grown. Ford is suffering, as a result of not having adapted quickly enough, but Toyota is poised to gain the #1 position. This also reminds me of a late-night university class session broadcast on my local PBS station last night, concerning the Portuguese trade routes around the Horn of Africa in the late 15th C and early 16th C: When England and the Dutch (in the Spanish empire) saw what could be accomplished (a novel business approach!) they had to join in and compete by building their own trade routes. Novelty creates new opportunity if it doesnt paralyze. From an OODA perspective, increasing levels of new information in comparison to levels of applicable old information may often cause paralysis or else cause impulsive activity (a 3GW tactic), although better analytical ability may allow the creation of new cognitive paradigms able to operate in the novel environment: as Shloky has recently said, In a fragmented world if you dont get out of bed to fight you wont survive RevG supposes an increase of novelty on individual levels, in local environments, which competes

with the paradigm-sustaining hierarchies of the past. This is micro- vs. macro-. This also ties in with John Robbs analysis of networked tribes in a future world. RevG postulates the emergence of ensembles acting with authority: Fifth Generation Warfare is and will be conducted by ensembles acting with authority. The protected hierarchies authority distributed through unity of organization will be replaced by unity of purpose among ensembles or there will be no unity among the ensembles at all. This theory depends upon the notion that the efficacy of macro-level establishment of purpose is fated to diminish, insofar as that approach is more dependent on organizational coherence and stability. That is, merely because not only lawmakers say it is so but also the policeman on the street enforces that law, this does not mean that the person on the street will buy into the authority of that law. We see some reflections of this dynamic in Iraq, at present. What this theory does not appear to address is the mutability of memes which has also been called their resiliency, but which I will call the nether-ness of memes but might as well call the neitherness of memes. Hows that for a technical designation! By these spontaneous formations of order, however novel they may appear, I mean to address the way in which similar memes are often thought to be identical: Although individual interpretations of an environment may be unalike and may seem to promote disparate novelties, requiring disparate interpretations, and thus leading to the formation of authorities which do not agree, the similarity between memes may be enough to bind a group together, so that hierarchical authority may continue to have significant influence, should it address this nether region or operate in the neither-region. To put it grossly: Just because Christians in America have formed so many different sects, this does not mean that they will not view each other as brothers-in-arms should an attack on Christianity come. Or, think of Muslims in the ME. Or think of Americans and Iraqis one generalization appears to be enough to bind a group or at least facilitate peaceful interaction although the other does not, as yet. I am slipping into the realm of brainstorming, so this post must near its end. But lets look again at something RevG has said: Human society is rapidly approaching the condition where the authority to act must be located in the specific environment being analyzed. In the previously-linked consideration at Shlokys blog, I commented on the faith of GG warriors unable to see that order is doomed; I suggested that these GG warriors will confuse the local for the universal. A defeat of American troops on a street in Baghdad may seem like a defeat of America, but it is not. Two towers may be destroyed, but America continues. This may suggest the ineptitude of such warriors. Unity of purpose may form around the realities of a local environment, true, but interconnectivity may be eroding the very notion of a local environment. If so, then such an authority one formed to address the realities of a local environment and its particular novelties may not seem legitimate to a people viewing the larger world and the realities of interconnectedness. This is Thomas Barnetts dream, I think, and not one to be dismissed. However, since I am brainstorming now, Ill offer one vague fingertip feeling Ive been having: That should any authority appear who seems capable of offering a coherent interpretation of the complex world the interpretation is proven correct, time and again we may have on our hands the early formation of a global totalitarian authority. This is not to say that such totalitarianism would be recognizable from a historical perspective of totalitarianism the old ones always had competitors on the world stage, but a global system would not have such boundaries. Global rulesets with enforcers and broad agreement on the local level. Just a thought.

Working Definition of 5GW and Topics of Exploration One of my main goals here at Dreaming 5GW is to establish a definition of Fifth Generation Warfare. My hope is to be able to explain the general concept of 5GW in a short paragraph. With that in mind I have started with a working definition. This working definition is by no means carved in stone. It is an acorn that has a very long way to go before it can be called a tree. My working definition currently reads: Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW): an emergent theory of warfare premised upon strategically influencing change in systemic rule-sets through manipulation of multiple horizontal systems. (Arherring 10/21/06) This working definition reflects my current thinking that the progression of rule-set, system perturbation, new rule-set is the process 5GW will employ in its operations. I realize this progression is nothing new and often is a result of military operations, but unlike previous generational warfare where new rule-sets following system perturbations are a side effect, it is the directed focus on this process as method of action that I feel makes it a new generation concept. To go along with this working definition I have a list of topics that I wish to explore in more detail. Some I feel will have a direct effect on the shape of 5GW to come and some are merely topics that I think will be interesting to consider in light of 5GW. This list currently contains (in no particular order): Command push and recon pull in 5GW operations. The roles and types of system perturbations. The roles and types of rule-sets. 5GW as stage magic, Illusion or sleight-of-hand. 5GW as con game, flim-flam or grift. The inherent (?) secrecy of 5GW. The distinction between kinetic and non-kinetic actions. The consideration of creative destruction. The consideration of shaping a battle space. The practice of warfare by proxy. Open and Closed Source organizations applied to 5GW. The ideal size of a 5GW organization. The ability (requirement?) of operating on all sides of a conflict. Increasing and decreasing resiliency as a 5GW manipulation. The ability (requirement?) to operate as horizontally as possible. The role of networks and new technology. My intent is to revise the working definition as I consider each of these topics to reflect my increased understanding of the material. Indeed, the real purpose of the working definition is to generate more questions.

Sysadmin U. The other day a friend of mine and I were talking politics and the conversation moved into a discussion about the U.S. militarys growing pains as it has shifted from the offensive force that brought down Saddams Iraq to the force that has had to fight the peace, what Tom Barnett calls the Sysadmin. We both agreed that this would take much more than different sets of equipment and that combinations of skills would be needed for the job. Then my buddy said, Yeah, but they dont teach that way so nobody goes to school for that. I was thinking about that statement all day long. My buddy was right, we dont go to school for that and that brought me to my neat idea, the Sysadmin University. Disclaimer: Like all neat ideas this one should be taken with a grain of salt as it completely piein-the-sky and almost totally impractical. However, most neat ideas do carry a nugget of useful truth buried inside them. Imagine a university or several universities that focus on teaching and building the combinations of skills and abilities necessary for the Sysadmin concept, sort of a Sysadmin West Point. Double majors (or even triple majors) would be the rule not the exception. Obvious combinations like International Finance or Law Enforcement / Criminal Justice with Languages would most likely be common and certainly useful, but combinations like Global Economics or International Law with Public Relations could prove more interesting and valuable when applied in the context of Sysadmin. I imagine that entry into the university could be offered under the basis of a term of service in the Sysadmin for a period of time during enrollment and / or following graduation. I would also imagine a very strong ROTC program where the Sysadmin service requirement could be shifted into the Leviathan portion of the armed forces. In this way the Sysadmin U. feeds into the military and possibly through the G.I. Bill the military feeds the Sysadmin U. I can also imagine entry into the Sysadmin U. by scholarships offered by other government agencies like DHS, State, FBI, CIA or USAID, or NGOs like the Red Cross. I think the real key to making this sort of education truly valuable in this context would be to combine a focus on critical thinking with exposure to environments and ideas at home and abroad. In fact, this is the major flaw that I immediately see in the concept. I fear that, like many universities and colleges, the Sysadmin U. would quickly institutionalize and lose its ability to teach to a standard and vision that works in the real world. Fighting this would mean students who do a lot of study abroad under a broad range of partnerships and possibly a constant churn of the instructors and programs, a kind of creative destruction that would force reevaluation of focus and direction. How Does This Fit Into The Larger 5GW Theory? On its face this isnt Fifth Generation Warfare, but in a larger context I believe that as part of an ability or even requirement of a 5GW organization to be able to act on all sides of a conflict and the possibility of a 5GW organization increasing and decreasing resiliency in a system in order to accomplish its goals. The people who excel in this sort of program would be exactly the kind of people who will be able to act in the horizontal manner mandated by 5GW as I currently envision it. Sure, there are people in the world today who have these multiple skill-sets, but I would imagine that the vast majority of them attained those skill-sets not because they were encouraged to, but

because they had a personal interest in both areas. I would also say none of them were taught in the context of what would be necessary to act as part of a 5GW organization of as part of Barnetts Sysadmin. In other words this isnt about 5GW any more than a tank or an APC is about 3GW, but having tanks and APCs that are fast, maneuverable and punch out of their weight class are tools that certainly do help in 3GW. In this case though the 5GWish Sysadmin certainly is possible without this kind of training, but training people to think horizontally and giving them these combinations of skills are tools that certainly would help.

Against William Lind, Against John Robb, in favor of 5GW I had been cautious of posting here, as I self-promote enough on other blogs, but now that Aherring and Curtis have asked me to share my thoughts, I thought I will. Attempts to establish what is meant by 5GW runs into two main problems. 1. William Linds dialectical definition of generation as a dialectically qualitative shift from the preceding generation. To the extent he means something very different, I agree with him. But his phrase has shades of Hegelian-Marxist-Dialectic b.s. about it. The generation model of warfare is too important to let it be ghettoized by worthless academic philosophy. 2. The use my some commentators (I wont name names) who see 5GW as just another useful buzzword, and so try to hijack it for their own quixotic theories. These writers seek to use deception to push their own agenda, by hijacking a more respected and developed theorys terminology to push their own. We need to safeguard 5GW Theory against these twin evils of academic theossophy and marketing buzzwordspeak. This can be accomplished by defining generation, or even better its symbol G, as a scale. It seems to be that G measures the kinetic intensity of conflict, which every new G being approximately 20 times less intense than the one below it. This holds up under a first analysis. Pre-Modern Warfare (the Zeroth Generation of Modern Warfare, 0GW, about 0Gs) is unremittingly genocidal. If the AD 1900s had the same fatalityfrom-war rate as the 6000s BC, we should have seen something like two billion war deaths. We might say that form the dawn of man to the dawn of agriculture war meant from measuring around 0.1 Gs on the kinetic intensity scale to .9 Gs. Or think of it another way: 0G Warfare focuses on ending an enemys ability to fight by killing their men. By the time we get to 4G Warfare almost none of the battle is in the field, but in the minds of men who will live regardless. This 5GW we talk of seems to be even more mental and less physical, seeking to leave the men, material, and even will of the enemy essentially unchanged. If kinetic intensity is seen as morally bad, then every new G is a moral improvement. 5GW may truly be moral war, compared to everything that has come before. My thinking has evolved through recent posts and discussions on tdaxp. As I am a self-promoter (see above),l the links to these are below: * 5GW and Ruleset Automation * 5GW is Closed Source (and Global Guerillas Theory is Incoherent) * Blogospheric 5GW, with short comments * Nonkinetic War is called Politics * Prepping the Ground for Mopping Up an Exposed 5GW Force Ukraine Belongs in Europe

5GW and Ruleset Automation by tdaxp ~ October 8th, 2006 In a recent post, Tom Barnett synthesizes Coming Anarchy RevG, ZenPundit, and myself on the subject of 5th Generation War. (Its a timely subject, as Curtis has just launched a blog dedicated to 5GW!) Toms post is very kind, and he uses one of my thoughts as a basis for winning, and preventing, 5GWs: But say we get the SysAdmin up and running, are we entering the realm of 5th Generation Warfare? I would say yes. The key phrase from Dans analysis that clicked it for me is that once youre observed doing your thing in 5GW, the gig is up, and that follows nicely with my NASCAR scenario (BTW, Art Cebrowski and I were going to set up a research project on this concept at the Naval War College, but our dual falls prevented thathis from disease, mine from whatever it was that got me fired). But the natural counter to that (much like relying on authoritarian govs in the Gap as the natural counter to 4GWalthough its a long-time loser strategy) is the notion that you win by extreme transparency: you democratize observe for the world, for nations, for individuals. Here is where the coming wave of ubiquitous sensing shoved through a SOA-enabled IT world gets really interesting (today its my MySpace, but tomorrow its AllSpace!). Development-in-a-Box really gets you into 5GW because it alters the observed realitypreemptivelyin a sort of bribe-the-proles mode that steals the thunder of the 4GW warrior of today in the same way that social welfare nets and trade unions stifled the rise of socialism in Europe. So, in effect, DiB helps move the Core from the Horatio Alger phase of lecturing the Gap (just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try all over again!) to the seriously seductive phase of active recruitment. .. And thats why it seems only natural to me that we marry that Chinese model to something better like DiB, turning it from simple raw-material market-capture to serious jump-starting toward emerging market status (remember those hedge funds getting interested in Africa). So a SysAdmin-DiB approach that strategically allies us with China and hits them where they aint (yet strong) would see Core bribe Africa pre-emptively with connectivity-leading-todevelopment (and yes, ultimately pluralism in politics), and perhaps focus with some equal effort on SEAsia and Latin America. Development-in-a-Box (Steves strategy plus Toms vision) is how we work the Gap-to-Core

journey. That, to me, is whats so revolutionary about the SysAdmin-DoEE-AtoZ-DiB toolkit: it says to the world that Americas getting into the business of marketing its own catch-up strategy WRT globalization, instead of leaving that models enunciation to either the radical left or right of the Gap (as we did with Marxism, Leninism, fascism, Stalinism, Maoism, Pol Pot-ism, and so on and so on). Development-in-a-Box is part of the work of Enterra Solutions, Barnetts (and Steve DeAngeliss employer) a firm that focuses on ruleset automation and other business process services. I general I agree, but as one movie demonstrates, ruleset automation and thus Development-in-aBox has its limitations Prosecutor: Were in luck, then. The Marine Corps Guide for Sentry Duty, NAVY BASE Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I assume well find the term code red and its definition in this book, am I correct? Witness: No sir. Prosecutor: No? Corporal Howard, Im a marine. Is their no book, no manual or pamphlet, no set of orders or regulations that let me know that, as a marine, one of my duties is to perform code reds? Witness: No sir. No books, sir. Prosecutor: No further questions. Defense Attorney: Corporal, would you turn to the page in this book that says where the enlisted mens mess hall is? Witness: Lt. Kaffee, thats not in the book, sir. Defense Attorney: I dont understand, how did you know where the enlisted mens mess hall was if its not in this book? Witness: I guess I just followed the crowd at chow time, sir. Defense Attorney: No more questions. The Long War will not be won by just explicit rulests or implicit rulesets, just horizontal controls or vertical controls. And one is not more important than the other. Both Automated Rulesets (like what Enterra sells) and Internal Rulesets (what people quietly believe) are important. Relying on automated rulesets to the exclusion of intuition destroys fingertip-feeling and forces us to make rational but sub-optimal decisions. Yet relying on intuition alone would prevent scientific investigations into dangerous types of people and how best to handle them. What is needed for the Gap is not automated rulesets nor implicit rulesets, but functional ones. Throughout the Arab World, Sharia [Islamic Law] may be a better alternative than what now exists because of its market-orientation. In China, letting the current corrupt growth continue while

internal elites import WTO rulesets is probably the best course. In North Korea we should Kill Kim, of course, while at home federalism and states right are the essence of Americanism. As the founder of the greatest capitalist revolution in human history once remarked, No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat..

5GW is Closed Source (and Global Guerillas Theory is Incoherent) by tdaxp ~ October 17th, 2006 One of the most irrititing components of John Robbs pseudotheory of Global Guerrillas (GG) is his fast-and-loose attention to terminology. Curtis recently pointed out that while once Robb lumped his imaginary GGs into 4th Generation (or net-) War, now he wants it to be part of 5GW (or secret-) War. He later qualifies himself by saying terminology just doesnt matter, and that appears to be the case: in an incoherent pseudotheory like Global Guerrillas, words dont matter, because there is no inner meaning to express in words. Consider, for example, Robbs discussion of open source warfare and 5GW. Earlier on his blog, Robb discussed open source in something similar to its common meaning: publicly available information # Release early and often. Try new forms of attacks against different types of targets early and often. Dont wait for a perfect plan. # Given a large enough pool of co-developers, any difficult problem will be seen as obvious by someone, and solved. Eventually some participant of the bazaar will find a way to disrupt a particularly difficult target. All you need to do is copy the process they used. but now he defines open source warfare as: An ability to decentralize beyond the limits of a single group (way beyond cell structures) using new development and coordination methodologies. This new structure doesnt only radically expand the number of potential participants, it shrinks the group size well below any normal measures of viability. This organizational structure creates a dynamic whereby new entrants can appear anywhere. In London, Madrid, Berlin, and New York. I addresssd a software development analogy to 5GW more than a year ago, on one of the first blog posts on 5GW: Prototyping allows for loose, Darwinian networks of projects competing with each other with user-input. For 4GW, this is fantastic. But just as being fast is more important than being completely right in maneuver war, being secret is more important than being completely right in 5GW. 5GW is not open source. 5GW is closed source. Note how Open Source Warfare has gone from a focus on replication of recent, proven, evolving strategies to mere decentralization. (If you disagree, ask what new technique for decentralization could not be found in a list of new development and coordination methodologies). The need for this redistribution is obvious, because 5GW relies on secrecy and preventing observations. 5GW is a speculative generation of war and implies new styles of networks. There are important online sources for 5GW on the web, including Coming Anarchy, Dreaming 5th Generation War, Purpleslog, Thomas Barnett, Zen Pundit, and of course tdaxp. But not from John Robbs mythical Global Guerrillas. At least, not yet. Update: Curtis Gale Weeks talks sense, at D5GW and TPMB. The best part:

I dont know what Barnett sees, but perhaps stronger for these specific non-state actors is relative to the forces of stability. In GG and similar theories, there appears to be an assumption that approx. 99.9% of the world population (or more!) will just sit back and let the forces of chaos reign, that even the kind of devastation possible by a superempowered individual will outweigh any kind of potential response to such devastation. Chaos is assumed to emerge, but order is not. Barnetts far too easy on John Robb. GG, in order for it to actually become a reality, has been twisted into a self-sustaining prophesy powered by selective but obstinate ignorance i.e., by ignoring large realities. If you believe real demons exist, and moreover that they are entirely unstoppable because no real angels exist, youll buy into the prophecy being given by Robb.

Blogospheric 5GW, with short comments by tdaxp ~ October 9th, 2006 Curtis, on Dreaming 5GW: Which is to say, rather than an automation of rule sets, or of One Common World View, some stable dynamic which allows for multiple world views and perhaps different applicable rule sets might be required. If one likes mice, one does not want a mice-catching cat, and being supplied with the choice of a white mice-catching cat or a black mice-catching cat and being forced to have at least one of these will produce conflict, whether 3GW, 4GW, or 5GW. No need for one common world vew, only one common world. No need for only one civilization, just no civilizational apartheid. Shloky: Using Dans OODA Loop analysis - When we run out of links to analyze as representative of generations of terrorism the OODA loop becomes irrelevant. Restated: The human decision cycle becomes irrelevant. Rather, the human decision cycle thrives under limited information. Mark, on ZenPundit: The vulnerability of individual actors vis-a-vis groups or the state puts a premium on secrecy for 5GW actors, as previously noted by Dan. The state in turn, is vulnerable to a proliferation of such superempowered individuals and will have to defend itself with a combination of surveillance and active cultivation of primary loyalties ( reducing the motivation for such individuals to act out in antisocial ways). Rather than focusing on building state loyalties, the State may do well to focus on distributing itself. Federalism provides a model. An actors ability to control a system goes down as the complexity of the system goes up. The American System of Government is as brilliant at defending itself from 5GWs as from 4GWs. John, over at Robbs Weblog: Its clear we are in a phase transition from classic 4GW guerrilla warfare to something worse. In my view, that something worse is ultimately going to be the super-empowered individual that can use the technologies of self-replication to collapse/kill on a grand scale. That is, in a nutshell, is what 5GW is all about. It is the end game in human conflict (at least as far as we can imagine). This shows the basic difference between John Robb and I. We both sees the end of war, as we have meant war. To Robb, this is a bad thing. He retreads some initial misconceptions about the evolution of warfare, as well. Tom, over at P.M. Barnett :: Weblog: Constant observation of the foe. Unrelenting surveillance. Every gaffe exposed and then run ad nauseum on the web. His ability to orient himself as desired in the race is disrupted.

Conrad Burns, the incumbent, is trailed everywhere on the campaign by a young operative for the Dems who videotapes him non-stop every chance he gets, waiting for the screw-up. Once found, its run on YouTube. For the 5GW, Secrecy is needed for success. The Open Society is death for Closed Cabals.

Nonkinetic "War" is called "Politics" by tdaxp ~ October 20th, 2006 Despite his own theorys internal incoherency and agenda-driven nature, John Robb nonetheless hosted a great discussion on 5GW, or SecretWar. In the comments, RyanLuke asked If 5GW is getting others to do what you want them to do of their own free will (though maybe that is not the best definition?), where is the war part? Purpleslog, a blogfriend who writes at his own site as well as Dreaming 5GW It is limiting to equate war with just kinetic power and fighting. War is conflict and competition between global actors to survive, hold, flourish and grow. This can be zero-sum or non-zero sum. John Robb chimed in Purpleslog, thats called politics. and I agreed with John 5GW is the use of meaningful violence to change ones free will. That is, the victim believes he reached the decision through his normal processes, but in reality you are selectively killing, destroying, etc, in a way to bring about that decision. I agree with John Robb that non-kinetic war is called politics. Politics and war are qualitatively different from each other. They should not be confused. I made a mistake similar to Purpleslogs eighteen months ago. Peaceful politics can be similar to violent war, and there may be a 5GP (5th Generation Politics) that complements 5GW (5th Generation War). But war and peace are nonetheless distinct activities. They should not be confused.

Managing Multiple Strands A lot of 5GW theory has focused on general broad aspects of the next generation of warfare, sometimes dipping into the esoteric and philosophical basis of 5GW, and thats the way it should be. Once on a post discussing EBO (crossposted here on Dreaming 5GW, although without comments), Sonny of FX Based expressed a complaint often expressed by those who do the really hard work operating in the field: The theorist can theorize for years. The operator has to act under incredible pressure and on short notice. This battle between theory and practice is really no battle, however That post was an in-depth look at the theory of EBO through the lens of John Boyds OODA loop, and I think that greater precision and efficiency in either strategy, tactics, or on-site operations, will require an acknowledgment that even the actors in the field operate from theory. Its just that often those theories have already been internalized although they have probably already been questioned and put to the test many times, perhaps modified and improved through this process, in a soldiers experience. However, when the soldiers experience is quite new, those internalized theories may have less utility or even be quite contrary to what is required. The same holds for ivory tower theorists. The difference between ivory tower theorists and the theorists in the field should be obvious; but Ill give my thoughts: * Not only is there a disparity between observational capability the on-site theorist does not have the delay that his commanders a continent or two away have (not to mention homeland pundits), but also sees more of his immediate environment than those looking at computer screens or reading reports at some great but perhaps lesser distance but also age and experience has produced in the ivory tower theorist a set of theories formulated to address more remote (i.e., past) observations. * However, the on-site theorist may have less chance to step back from a situation to analyze it. As Sonny said, The operator has to act under incredible pressure and on short notice. This is part of the basis of that old bit of wisdom: Ours is not to question why, but to do or die. So the on-site theorist may be more prone to reliance on whatever theories have already been internalized, whether through training or experience, especially when activity reaches a high pitch, but also perhaps when activity is rather sporadic (moving from long periods in the barracks to occasional operation in the field) if this sets up a sense of routine operation. Between these extremes, many exceptions can be found in individual theorists, whether in the field or at the Pentagon. The point is: Anyone who acts acts from theory unless he is acting impulsively. (Even then, the action is likely to be influenced by theory.) For 5GW to be employed, a solid theoretical foundation must exist. The validity or foolishness of the foundation must be tested, of course, and in many respects the foundation will be built from new experience as well as improved through attempts at deployment. But building a new theory entirely ad hoc will not work, because without a goal post we will succeed only in acting reactively, which amounts to running about the field hoping not to get hit or hoping to take the ball somewhere away from our opponents (and we could be running toward their goal post.) Fortunately, much of the foundation for 5GW has already been laid out long before 5GW theorists began to appear. We have a better grasp of the most likely opponents for first generation 5GW operations (they will be 4GW forces, perhaps some 3GW forces) and many new approaches in traditional fields have been increasing our observational capability and paving the way for greater

precision in warfare, by addressing the complexity of the emerging global environment. Defeating those likely foes is the goal post, and the complex global environment is the field (of which the likely enemies are also a part). We know many of the strengths of our enemies, the way they have been utilizing complexity, but we require a theory that understands their weakness as well. 5GW, being next-generation, will be useful only so far as we have been able to understand those weaknesses as well as we understand those strengths. Dan of tdaxp, writing on Dreaming 5GW, has advanced the ball a yard or two by noting the tendency toward less-kinetic methods of operation in the generational shift: 0G Warfare focuses on ending an enemys ability to fight by killing their men. By the time we get to 4G Warfare almost none of the battle is in the field, but in the minds of men who will live regardless. This 5GW we talk of seems to be even more mental and less physical, seeking to leave the men, material, and even will of the enemy essentially unchanged. If kinetic intensity is seen as morally bad, then every new G is a moral improvement. 5GW may truly be moral war, compared to everything that has come before. In this summary of his point of view, Dan has isolated both the strength and the weakness of 4GW fighters. The destructive capability of 3GW forces has been made an oxymoron, since 4GW fighters have learned to avoid the field that will be pockmarked by shell blasts and occupied by armor divisions; they will operate where shells and armor cannot go: in the minds of the populations keeping that weaponry maintained and deployed. They will hit oil refineries, public servants, and pretty much anywhere that the finite force of 3GW weaponry is not. These are their strengths. By shaping the battlefield shifting it to where kinetic force may not succeed directly and immediately they have revised the definition of power. Actually, they have only recognized the growing power of public opinion a power intensified by the advent of democratic bureaucracies, capitalist entrepreneurialism, mass media, and the Internet, but also by the general complexity of modern societies. This is part of their weakness. The focus of this power shifts, and insofar as 4GW fighters have recognized this and are able to keep public opinion from settling or else are able to keep it trained, through repetitive kinetic action, they are strong; but the inherent weakness of opinion, which allows it to be shifted so easily, also allows it to be shifted by the opponents of individual 4GW groups. Moreover, opinion gives way to knowledge, perhaps slowly at first, but surely. What is known about the 4GW application of kinetic force? There is no guarantee that any single kinetic action will produce the desired level of confusion or decision in the target population. A shotgun approach is therefore deemed by the 4GW force to be necessary, a diffusion of kinetic power, neverending activity, and no ground gained during this attrition on the OODA processes of the foe. (Even if the faith driving these 4GW fighters rests on the belief that ground will in fact be gained in the future, they operate on no-ground or where 3GW weaponry cannot reach them, shifting their locations.) The indirect reaction to applied kinetic force is not quite seen by the target, or may be (i.e., the sapping of will, the gradual destruction of systemic coherence) but the actual applications seem immoral, chaotic, demonic. There is no apparent virtue seen in attacking a non-combatant or destroying infrastructure that might well benefit the 4GW fighter if he only used it. The shotgun approach hopes to succeed by negating the limited observational capability of the 4GW force though intermixed with a host population, that 4GW force is at some distance from

the rest of the world and populations living far beyond the combat zone but it cannot. When it acts on the local level hoping to affect the global level, it is at a particuar disadvantage. There are cracks between what the 4GW force does (its kinetic force) and the reaction of those observing that activity (public opinion), which no shotgun approach can fill. On top of this, those who are left alive will remember their defeat as well as the methods utilized by the 4GW foe: This is a little like the soldier able to leave the battlefield and analyze what has happened outside the need to act immediately. So how might 5GW be conducted? With precision unmatched in all the history of warfare. It will act on the global level to affect the global level; not recognizing the bipolar dynamic of kinetic and non-kinetic activity, of force and public opinion, it will utilize one to shape the other and the other to shape the one from multiple directions, on multiple levels, eliminating the distinctions: there is no Man - State - System, but only the System that is all of these and more. There is no Politics Economics - Warfare - Public Opinion - Private Man. When one thread is pulled, the rest move, if only slightly. The slight perturbations affect the whole, and the Big Bangs are often gradual and might go unnoticed. The Big Bangs which are not gradual rearrange the parts in preparation for so many smaller bangs to come. Those who operate only on the local level, or only targeting one node or a few, will be the inept ones. (And not all of those will be GGs or destroyers.) This is especially true given the fact that all these perturbations are slowly building a world in which those inept ones operate; reacting to that world, working within it, will mean they are already a part of the rearranged system even if they do not see it, which would be a good distinction between the reactive and the proactive principles. All of that may sound esoteric, and I might be charged with Dreaming. It might also sound strangely unlike war. Wheres the war part? might be a question asked of this dreamer. Where is the distinction between kinetic and non-kinetic, between war and politics? Or else, I might only be asked to give a concrete example of how this might look. That would be a fair request, and ignoring the fact that any imagined example cannot be concrete, I might give the words of TM Lutas, left as a comment on John Robbs blog, as an example of one way (of many) 5GW will play out.

5GW: The Vertical and The Horizontal There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to The Outer Limits. The Outer Limits Opening narration The Control Voice 1960s In a previous post I set down a list of topics that I wished to explore in greater detail. One in particular, the ability (requirement?) of a 5GW organization to work as horizontally as possible, has risen to the top of the list mostly because of how horizontally or vertically a 5GW organization operates has a direct bearing on many of the other listed topics. I also give a great deal of credit to Dan TDAXP who has some very interesting comments on the above post and who, I think, has made a very important contribution to the generational warfare model with his post Making a Science of the Generations of War. This can be accomplished by defining generation, or even better its symbol G, as a scale. It seems to be that G measures the kinetic intensity of conflict, which every new G being approximately 20 times less intense than the one below it. This holds up under a first analysis. Pre-Modern Warfare (the Zeroth Generation of Modern Warfare, 0GW, about 0Gs) is unremittingly genocidal. If the AD 1900s had the same fatalityfrom-war rate as the 6000s BC, we should have seen something like two billion war deaths. We might say that form the dawn of man to the dawn of agriculture war meant from measuring around 0.1 Gs on the kinetic intensity scale to .9 Gs. Or think of it another way: 0G Warfare focuses on ending an enemys ability to fight by killing their men. By the time we get to 4G Warfare almost none of the battle is in the field, but in the minds of men who will live regardless. This 5GW we talk of seems to be even more mental and less physical, seeking to leave the men, material, and even will of the enemy essentially unchanged TDAXP This is an incredibly interesting consideration that I hope he continues to explore. The way I see 5GW developing, what makes it a new generation of warfare, is its effecting change through the context of systemic manipulation. Mostly this has been expressed as creating system perturbations in order to change or create rule-sets. Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW): an emergent theory of warfare premised upon influencing change through manipulation of multiple systemic levels. (Arherring 11/5/06) It is in this working definition and in Dan TDAXPs G theory that I see an immediate application that answers, or at least sheds some light on my question of horizontal action by a 5GW organization. I will sum it up like this: The lower the G the more vertical, kinetic or direct the action. The higher the G the more horizontal, indirect and non-kinetic, the action. It is from this that how vertically or horizontally a 5GW organization acts has a great deal of

bearing on the size and shape of the organization. The Vertical: As Global Guerilla enthusiasts are quick to point out, it is much easier to destroy (or threaten to destroy) than it is to build, and I think that is generally true. It stands to reason that a 5GW attack with a lower G generally requires a smaller more simple organization, even shrinking down to the size of an individual with a goal. In compensation for its size, its methods of gathering and disseminating information may need to be increasingly open-sourced. This effective subcontracting of knowledge, resources and abilities, carries an inherent risk of discovery and disruption. Its actions, being more often larger in scale and more often kinetic, are also harder to keep secret in their source, and harder to influence after the attack has been launched. The trade off is that the more vertical 5GW organizations actions will likely require less lead time for preparation and events outside the 5GW organizations control are less likely to make actions less effective. The Horizontal: A more horizontal approach, denoted by a higher G, generally requires a larger, or at least more complex and / or resource rich, organization in order to effect change in as many diverse ways as possible. Because the horizontal approach has the potential to include an integral diversity of knowledge and information, this organization can be more closed source. Being more horizontal in scope and spreading its smaller attacks out over a larger area of more diverse domains of action, this type of 5GW may have a higher level of inherent secrecy after attacks have been initiated (If nobody knows anything is happening, they wont be looking for a culprit.). A longer period of preparation will also make the more subtle actions of the horizontal 5GW organization possible and more synergistic in effect. After operations have been initiated the longer preparatory time may also allow the more horizontal 5GW organization to guide and adjust the effects of its actions. There is a possible disadvantage in that when the more horizontal 5GW group is organizing and preparing, outside events may cause it plans, or even its goal, to become irrelevant. So, is there a requirement for a 5GW organization to work as horizontally as possible? My answer is: Yes, 5GW will be at its best when working as horizontally as possible. Also, should an organization plan for actions lower in G (higher in direct kinetic activity) it may be more effective to use 4GW or 3GW paradigms which are optimized for a more kinetic approach than 5GW is emerging to embody. In the end, based on its goal, its personnel and its resources, the 5GW actor will have to find a balance of vertical and horizontal actions.

Warfare Continua In his last post, 5GW: The Vertical and The Horizontal, Arherring connected a consideration of vertical and horizontal activity with Dan tdaxps generational continuum as well as with the notions of kinetic and non-kinetic activity. This represents an important framework, although I had more questions after reading Arherrings post than I had before. I commented, Your post caught me a little off-guard, in statements like It stands to reason that a 5GW attack with a lower G generally requires a smaller more simple organization, even shrinking down to the size of an individual with a goal. Dan has postulated a generational trend toward a higher G, 5GW is at the future end of it, but here you have postulated 5GW effectors working at the past end of it, or primarily kinetically. This goes against all my previous thinking any time kinetic force is used, forensics can trace the origin and thus out the fighter and so, although I think that much in the post is intriguing, something seems fundamentally off for me. After the above statement, you have considered the likelihood that these warriors are more likely to be detected, etc. I think that very likelihood is what will make any such activity quite dangerous for a nominal 5GW force in fact, it would be one sign that the force is not next-generational. This is quite separate from the possibility that a 5GW force would utilize proxies whenever it wanted to operate kinetically; if those forces are discovered to exist, as they would be, that would be part of the 5GW plan. Interestingly, then, this kinetic-operation-through-proxy is horizontal kinetic activity from the perspective of the 5GW organization i.e., in describing what they are doing although not from the perspective of those proxies or their targets. Im not sure that last statement is helpful; it could be too much blurring of these concepts, although I think that such a blurring might only be a way of naming one type of interaction between different continua (continuums). There are really four dynamics at play, right? 1. The G continuum. This is Dan tdaxps formulation: It seems to be that G measures the kinetic intensity of conflict, which every new G being approximately 20 times less intense than the one below it. 2. The Horizontal - Vertical continuum: HV. One might rightly ask whether this is a continuum or an absolute dichotomy; the difference will likely lie in where we draw the cut-off between the state or organization and the individual. Some trends in contemporary theory would postulate many different dynamics which affect this distinction: globalization; superempowerment of individuals; the decreasing significance of the state; even democratic and capitalistic forces. (E.g., the Islamist attacks on American civilians which are quite vertical are said by Islamists to be symmetrical because America is a democracy: the vertical actions of the state are also vertical actions of the citizens, using the State and its employees as a proxy. In that formulation, even the horizontal activity of Americas citizens, which happens to greatly affect the composition of the State, have an ultimate vertical effect.) 3. The Non-Kinetic - Kinetic action continuum: K. I am more likely to say that every action is kinetic. Even speech and writing operate kinetically, by producing sounds and letters (or pixels).

However, this variable represents a value on a continuum; we can also postulate a distinction between actions that have a corresponding and immediate concrete reaction and those that do not. E.g., if you drop bombs on a bridge, that bridge will immediately react by blowing up, but if you publish an essay, the written letters you are creating may not produce an immediate reaction. 4. The Closed Source - Open Source continuum: S. Again, the distinction between these may appear indistinct or in fact they may appear to be a dichotomy rather than a continuum. Using the example of the last election cycle in America, we might say that the State is a result of an opensource effort so many individuals feed into the process but also that the elections are a closedsourced effort only legal citizens of voting age, with legitimate forms of i.d. and a legitimate status could vote. A group of terrorists might operate similarly, particularly if they are using coded methods of communication which only certain organizations, not only their own particular organization, can understand; e.g., not only a shared language but also specific web sites, code words, etc. On the low end of the continuum, only a handful of people may have a common understanding and use it to operate in the world; but still, its conceivable that they would pool their information is a very limited open source manner. These dynamics interrelate, but I think we have only barely scratched the surface in trying to determine how they interrelate. For instance, Dans G Continuum would seem to match up directly with the reverse of the K Continuum, but although in general this is accurate, I think we should view them as separate although relating continua. E.g., on the whole a low-G war effort may seem to be high on the K Continuum i.e., be much more kinetic but we would be better served by considering individual activities on the K Continuum and then match up the percentages of those activities, in comparison to the percentage of non-kinetic activities, in any war effort and thus establish what Dan has called kinetic intensity. So a 5GW will have a low K intensity (Ki), but this does not mean that an individual operation cannot be high in the K Continuum; its just that the 5GW war effort on the whole will have far more non-kinetic activity. The HV Continuum should be viewed separately as well, since it is quite possible to imagine highly kinetic horizontal activity and low-kinetic vertical activity. For instance, the State can pass a new tax law which will not have an immediate concrete reaction (low K) but still be quite vertical (high HV). Similarly, with respect to a larger system, individual crimes can be high K but low HV, i.e. highly kinetic but also horizontal. I suppose we should also consider the relationship between the Closed Source - Open Source Continuum, S, and the HV Continuum, since in general a more open-source environment, high S, will seem to also produce a low HV environment, or one that operates quite horizontally. This becomes particularly interesting when we consider the fact that a 5GW organization will be low S, or closed source, operating within a world in which so much else operates in high S. I have previously expressed this notion with the metaphor: 5GWarriors will travel the open-source highway while guided by their closed-source vision, all the while nudging the aggregate of the open-source highway toward that same vision. Vis-a-Vis 5GW, I reconcile the 5GW organizations place on the S Continuum with the global HV Continuum by postulating something similar to the American political system, except on a global scale: although much may happen horizontally, these actions have an aggregate effect on the total system, which is closed source (no human society exists outside the global system), and this total system in turn exerts vertical force on those living within it. As for the G Continuum, I think each of these factors can be considered in relation to the various generations of warfare. For instance, in a system greatly directed, on the whole, by vertical forces

(say, an absolute monarchy), high-intensity kinetic warfare is more likely to result, particularly also because the individual insular systems also had severe limitations on observational capabilities and communication (were more closed-source) and this limited the effectiveness on non-kinetic activity. I.e., we may take it for granted that high K activities, because they produce immediate concrete effects that are observable on the local scale, also reinforce the closed-source approach because the source of both action and reaction are more easily ascertained; and the Supreme Leader, being one individual or a small coterie of planners living within an insular or shielded society, could not easily formulate plans when too much information is introduced into their planning (information which they usually did not have, btw.) Im sure more can be added to these considerations. Considering the interplay between these continua will, I hope, help us better understand the coming of 5GW.

Working Definition V. 2.0 Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW): An emergent theory of economic, social, political and military conflict premised upon manipulation of systems through influence in multiple domains to achieve a specific goal or set of circumstances. (Arherring 11/20/06)

Laying the Foundation of 5GW As Curtis mentioned in an article on Phatic Communion (Which I am glad he is getting back to) I suppose, theres only so much that can be said about a dream until you realize that the dream needs to be fleshed out. Then comes the hard part: of actually operationalizing the thing, making it actionable, etc. Indeed, it is a hell of a lot easier to imagine a football game plan than to lace-up the cleats, strap on the pads, hike the ball and execute it. 5GW is no different and in fact it may be that until somebody actually attempts a serious 5GW campaign and comes back to tell the tale, the scope of what is required and the planning necessary may not truly be understood. With that rather daunting fact firmly in mind I am going to attempt to lay the foundation for 5GW organization. The first article in the series will be labeled Part 1 and I have no idea how many parts will be required, only that I attempt to approach it in bite-sized chunks that when taken together will act as a framework for what a 5GW organization will look like, how it will organize itself, and how it will plan its operations.

Parallel Worlds The recent explosion of interest in Linden Research, Inc.s Second Life should be a pointer to how 5GW organizations may form and operate in relative isolation and freedom across a broad spectrum of the Earths citizenry. While Kents Imperative ponders The lure of the Parallel World But for the moment, it is a fascinating thing to watch the giant of old iron transform itself into the newest webstate. In the virtual world, affiliations such as IBM is creating around itself will likely have more meaning than most other tribal variants, not only because the bigger guns bring more resources to play, but because that scale of commitment offers the potential for a very wide range of strange interests to accrete around a core attractor. [ed. emphasis added.] perhaps we should ponder the role that virtual worlds may play in 5GW. Even Second Life gains some of its significance by the kind of real world capital that can be made through virtual channels: so the virtual world is not really separate from the real world, but may influence real world dynamics. Alternatively, having sizable portions of a populace preoccupied in creating fantasy identities and fantasy lives may ultimately make conducting 5GW so much easier. Then, subtle changes in realworld dynamics are more likely to go unnoticed; or else, the virtual world that is also evolving may make real-world changes more palatable by creating an answer to that real world, or a paradigmatic symbol for comprehending it or a cognitive riposte. Perhaps such play will fulfill the role that play has always filled for children: training for a future real world and real-world dynamics? But my general interest in virtual worlds, with respect to 5GW, is that such interactions millions and millions a day will enable 5GW effectors to find each other and communicate and coordinate in relative secrecy. Because 5GW will necessarily require a global scale of operation, traditional methods of communication and coordination become so much more difficult, especially when secrecy is required, but also in the way that a careful selection of effectors and proxies on a global scale requires finding just the right mix within particular populations. Virtual worlds may simplify the process, enabling diverse characters, with their diverse specialties and unique placements within the real world, to correlate activities. And while Im sure that virtual interactions might be monitored, the sheer number and variety within an expanded Second Life (or other virtual world) would make monitoring that activity a bit like looking at the computer screen on the Nebuchadnezzar. The subject of Second Life is intriguing in itself, but I recently stumbled upon a parallel 5GW: Fifth Generation Work - Virtual Organization. The author, David Gould, Ed.D., postulates a generational model for work: First generation work was essentially hunting and gathering; second generation work started farming the land and raising crops and other food products; third generation work moved to cities with factories and small businesses; and fourth generation work moved to the office. Now, it is possible to perform organizational work from any distance, any time, and anywhere. Technology and business methods are the enabling factors making this possible. Today, it is clear that to compete for the future, we need to work smarter as we cant work harder and we cant work more hours in the already hectic schedules we have. From that main page, one can follow links to a consideration of communities of practice and virtual

teams and other related topics. This is interesting stuff, and I foresee a correspondence between 5GWs.

Addendum: Much of this reminds me of my prior exploration of the role of flux in our future world, which I made on Phatic Communion: Flu(n)x.

Many Paths to Victory and every one important? While pondering the multiple strands that will need to be managed in conducting 5GW, we should remember the ways these strands may cross and hook each other, so that when one is pulled, the rest move even if slightly. This simplistic view naturally does little to factor time into our equations the movement further afield in the pattern, or in a more remote domain, may not occur immediately or grandly and future historians may well isolate the inept ones not only by their fairly local theaters of operation but also by their inability to anticipate future reverberations resulting from their own activities and the activities of others. To say that the whole pattern is affected by every step in an unfolding 5GW scenario vertical actions have effects on horizontal activity, horizontal activities have effects on vertical organization is to dismiss the reality of time and look directly at process: one which is assumed to exist regardless of the effects of time. Either the System continues to exist, changed; or, the System is perpetually new; and this distinction makes no difference if we hold to the simplistic view that a self-contained and self-containing system what is theorized to become reality once globalization is complete will be entirely self-determining and self-determined. For every action there may be an equal but opposite reaction; but we live within the bounds of time with quite limited observational capability. What is curious about this dynamic of criss-crossing continua, of multiple strands and multiple interacting domains, is the way an awareness of the complexity inherent in such a system appears to become more apparent to larger numbers of people, as time progresses. I mean not merely the polytheistic notion that unseen gods and forces occupy the world and work either miracles or pranks in unanticipated ways although, to be sure, we sometimes seem to be falling back into a polytheism as we contemplate complexity but that more and more people are becoming aware of the realities of what has been called interconnectivity. I could postulate an example from the Iraq Misadventure and whether I took a neoconservative perspective or an American leftist perspective would make no difference. One side thought that enfolding part of the Gap within the arms of the Goddess of Democracy would allow democracy to spread like wildfire in the region; the other believes that the God of War has inspired indomitable opposition in the region that will (justly, it is presumed) spread like wildfire. Intellectuals on either side of that debate may step back from their ideologies to ponder how economic, martial, legal, social and diplomatic reverberations have conjoined to form some new dynamic not yet quite fully appreciated. When the President of the United States told Americans to Shop! and Take Vacations! after 9/11 in order to defeat Islamic Extremism, he was speaking as a 5GWarrior but I think history will record that he was one of the inept ones. The most curious aspect of our dawning awareness of the complexity inherent in the System: that it is an awareness that has never before quite occurred in the history of humanity. Early Hellenic physicists may have postulated different base elements of the universe interacting in various ways to form the material world we see even atoms which acted somewhat like those we now know to exist and various polytheistic and pantheistic religions of the past may have attempted a framework for understanding complexity; but what is now occurring could not have occurred without the corresponding technological advancement of cable and satellite television, the Internet, and so forth. Add to those increases in observational capability all the many real advances in observation, from mapping the genome to photographing stellar prehistory. Add, too, Wikipedia and the other reservoirs of literature which have never before been available to so many people (or any person, before now.) The curious aspect comes from the many failures of the greatest ancients:

though great for their time, it is rather odd that none of them could conceive of the Universe without making many glaring errors as well, without exception. For instance, consider the fact that perspective in painting and drawing never occurred before the European Renaissance: how could such an utterly obvious omission occur, when so many brilliant thinkers and artists had already been born, lived, and died? We have the ancients to thank, of course, for handing us the baton where we received it even though we have sometimes fumbled the handover and dropped the baton. I still read Plato regularly, for the things that I have missed and which I think many have missed or forgotten in the intervening years. I would describe what I find in Plato as more the result of the operation of my own mind than of his, however, owing to the nature of the personal OODA loop. We take not only from the ancients, but from our contemporaries, and from our contemporary worlds; and we mix and recombine what we observe in ways that could not have occurred previously. My original inspiration for this post came as a result of reading various contemporary attempts to define the complexity of the System with overuse of the suffix -fare to describe what in previous worlds we would call the gods of polytheism. -fare: from Old English faru, from faran, to journey, to set forth, go, travel, proceed Among my closest contemporaries, Purpleslog may be the most devoted polytheist. He has often used the term lawfare to describe the conscientious use of legal systems to subvert another system or an opponent. (But he is not the only one. Some who do not name it thus nonetheless invoke it.) On top of this use of the suffix, he has expanded the most common use, i.e. warfare: * Atomic warfare * Bio-chemical warfare * Civil Disobedience warfare * Conventional warfare * Culture warfare * Diplomatic warfare * Drug warfare * Ecological warfare * Economic aid warfare * Electronic warfare * Effects-Based warfare aka EBO warfare * Environmentalist warfare (= Natural Resources warfare + Legal System warfare) * Financial warfare * Guerrilla warfare * High Energy warfare * Ideological warfare * Information Technology Infrastructure warfare * Infrastructure Systems warfare * Intellectual Property warfare * Intelligence warfare * Lawfare aka Legal Systems warfare * Media warfare * Meme warfare * Meteorological/Geophysics warfare * Nanotech warfare * Netwar

* Network-Centric warfare * Open Source warfare * Population / Immigration warfare * Psychological warfare * Regulatory warfare * Reputation warfare * Resources warfare aka Natural Resources warfare * Robotic warfare * Sanction warfare * Smuggling warfare * Space warfare * Terrorist warfare * Trade warfare * Virtual/Deterrence warfare I suppose that the list can go on and on; and Im tempted to metaphorize the historical debate between Plato and Aristotle. Purpleslog is expounding upon the Chinese concept of unrestricted warfare, a close kin of 5GW (perhaps the first real exploration of 5GW theory; which should give those of us living in the U.S. pause for thought), although in the first link given above, he has suggested that lawfare is 4GW rather than 5GW. Rather than engage in a recreation of philosophical schisms, however, Ill respond to a comment left by Phil on another recent post concerning a working definition of 5GW. CGW: I might be tempted to change conflict to warfare so that were not talking merely politics or business, etc. Phil: I think this kind of warfare would transcend these categories, blur their distinctions. It is entirely possible that what we would normally perceive as business, politics, religion, entertainment etc, become in 5GW a means to an end that would be by intent a form of warfare, even if it appeared to us as normal business or politics etc. Im not sure that transcendence is the right word although I do agree with Phils comment. Those predisposed to split hairs, or to have favored gods perhaps, idols may see only a corporate move, a legal move, a social movement, and so forth while missing the 5GW skeins. Previously, I have suggested that the distinctions between domains would necessarily be blurred for 5GW effectors, since they would not operate with an eye on only one or another domain; but now I wonder both: 1. Perhaps there are no really separate domains. 2. Perhaps there are, and effective 5GWarriors will know when theyre operating in the political domain, the legal domain, the social domain, and so forth. The key, I think, is this: That those effectors will know how these domains interact. The domains are not separate but interwoven, or co-incident-al. The blurring comes from the consideration that a change in one domain produces changes in others, so that no strictly linear cause & effect chain can be detected slicing through the domains or shaping them from without. Already, most Americans at least (and many others) already know there is overlap, and that the complexity of the contemporary world demands an understanding of exactly how diverse domains interact. This awareness has made us susceptible to irrational fears, dreams of demons at our doors, some of whom are our neighbors; but we have an opportunity never before possible in all the

history of humanity. The opportunity may require humility, perhaps some humiliation, in the face of such complexity, especially if the lesson of Iraq is taken to heart: that we cannot simplify complexity at whim, or by invoking favorite Gods and Goddesses to be our saviors. But surely such humility is better than succumbing to those capricious idols, those demons if it leads to greater understanding?

The 910 Group, in two posts There is no dog but Rufus and The Open Society begin the work of using 5GW theory to defend America in this Long War What happens when access to the avenues of speech are closed, or when a small group or an individual control those avenues? We know what happens. Horizons narrow, flexibility dies and robustness wanes. The organization (or society) becomes an easy target for 4GW or 5GW attack. What makes The 910 Group different from all the other anti-jihad organizations? That question was asked here once in one of the comments. One of the answers is this blog, where the gadfly and the rabble become part of the discussion. Its the rare and exceptional organization that takes this step right from the start. Along the way, they link to tdaxp, Winds of Change, ZenPundit, as well as Plato and Socrates.

Laying the Foundations: Part 1 Sequential Design Updated: With Graphic by Curtis Weeks Re-Updated: to give credit where credit is due -hat tip to TDAXPWhile searching the internet for others who are working on 5GW or its equivalent, I ran across an article on Phil Joness ThoughtStorms wiki where he was plucking interesting bits and phrases from Dan TDAXPs 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 didnt 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. In all fairness, and just so somebody wont immediately point it out to me, sequential design models like Waterfall dont work for software design. I know this. It features prominently in all of the research I have done on the topic. Im not interested in software design so Im going to see what happens when Waterfall is applied to 5GW. Since in the waterfall model each step is a sequential progression I will follow the phases of the original model as I discuss its 5GW utility. 5GW%20Waterfall%20Model2.gif Requirements Specification: This is the phase of Waterfall that trips up software design. If your requirements (or goals) are possibly going to change or are too broad to be approached in one project then Waterfall is not for you. You will need to look into an Iterative design model. If, however, your goal is able to be set in stone and is of a scope or timeframe that it can and should be attacked all at once (such as the outcome of an election) then the Waterfall model certainly could act as a framework. Design: This is where the imagination and vision get to run wild as a blueprint for the 5GW campaign is created. As 5GW seeks to manipulate as many domains as possible any avenue of influence can,

and should, be considered for its ability to apply leverage. With all of the planning up front in this manner the 5GW organization also has the ability to keep the 5GW campaign known to a very small number of people. This should be recognized as a very important security consideration. Construction: The organization itself is now created to implement the blueprint laid down in the design phase. Since all of the planning is done before this phase those who actually carry out the design may have no idea what the overall goal of the 5GW campaign is, merely their small part. This allows proxies and contractors outside of the 5GW organization to be used with a reduction in the risk of discovery of intent. Integration: In the software world this would be where all of the individual modules of a project would be combined together. As far as 5GW is concerned I see this as the phase where the projected effects of the operations in each of the domains are fine tuned to ensure that the effects become synergistic. Working over multiple domains this could potentially be one of the most important phases of the model for 5GW. Testing and Debugging (a.k.a. Verification): When considering how each of the phases would apply to 5GW this is the one that gave me the most trouble. I do, however, see a certain utility is setting an initial goal short of the ultimate goal for the 5GW campaign to attempt to attain so that its effects can be judged. This could also be a good indicator of the ultimate success of the campaign. Installation: Once the campaign is fully planned, implemented and fine-tuned its operations go forward in earnest. Maintenance: This would be the follow-up after the goal has either been reached or is determined to not be able to be reached (such as the election is over). In a 5GW context this could be reinforcing success by raising a new organization in order to maintain and capitalize on the newly created situation. It could also mean reconfiguring the 5GW organization in order to be ready for the next project. In the event of failure (or perhaps success?) it would also be during this phase that bridges are burned and links dissolved so that the 5GW organization fades from view. In summary, given a limited goal with a limited, and concrete, set of requirements the Waterfall model of design looks to have a great deal of utility for the organization and design of a 5GW campaign. It offers advantages in secrecy and with its planning done before operations commence it has the ability to fine-tune its focus to limit distraction or mission creep. It does have the drawback of being inflexible and may lack the ability to opportunistically respond to changing events that have not been planned for.

Baker-Hamilton, Failed 5GWarriors It is the unanimous view of the Iraq Study Group that these recommendations offer a new way forward for the United States in Iraq and the region. They are comprehensive and need to be implemented in a coordinated fashion. They should not be separated or carried out in isolation. [The Iraq Study Group Report, pdf via CNN.] i.e., a multi-domain approach, with a recognition that each domain affects the others and the whole system. Many paths to victory, and every one important. However, during the news conference, James Baker stressed the decision not to use the term victory in the report, when asked by a reporter whether this bipartisan plan should be viewed as a blueprint for victory or for merely avoiding defeat. Reporters like mincing words like that, as they pluck daisy petals in order to discover absolute finality. It is an ambitious plan, and far better than anything we have heard from the President; but as with all overt activity in a complex world, it will inspire opposition as well as attempts to preempt its implementation. The fact that each domain security, politics (internal and external), economics, and diplomacy must be manipulated in order to bring about the desired results, and manipulated in particular ways, i.e. with an eye on achieving the main goal of success, and that done transparently, dooms it to failure: 1. Mr. Bush will not like much that he finds in the report, and we are being set up for a massive confrontation between the Executive branch and the Democrat-controlled Legislative branch: As Baker and Hamilton stressed, lack of a bipartisan approach in favor of a bipolar approach will doom the Plan and every other foreign policy plan to failure. Add to this the roles of the MSM and the blogosphere and the already tense divisions in American politics, and the potential for greater domestic turmoil (in America) as a result of this report should be apparent. (Which is too bad, but there it is.) 2. Iran and Syria have been given the tools of manipulation beforehand, since diplomatic playing cards have been dealt face-up in the report, and those cards will not inspire an easy or even an uneasy alliance between the U.S. and those two nations vis-a-vis Iraq. 3. In fact, many diplomatic cards have been dealt face-up. While acknowledging the potential for Saudi Arabia to offer strong support of Iraqi Sunnis in the looming regional war, the authors of the Report fail to fully assess the role of al Qaeda in the region. They suggest that al Qaeda is merely interested in recruitment, a base of operations, propaganda coups, and pitting the Shiites and Sunnis against each other in Iraq. While these are important strategic goals for al Qaeda, the real goal has always been to inspire a Sunni-Shiite war across the region. In fact, there are some indications that al Qaeda may see Shiite Iran as its main enemy and Shiites in general rather than America, a point of view relatively absent from American analyses. Al Qaeda will continue to work for such a conflict by increasing tensions between Shiite elements and Sunni elements within Iraq an easy enough task, as is! in the belief that Saudi Arabia will almost certainly be forced to step in to offer its support to the Iraqi Sunnis. Any steps we might take to keep this from happening will be offset by al Qaeda; and, AQ now has the strategy outlined in the ISG report: The ISG believes that a fear of such a regional conflict may be used to garner support from Saudi Arabia, and perhaps from Iran, for stabilizing Iraq, but ground realities as well as domestic U.S. realities will almost certainly nullify this card. 4. Baker and Hamilton stressed the possibility that unforeseen developments could nullify the entire plan. That, dear readers, is an open invitation to opponents of a stabilized Iraq (not all of whom reside within the Middle East, one might suppose.) In the news conference, Hamilton responded to a question by a reporter by offering some of the specific ways that a changed ground reality could nullify the plan: so, not only an invitation, but a blueprint openly offered to opponents

of Stable Iraq. Many other points could be made; but the main point is this: If complex plans in a complex world are made transparent, an extraordinary level of vertical force is required to keep those plans on track. This is particularly true of plans which can only work if they are closely followed, every domain-change important. This is why Baker and Hamilton have stressed the necessity of strong bipartisan cooperation and a unified electorate, as well as a unified international approach: a dream of unified force, but one unlikely to be effected by mere calls for such. The Good Ol Boys of American politics would have had a greater chance of success and such an increase in chance for success was their stated goal at the news conference, rather than victory if they had formulated this plan and then seen to it that the multi-domain approach occurred largely behind the scenes. The steps they outline are not altogether bad, and in fact their analysis of the relevant players and domains or, of the battlespace is generally quite good indeed. But they have only accelerated the process of defeat. UPDATE: Dan of TDAXP has cherry-picked the ISG report. I suspect that this sort of approach will also be followed by GWB, individual Congressmen and Senators and even by foreign players, whether those hostile to the vision of a stable Iraq or those in favor of a stable Iraq but that each of these players is likely to find a different set of ideal cherries than Dan has found. Who knows what will emerge as the result of so much friction? Mark of ZenPundit has found a pragmatic-political interpretation of the ISG report in which the individual suggestions given in the report are far less important than the fact of the reports existence and the general tone of the report. His ideas are related to ideas given by RyanLuke in comments to this thread the report is basically a 4GW maneuver (my characterization) to get the Ship of State moving by breaking up ice flows but I wonder if geopolitical warming means that there has actually been much less ice at the various poles than we often believe. I do not believe the ISG report (its substance, its very existence) can be wisely considered only within the context of domestic logjam. Mark also gives links to other assessments, many of which seem to be Rightist knee-jerk reactions to the report. (I have not read all, particularly not the most recent links.) UPDATE 2: Thomas Barnett thinks the report was a charade and a kind of failed charade, at that. Instead of providing political cover to allow for a real change in course, GWB will use it as cover for the fact that hes not about to change course: i.e., so he can say, Options? Darn tootin Ive got options! Lots to consider, lots to consider while in reality planning to carry on as before. Im not sure that will actually happen. Finger-tip feeling or no (i.e., perhaps complete fantasy), I suspect well see some major changes in the Administrations approach. I just think those changes will be a huge shock to America when they happen, and theyll have virtually nothing to do with the ISG report. Time to play wait-and-see.

The 910 Group Considers Hezbollahs Defeat Dan of TDAXP introduced us to the 910 Group 5GW and the Anti-Jihad which led to an interesting exchange that has now expanded into a kind of open-source exploration of ways the Lebanese people can fight the threat of Hezbollah: Towards a practical 5gw - special case: Hezbollah: The Lebanese government does not have a Black September option with regard to Hezbollah. It is too weak and the Hezb is both too strong and too willing to escalate without limit. That means March 14 and its friends have to be creative to see the revolution through. The point of this discussion is to look at the forms that creativity might take. Ive invited some people whose writing focuses on Lebanon and others whose writing focuses on the kind of warfare in which Hezbollah specializes, 4GW, to participate. So its two groups of people who, I think, can learn a lot from each other. Please feel free to reference and link to as much of your own work as you think will be relevant to this discussion. Dont be shy. For my part, I dont want to say much. Ill make a few comments here but once the discussion starts, Id rather get out of the way. I do want to start with a couple of basic assumptions. One is that 4gw, as Hezbollah or anyone else practices it, aims not only at undermining a particular state but also the nation-state system. The other is that 5gw is a counter-4gw. So in this case I define 5gw as whatever you have to do to defeat Hezbollah. Feel free to dispute these, but its a place to start. [Abu Nopal] I think thats a very good place to start, and I approve of the open-ended approach toward a consideration of 5GW. Abu Nopal has already launched a consideration of some points Ive previously made concerning general aspects of 5GW vs 4GW, and has added some brainstorming about 1.) Israels decision to pull out of Gaza and 2.) the recent Hezbollah-Israel war including some interesting conclusions. (Also: Where I run into difficulty is with a clandestine approach. Secrecy has two great difficulties Follow the link to find out what they are!) Intriguing thoughts, and an eminently worthwhile project! I will enjoy following the thread as new voices are added to the discussion! Update: Apparently, the 910 Group has split, with Abu Nopal forming a splinter group (with a membership of one?) called the Burning Core and the rest of that group retaining the name in order to spew froth and silliness in La La Land. Hey, lets hear it for static: Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

John Robb, In Other Words Having drawn dire images of ultimate apocalypse and the convergence of diverse demons whose only shared goal upon the Earth is destruction i.e. the inept 5GWarriors John Robb has called Global Guerrillas, who really do have other goals but, from a myopic point of view looking in at them, appear to desire nothing but destruction Robb now turns his attention toward what can be done about that approaching apocalypse: Systemic Resilience The only solution for these problems isnt something that gains much currency from the current decision makers. There isnt any built-in audience ready with money and support to make them happen (at least, not yet). [The New Threats] In keeping with his vision of demons operating in a decentralized and disorganized manner, Robb has begun to consider angels who operate in a similar fashion: The reason is that systemic resilience is hard. It reverses power relationships and pushes control to the edges. It simplifies processes and builds-in dampening forces to limit the impact of any shocks that ripple through our global network. It forces changes in individual behavior to broaden skill sets and limit dependencies. * Reverses power relationships by push[ing] control to the edges: not true, in the sense that such reversal has always been the dream of progressive liberals: the hierarchies will be destroyed, vertical controls will disappear, and extreme liberality, or absolute freedom for individual actors, will save us, it is assumed. Reversal is not the right word, although the word has pull for anarchists who dream of a stable, utopian world utterly without government. * Consider the movement to factional development and the dream that these localized factions at the edges will control the system; whether they control in an organized, cooperative manner or by default out of no organized but yet interacting, confluential manner will make a difference. Not too much difference, however, since this is really a recipe for the creation of vertical force out of the synergy of so many horizontal forces. Such a vertical force is assumed to exist in the phrase simplifies processes and, besides, those dampening forces Robb mentions are one set of vertical forces in such a system. Similarly, the dream of limit[ed] dependencies is a false dream in a complex world, where any factional reality (the localized stability) will be affected by the shape of each other factional reality also existing in the world. Such an understanding by those living within those tiny utopias will lead to interactions between factions and the realization that dependencies exist. Call it interdependency, codependency, or call it mutual exclusion and exclusivity requiring constant evolution to defend against incursions, and it will make no difference. Absolute insularity is impossible. All will exist within the global system and will be dependent on the shape of each. But such an assessment of Robbs latest post may be myopic. Consider the article he wrote for FastCompany.com: Security: Power To The People. In that article, he considers the first wave of innovation which is likely to be a movement toward insularity (generally, at the corporate level and the city level), and then outward in the second phase as insular systems work to interconnect:

Perhaps the most important global shift will be the rise of grassroots action and cross-connected communities. Like the Internet, these new networks will develop slowly at first. After a period of exponential growth, however, they will quickly become all but ubiquitousand astonishingly powerful, perhaps as powerful as the networks arrayed against us. The interesting thing about that article is this: it assumes that these innovations will be reactionary in the first phase and organic in the second phase. Contrast such development with Robbs assessment of the new threats now facing us: This new class of threat is characterized by its bottoms up pattern of growth rather than the familiar competition between nation-states. It percolates upwards through catalyzed organic growth until it overwhelms our ability to respond to it.These threats dont just emerge in a form that can be dealt with through careful deliberation, they explode once they reach an ignition point.All of these events intertwine the actions of billions of actors that span the globe and they can break individual nation-states like kindling wood. It defies logic to think that a nation-state or even a group of nation-states can even remotely approach the response necessary for mitigating this class of problem once its effects are felt. The threats emerge suddenly they explode once they reach an ignition point and once they do, mitigating the results will be virtually impossible for a nation-state or group of nation-states. Presumably, a virtual state or collections of individuals formed into virtual teams could accomplish what nation-states cannot accomplish, if only they begin working preemptively. In GG speak, this means decentralized yet somehow coherent teams are superior to centralized yet increasingly incoherent teams. (This is a false dichotomy, however, because whatever virtual teams form to address problems preemptively will be opposed by the centrifugal actions of nation-states trying to maintain exclusive vertical controls if, that is, those virtual teams attempt to operate openly in the form of corporations, NGOs and relatively insular city-states. See the last bulleted item above. ) * Bottoms up pattern of growth: Horizontal growth; the convergence of multifarious domains: the actors within those domains, their actions, the effects of those actions upon the whole system and upon each set of actors. * overwhelms our ability to respond to it: this calls for proactive approaches rather than reactive. By the time these threats have emerged, the multifarious domains have already been shaped to create that emergence; i.e., these threats already have organic resilience. By this point, the problems are systemic. * All of these events intertwine the actions of billions of actors that span the globe: Once the effects are felt, those effects will have great power to determine future emergence. They are systemic. Reactionary measures will prove inadequate for this reason: the reactionary operates within and from the systemic reality, which means he helps to sustain that reality even if that is not his goal. Conflict which has already exploded onto the scene, when it is the culmination of organic growth, cannot be stopped by actors who join the fight that is already occurring. Similarly, one might look at the forecasters of Global Warming Doom and those who oppose upsetting global economies to forestall that Doom: adding more voices to the debate only adds to the static that disables a coherent and focused effort at forestalling the Doom. What does all this mean? John Robb is approaching an authentic theory of 5GW (compare to his cooptation of the term 5GW as a marketing ploy for Global Guerrillas), in which a careful management of multiple strands may work to preempt the emergence of these new threats or at least

mitigate their effects. Systemic resilience will require a preemptive, proactive guidance of emergence on a global scale which means working within multiple domains to preempt the actions of billions of actors because reactionary measures will prove ineffective once these new threats have fully emerged. Sounds a lot like the work being conducted by Thomas Barnett and Steve DeAngelis although its true those two actors do not appear to understand the overwhelming problem created by attempting to act transparently to effect change in an increasingly complex, chaotic world. Because these new threats are already coming into focus, we should assume that the problems are already systemic and that any moves to mitigate them or preempt their emergence will require clandestine operation. Why? Because the static already present in the system, which aids the development of these new threats, cannot be defeated by adding more static, or cause for contention. The necessary vertical controls for resilience cannot be built by increasing horizontal conflict alone, nor by allowing that horizontal conflict to continue shaping the emergence of these new threats in an undirected manner. We need 5GW to win the Long Wars (plural).

Laying the Foundations: Part 2 Iterative Design 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 arent 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. Iterative design is essentially a method of developing a system that becomes incrementally more complex. Generally, it starts small with a core organization and a goal to be reached and, with each iteration, adds capability. The basic iterative process follows this model: Phase 1: Initial Planning (Setting the Goal, Envisioning the Strategy, Creating / Organizing the Prototype) Phase 2: Operational Planning Design Analysis Implementation Phase 3: Deployment or Launch Phase 4: Testing and Evaluation The initial planning phase is the only part of the iterative process that occurs in isolation after the first operation is launched. After the launch of the first operation the iterative cycle runs in all phases simultaneously with new operations (iterations) launching as they become viable. Initial Planning: There are three key items that must be explored in the initial planning phase of an iterative design model for it to have utility in a 5GW campaign. The first item is to define the goal. Many times this will involve also defining the factors that influence the reaching of this goal. To put this process into a context, if Tom Barnett or another person or organization were creating a 5GW organization to Shrink the Gap, then Tom Barnetts book The Pentagons New Map would be an example of this type of thinking. The second item in the initial planning phase is the creation of an overall plan for the 5GW campaign, an exploration of the possible domains that may be manipulated. For an

example, again, I will reference Tom Barnett but this time his book A Blueprint for Action. Item number three is to plan the creation of the organization for the 5GW campaign to build around. This is the prototype for the 5GW campaign that will have the two-fold purpose of launching the first 5GW operation of the campaign and serving as the core upon which the campaign expands. I dont have an example for this item, but I understand Dr. Barnett is going to be writing another book that might have something to do with a concept called Development in a Box Operational Planning: Design: Analysis: Implementation: In the sequential design model each of these steps are separate with the next step taken only after the previous step has been totally completed. In the iterative design model each of these happen simultaneously. Based on the vision and requirements laid down in the Initial Planning, the design and implementation of each operational plan is constantly analyzed and revised with better adaptability and flexibility than sequential design as a benefit of using a less rigorously defined set of requirements. When the design is robust enough to be considered effective it moves on to the launch phase. However, the planning, design, analysis and implementation continue adding capability and adding new operations as results of the 5GW campaign is fed back into the planning process. Testing and Evaluation: In many ways this is the most important aspect of the iterative design model because it, in effect, controls the progression of the next iteration of the campaign. Testing and evaluation take place simultaneously with the launch and operation of the 5GW campaign. It is here that it is determined what is working and what is not. Trends are established to show movement in relation to goals and requirements and as a result goals and requirements are expanded or tightened, created or discarded, to better focus effects and better shape the process that will take place in the next iteration. The greatest utility in the iterative design process is its agility and flexibility. As the iterative 5GW organization grows it gains information and the ability to use that information in a number of ways and inside a number of domains that becomes larger and more effective with each iteration.

Steve DeAngelis, In Other Words Interesting article from Steve DeAngelis on Enterprise Resilience Management Blog: Prevention Better than Mitigation Steve looks at Rent-Way, a company that ultimately had to sell its business to competitor Rent-ACenter after a transparent attempt by its CEO, William E. Morgenstern, to correct the corporate fraud being conducted by executives in the company. Despite inviting the SEC to investigate, firing the culpable executives, and working openly to mitigate secondary and tertiary effects of the illegal activity, the CEO failed in the face of other systemic conditions and horizontal activity: interest rates charged by banks increased as a result of the fraud, shares plummeted within hours of its announcement, and ultimately on the consumer end, high gas prices cut revenues: In addition to contacting the SEC, Morgenstern and his board fired the culpable executives. They hoped that their openness and quick action would contain the crisis. In Duhiggs words: RentWays own journey, which came to a head last month, offers a chilling lesson: Even the most virtuous decisions have unforeseen, often damaging, consequences, and full disclosure may create as many problems as it solves. Adding to the static means failure to anticipate, navigate, and mitigate systemic pressures preemptively. Adding to the static means: operating openly to solve an existing systemic problem, whether in the smaller system corporation or the larger system market, society. One might say that the smaller system was already wracked by systemic forces before Morgenstern acted; but one might also say that the larger systems systemic forces had already had a hand in shaping the smaller systems operation. Reactionary measures may work to change the smaller system, but they will prove less effective for changing the larger system: they only reinforce that systemic reality. The real problem is this: transparency is either an angel or a bogeyman, i.e. a false ideology. Although Mr. Morgenstern, backed by open acknowledgment by the SEC for his efforts, believed that he was being open about Rent-Ways problems, other horizontal forces (investors, financial lenders) saw that this was a corporation wracked by fraud; in addition, another horizontal force (the consumers) saw only high-priced rental products and the higher gas prices that limited the availability of those products. The first group may have seen Rent-Ways openness following as it did a closed, fraudulent activity but they also saw other things with it that blurred the image, other avenues for investment. Consumers, on the other hand, may have had absolutely no awareness of Morgensterns open activity; or if some did, they also saw various effects on their pocketbooks in addition to that vision of openness. In a complex, highly competitive world, any open activity is sure to produce more static, as other forces acknowledge the activity and work against it whether conscientiously or with knee-jerk reactions: competitors, sensationalists, consumers, those who would capitalize on that activity or by reacting to it without concern for the welfare of the original actor. Transparency is not transparency if it operates in only one domain or a handful, because data flows from every direction and modifies the emergence of memes for the receiver. In Once - Upon - A - Time - World, monopolies on data creation, within domains, enabled a semblance of transparency to have the effect that transparency is intended to have; but no more. In Once - Upon - A - Time - World, a fear of monopolies on data creation inspired the hope that a diffusion for data creation would bring on the Golden Age in human civilization; but in the Now, we are seeing that growing levels of static are crippling our ability to respond to systemic problems.

Barnett on 5GW Props to Arherring for provoking (and providing the illusion of choice to ?) Tom Barnett, in his description of this blog and 5GW: My own sense is that 5GW will be all about fait accomplis and the illusion of choice, and that the real nature of debates will be purposefully disguised until relevant players (always tricky to define, because many will self-select, but few will be chosen) have steered outcomes toward desired ends. In that sense, its a form of corporatism (a specific poli sci term) on a global scale until such time as institutions arise for greater global pluralism (connectivity typically predates code, which is driven by scandals revealed in their due course). It is the ultimate in horizontal global positioning (conflict suggesting too much kinetics) designed to stave off system-disrupting vertical perturbations/attacks. This is where I think John [Robb] has it backwards: its 4GW, not globalization, that spawns its own self-limitations/destruction (parasites never seek system destruction, hence their limits of influence). 5GWers will, for many useful reasons, declare the terrorists to be in charge of the world, but that will only serve as the primary obfuscation in global security affairs. Others are already well in use in other sectors (like peak oil in energy). The 5GWarrior will win. The 4GWarrior will lose. And the 3GWarrior will never know it.

Static, Transparency, and Systemic Resilience: Part One The holiday crush has left me with a backlog of embryonic posts, a dizzying map of Blogospheric connection (posts from bloggers who never slowed down for the holidays and in many cases are now moving onto other subjects!), and the realization that maybe Ive been too negligent with D5GW. Given the jumble, I either have to forget those embryonic posts and hope they find the light of day sometime in 2007 or push onward in a haphazard manner. Guess which one Im choosing? The three words in the title of this post are of paramount importance for anyone who wishes to be certain of future prosperity either for himself or for a larger social system in/to which be belongs, perhaps for which he cares. They revolve around old debates concerning the role of centralized government and individual freedoms. In the crush of technological, economic, social, and geopolitical progress (call it what you will), numerous diverse frictions will result from the employment of those words by individuals and groups alike. Because the debate is old, it will be familiar to those who have studied history; because the human world is becoming something it has never been before, the debate will take on new dimensions that may confuse those who watch the world. In the future, we will all be Watchers. Static In my last post, Steve DeAngelis, In Other Words, all three words were mentioned, and my use of them spurred debate. At issue: Can a system wracked by systemic problems be fixed openly, transparently? I answered, No, although I had an ace up my sleeve: Static. Steve DeAngelis, of the Enterprise Resilience Management Blog, had implied the possibility that open maneuvers to correct systemic problems may in fact cause more problems than they solve; as he put it, prevention is better than mitigation. In the case given, of a company suffering from the fraudulent behavior of numerous executives, forces outside that company reacted to the news of that behavior by, in effect, shutting that company down with a little help from other forces not reacting directly to the news. One reader suggested that the system had worked; such companies deserve to lose. The fact that the CEO had openly addressed the problems, attempting to correct them transparently, made no difference and in fact may have hastened the companys fall. In the future, the question, Which force is empowered to make judgments or, to make justice? will determine who deserves to lose and who deserves to win. Static results from a profusion of voices, of forces, and creates confusion. As I said in the linked post, the Once - Upon - A - Time - World of a more distant past had relative monopolies on data creation, at least within particular domains. If the King declared a war on another country, none of his subjects doubted that their nation was at war with that country; indeed, few of his subjects could have knowledge of the casus belli beyond what the King and his men gave to them. There was no power to dispute the truth of the casus belli, even if many disagreed with it. In a later Once - Upon - A - Time - World, revolutionaries fought back against such monopolies on data creation (whether the data was discursive or capital), as a result not only of a multiplication of sources of data but also out of fear of such monopolies as had already dominated societies. The process has repeated in many ways, whether with the Protestants against the Catholics in Europe, or with secular humanists against sectarian religionists, or with American Revolutionaries against a tyrant. Later, unions and antitrust laws and civil rights movements continued the process and still continue the process at home and abroad. Even so, monopolies on data creation persevered; it is only with the relatively recent advent of a profusion of cable and satellite television channels and Internet connections that the monopoly held by a few broadcast and print media empires began to

disintegrate. When considering static in this context, it is important to remember the many types of data being transmitted, as well as the many sources. For shaping a world view and thus, for shaping activities, and from them, shaping the world not only the spoken, written, and electronically broadcast discursive data has a major effect, but material realities also have major effects: paychecks, armies, families and tribes, manufactured items, natural resources, infrastructure, etc. Thus, whereas the United States may have had a relative monopoly controlling its own infrastructure before 9/11, bin Ladens foreign fighters upset that monopoly: there, al-Qaida became a source of relevant data within the domain of U.S. infrastructure. When considering the future, we must keep in mind the realities of interdependencies and how these work in a confluential manner. In discussions of 5GW, we often contemplate the role of influence; confluence is what happens with or without conscious direction, as the many sources of data flow tightly together or, more often than not, as their effects interact to shape the larger system from multiple directions. Globalization in its many forms increases the amount of available data at every point it touches. Thus, we have what has been called an emerging open-source environment. Detour: Open Source vs Static Utilizing the confusion created by an open-source environment may become a customary strategy for success. Take for instance John Robb, who has given a name to one type of actor in an opensource environment, Global Guerrillas: The decentralized, and seemingly chaotic guerrilla war in Iraq demonstrates a pattern that will likely serve as a model for next generation terrorists. This pattern shows a level of learning, activity, and success similar to what we see in the open source software community. I call this pattern the bazaar. [The Bazaars Open Source Platform]

As far as that goes, the terminology is correct: it is a platform. Or an environment. Inasmuch as innovation in warfare has always occurred, the outline given in that post for the ways these actors operate in such an environment differs from past examples only by degree but it is an important degree. More data is theoretically available than ever before. Experimental trial-and-failure may destroy one independently operating group but serve as a lesson for another yet to attack; successes may verify the tactic for another observant group. Where John Robb goes astray: When he labels every insurgent group, open source opponents, as he did recently in a post called Thailands Global Guerrillas. By this point, he has moved from considering a pattern that has similarities to open-source platforms to calling human actors definitively open-source. Clearly, these two terms, open source and static, which represent John Robbs future-view and mine respectively, appear to be quite similar, quite related, but quite different in the way they are interpreted by each of us; i.e., the terms have different implications although I believe they are being used to address the same real condition. Deciding which term is most appropriate will prove

very, very important. From one commenter in the linked thread, Syn Diesel, we have the general Robbian view via an anthropomorphism, information wants to be free, and will be free. I love using metaphors as cognitive tools, but such usages as this almost always point toward lax thinking. In this case, the comparison of data with a human as if they are identical with respect to a) being able to desire freedom and b) actually being free in the sense of having no barriers inhibiting movement or the ability to act, means the speaker is incapable of seeing the differences between a human and data. The same is true of John Robb, whose theory of open-source includes an assumption that just because data levels increase generally and that data becomes more available to larger numbers of people, then those people will actually access and use that data. Lets put it back into terms of Syn Diesels anthropomorphism: In the way that a human acts freely i.e. without barriers if he is free, free data must also have no barriers and be able to act freely. In OODA terms, this would imply that the Act committed by that data automatically alters the World at least in some small part, just like every human Act always alters some part of the World. In John Robb terms, then, an open-source environment necessarily leads to a kind of free and open activity, which would mean that actual human actors in the world must be acting from all of that available data; when he describes open-source opponents, he is assuming that just because much more data is generally available, those opponents are actually accessing all of it and using all of it. Clearly, however, not one of them is capable of doing so. Furthermore, describing the environment as open-source in the sense of data-rich does not mean that all possible data points are actually accessible to the human actor. Calling human actors opensource opponents is therefore quite misleading and just as lax as the anthropomorphism. Even given a world in which absolutely no data is hidden and all data flows in every direction without barriers (i.e., a fantasy world), no single human will be capable of accessing it at all times; and, thus, there can be no open-source opponents. Simply because the larger system not being fully accessed by that opponent is open-source or datarich, John Robb will call some insular, jungle-bound insurgent in Thailand an open-source opponent even if that opponent actually has quite limited access to all available data, perhaps relatively no more access to data than such a warrior would have had 100 years ago. My use of the term static is quite different. Although I agree that data levels are increasing and that data is generally much more available to human actors, on the whole, than ever before, and will become even more available, I suppose a limit to the data levels any given actor may access and use at any given time. We do not see the whole world at once, but only ever parts and usually, quite small parts. Humans are prone to generalize, or draw abstract pictures intended to fill in the gaps in our access to current data, often by using old data; but this does not make them open-source. Because every individual human suffers severe limitations on observation, the acts that ultimately flow from observations are similarly limited. Considered from the point of view of a group, a society, or the human population as a whole, these limited individual acts create changes to the world which are often at variance with the changes individuals would effect, perhaps quite beyond the individuals observational range. Re-observing the changed and changing world may introduce data points that are unexpected or incomprehensible, etc., and such a phenomenon dispersed over a larger system will produce static. John Robb may well assume that an open-source opponent only uses the data he needs he himself is not really open-source, but he makes use of such an environment rather than that all data is not only available but also used by such a fighter. What is not clear is how Robb would

incorporate limited observational levels, or limited access to data in an otherwise data-rich environment. He seems unwilling to consider actual humans, but only looks at masses: Insurgent Group A on the whole accesses large amounts of data and so they are therefore open-source opponents but not one person within that group accesses very much individually! When you expand the example outward by lumping all possible guerrilla movements under the header Global Guerrillas, then it would seem that most of all available data is being accessed at some point in time, in some location but each group of insurgents may have very little access to much of the available data, and individuals within that group may have even less individual access! So hes describing an environment, or drawing a generalization, rather than talking about humans. (You cannot describe humans without first describing individuals; and even then, must be wary of generalizing an individual rather than talking about a real, unique person.) He is not describing open-source opponents but only an open-source environment which we must assume has human actors of some kind within it. Yet the epithet, demons, has been used to describe those so-called global guerrillas, who seem to have so many different, non-aligning, and unknown motivations and goals; and terms like incoherent have been used for describing the theory of Global Guerrillas. Global Guerrillas is what Robb gets when he looks at static. In addressing what is occurring in Thailand, Robb quotes Matthew B. Arnold from the Bangkok Post: Undoubtedly, it is hard to know who exactly is behind the violence since nobody ever claims responsibility. Yet, it is impossible to really design or debate policy response if nobody has a coherent, consistent understanding of who is actually perpetrating the violence. The only thing that can be clearly known about this set of open source opponents is that nothing much is known about them. From that, presumably one may assume that these unknown actors have access to all available data and are always able to learn from the activities of others. And in like manner, John Robb looks at the static he sees everywhere and imagines the reality of these nonaligned data creators, which he calls GGs, without realizing that what he calls an open-source environment may in fact appear to be static for many of those actors. He singularly ignores the non-human data creators. (The linear data flows have human origins he sees; he generally calls those actors, states.) Yet it is precisely the increase in static, due to the effects of globalization and empowerment of individuals (and by extension, small factions), that will limit the effectiveness of transparency for creating a resilient global system. Those who watch will have greater difficulty sorting out the profusion of data flows and determining their confluence.

Interlude: Static Visualized, Conceptualized While I delay the writing and posting of the second part in my series on Static, Transparency, and Systemic Resilience, new sparks that appear to address the subject of static have surfaced or resurfaced: whether in my own mind or elsewhere, or both, they deserve at least a perfunctory post. Besides, these sparks will relate to the subject of Part Two of that series, transparency. My old sparks Previously on my blog Phatic Communion, I took a look at what has been called social networks, through the lens of the OODA loop in two posts: Social OODA Loops / Networks & Some Words on Determining Social Network. In general, I posited an interaction based on individual OODA loops, such that individuals formed the basis of social systems and their personalized OODA loops determined the type and method of interaction in such systems. Whereas network theorists often begin with the assumption that definite pathing can be observed, assessed, and defined when studying social systems, I began with a look at the way individuals operate and interact and the resulting emergent systems. Network theorists may believe definitive networks exist connecting these individuals, but in so doing they often make the mistake of believing that what they have discerned to be stable routes and routings i.e., networks can be understood to exist regardless of the individuals using those paths. I.e., to define a network is to believe that such interaction between individuals is prefigured by the available routes of data transmission. Furthermore, a corresponding faith in perpetual and definable concrete connection often lies behind the frameworks posited by network theorists. Connectivity is assumed to exist between persons who interact, yes, but such connectivity is thought to be resilient, perpetual, and largely unchanging (at least for a short duration, but often assumed to last for longer durations.) In the first of those posts, I included an image to represent the way I think such interaction actually occurs: StaticActivity-simple.gif Static Activity simple

Imagine that each of those black dots is an individual; then picture the acts committed by those individuals whether verbal or not sending out waves of physical change within the world. At the point of activity in the individual OODA, whatever concrete phenomena have been observed by the individual, past or present, are reconfigured into an act that originates at the point of the individual, and the repercussions of such acts move outward from the individual represented here in the arrows moving outward. The changes wrought in the world by these acts may cross paths, are confluential in the image, where the emanating lines cross so that whatever effects the individual may have intended for the world may not result in a change exactly as he intended. The activities of other individuals are also affecting the world. On the other side of the OODA loop, we have observation. I do not have a diagram representing generalized observation, coming from the World from every direction, although perhaps I ought to

have one given the current subject of static! Imagine the above image, except with enough arrows drawn from the area external to each dot to those dots, filling in all or most of the white space! Clearly, when viewing the changed and changing world, determining the origins of such inwardbound arrows would be difficult if not impossible, given * The fact that such origins might actually be at points of confluence rather than from other individuals; i.e., changed realities might be more the result of a confluence of forces rather than the result entirely of unique and individual data streams emanating from definite individuals; * The fact that non-human origins of data would also be operative; * The fact that non-human and human origins alike could be occluded by the confluential process, i.e., their data streams could be confluential, giving rise to the question of whether human acts or non-human realities (acts, occurrences) are responsible for the changed environment. [Hint: look at the debate over global warming.] However, through that post I tried to represent the individuals OODA process as well as groups of individual OODA processes considered together, for showing how shared awarenesses and understandings may occur despite the unique perspectives of individuals in a complex system: Social%20OODA%20--%20overlap.jpg Overlapping Observational Niches The large squares in the above diagram represent the Abstract OODA process, whereas the stages leading from the central World represent the Concrete OODA process (of which the Abstract OODA process is only part, i.e., the human Orient phase of the Concrete OODA.) For this diagram, I only included the first two Os of the Concrete OODA. No single person is ever capable of observing the entire world, and all of humanity considered together will nevertheless also share gaps in observation. The colored swirls representing each persons observational niche in the World therefore do not cover the entire world, and white space in the world represents the shared ignorances of these individuals, or the shared gaps in observation. Importantly, however, the smaller world in each persons Abstract OODA process is entirely filled with colors (called here the Mental Constructs). This is because a world view held by any individual can only be formed from actual observations. In this particular iteration of the diagram, the colorful swirling in each persons mental construct is intended to show how overlapping observations of the World, between individuals, may result in a development of shared or very similar mental constructs for those individuals. At the end of that post I simplified the complex OODA representations to the level of groups operating from a shared or similar world view not really an entire world view, but aligned abstracts: Aligned%20Abstracts.jpg Aligned Abstracts

(larger image) Here, the swirls of each individual set of mental constructs are represented simply by the smaller pentagons overlapping triangles, to show where similar abstracts held by the five particular individuals may exist; this is isolated further in the smallest pentagon colored an olive green. From such a shared or similar understanding of the world, decisions and acts may flow which are themselves very similar, and such acts may have a common effect on the larger world. In terms of recent discussion of 5GW: these various individuals may be affecting the larger world from multiple directions but in common ways, resulting in a larger general influence of that similar mental construct (meme) and similar concrete effects (concrete data); or, have a larger effect on the general confluence of forces. However, as in this diagram, other manipulations of the world not founded on such a shared mental construct may also be affecting the world, leading to multifarious changes / confluences. (Represented here by the other arrows leading to the World.) Sparks from others All Out for the Fight This post exists not because of my old sparks, which have been lying relatively peacefully and unactivated in my consciousness, but because of a few sources from elsewhere in the Blogosphere. I.e., this post exists because Ive observed a confluence; my separation of sparks is merely one attempt at understanding that confluence by looking at what origins of data streams I can discern (whether or not they are the actual Prime Origins!) The first sign of a confluence of some sort came as a result of my tracking a recent link to Phatic Communion from a blog called All Out for the Fight. This link actually resulted from a year-end review and included a diagram I had seen much earlier in the year on that site, this time in a post title, Summation of the Revolutionary Blogosphere in 2006 & Thoughts for 2007. The diagram is a representation of Blogospheric connectivity and is quite interesting. The neatest aspect of the diagram is this: each dot, representing each blog that has been included in the diagram, is linked to that blog. Thats how the new link to Phatic Communion showed up on Google Blog Search. Youll have to visit the post to see exactly what this looks like; but heres a reduced copy of the image to show you what I mean by spark, in this case. blogosphere-map.jpg from All Out for the Fight The larger image at AOFTF is much clearer.* Two things struck me when I saw the image. * First, visually it actually reminded me of the first image above, my original envisioning of the interactions of individuals (labeled for this post, Static Activity simple.) * Second, it kinda looked like static, which with the first point, caused me to realize that my own diagram looked a bit like static. The first difference between this image and my own is simply that this image was designed by looking at whatever stable connections could be discerned between blogs; i.e., at links between blogs. The second difference between the images is this: AOFTFs image represents an architecture irrespective of the actual activities of individuals. One might even use a satellite image of the U.S.

highway system to create a similar image; but this would not necessarily mean that anyone uses those interconnecting highways, or that at any given moment all those highways are being used. In a way, this means that the interconnectivity represented by AOFTFs diagram is a fossilized account of past activities combined here together the links were formed over an expanded time frame as a result of past visits between bloggers and their sites and a potential prediction of future activity who knows who will utilize those links, and when? And so as we see with much network theory, a conflation of architecture with actual activity may occlude social realities. These perceived connections are only fossilized accounts of past connection or haphazard predictions of future connection. In terms of something addressed in my last D5GW post, on static, the theory of stable networks is like the theory of open source: an architecture may in fact allow connectivity or even have an effect on directing it, but this does not mean that individual actors will necessarily utilize, or that they actually are utilizing, that architecture. (Open-source may describe the environment without describing the actors or the activity.) If I were to take a different approach with AOFTFs diagram and, I have I would point out also the large hubs that form from the mish-mash of interconnecting paths. These in fact represent a greater concentration of past activities and may be more reliable for predicting future activity, although perhaps no greater reliability for prediction exists vis-a-vis any given individual with access to the Internet. Individuals who have in the past utilized these pathways may be more likely to utilize them in the future, and in particular the bloggers who operate the included blogs will probably be the most likely to utilize the linear connections with their own blogs represented by this diagram. So for a generalized look at activity i.e., one that does not concern itself overmuch with real individuals but only with abstract individuals and abstract groups of individuals the hubs represented in this diagram may in fact appear to have real meaning for network theorists. The second bulleted item, the comparison of the diagram with an appearance of static, should be understood in terms of selective viewing! I.e., the hubs represented in the diagram would seem to represent the emergence of definition within a field of static. Indeed, the imposition of a network architecture onto a static field of activity even the smaller hubs, or individual dots and the paths leading between them may seem to limit the truth of static reality. In the second part of my series, I will probably reintroduce this hubbing effect when I consider the subject of transparency. ZenPundit and Bar-Yam The other major recent spark for this post came from a review of a review of a paper (pdf) cowritten by Bar-Yam on the blog ZenPundit: Bar-Yams Shifting Hub: But Are Memes a Critical Factor in New Links in the Blogosphere? Fittingly perhaps, we return to Bar-Yam, who along with others addressing his ideas inspired those posts on the OODA and social networks at Phatic Communion introduced above. So I will quote from the same review by Sam Rose at The Cooperation Blog: If youre one of sixty million or so monthly visitors to social networking websites like MySpace or Facebook, youve probably noticed them network hubs, people who have many more contacts than everybody else. While most users have a few or a few hundred connections, a tiny percentage of users have thousands upon thousands. Maybe, with a twinge of jealousy, youve wondered what makes them so special. Is it about coolness? Influence? Popularity? How about none of the above? Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and the New England Complex Systems Institute have discovered that social networks and the roles of the individuals that

make them up vary drastically from day to day. Until now, scientists have largely thought of networks as fairly stable, changing only slightly over time-say, when someone makes a new contact. The reality of networks isnt as simple as that. Dan Braha and Yaneer Bar-Yam studied the emails sent among thousands of users over the course of four months. When they looked at the email traffic on any given day, they found that some people were hubs just as they expected. The surprise was that the identity of the hubs changed from day to day. An individual who sent and received relatively few e-mails on one day could become a hub of the network the next. Hubs rarely stayed hubs for any length of time. The results were astounding, Braha says. How important someone is changes so fast we might be better off saying it is like 15 minutes of fame. The most influential people are not the ones with the biggest address books, says Bar-Yam. What really matters is who is talking to whom. By looking only at who knows whom you lose a lot of important details about when people actually talk to each other. [quoted in The Shifting Hub, with emphasis added] These network theorists may finally be realizing that so-called networks do not lead to the emergence of activity so much as that activity leads to the emergence of networks and that these actual connections are transitory, ephemeral, constantly changing. Any established network may in fact be merely a fossilized account of activity rather than an ongoing account of real activity. We must not equate the architecture with the activity, because they are separate things. Most importantly, in a world of static, and particularly in a future world in which larger numbers of sources exist (many of them more empowered through the effects of globalization and the fluidity of the architecture they are using) i.e., in a world with increasing levels of static the imposition of a definitive network architecture onto the world for the express purpose of channeling activities will become increasingly difficult.

*Update: Thanks to Modern Pitung for correcting my faulty memory in the comments section! The image is the result of Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization, and Social Media by Matthew Hurst, where I first saw it. However, the link to All Out for the Fight is worth visiting for the many included observations which could not be included in the scope of this post (and due to my everpresent need to limit, best I can, the verbosity of my posts!)

5GW and the Struggle Against Evil After no activity for a year in a half in the comments section of my first post on 5GW, guest Herb Harris adds his thoughts: I just read this post and began to think of how the world is fighting a 5GW with regards to Satan and sin in the world. Do we even realize that our minds are being changed without our conscience mind becoming aware of the warfare with only our subconscience being fully engaged? Look at how our family has become basically destroyed through the need to gain material things. Several generations before seemed to function well but were not influenced with the saturation of information. It is not until you take a look back that you see the effects of the unconscience attacks that have taken place. This seems to tie into the Catholic idea that with every sin, every future sin becomes easier and with every virtuous act, virtue becomes easier. 5GW can be used as a method to reprogram minds through neurocortextual rewiring of the brain, bypassing conscious cognition in physically changing the nature of the observer. Your opinion?

Laying the Foundations Part 3: Technology 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? I am putting this in with the other Foundations articles because I think this is an essential consideration to keep in mind. Many are guilty (myself included. I, like many in the States, are gadget-oriented) of looking at the latest and greatest in technology and waxing rhapsodic about how this is going to change the face of war. This is a grave error. If technology drove doctrine we would have to re-invent the art of war with each new weapon. Technology does not drive doctrine! This applies even to the internet with all of its myriad abilities to connect people, satellite television with its broad reach, and cell phones with their ability to quickly transfer information. All of these examples of growing and evolving technology are merely tools. In themselves they do not define or create 5GW theory or doctrine. True, tech makes the 5GW battlefield more complex. Tech offers 5GW greater reach as it manipulates systems and pursues goals. Tech offers better predictive modeling and forecasting. However, none of these, not one, actually has anything to do with how 5GW works. 5GW effects are felt through multiple domains: social, economic, political, military and everything in between. These domains are all connected even without technology and it is with those connections that the Fifth Generation warriors will operate. As a result, Fifth Generation Warriors will push technology in directions today we can only imagine.

How should the term 5GW be used? Is this usage compatible with an accepted understanding of 5GW? Interesting story on how the US is using the threat of attack (not specifically mentioned, but implied) to increase uncertainty of investments in Iranian energy projects. It appears that this effort is proving successful as foreign banks/companies pull out of projects needed to sustain current production levels (the only wild card is China). This is a form of financial systems sabotage. It is also a good example of how states can use 5th generation warfare to their own advantage (from an earlier post): Or is this one: Exactly, which is usually the case due the asymmetry of 4th and 5th GW. Break the market, we lose. Break the state, we think we win, but we ultimately lose. If so, how does Robbs usage of 5GW as a form of open, asymmetrical struggle complement accepted knowledge? If not, how should errors such as this be corrected and/or highlighted?

Working Definition V. 2.3 Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW): An emergent theory of warfare premised upon manipulation of multiple economic, political, social and military forces in multiple domains to effect positional changes in systems and achieve a consilience of effects to leverage a specific goal or set of circumstances. (Arherring 1/12/07) And a bonus definition. Consilient effect: a jumping together of effects by the linking of effects across domains in order to create a pattern for action. (Arherring 1/12/07)

Are the Germans ripping me off? Or giving me props? Is this a google translation? Or a brilliant exegesis? Sadly, my monolinguialism once again cuts me off from a potentially fascinating conversation, but Unverdachtiger Schweinestalls post Kriegsfhrung = The O.O.D.A.-Loop strongly resembles my own post, Go Deep (OODA and the Rainbow of Generational Warfare: Das ist wahr, egal was du bist. Bist du ein Kmpfer bleibt der Prozess der gleiche. Der Kmpfer ist aktiv in der Welt, und die Welt rckantwortet mit Blowback zum Kmpfer. Blowback ist der Kaffeesatz, alles was brig bleibt - - von des Kmpfers Aktion nach der Aktion. Ein glcklicher Kmpfer bekommt leichtes und positives Blowback. Kmpfer die eine schlechte Wahl treffen, machen weniger positive Erfahrungen. On the subject of 5GW blog exploitation, the discussion is going strong over at Open Thread II. (Or if you want a real kick, check out bobos thoughts over at Phils 5th Generation Thumbnail Sketches.

What would a 5th Generation Format War (5GFW) look like? Slashdot and Digg links to the very good news that HD-DVD Encryption has been cracked, allowing one to play HD-DVDs in the same manner one plays regular CDs. Whats been particular fun is reading the digg comments. One in particular has the general antiauthority flair of John Robb: What is absolutely hilarious, is the who completely screwed up chain of junk this crap was forcing anyone to get who wanted to play these movies legitimately. HDCP video card. HDCP monitors etc. All for the super secure system that was hacked in weeks of being released. So now, as usual all of this garbage will only inconvenience the standard consumer while the Pirate/Torrent community can play the movie anywhere on any equipment. Pirate Nelson Says. HA, HA! Arrrrrrrrrrr! Though perhaps more relevent for our purposes are conspiracy theories from FormulaOne: You can thank the Blu-ray engineers for providing the solution to extract the unique volume keys. It took them some time, but they pulled it off in a very clandestine and indirect way. Gentleman, HD-DVD is officially on life support. And Escamillo: In other words, the doom guys were used as proxies in the format war, and were played. There actions will lead to HD-DVDs demise, which would defeat their purpose of hacking the format in the first place.

5GW, Freedom, and Theory Recently, J.R. approached me with the following question: Has it occurred to you that should 5GW be more widely recognized, it could meanor lead to the effective end of liberty? If anythingie not just media or academia, but even family life or friendships or personal networkscould be used (or seen) as either a strategy or weapon of war, than nothing is off-limits, right? This almost seems like an further evolution of the old commie concept of the peoples war, where there are no innocents. My first response was to break this question up into points. 1. The politicizing of everything began with 4GW, and so these developments are not new, and additionally 2. as it is unreasonable to expect that beliefs will be formed rationally, 5GW is not any less free than other methods of learning. However, this brings up a bigger question: What are the normative (moral) implications of 5GW? Is normative theory a natural part of 5GW theory? Should we have a Normative Theory section to this blog (would anything get posted there), and (if this meme is taken up) should we expect to see normatively-centered 5GW blogs?

Winning a Hockey 5GW Cross-posted from tdaxp. note: This is a guest post by Catholicgauze. CGs been a friend of mine for some time. Before starting his very good blog, he wrote a three-part series on the geographer H.J. de Blij which appeared on tdaxp [1, 2, 3]. The following are his first thoughts on the 5th Generation of Modern Warfare Engber, Daniel. (2007). Rorygate. Slate. January 18, 2007. Available online: http://www.slate.com/id/2157741/nav/tap2/. It started out as a joke. Steve Schmid, a twenty-two year old hockey fan from New York, wanted a run of the mill hockey player to be in the All Star game. He chose the Vancouver Canucks Rory Fitzpatrick as his candidate. Schmid started his campaign on Something Awfuls forums and on a few other online message boards. The campaign was only semi-serious and the online voting by self-described goons was expected to go nowhere. However, when the campaign moved past its organizer/leader and into leaderless aggression or fifth generation warfare (5GW) results began to materialize. A website for Fitzpatricks draft to the All Star game was constructed by a supporter. Political-style ads promoting Fitzpatrick, and even some jokingly negative, appeared on YouTube. Traditional media then began to pay notice. A cycle of news stories increased awareness and support for the draft movement culminating with Canucks players practicing with shirts supportive of Fitzpatrick. When online votes for the All Star game were being tallied as the polls remained open it became apparent that Fitzpatrick had a shot of being elected into the game. Various sports journalists, NHL officials, and even Wayne Gretzky laminated this and begged for voiding Fitzpatricks votes. The release the Rory Vote-O-Matic by supporters practically guaranteed Fitzpatricks election. The script allowed browsers to continually submit votes, there are no limits on how many times one could vote, for Fitzpatrick. With this the NHL decided to act but only half-heartedly. Minor increases in ballot security were quickly countered by Vote-O-Matic makers. Then something odd happened. The near-equilibrium between votes for Eastern and Western was disturbed by something and support for Fitzpatrick collapsed while votes for competition remained constant. Many on the internet believe the disruption was caused by the NHL covertly eliminating votes for and only for Fitzpatrick. In the end Fitzpatrick officially fell about 20,000 votes short of going to the All Star game. This battle between a leaderless movement and the National Hockey League is a great example of 5GW. When the NHL instituted minor modifications into the environment the movement adapted in the style of a living organism. Only when the NHL abandoned the light-footprint model and instead changed the rules of engagement completely did they deny any possibility of victory to the Fitzpatrick draft movement. The only thing which stopped a complete NHL victory was their lack of subtlety. The message is clear. To win 5GW the rules have to go out the window. A traditional attack will simply be adapted to at the cost of wasted resources by the attacker. Change the rules; however, to something where there can be no adaptation. Easier said than done but a game plan none the less.

Toward a Better Understanding of 4GW Vis-a-vis my remarks on the thread Winning a Hockey 5GW: For some time now, Ive had in the back of my head the thought that much of the way media is consciously used in America, and often subconsciously effective, is fundamentally 4GWish. I include the -ish because I think there may be some confusion once we begin to consider generations of politics and generations of economics: 4GP, 4GE, and so forth I would forgo doing so and simply lump them into 4GW, although I think some others would not like my manner of lumping them into one category. Most strongly: We can see in politics the unspoken awareness of 4GW campaigns being conducted largely through media effects. Just in the last two days, when Hillary Clinton was asked whether Barack Obama is qualified to be President, she hemmed and hawed and avoided answering the question. Rather than be some sort of 5GW effort to utilize the media, her hesitation was the result of an understanding that answering either way would give potential opponents a basis for conducting a 4GW attack. Yes, he is unqualified, would give opponents (whether fellow Democrats running for the same office or Republicans) another example of the Hillary is just another arrogant Democrat / Clinton meme; He is qualified, would lend moral support to the Obama campaign.* Her refusal to answer the question just one example of a longtime standard in politics, and more so since the rise of television as a force in politics is analogous to the effort by American troops to never give 4GW opponents in Iraq some fodder for media campaigns attempting character assassination of the U.S. foreign policy. [Sadly, examples like the prison sex photo scandal, or of rapes and murders of innocent civilians, have occurred and eroded the character of the American presence anyway.] In the same way that 4GW fighters try to attack an opponents justification for fighting, political campaigns in America attempt to use character assassination to erode the support for that candidate. I know that Mark Safranski has pointed out that some 4GW theorists believe 4GW has been around for 70 or so years already; if true, and if generations of warfare represent a manner of thinking and operating in the world, then we should seriously consider how such thinking has affected other domains and not just warfare in the same time period. I think politicians in America are conditioned to think in a 4GW manner. Similarly, advertising campaigns try to do the same thing: 9 out of 10 doctors choose _________ for their patients implies that using the other products is unjustifiable while building support of the one being advertised; this sort of campaign is made only stronger when the product packaging from the other products is included in the commercial. (A recent soda ad, I think it was for Diet Pepsi?, uses a Diet Coca-Cola can as a stunt-double in car crashes and so forth, thus preserving the better Diet Pepsi can.) I think we must remember that memetic engineering occurs in 4GW, that media is an important tool of 4GW, and not get too carried away in seeing a media campaign and calling it 5GW. In the hockey example, the original linked article takes a very negative stance on the NHL, by calling them bumbling; and how is this different than calling American efforts in Iraq bumbling? A 4GW force may force the hand of its opponent, its opponent may then act in a way that backfires, and this only lends support to the 4GW campaign (its own justification) while eroding the character of its opponent. As the character erodes for the target and gets built up for the 4GW force, others may join in the 4GW campaign. I realize that Dan tdaxp has significantly used the term tactics in the title for the post at tdaxp, and that some memetic engineering in the hockey campaign may cause the campaign to seem like 5GW if we extend the similarities while disregarding the dissimilarities; but from my perspective, getting faceless cohorts to buy into the character of Rory Fitzpatrick seems more 4GW than 5GW, particularly since the effort to get him included was an underhanded attack on the character of the All-Star dynamic. How is such an effort distinguishable from the use of

jingoism to build a foreign foe, or of racism to build an internal foe and an internal kinsman, in earlier examples of warfare? There is this, though: Because the data will out, politicians in America have learned to tie their tongues, just as Hillary Clinton has. If a natural defense against potential 4GW character assassination campaigns has naturally arisen, i.e., secrecy which we have also seen much of in the George W. Bush administration, to preempt potential 4GW campaigns against the White House then we must wonder if attempts at secrecy to combat 4GW in politics are early examples of an emergent 5GW tactic arising to combat the more prevalent dynamic of 4GW.

UPDATE (fillip): Mark Safranski of ZenPundit has been hosting an interesting discussion on the issue of whether nuclear warfare should be considered a lost generation of warfare and included in the xGW model: Downgrading The Unthinkable to Thinkable. Some insightful (and some inciting) observations have been made in the comments section. I made a quick comment with something I had not quite considered before, that the idea of nuclear warfare has been operative rather than actual nuclear warfare (thus nuclear warfare hasnt crossed the threshold from theory to any sort of identifiable generation of warfare), and as such, the unthinkable aspect of actually applying a nuclear warfare strategy made the advent of the nuclear age seem like the dawn of 4GW: In general then, since its really the idea or theory of nuclear war that has been operative, rather than actual nuclear war, the nuke perspective seems rather 4GW. We dont slaughter Iraqis willynilly, because we know our 4GW opponents would use that slaughter in their media campaign to erode our justification for our efforts in Iraq. [e.g.] As such, the dawning of the nuclear age seems to have been the dawning of 4GW. I dont make a habit of trying to isolate definite time-line shifts for the generations of warfare in fact, I believe such an approach obfuscates what actually occurs so this was a first, and more of a stab at a new thought than a statement of belief. However, I find this follow-up consideration intriguing: Given the awesome weight of the nuclear specter in America throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, a corresponding 4GWish manner of thinking about conflict may have set in. Direct confrontation between great powers became terrifying; but the use of proxies and memes for doing battle i.e., indirect conflict, plus a dispersal of smaller operative forces could bypass such massive direct confrontation. We know what the Cold War was like, of course; andwe know that an establishment of the meme The Evil Empire aided Ronald Reagans strategy for winning the Cold War. Evil Empire was more than a concept; it was a moral statement. Besides the fear of suffering a nuclear attack, some residual guilt over the two actual uses of nuclear weapons however rationalized may have abetted the move to 4GWish thinking patterns. If we could defeat our foes and win our allies through memetic engineering, we would no longer need to kill to win our battles.** Deterrence became a message: we could rattle sabers to accomplish what negative epithets and American Dreams could not accomplish by themselves. I also wonder if Vietnam was the death rattle of faith in pure-force warfare; could the Viet Cong not hear our sabers rattling, see our awesome power? Correspondingly, and ironically, our foes were showing that actual force strength was not all it was cracked up to be: another blow to the once-dominant concept of winning with direct kinetic force alone.

A class of politicians maturing through those decades may have taken these lessons to heart without understanding exactly what they were learning. It is amusing for me to wonder if force of argument (rational argument) increasingly took a back seat to displays analogous to saber-rattling and moralizing and that, as such patterns of political conflict grew in prominence, to the exclusion of rational debate, voters developed in tune with such conflict, who actually looked for it and expected it. This process of tuning would have far-reaching consequences: a polity quite susceptible to 4GW memetic attacks. And perhaps a political class developed that was incapable of creating a successful warfare strategy dependent on the use of kinetic force or unwilling to do so (particularly also since the polity would not be able to appreciate such a strategy ) Well, this update has only been a fillip. For those sufficiently intrigued: I once charged George W. Bush with trying to win the war in Iraq by utilizing such 4GW memetic moralizing, in comments on another thread. Even there, I was only brainstorming. *Addendum: There could be this possibility, among others: Clinton may not want to give opponents a tool for later attacking her honesty and judgment, if she already has Obama in mind as a running mate. ** Addendum II: Of course, the specter of the entire WWII itself, including the Holocaust, no doubt played a role. The advent of nukes, and their use, was a summation of all that, however, or an ideological avatar.

5GW and Global Guerrillas Theory In response to a comment by Curtis, I issue a call to arms on defining Global Guerrilla Theory As I see it, there are three possibilities for global guerrilla theory Internally valid, externally valid Internally valid, externally invalid Internally invalid, externally invalid If GGT is internally invalid, we may be able to establish this just by nailing down his concepts. If GGT is externally invalid, we can demonstrate this by making it clear what GGT actually says. Alternatively, if GGT is correct (unlikely in my view, but possible), it would complement everything thats been written about 5GW and the generations of war. So lets get to work. Theres other phrases Robb throws around black swans, black globalization, (black ??). They need definitions. And if, at the end of the day, all we are left with is a series of defined terms, that wouldnt be bad either. The terms can survive independent of the theorist that spins them. They can, if they are useful, be incorporated into 5GW theory.

For your amusement Something I ran across while retreating from reality into the satirical unreality of one of my favorite authors. Considering the 5GWish tone, it made me chuckle and I thought I would share. But we thought obsessively about Virgils reference to secret activities in the sewers and developed the paranoid idea that everything around us was strictly superficial and based on a much deeper stratum of intrigue. Its hard enough to follow events such as these without having to keep the mind open for possible conspiracies and secrets behind every move. This uncertainty made it impossible for us to form any focused picture of the tapestry of events, and we became impatient for Saturday night, tired of having to withhold judgement until we knew all the facts. What had been concieved as an almost recreational visit to the Land of the Rats had become, in our minds, the search for the central fact of American Megaversity. Neal Stephenson The Big U

Deconstructing John Robbs Bazaar of Violence A flurry of posts and comments have swarmed the generally closed-source development of Global Guerrilla Theory, whether to attack it or in support of it depending on who is writing. My various comments on the recent threads will seem like an attack; but they are malicious only to the degree that any Pyrrhonist exploration of the relevant ideas behind a theory may seem to reject out of hand the most dogmatic principles, treating them with the sort of disdain that dogmatists cannot appreciate: What seems contrary must be attacked as unfit, if only to further the search for better understanding, and dogmatists tend to take umbrage with any suggestion that their theories admit of doubt. The most pointed posts attacking the questions raised by GGT can be found on TDAXP: * Coherent Gibberish * Elements of Global Guerrilla Theory * Working Definition of Global Guerrillas The first post contains 69 comments at this writing, pro- and con-, although the others have also been active. Elsewhere, Shloky addresses the concept of global in the term Global Guerrillas by highlighting the concept of black globalization via an old description of GG in a post on Opposed Systems Design: * Black Globalization * DoD 3000 and Global Guerilla Thinking Most recently, Dan of TDAXP has highlighted a comment left on the Gibberish thread with a post on D5GW 5GW and Global Guerrillas Theory in which he links the above posts and calls for a better definition of that theory. I question whether a theory can be defined exhaustively but succinctly; attempts to do so always seem to leave enough room for doubt and controversy. However, Im all for a continuing search for definition. In another comment on the Gibberish thread, John Robb has invited emails and succinct criticisms from anyone seeking clarification of his own conceptualization of Global Guerrillas; but Im not sure that a closed-source approach will lead to the answers his critics seek, particularly when criticisms have already grown numerous over the months and have been expressed in numerous ways by those who obviously have great interest in the subject: It seems to me that anyone deigning to offer an understanding of our complex global environment ought to have been able to comprehend the concerns expressed so variously and voluminously already. I confess I do not fully understand the purpose of such an invitation, unless it is to counter the similar requests made by critics wishing for a narrow summation of GGT. I.e., perhaps the complexity only confuses, and a few pointed criticisms would work for building a bridge through the chaos. Nonetheless, the offer seems to have been a suggestion for defining the battlefield however the war might range, and I see no reason to do so behind the scenes via email. That would be roughly analogous to not meeting your foe in plain view between the warring parties but instead going to his tent alone for parley. Thus, I propose the following concern for further debate, a concern about Global Guerrillas Theory I have had for some time but which has gained in definition thanks to Wiggins, Shloky, and Dan.

I left a comment on Dans recent D5GW post which began to summarize my reconsideration of the doubts Ive had about GGT. In response to a statement about how GGT might complement 5GW theory, I was forced to reexamine some of the connections I have already made between the theories.* I also had in mind thoughts inspired by Shlokys examination of the global aspects of Global Guerrillas: primarily, whether networked tribes might ultimately create a global system that is relatively stable, or balanced - perhaps a kind of market-state even if nation-states cease to exist. Would autonomous cartels or else GG factions and other non-state networks eventually be put into the position of maintaining the [changed] system now roughly maintained by balances between nation-states? Or would constant system perturbations, or else never-ending attacks on systempunkts, by disgruntled factions keep the system in perpetual turmoil; i.e., would widespread chaos continually emerge, preventing the formation of any relatively stable or balanced system? These questions may indeed be too broad, if they require knowledge no one can possibly have in the present. At Shlokys, I pondered the possibility that the debate on the Gibberish thread had erringly fallen into an Order vs. Chaos debate, with the pro-GG faction assuming a general future chaos and the anti-GG faction assuming a general future order. Does GG theory assume one or the other, or does it leave the question open? In addition to the Order vs. Chaos error, a NationState/Hegemony vs. Anarchy dichotomy may have led the debate astray particularly if GG theory assumes the formation of something not either of those, i.e. a kind of market-state. Another subject that arose in the Gibberish debates: will future GGs and others living in the future sit idly by while everything crashes down around them, or continue to be active, whether destructively or in trivial pursuits, while everything crashes? This question arose as a consequence of the Order vs. Chaos dichotomy, but it was also inspired by the now-tedious question of whether global guerrillas will have nothing but destruction on their minds, or be consummate nihilists. And it is this question that hangs in my mind and creates the most doubt about Global Guerrilla Theory. If we can have no specific knowledge of future non-state factions, networks, and so forth that will emerge, nor precise knowledge of attacks on systempunkts (or massive retaliations by nation-states, for that matter), may we nonetheless have certain knowledge concerning the most basic elements of states, factions, networks individual humans? If so, can we develop a better understanding of how conglomerations of individual humans may act in the future? Wiggins at Opposed Systems Design has a new, relevant post that also relates to something from my comment: Ought vs. Is. An interesting issue is this is that what will be depends upon what is but it will be affected by what we wish the future might be. [Wiggins] This may be related to the concept of the OODA, at least as I use that concept in the Revised OODA

RevisedOODA.jpg [Links to a larger image.]

We have The World that is observed (Concrete Observation) and we have the individuals Mental Constructs that, along with concrete observations of the world, feed into the Abstract Observation phase; but what comes out the other side after these have interacted, the Concrete Act, will depend on both; and that activity re-shapes the world in at least some small way. So when I wrote, The assumption of a continuously emerging chaos rests on the theory that not only GGs but other actors all individuals on the Earth do not tie their activities to either: (1) an observation of the existing environment, (2) a vision for a future environment that can be shaped given the existing environment. [CGW]

and that General standards may develop as a result of so much diverse activity, since the activities of GGs will be shaping the world, albeit from multiple directions and without much explicit coordination, and this changing environment will in turn direct the cognitive development of these actors and others forced [to] live in such a world. (Robb appears to neglect any consideration of how the various GGs will be forced to re-align in reaction to a such a changing environment, however.) [CGW]

I was narrowing down my primary doubt about what GG Theory appears to imply. Each person has an individually operating OODA process; each person may have unique Mental Constructs formed over a lifetime; each person may have not only a unique and limited, localized observation of the World (perspective) but also an idiosyncratic vision for the future (resulting also from unique mental constructs), leading to multifarious, non-aligned activities that change the world from many directions as each individual acts. GG Theory appears to imply that groups with internally-aligned visions will form, but each of these groups will have peculiar motivations, leading to non-aligned activities between GG groups, and such diverse activity will keep the world rather chaotic. What GG Theory fails to address: how the GG groups will alter as their environments alter according to plan. I.e., if these non-aligned activities change the environment they would be useless otherwise and create more chaos simply because they are unaligned, or at cross-purposes, GG groups observing that environment would need to alter their strategies and activities if they still want to achieve their individual, peculiar goals. O - O - D - A. However, John Robb has thus far focused mostly on the emergence of global guerrillaism in Iraq and a bazaar of violence useful for taking down a government or preventing the establishment of a stable government: Infrastructure disruption (network attack). These attacks are the bread and butter of global guerrilla operations. It deprives the emergent government of the ability to deliver those services necessary for legitimacy and economic recovery. It also, particularly in the case of Iraq, deprives the

government of funds necessary for reconstruction and ongoing security. The rate of return from these attacks is by far the highest of all attack types. [The Bazaar of Violence in Iraq, 08 July 2004] The implication is that these various groups are largely working toward the same goal: depriv[ing] the emergent government of the ability to deliver, depriv[ing] the government of funds necessary for reconstruction Robb continued the thought in a later post by suggesting that diverse GG groups combine for a purpose: The bazaar solves the problem: how do small, potentially antagonistic networks combine to conduct war? [The Bazaars Open Source Platform, 24 September 2004] So these groups are potentially antagonistic but instead only work toward one common goal: the destruction of a nation-state structure. Quite possibly each group will have ulterior motives, nonaligning goals for the more distant future, but all agree that first the state must fall. What remains unconsidered is how the more distant goals affect the present activities. Should these potentially antagonistic groups realize that future competitors will still be around after the states collapse, what might they do to prevent their own ultimate collapse when the state no longer serves as the focal point of hostilities? To the degree that they are dependent on systems cellphone relays, for instance they might need to protect those systems. GG Theory introduces the concept of black globalization to account for this protection, but fails to answer how black globalization can be maintained when global oil production is brought to a halt, for instance, or at least severely disrupted: how shall arms, food, and so forth be transported? If by mules and donkeys, it will not be very global. Perhaps limited oil production will be protected by the black marketeers; how then protect against unmanned drones sent in by nation-states to disrupt those supplies and flows or from competing GGs? If systempunkt attacks cause cascading effects which also happen to disrupt black globalization, why will GG groups continue to cause disruption? This last question should address not only whether such groups are capable of observing such blowback, ahead of time or as it occurs, but also whether continued activities will be possible once enough blowback has happened. A bazaar of violence is a hallmark of global guerrilla warfare. When a state collapses, as it did in Iraq, global guerrillas quickly arrive with money and violence. Through this funding, terrorist violence, and infrastructure disruption; global guerrillas create conditions ripe for the establishment of a bazaar of violence. In essence, the bazaar is an emergent property of global guerrilla operations within a failed or collapsed state. Once established, it builds on itself and creates a dynamic that is almost impossible to disrupt. [08 July 2004, emphasis added] This would seem to suggest that the term bazaar of violence only applies to failed or collapsed state[s] and not a global dynamic. It may appear in multiple places around the globe but only in failed states. Can it fuel activities directed against succeeding states, to cause them to fail and open the door for expansion of the bazaar of violence? John Robb does suggest the possibility, through (1) Leveraged attacks, (2) Swarms, and (3) Rapid innovation [24 September 2004], but these considerations fail to answer the question of why GG groups will coordinate to achieve mutual destruction of their own resources while attacking common foes. Presumably, for such a reality to

occur each GG group would need to have tunnel vision focused only on local effects and be entirely unable to see how cascading failure of global systems will produce negative feedback for themselves even after such negative feedback begins to occur. In the case of Robbs prime example, Iraq, the resources of globalization coming from without, i.e., from foreign sources, allow some protection against the internal collapse GGs are causing. A global bazaar of violence dynamic would not provide such a buffer. Furthermore, John Robb provides a paradox when considering rapid innovation: With a sufficient number of guerrilla networks unearthing vulnerabilities (particularly ones with systems leverage), security forces will likey be outmatched. [24 September 2004] Combine this with considerations earlier in that post relating to the advantages of an open-source platform: This pattern shows a level of learning, activity, and success similar to what we see in the open source software community. * Given a large enough pool of co-developers, any difficult problem will be seen as obvious by someone, and solved. [] * Your co-developers (beta-testers) are your most valuable resource. [] * Recognize good ideas from your co-developers. [] [24 September 2004] According to the theory of open-source platforms and Global Guerrillas, diverse groups will not only learn very quickly whatever happens globally, but will be quite aware of tactics other groups are using. Unearthing vulnerabilities in systems will occur, and such knowledge will quickly spread. How not, then, detect adverse system perturbations or unwise attacks on systempunkts with a high potential for blowback? In an environment which permits rapid learning, how can GGs operate only with a tunnel vision focused on their local environments especially given the fact that these diverse groups are at the same time somehow co-developers? For GG Theory to address a global dynamic leading to sustained chaos, these diverse groups must continue to see only their localities, must continue to believe that their peculiar visions of the future can still be manifested if those localities are altered (this keeps them acting destructively), and can never be persuaded from such visions (of actual local environments and the potential for manifesting the desired but different futures). Or else they must be able to destroy nation-states and state-protected markets, one at a time, without destroying themselves in the process, while ensuring the growth of black globalization and their individual networks, which would suggest a level of coordination that goes far beyond the violence-oriented Stigmergic Learning [14 July 2004] John Robb has suggested in another post: Stigmergic systems use simple environmental signals to coordinate that actions of independent agents (each with their own decision making process). These signals are used to coordinate scalable, robust, and dynamic activity. This activity is often much more intelligent that the actions capable by the individual actors (in this case individual global guerrilla groups). [14 July 2004]

 Another paradox. The concept of stigmergic learning has been incorporated into Global Guerrilla theory to explain, once again, how diverse GG groups may learn which targets to attack, in an open-source environment; only, this time, there is a type of independent discovery of systemic weaknesses rather than a joint discovery. Robb considers only the attack impulse, the destructive impulse. The concept of stigmergic learning has not been considered in the context of learning what not to attack or for any limitation of disruptive behavior, however, which is unfortunate. In a discussion concerning normative theory here at D5GW, I considered something quite related to the subject of stigmergic learning: In archetypal Barnett vs Robb terms, the erroneous majoritarianism operates from a belief in closed-source, vertically enforced, and hierarchical establishment of standards, whereas standards in fact really form as a result of confluential processes during the continual emergence of systemic reality. Applied normative theory tends to be the first; but one might consider normative theory as an explanatory theory that describes the emergence rather than prescribing the emergence. [CGW, 22 January 2007] Relating this to Global Guerrilla Theory and a previous paradox, I wonder how tunnel-vision GGs, even if they are truly perpetually tunnel-visioned, may nonetheless move toward an independent discovery that maintaining general order is far preferable to allowing a world to spiral into perpetual chaos, since This activity is often much more intelligent tha[n] the actions capable by the individual actors. From an OODA perspective, stigmergic learning would seem to suggest that, as chaos increases past a certain point, independent actors may increasingly shift their activities toward limiting it or preventing it, or to building orders. This does not mean that they will throw their weight on the side of nation-states (although non-GG actors on the world stage might), but only that an impulse for building and/or maintaining localized stabilities and security may usurp the impulse to disrupt and destroy. To the degree that actors outside of localized environments may affect the stability of those environments, coordination with groups outside those environments might be required for ensuring localized stability. As we often see in geopolitics. I.e., as chaotic situations become sufficiently widespread, more and more people will Observe chaos and shift their Activities to try and halt it; few people love such a vision. But I said Robbs consideration of stigmergic learning was paradoxical: Stigmergy is a term used in biology (from the work of french biologist Pierre-Paul Grasse) to describe environmental mechanisms for coordinating the work of independent actors (for example, ants use pheromones to create trails and people use weblog links to establish information paths, for others to follow). [14 Juiy 2004, emphasis added] Neither example involves creating disruption; rather, the opposite.

Tying Loose Ends A common theme, or call it a common question, frequently resurfaces in our little neck of the Blogospheric Woods, amazingly emergent wherever the discussion turns toward an examination of the future of humanity: Shall there be tribes; if so, will they be networked or largely insular; or does globalization ultimately eliminate any sort of identifiable tribalism? Discussions inspiring these question often range from topic to topic which themselves remain insular (they are not always considered together), and the definitions we use are often obscured or fuzzy. We do not always agree on terms. Unfortunately, our disagreement means that our attempts to come to some mutual understanding of the relevant issues are often also fuzzy, if not entirely hostile in an incoherent way. One such fuzzy term requires further analysis: primary loyalties. Primary Loyalties Ill admit to a bias. I do not think that the term, primary loyalties, is aptly used by John Robb: A primary loyalty is a connection to a non-state group that is greater than loyalty to a state. These loyalties include those to clan, religion, tribe, neighborhood gang, etc. [Primary loyalties, 03 February 2007] While the counterargument could suppose a selfish gene that demands absolute loyalty, I would not go so far but rather promote the idea that primary loyalty is always to the self or to the individual person. I would make corresponding claims that a natural, hard-coded impulse for self-preservation is the cause of this primary loyalty. I might be wrong. Although I do not believe altruism is much of a counteractive force, I do believe that other hardwired impulses compete against selfpreservation: e.g., a human parents devotion to the survival of her child. We may find many exceptions to such loyalty, however, not only within the mythical Me Culture assumed to exist within America. Occasionally, even love between two unrelated individuals may appear to usurp the impulse toward self-preservation; as may self-abnegating heroics, in the case of firefighters and policemen and very good samaritans in general; but these are special cases, surely, and I think that the primary loyalty is still to the self in such situations: It is our own sense of right and wrong, of good and bad, or of immediate necessity, that determines how we will act, not social pressures telling us what to do in the moment. In a way, the loyalty-to-self is not necessarily a result of an impulse to self-preservation, but may instead be a result of other hardwired realities, such as our inability to escape our own individual OODA processes. Then, even the impulse to self-preservation, if it is genetically coded within the individual, is expressed in loyalty-to-self simply because that genetic information continuously feeds into the Abstract OODA process of the individual, a process the individual cannot escape, and takes its place (amonst other observations and mental constructs) in determining an individuals Concrete Acts. So maybe I would be wrong to connect this real primary loyalty merely to the impulse for self-preservation, and maybe the selfish genes do have great sway. The definition of primary loyalty John Robb has given arises as a consequence of not really looking at the bottom, even if he includes in his description Richard Feynmans assertion, theres plenty of room at the bottom, and concludes his description by prophesying: Look to globalization to accelerate/catalyze this race to the bottom. He stops short of looking at the bottom; perhaps he has not found it. I find the consequential consideration a little humorous, that the theory archtypically opposed to John Robbs Global Guerrillas Theory, Thomas P.M. Barnetts Blueprint for Action, could almost be described as an attempt to accelerate/catalyze this race to the bottom but may

have a concept of the bottom more like mine. Other Loyalties Alas, the primary loyalty is often obscured, not only for abstract theorists who like looking on a global scale, spinning theory out of observation of group dynamics, but also for individuals living upon that globe. Other recent Blogospheric discussions relate: * Economic Man vs. Primary Loyalties? by Mark Safranski, at Chicago Boyz * Jesusism-Paulism, Part V: The People of the Book by Dan at tdaxp * Staying focused on the right metrics by Wiggins at Opposed Systems Design Religion or State? Wiggins in fact gives poll results which would seem to contradict John Robbs prediction: Between 2004 and 2006, the number of Iraqis who supported the idea of an Islamic state fell from 30% to 22%. The number agreeing that religion and politics ought to be seperated rose from 27% to 41%. The number of respondents who put their Iraqi identity ahead of their Muslim one rose from 30% to 60%. And last but certainly not least, the number of Iraqis agreeing that it was very important for Iraq to be a democracy rose from 59% to 65%. The third metric in particular would seem to suggest that there is, in fact, a race to the top at least ideologically if the actual manifestation seems no closer to happening. On the other hand, the fourth implies a race to the bottom if we consider bottom to be the self, or an individual, and suppose that the desire for democratic reforms is a desire to protect and empower the individual in relation to other individuals and groups. The second metric might suggest the same thing, if religious affiliation is thought to be a personal decision and not something to be instituted by a central authority. Dan has offered a generalization of the three primary monotheistic religions: Judaism can accurately be described as a Religion of Life because the focus is on the promulgation in this world of offspring of Abraham and Sarah. Christianity can accurately be described as a Religion of Love because the focus in on the promulgation of loving kindness as described by Jesus and Paul. In contrast, Islam can accurately be described as a Religion of One Ruleset, the Koran, in opposition to all others. The only proper Rules are those that spread the Ruleset. It is fair to say that Judaism is Tribalist, Christianity is Ideological, and Islam is Totalitarian. Not in some particular implementations, but in their meaning and purpose. These are abstract interpretations based on particular tenets, and they have occasioned some doubt, most recently from Michael in the comments section who has wondered,

what was the strength that the Christians lent to the [Roman] empire? But you briefly mentioned Christian warriors. If the strength the empire gained was a new source of motivated troops, then the strategies you described werent being used. Assuming the strength of the Christians was on the battlefield, was it just a matter of their deciding not to follow their own rules for a while? Were they following explicit rules other than the ones you mentioned? I.e., the abstract description of Christianity as a Religion of Love does not mesh well with the actual historical Christianity. Christians in the army did not turn the other cheek and love their neighbors, but killed their foes on the battlefield. The implication is that Christianity may have begun as a religion of love but became corrupted through interaction with the Roman system. I wrote a comment in answer to Michael, importing ideas from the anthropologist Marvin Harris, which he gave in his book Our Kind: The Roman Empire gained citizens who cared much less about earthly rewards or avoiding suffering suffering was indeed a test of faith, Christly which made dying on the battlefield less of a concern. Christians who died defeating heathen invaders would be rewarded with heaven in the afterlife. But also Rome did not need to gain the loyalty of Christians by overseeing their welfare. Given the size of the Roman empire, managing the welfare of all its citizens proved too complex, particularly as populations grew and resources diminished. A citizenry accustomed to seeing suffering and poverty as a test of faith would not be as likely to blame the central government for these things; suffering was a private, personal matter quite related to ones own spirituality. Also, a citizenry that was leaning toward Christianity was a citizenry less likely to revolt; theyd be turning the other cheek and living in meekness. However, Christian leaders worked with Constantine to ensure that Christians in the common classes were indeed protected, in order to preserve the meek classes benefiting Rome. As Marvin Harris wrote, Not only did he stop the persecution of Christians, but he confiscated the treasures and estates of the old Roman gods and godesses, turned them over to Christian bishops to build new churches (sometimes with the stones of the old temples), and established imperial funds to indemnify Christians for their suffering and for expenses incurred in feeding the poor. Constantine changed the whole legal structure of the Empire to accommodate Christian principles. He permitted celibates to inherit property, prohibited divorce, condemned concubinage, forbade gladiatoral games, and prohibited animal sacrifice. One of Constantines most important acts was his legalization of bequests to the Church. As Robin Lane Fox points out, this was a particularly sensitive issue because of the clergys special presence at the moment of death.

This made the Church economically independent from the state, vitally and dynamically, but more importantly, this shifted oversight of the welfare of the people to the Church from the state, i.e., shifted dependencies. The Church had an additional advantage over the state: It could use redistribution of wealth to help the needy, and thus gain their loyalty, but because it was also the highest earthly authority of God, it could also define the level of suffering required for salvation. The two metrics for determining loyalty were co-operative. The question of what happened to (1) the doctrine of turning the other cheek and (2) the prediction that the meek would inherit the Earth is a good question, given the rise of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the eventual militarization of Christianity. It would seem that the early Christian bishops sold those doctrines to the highest bidder: The mass of Christians would not fight Rome, but fight for Rome, provided that Rome shared power; but to every non-Christian state, the meekness would not be offered. In time, the highest bidder might be England, or France, or any Christian European state that would share power. Meanwhile, the self-interest of individual Christians in Europe, their primary loyalty,

required at least an overt display of loyalty to Church and Country, if not a deep loyalty to one or the other or both for a time. Economic Man or Communal Man? Mark Safranski has posed an interesting question in the title of his post, and I suppose that any consideration of the so-called primary loyalties also ought to include a consideration of the real primary loyalty. As is typical for those of us ruminating on global dynamics and/or group dynamics, the tendency to stop short of the bottom is a symptom of trying to see the general outline of the Woods because viewing every single individual tree is too difficult: Setting aside Ikle for the moment, Thomas Barnett or any other thinker who attempts to put an intellectual template on a global system is required to engage in simplification of complexity. It is, as James correctly states, a one-size-fits-all model and not the underlying reality in all its nuances and interconnections. At best, a valid model identifies common operating principles and provides a rough predictive capability, considering those principles acting in isolation. As reality is messy, policy makers being guided by any model need to exercise some degree of common sense. Pakistan is not India, much less Indiana, and while markets may exist in all three, the wise statesman makes wide allowances for local variation. The variations however, still have a common touchstone. The title of his post appears to have been a simplification of the real primary loyalty, viewed through the lens of politics and economics, which he would oppose to the so-called [not bottom!] primary loyalties. The post has developed into an excellent discussion. Part of the discussion concerns how we should define tribes. Are they voluntary or not voluntary? Lexington Green thinks they are not, but I commented by saying that such a description obscures the process of tribalization. Not only may heretics and rebels willfully renounce tribal affiliation, but even now choosing to join a generally oppressive tribal system occurs. Lex gave an example of gangs, in which one might choose to join but have difficulty leaving; and I thought that was on the right track. It reminded me of Ralph Waldo Emersons comment that, Every thought is also a prison; every heaven is also a prison. Change heaven to haven, and the process of tribalization becomes more meaningful. Whether born into a tribe or choosing it, the interconnecting support systems and controls within a tribal system produce a kind of prison from which extrication seems either too difficult to attempt or else undesirable. Now I would say that the personal OODA loop leads to the unquestioned validity of a tribal system, for those in the tribe; or, to an understanding that trying to leave it would have greater costs than staying within it; or even to an inability to see it, much less question its desirability or validity. The sort of armchair theorist only looks at the larger picture, the things that have appeared to emerge, and draws abstractions and generalizations from what he has seen from that distance; and this process almost invariably dismisses the reality of individual free agents from the picture. They are too small, too numerous, too various. Tribes, states, and so forth become self-reinforcing entities to be juggled within the theory. Usually, the juggling includes a model or framework of some sort and predefined arcs: called, in discussions like these, networks. I have spent some time trying to dissuade theorists from depending upon such theorizing. Complexity demands a better style of viewing, because complex systems are the result of many lesser forces operating confluentially. The apparent emergent realities may be quite temporal as

these smaller forces for a time align in a given pattern. In a complex social system, the operation of so many individual OODA loops cannot be easily mapped. However, this difficulty presents problems not only for the armchair theorist, but also for the operative on the ground: the individuals living amidst the complexity. Whereas relatively rigid modes of operating, strict guidelines and well-defined channels for expressing power, may have been stultifying, globalization by offering more choices may be confusing, particularly for those who have spent a lifetime building a life in the Old Ways. An OODA process accustomed to a well-defined, rigid environment may not allow comprehension of alternative methods for building a life, may not even be able to see alternative modes and methods; or else, seeing them, may inspire dread at the prospect of the emergence of a system which appears to require alternative methods which have not been learned by the individual. So there may be an initial rush to the [not real] bottom. This is really going with what you know, and to the degree that such a tribal system may support your most basic needs, it may be an attractive place to stay. Identification with a tribe also means being able to predict how other members of that tribe will act and react under particular circumstances, to the degree that common mental constructs have formed; this allows for some contractual assurance in general dealings with members of the tribe, or trust. So Bret Stephens oped in WSJ, quoted in Wiggins post, is interesting in light of this theoretical aligning of abstracts: Something basic has changed, [Mithal al-Alusi, Iraqi member of parliament] says, noting that the terrorism that once was directed against Israel and the West has lost its cache on the Arab street now that Muslims have become its principal victims. Multiple choices may also offer multiple escapes from such an environment, its just a matter of being able to do a cost-benefit analysis, which requires being able to see those choices and being able to understand them as well as being able to follow them without too great a risk. Mark was on the right track when he said, Defusing psychological anxieties over identity, moving society beyond subsistence level to a point where risk-taking could be more safely entertained, helped transition Europeans into the abstract mental framework of the nation-state citizen, rather than that of a subject of a provincial nobleman. I say, on the right track, because the safety required for entertaining the idea of taking a risk is not much explained. Moving beyond subsistence levels is not the whole story. In fact, being able to find alternative methods for subsistence may have played a larger role. This is where capitalism and trade played a key role as well as religion, ultimately in the form of a diversification of enterprise and the mobility offered by trade and a continent-wide Church: the merchant coming from a distant land nonetheless could profess faith in Jesus Christ; meanwhile, diverse ethnicities intermingled during the transaction. I would suggest that a balance between religious homogeneity and cultural heterogeneity led ultimately to the limitation of atavistic tribalism. I can understand the criticism, in comments on the Chicago Boyz post, of Thomas Barnetts proposal for forcing the issues, and have criticized his theories before in the same vein We can make excuses that some ethereal environment forces our hand, but we should not so disingenuously claim, as Barnett appears to claim in the above passage, that PNM theory is anything other than a top-down theory of management. True, the existing map is not quite beneficial for America, and may demand our action; but lets be clear that we are addressing our

own interests. They are our prime concern. Gap, Seam, and New Core nations may not share these concerns as fully, if at all. But merely because we can claim to see a less-than-beneficial, existent, organic lay-of-land, to which we react, this is not an argument that our blueprints are also entirely organic. If we can finally navigate the rhetorical sleights-of-hand, maybe we will begin to see why others persist in navigating them as well, opposing us in our design work. but the more general principles he addresses daily on his blog mitigate the very real effort to mobilize the U.S. to take a dominant role in initiating his plans. As he explains again and again, he is delivering a vision, more than a hegemonic blueprint for world domination. Essential to his theory is the assumption that individuals given greater opportunity for mobility will have less reason to act violently: theyll be too busy building their own lives to worry about destroying the lives of others. Is his vision a vision of a tribe-less world? Im not so sure it is. Missing from the vision and the blueprint is any definitive sight or plan for mitigating the confusion caused by a sudden explosion of choices offered to individuals living on the globe. I.e., there is the assumption that most people will figure things out on their own, once the choices have been offered to them. Well, the hypothetical Global Guerrillas are figuring it out on their own, if were to believe John Robb. Plus, in a world of static, so many competing visions may easily emerge and may mobilize large groups; people rarely see the Whole Picture visionaries claim to see, but make up whole pictures that just happen to be quite limited but self-serving. I suspect, however, that the impulse toward security and stability will trump the destructive impulse, and that ultimately the real primary loyalties will lead to faith in secondary, tertiary, etc., loyalties to groups that offer dependable and long-lasting support of the prime. Individuals will have multiple loyalties (as they do already.) These groups will not be able to ensure such a thing while they remain openly at war with one another, however unless they are using a more advanced form of 5GW, i.e., one conducted almost entirely in the realm of abstraction.

More on Static An addendum/juxtaposition to my last post, on Tying Loose Ends. Toward the end of that post, I suggested what may seem utterly obvious but may often be overlooked. An explosion of choices for determining the exact outlines of a life one is building for oneself one effect of globalization may * lead to confusion or dread, * reinforce ones loyalty to what one already knows (i.e. a tribe or other familiar, local group/milieu), * or offer escapes from certain existing, stultifying and restrictive environments. Arherring had already posted an excerpt from Neal Stephensons The Big U which seemed to suggest what living in a world with a high degree of static might be like, for some people (even if others would rather call such a milieu an open source environment with generally utopian overtones.). Interestingly, Stephen DeAngelis of Enterprise Resilience Management Blog has included a similar idea in the first part of an overview of the Breakthrough Ideas for 2007 isolated by the Harvard Business Review: 7. Living With Continuous Partial Attention. Linda Stone, who has been a senior executive with both Apple and Microsoft, writes about the new, below-the-table phenomenon of constantly checking cell phones, Blackberries, or PDAs during meetings or conferences. Stone argues that personal bandwidth is not up to the task and, as a result, a backlash to continuous partial attention has already started. She also worries that information overload will burn people out much more quickly as they strain to keep up with an increasing number of information sources all screaming for attention. [HBR 2007 Breakthrough Ideas, Part 1]

This continuous partial attention, which results from an explosion of data sources, is one consequence of increasing levels of static, but may have different results for different people. Three distinct results, or methods for dealing with static, may parallel what I wrote in my last post: * Confusion or dread: Essentially, an inability to act, in the case of confusion, but perhaps in the case of dread as well since the thought of altering ones environment and modes and methods may increase a sense of great risk, or may threaten a current relative stability (relative to whatever exterior data presents): Whereas relatively rigid modes of operating, strict guidelines and well-defined channels for expressing power, may have been stultifying, globalization by offering more choices may be confusing, particularly for those who have spent a lifetime building a life in the Old Ways. An OODA process accustomed to a well-defined, rigid environment may not allow comprehension of alternative methods for building a life, may not even be able to see alternative modes and methods; or else, seeing them, may inspire dread at the prospect of the emergence of a system which appears to require alternative methods which have not been learned by the individual.

[Tying Loose Ends] * Reinforce ones loyalty to what one already knows. This relates to what DeAngelis called, a backlash to continuous partial attention. The backlash from an increasing, confusing and dreadful sense of chaos, resulting from an increase in data sources and static, is simply a refocusing on a partial environment (a limited milieu, ones locality and familiar sights) while relegating everything outside that environment to partial observation. Ones group may be well-defined, thus relatively predictable, dependable; but members outside that group may appear to be demons or wraiths or potential threats: So there may be an initial rush to the [not real] bottom. This is really going with what you know, and to the degree that such a tribal system may support your most basic needs, it may be an attractive place to stay. Identification with a tribe also means being able to predict how other members of that tribe will act and react under particular circumstances, to the degree that common mental constructs have formed; this allows for some contractual assurance in general dealings with members of the tribe, or trust. [ibid.] * Offer escapes from certain existing, stultifying and restrictive environments. Multiple choices may also offer multiple escapes from such an environment, its just a matter of being able to do a cost-benefit analysis, which requires being able to see those choices and being able to understand them as well as being able to follow them without too great a risk. [ibid.] That last reaction is the reaction which Thomas P.M. Barnett expects and makes a cornerstone of his Blueprint; I described the essential assumption of his theory in my last post, individuals given greater opportunity for mobility will have less reason to act violently: theyll be too busy building their own lives to worry about destroying the lives of others. I.e., with more potential pathways to personal success, people will not only be empowered the power of choice not least among the powers but, presumably, will be preoccupied in running a cost-benefit analysis of those choices, or choosing between the choices. However, I also gave a criticism of Barnetts plan: Missing from the vision and the blueprint is any definitive sight or plan for mitigating the confusion caused by a sudden explosion of choices offered to individuals living on the globe. I.e., there is the assumption that most people will figure things out on their own, once the choices have been offered to them. Well, the hypothetical Global Guerrillas are figuring it out on their own, if were to believe John Robb. Plus, in a world of static, so many competing visions may easily emerge and may mobilize large groups; people rarely see the Whole Picture visionaries claim to see, but make up whole pictures that just happen to be quite limited but self-serving. [ibid.] Consider what else is needed for true empowerment: not mere increase of data, not merely a multiplication of potential but vague choices (non-contextualized means), but a method for understanding and utilizing those choices. Stephen DeAngelis concluded his look at the idea developed by Linda Stone by addressing the need: One of the things my company, Enterra Solutions, does is work with decision makers to determine exactly what information they need and when they need it. That data is then served up when, where, and in the format that makes it most useful. Stone says this is exactly what resilient companies will learn to do for their employees and customers, provide them with discriminating

choices and quality of life. Can you imagine the backlash when the U.S. attempts to deliver democracy and capitalism to a Gap nation while telling the people of that nation that the U.S. will, determine exactly what information they need and when they need it? Enterras solution is something else, however, since Enterra works with decision makers; but I suspect that such a method will not be enough for Barnetts plan, which appears to require a truly democratic and capitalistic approach: accelerating the rush to the true bottom. That is, the people may not trust the authority of whatever decision makers have been elevated above them or have squirmed their way upward; rather, people must be able to wade through the static on their local level. Barnett needs a system for simplifying the static for the individual undergoing the process of integration into the Core. He needs to tie those loose ends.

See also: * Static, Transparency, and Systemic Resilience: Part One * Interlude: Static Visualized, Conceptualized

Also, a much older post on Phatic Communion: * Flu(n)x

particularly for the concept of ego-casting first proposed by Christine Rosen in an article published in The New Atlantis, which quite relates; but also for considerations of resilience/consilience and conservative thinking.

Spammy Correspondence A thought has occurred to me, inspired ultimately by a consideration of a really stupid spam scam. A metaphor. Much spam works like 4GW operations. 1. A repetitive nature may defeat the message. Most people who bother to check their email accounts become very accustomed to the silliness of spam scams when the same type of spam appears again and again: it is annoying, but reading about some large sum of cash which needs to be smuggled into the U.S., or about a solicitation for personal info for anyone wanting to apply for a lucrative position with an international company, also becomes tedious. Do these spam operatives not see how a repetition of the same handful of messages, each from a new correspondent with a new email account on Yahoo or some other free email service, reveals the scam? 2. Thus, those committed to the effort often change the message. The more experienced spammers, and/or the cleverest spammers, do not stick with repetitive messages, but change them. Novelty may sell better than the obvious scam. 3. Others join the effort on the lowest rung. Seeing a method, new spammers may repeat it, or add to the static the same messages but with their own personalized email addresses. 4. Hiding in the static is easy. A few somewhat-clever newbies may even know how to hide their true addresses; alternatively, they may change them regularly, as well as changing their true location or ISP connection. The more experienced spammers may have this down to an art. In either case, the sheer volume of data being transmitted makes avoiding capture relatively easy: who, precisely, is creating that data? 5. The shotgun approach will sow some seeds that will grow. Someone, somewhere, will bite. If 99.9% of emails are not read or their links not followed, .1% may prove successful. Of millions of spammy emails sent, enough will produce for the sender. This efficacious nature of spam is not altogether different from the nature of other advertising campaigns. 90.7 million Americans watched some part of the recent Super Bowl, but most advertisers do not design their marketing plans around a need to sell to all of those viewers. Some will bite. 6. Perceptions of legitimacy shape profits. The difference between mainstream advertising and spam campaigns, vis-a-vis the importance of legitimacy, is very narrow. For instance, spam sent from one of the leading political parties to voters aligned with that party will prove more efficacious than spam sent to the same addresses from fringe political groups or the other party; yet given the particular recipient, even messages from fringe groups may prove productive, if sent to the right addresses. Super Bowl advertising may have an advantage over spam advertising, but it is only because (1) such advertising is finely designed, directed, to inspire a sense of legitimacy, and (2) the milieu itself adds some legitimacy to the message. 7. A cost-benefit analysis usually shapes the message. Given the cost for advertising during the Super Bowl, the advertisers generally do a lot of market research before designing their messages. During the Super Bowl, they have only one chance or, if theyre willing to spend more a mere handful of chances, to reach their audience; so they are careful to design messages that will produce enough profits to offset costs. (Even if they err in their judgment.) Compare to spam operatives, who may flood the market without much cost, and the silly, often incoherent or poorly written spam messages filling in-boxes.

8. Reduced cost mitigates the need for high rewards from each effort. The fertile .1% (or fewer) who bite not only pay for the effort of creating and disseminating the message but also produce profit for the sender. 9. The fertile ground also grows: (1) buffoons, (2) underdogs, and (3) un-fortunates. While those who do not bite may use their authority and power to hunt down those who have deceived poor unfortunate innocents, others who do not bite may see those victims as incredibly stupid individuals. Survival of the fittest, after all; let em hang from the noose they have created. Meanwhile, those who have lost their security (personal info) or fortunes suffer for it. 10. The large majority of experienced recipients can spot a scam. even those who have previously suffered through inexperience. 11. Email use is declining. This may or may not be true; but alternative electronic methods of staying in contact with one another have emerged. Even where email is used, in-box dependability has declined: much spam is automatically deleted, whether by the individual without being read or by automated processes. The legitimacy of the transmission process has suffered due to the prevalence of spam. 12. Spammers have therefore expanded from email circulation. Want to use RSS readers to stay on-message? Check. Want to use trackbacks, comments in blogs? Check. Want to stick to dedicated, secure, legitimate domains? Check. (Search engines, Googles blog service Blogger, alternative name-based domains.) 13. Spam has become legitimate. I.e., it has become a force to be reckoned with, a reality of our lives. To the degree that we wish to avoid it, we must shape our activities in reaction to its existence. It will not go away merely because we ignore it.

So, how would 5GW be different, or an advance on the 4GW shotgun approach?

A Kinder, Gentler War? In a look at 4GW Christianity Around the Blogosphere Dan recently highlighted some 5GWrelated thoughts from Thomas P.M. Barnetts post Why the yin disconnects from the yang which are fertile ground for 5GW theorists. Im going to break apart the ideas and respond to each in turn with my own take. Amateurs talk hatred, professionals talk love. Amateurs talk destruction, professionals talk cooptation. co-opt tr.v. 1. To elect as a fellow member of a group. 2. To appoint summarily. 3. To take or assume for ones own use; appropriate: co-opted the criticism by embracing it. 4. To neutralize or win over (an independent minority, for example) through assimilation into an established group or culture: co-opt rebels by giving them positions of authority. [Latin cooptare : co-, co- + optare, to choose.] The American Heritage Dictionary, electronic version. Can entrenched opponents in our complex, interconnected and diverse world be either (a) utterly destroyed, (b) forced to join our side, or (c) fenced in? If the answer to all of these is No, then alternative methods must be found for neutralizing them. Co-optation, or a willingness to include our opponents in our overall game plan, is difficult to oppose, if it actually occurs. If we do our design work in a way that apparently also benefits our opponents, their argument against our design will be neutralized; they must become hands in the field working cooperatively unless they are ardently suicidal. The trick: getting them to believe that what they want is achievable, and then giving them the methods for achieving it methods which just happen to be different than their current piecemeal, shotgun, or limited approaches. With reference to Dan tdaxps topic: Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock in his brothers way, or an occasion of falling. [RO 14:13] Amateurs want to win wars, professionals want the game already decided before the first shot. Amateurs loathe fair fights, professionals never allow them to unfold. The belief that utter destruction of our foes is possible, or else that sufficient kinetic force will either force them to our way of thinking or fence them in, is founded upon the notion that what goes into the OODA loop of our foe comes out without interference from his reasoning. I.e., it is the grossest form of Objectivism possible, entirely entrenched in the assumption that what is done to the physical world will have a direct, predictable result in shaping the enemys activity (whether he dies or submits), as if all enemies are merely carbon copy constructs of our own imagining. It is a linear epistemology; and those with the most faith in kinetic force tend to be those who overlook

complexity and confluential processes, preferring to eliminate complexity by obliterating whatever does not hold to their line of sight. Fair fights do not allow such a destruction, since either side may gain the upper hand; and this threatens to maintain complexity as each side competes for the upper hand position. With co-option, fair fights do not happen. Where there is only one side, fairness as a form of balancing act ceases to be of importance. Naivete is operating under the assumption that this fight hasnt already been decided. What we negotiate all along are the terms, and to slant that negotiation to the greatest extent possible, you have to get past the hate (especially the self-hatred), and connect. Those who hate have a perpetual cognitive either/or, and this admits the possibility of defeat: They remain perpetually in the struggle over upper-hand positions, and there is no possibility of proaction since every act is a reaction to the actions of a thinking, maneuvering foe who also hates. Neither side in such a struggle can see beyond the linear demarcations that determine the bounds of their particular hatreds. The real 5GWer never claims victory, never recognizes a loss. All victories are claimed by others, by design. All losses simply set up the next iterative victory. A 5GWer only sees opportunity. Love is expansive, inclusive Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worths unknown, although his height be taken. Loves not Times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickles compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. [Shakespeare, Sonnet 116]

hate, linear and exclusive. Love multiplies choices; hate eliminates choices. A lover can negotiate terms; a hater cannot. Victory and loss requires dichotomy, or a severe limitation on choice: which is what we want for our foes, because we want them to join our group, the only choice left to them. Thus the hating opponent is at an obvious disadvantage; he has fewer choices. The trick: our foes victory must become our victory, in all the meanings of that word.

The most profound manipulation involves the most profound emotions, and love trumps hate every time. Thats why humanity won out over the rest. Thats how we evolve. Thats how we progress. But if you want to achieve real objectivity, you have to leave the fears behind. As long as you drag them along, they drag you down. You see only what you know and you know only what you see. Its the only qualification thats non-negotiable, because without it, theres no accessing the joy that is human evolution. Instead, theres just the bitterness of knowing that life is just a slog and then you die. And heres the most amazing/infuriating part: you cant think systematically about the future until you master this most essential rule setlove your enemies more than yourself. That last statement may encourage disagreement from me, especially if such an expansive inclusiveness as that already implied requires the essence of water. This consideration of Love and Hate is itself dichotomous thinking, in which love is congruent with victory and hate is congruent with loss. As a metaphor, the dichotomy may be useful; as a rigid strategy, it carries the seed of its own destruction: when love becomes measurable, so that more or less of love can be directed at various points in the system, it is no longer limitless, indestructible, unalterable, eternally predominant, and will never be omnipresent. The dichotomy, so expressed in action, ensures the continued operation of both sides of that dichotomy. Before our enemies can be persuaded that their best future is our best future, we must first love our own future, our own selves, with all the force of love we would show toward our enemies. Else, our lack of faith will show, and our enemies will not be persuaded. Alternatively, if only one future is assured the best of all possible worlds and is shared by ourselves and our opponents, perhaps no special and particularized love, for self or enemy, is necessary? Say, a disinterested certitude which eliminates the need for any special love? Not pity them. Not get inside their heads. Not access their worldview. Thats all childs playparlor games for TV talking heads. I mean, really love them more than yourself. Connect in the worst wayhumbling, humiliating, cant-look-away. Again, there is that dichotomous thinking, that linear thinking: Connect. Until we realize that memes emerge within individuals and that individuals are complete entities capable of loving and being loved, already, without predetermined pathways of connection first needing to occur, we will never succeed. The assumption of connection carries with it the presumption of disconnection: limits on love. Cant-look-away carries with it the same presumption; as if, loving were staring into our opponents eyes or at them and their lives, rather than looking outward upon the world together and seeing the same future. To me, that sort of knowledge isnt sympathy or empathy or any of the -thies. To me, its the most profound sort of understanding there is, making you capable of great intelligence and even wisdom in your strategic decision-making. You go way beyond the superficial understanding of his

loop and how you get inside it. You really figure your opponent out in the deepest way. So this isnt some goofy religious belief system Im trying to enunciate here. This isnt a form of intellectual withdrawal. Im talking about a break-on-through-to-the-other-side type wisdom here where the whole game slows down for you and you can see the entire playing field from a Gods eye view. Im talking about serious controlyou know, making the Matrix bend to your will. and you can see the entire playing field from a Gods eye view. Are there any other sides to such a view, requiring breaking through? Or does the view include seeing everything, -thies and loops and so many non-human things without discriminating between them, or assigning more weight to one than others? Although Ill quibble with some of the phrasing, the 5GW implications of Barnetts thoughts are important. I do think, however, that the process of gaining hands in the field or co-workers and co-developers must rely upon a general dissolution of so-called networks: too many holes in a net. The water slips on through, however. In operation, the dissolution is not so much the elimination of apparent networks but the culmination of them, or a multidirectional confluential approach which may operate from a Gods eye view (and nothing slips through that view.) In actuality, for a long time many will continue to see those networks and follow them, out of habit and perhaps out of utility because an absolute dissolution of such pathing would only lead to extreme confusion and nihilism and an inability to act if nothing but static remains to guide them. But these considerations are broad and have a distinctly rose-colored focus. Im reminded of a pretty cool Russian movie called Night Watch. The movie is like many others recently appearing, a consideration of superempowerment in our contemporary world (the Marvel Comics movies, Heroes on NBC, the Underworld movie about vampires and werewolves.) In Night Watch, two groups of Others with supernatural and superhuman powers live among regular humans, the Light Others and the Dark Others who once fought continuously but for centuries now have maintained a truce. According to the truce, neither side could force new Others to choose either Light or Dark paths or solicit new members; individuals would need to make that choice entirely for themselves. The central story of Night Watch concerns the coming of a Great Other, far more powerful than any others, and a reinauguration of the war between Light and Dark. Depending upon the personal choice made by that Great Other, either the Light side or the Dark side would be victorious in that final war. At one point in the movie, the leader of the Light Others explains the prophecy and describes the prospect for their side in the war: The Great Other will appear. If he takes the side of Light, Light will triumph. But wise men say he will choose the Darkness, for it is easier for a man to destroy the Light inside himself than to defeat the Darkness all around him. I.e., for the current discussion, perhaps creating a particularized love, a self-interested vision, is much easier than eliminating such from the world altogether especially given the tendency to artificially eliminate complexity by building a myopic dream of reality. Complexity remains, but the dreams war and, because they are sharp lines leading through the cognitive chaos, they tend to manifest linearly as well, or through applied kinetic force.

A Kinder, Gentler Definition For the past few days Ive been kicking my Working Definition up against Curtis Kinder, Gentler War, just trying to see if it stuck and what it stuck to. As a result, Ive come up with a new definition that I think is more in line with the direction of Curtis post. In the interest of full disclosure I do not think the direction Curtis is going with his consideration is warfare by any kinetic definition. Personally, Ive never been a member of the flowers and rainbows crowd. I view warfare with the mindset of leverage, force and the exploitation of critical vulnerability and thats a pretty bloodthirsty outlook to approach this idea from but Ill give it my best shot. My greatest fear in this line of thought is that if 5GW emerges to be primarily shaped by the practice of co-optation through love of an enemy or opponent as explored by Curtis it could run the risk of being far enough outside of the generational warfare model that it may not be considered by many to be a part of that framework. I will say that I do think where Curtis is going is an expression of 5GW thought. Giving an enemy a victory that is also your victory has to be the ultimate expression of the manipulation of actors and domains. Im just not sure it is the best or most complete expression of Fifth Generation Warfare. A Kinder, Gentler Definition of Fifth Generation Warfare: A theory of warfare(?) premised upon the manipulation actors in order to create a situation where all sides are working toward a result that is perceived by the actors to be beneficial to their own personal goals and desires.

OODA Doodling Ive been doodling with the OODA again, trying to use the imagery to better understand 5GW. Ill put the doodles and comments below the fold, because they are image-intense when considered together (kb) and I dont want to make the main page of D5GW load sluggishly for any visitors still on dial-up. This post is more about brainstorming than anything else, after a recap. So follow the storm

Recap Readers who have been following my OODA posts will already be familiar with my Revised OODA diagram:

RevisedOODA.jpg [click for larger image]

You can follow the link further above to find my reasoning behind the revision, although I think now that the original post was a bit convoluted and overlong. In a nutshell: I was not happy with the Boydian fuzziness of the original OODA

OODA%20Boyd.jpg since no demarcation between the concrete world and the abstract (mentally constructed) world is made clear in that diagram. For instance, Boyds Orient phase is assumed to include preexisting mental constructs, genetic information, etc., mixing these things within the Orient phase, and does not allow use of the OODA concept for explaining how these constructs form or evolve: BoydsOrient.jpg These things are assumed to already exist, altering the OODA response of the individual in reaction to an observable environment: He orients with the existing environment on the basis of these preexisting conditions. (One assumes that the mystical pentagram may be showing the act of orientation, as new information is compared in the matrix which includes the other things listed in that pentagram.) For any consideration of OODA processes on a broader scale beyond a single individuals responses to a present environment say, how that individual develops cultural mental constructs in the first place, among other things the simple Boydian diagram is nearly worthless. What if we want to

shape an individuals cognitive development, over a lifetime or merely over an extended war campaign, or alter the deeply held mental constructs, and may only do so by altering the World? How do concrete alterations affect the abstract constructs? Plus, I did not like the fuzzy processes Boyd merely calls Implicit Guidance & Control and Feedback and Unfolding Interaction with the Environment. (In fact, the last process is drawn identically with one type of Feedback!) Significantly interaction with the environment does not make clear the fact that physical acts alter the environment, or shape the World. Given my more recent considerations of static, or of many individuals simultaneously changing that World and confluential processes which cannot easily be tracked back to a definite set of individuals, a consideration of how abstract processes within diverse individuals may alter concrete realities seems important. So in the Revised OODA, I separated the concrete from the abstract although I show an OODA process for both: a Concrete OODA and an Abstract OODA. The Abstract OODA is actually the Concrete Orient phase in the Concrete OODA. I havent so much rejected Boyds conceptualization as apply it differently and expand it in order to use it for understanding broader scale social and psychological phenomena. Ive used more detail to explain my various choices during the revision process, in the original post. Revised OODA Simplified Many times since that original post, Ive wanted to revise the diagram for the Revised OODA. While showing a very clear separation between the two OODA processes virtually required the larger diagram, with the Abstract OODA blown up to better include guideposts for understanding each of the phases and remain legible, Ive thought that some other things were obscured or left out. For instance, every time Ive referred to the diagram, Ive had to mention that an arrow ought to be assumed to exist leading from the Concrete Act back to the World. That was something I left out of the original diagram; yet, its vitally important for understanding the larger psycho-social dynamics. Drawing the two OODA processes separately, with the separate names given to them, occasionally led to misunderstandings. For instance, Dan of tdaxp once remarked that he has always been suspicious of the concept of abstract processes Isnt thinking a concrete process? I tried to explain my concept of abstract processes and mental constructs: You may actually see a bunny rabbit, but no bunny rabbit is hopping about inside your head while you are thinking about what you have seen! So thoughts and thinking are physical, concrete processes, but those concrete realities within your head are not identical to the concrete realities exterior to your brain, although the two worlds may align or be quite related. (In the case of another persons thinking, that concrete reality outside your head, but in his, might even be quite like the concrete reality occurring within your head! Or not.) Ive just used the terms concrete and abstract to signify the different domains. So Ive always wanted a better way to show this relationship between the Concrete OODA and the Abstract OODA, and havent liked having to separate them so starkly. Another recent doodling, which Ill include a bit later, inspired me to simplify the Revised OODA for easier use in later posts: OODA400pxborder.jpg

A simple color-coding helps, I think: black for the concrete, white for the abstract. Unfortunately, to be able to combine these two OODA processes so closely, Ive had to leave off many of the descriptive labels as well as simplifying the OODA labels in the Abstract OODA to get the thing to fit within the margins of a blog post. But for anyone familiar with my concept of the Revised OODA, this simplified diagram should serve as a good guide for later discussions. Into the Fifth Generation This is where the heavy brainstorming comes. Recently, D5GW contributor Arherring has been exploring different organizational structures as well as operational models for 5GW organizations, including, so far, the Waterfall Model and the Iterative Model. I was a little confused about the iterative model; having read an interesting comment at the Small Wars Council, I wondered if I had found an example of an iterative process: This reminds me of something that Galula mentioned his his Counterinsurgency Warfare. Paraphrasing pages 104-106 of his most recent book, he says the Chinese government would enact programs by first sectoring off areas and implimenting different variations of the program, and then experimentally evaluating the results. Later, the more successful variations would be implimented on a wider and larger scale. [Smitten Eagle] The comment was made in reference to John Robbs post on Stochastic tinkerers and warfare. Arherring suggested a parallel development model to describe the Chinese process, as had John Robb to describe stochastic tinkering networks. Broadly speaking, the idea of a parallel development process, as used in both cases, is suggestive of evolutionary processes if those evolutionary processes had some ulterior purpose and were informed by some guiding, divine hand! Although random or selected diversity may lead to separate developments, these separate developments are brought into friction which winnows out the bad while leaving the best outcomes of each locus of development. So the Chinese government would preselect variations with an eye on finding one or a handful that are the best; and stochastic tinkering networks may ultimately arrive at surprise but useful innovations (the best) while throwing out failed routines (the bad), although individuals within those networks or individual networks appear to be working randomly or on seemingly separate problems. (Presumably, individuals across these networks would be able to observe the various outcomes of the actions of other networks, in the open-source environment, and would be able to share in the innovation as well as in the process of winnowing out the bad routines.) So we might say that these two examples of parallel development actually presuppose the preexistence of some standard of measurement by which various future results will be judged if, of course, any sort of better or best outcome is desired and that, indeed, some ultimate goal exists already in the mind (if broad.) These considerations of the parallel development model remind me of earlier considerations of Social OODA processes:

SocializedAbsOverlap.jpg

1. Here are five individuals with particular observational niches within the World, in which each works on his own particular problems. However, their niches may overlap or may have overlapped, and they may have very similar mental constructs (even if they also have many dissimilar mental constructs.)

Aligned%20Abstracts.jpg Aligned Abstracts (larger image) 2. To the degree that they have something in common, they may view the world in common ways and act upon the world in common ways, changing it from multiple directions but perhaps directing it toward a common although broad goal. However, other groups and individuals will be doing the same thing, and the resulting changed World may result in similar observations from previously diverse, quite-different groups: innovation, perhaps. That is a bit like parallel development, I think. While trying to grasp the concept of an iterative development process, I ran into this difficulty: in a parallel development process like those already mentioned, each distinct group of actors, however diverse, may be working toward shared or very similar goals may recognize useful innovations made by others, as well as the failures of others and so, in an open-source environment, each groups operation appears to be one iteration of an iterative process spanning that environment, viewed from afar. In an open-source environment, the distinction between a parallel development process and an iterative development process may blur or fade altogether. When I mentioned before that the parallel development process in each of the given examples seemed evolutionary but also guided by a divine hand, I also had this in mind: That each diverse group in an open-source environment increasingly has the same World in view. That World is the guiding hand, when considered through the lens of the Revised OODA and the social OODA process. The World may be constantly altering, true; but over a lifetime of observations, and given an increasingly open open-source environment and the explosion of media sources greatly individualized and limited observational niches particularized views may be weakening for many individuals with access to media and the open-source environment, as increasingly shared narratives grow in strength. But I wanted a better understanding of the iterative development process; so I looked it up on Wikipedia and found this diagram:

Iterative_development_model_V2.jpg This diagram instantly reminded me of the Abstract OODA of the Revised OODA; so I thought Id combine them:

Iterative%20and%20OODA.jpg

This formulation seems to work rather well for broadly showing how a 5GW organization might operate. As with an individuals process, two worlds exist: The concrete and the abstract. Here, the two domains are, (1) the 5GW organization (white/abstract OODA) and (2) everyone/everything else (black/concrete OODA.) (1) the internal operation of the 5GW organization and (2) the concrete implementation and observation of effects.* The interior process includes a vision of the ultimate goal or system included in Mental Constructs and a testing of concrete observations of the world, analysis based on requirements, new design work; ultimately, the 5GW organization Acts concretely to implement tweaks to the World, and re-observes what happens after implementation, again weighing those observations against the same vision. Such a process is, of course, not entirely different from what others working to alter the world may do. However, to the degree that the actual World begins to resemble the vision held by the 5GW organization, so many other individuals operating in the world will begin acting reactively but cooperatively: their own mental constructs will begin to form in accordance with that changed world, and their own actions will work to perpetuate it. This is quite different from pre-5GW approaches, which do not depend so much on a theory of cooptation but on subordination and overwhelming force to produce compliance or resigned acquiescence. (Even if, in the natural course of things, general standards will tend to form without direction, anyway, via the Social OODA process.) If we go back and consider the general thrust of the Revised OODA concept, we might consider how the Concrete World influences the shape of the Abstract Mental Constructs and how those Mental Constructs in turn manifest as actions which alter the Concrete World. Because so many individuals exist, with their own individualized Mental Constructs and OODA processes, their activities across the world produce a lot of static: so many dreams at war, largely unaligned and often at cross-purposes in the way they manifest. (Indeed, a single individuals dreams may manifest at cross-purposes, themselves!) In a way, the hypothetical iterative 5GW process would work to manifest dreams (in others) that lead to beneficial confluential processes stemming from diverse acts, which will shape a resilient self-perpetuating system. So the 5GW Iterative OODA process diagrammed above would be like the inverse of the general Social OODA process as it typically occurs: The vision predominates and the world must be brought into alignment with it, rather than the visions altering according to the changing world. A 5GW organization must be proactive rather than reactive, even though it observes the existing world before altering it. *Update/Correction: I see my brain slipped. In general, I view the Revised OODA as a process of moving from the concrete to the abstract and back into the concrete; so for the operation of the 5GW organization, I view it similarly in this diagram, with movement from the World exterior to the 5GW organization, to the internal operation of the 5GW organization, and back outward to the world at large.

GG / GW If a country were beset by John Robbs global guerrillas, could a 5GW organization operate openly? In particular, I am thinking if you actually have a land where forming a central government is impossible, a 4GW movement may proceed to manipulate actors in order to create a situation where the correlation of forces is working toward a result that is perceived by the actors to be beneficial to their own personal goals and desires?

The Lost Tomb of Jesus Is it journalism? Is it docu-drama? Is it archeo-porn? Is it a window into a 5GW operation? This last Sunday evening, without the distraction of NFL football and not being a fan of Desperate Housewives, my television landed on the Discovery channel and The Lost Tomb of Jesus. The program was promoted as a James Cameron (Executive Producer) documentary and was followed by an hour-long discussion hosted by Ted Koppel including the films Director and Writer Simcha Jacobovici and several archeological and theological experts. In a nutshell, the program is about a tomb that was discovered in Jerusalem in 1980 during a construction project. Inside the tomb were several ossuaries, or boxes where the bones of a person are kept. The mystery begins when several of the boxes are discovered to be inscribed with what are possibly the names of the persons whose bones are inside them. These names, when taken together and with a bit (some would certainly argue more than a bit) of massaging, suggest that this tomb belonged to the family of the biblical Jesus and contained not only his remains but those of his mother Mary, two of his brothers (who were disciples), possibly Mary Magdalene and perhaps the remains of his son. The claims are backed up by the suggestion of science and the statistical probability of this combination of names being found in any other tomb in Jerusalem. It seems that I look at the world now with 5GW glasses. I cant read a spy novel or listen to a newscast without a little thought in the back of my head prodding me to consider how something would work as a part of, or engineered by, a 5GW campaign. For this particular program that little, persistent thought was armed with an air-horn, and waving a banner while leading the official 5GW marching band. It wasnt the subject matter; though finding remains of a person who could have been the biblical Jesus in sufficient quantity to conduct DNA testing certainly is provocative, but rather the positioning of the evidence that caused a blip to appear on my 5GW radar. It has long been one of my, admittedly cynical, beliefs that people have an amazing ability to justify almost any action or idea to themselves. Especially when they have previously acted in that manner or held that particular thought or opinion. A student can find a way to justify putting off homework for just one more television show. Somebody with an almost maxed-out credit card (and more debt besides that) can find a reason to buy one more piece of clothing and pay for it with the plastic. A thief can decide that stealing really is the best way to get something they want. It is what gives racists the confidence in their bigoted beliefs. We have all done it. I am guilty of it myself. It comes from selfishness and from mental laziness, and it is, as I see it, the currency, or the leverage if you prefer, of a 5GW organization. This consideration has long been one of my central ideas when considering how a 5GW organization would attempt to manipulate actors in systems and this is what jumped out at me while watching The Lost Tomb of Jesus. Evidence and Pattern, Deception and Salesmanship: I dont think the filmmaker was attempting to deceive the viewer but rather to make the best, and most persuasive, case possible for this to be the family tomb that was the final resting place for the body of the biblical Jesus. Framing this as a documentary, complete with scientific testing of evidence and expert opinion may make for accusations of intellectual dishonesty, but in all reality the worst that can be said of the validity of the evidence and its testing, is that what was done was done more to make a theory more plausible (and therefore better television) than to show how tenuous the connections, and therefore the pattern they represent, may really be. Thats salesmanship. A salesman may frame a fact in such a way as to encourage a favorable reaction, and that may in a way be deception, but ultimately the buyer will make the decision to buy or not. With the docu-drama/documentary, or a salesman in general, the viewer/buyer is usually very much aware they are being targeted.

In a 5GW campaign everything turns around. The 5GW organization may take evidence, true or not, and place it in a pattern, real or imagined, that leads the actors being targeted to create a meme based on their own pre-conceived ideas, trusting (in fact counting on) their targets ability to justify almost anything to themselves. If the 5GW organization is smart, the pattern itself is tailored specifically to take advantage of the targets existing biases. In this way the deception is not really in the positioning of the 5GW organization, but in the selfish and lazy self-deception of the targeted actors.

Emersonian Circles I often return to reading Ralph Waldo Emersons essays whenever my thinking grows stale and tedious. I just as often put his book of essays aside for long periods, after it seems to grow stale and tedious. So there is this circular motion in my habit of reading Emerson. His thoughts tend to be rose-colored, expressed through compound and complex metaphors in the romantic style, more advocacy than anything else, which make them tedious after too much reading; but when my own dreams have begun to die in wakefulness, I return to be led to the promised land. When I first began reading Emersons essays, I treasured the book and was very careful with it. I was either eighteen or nineteen years old. I held the book with reverence and kept it safe from stains and tears. Eventually, however, I began to use a highlighter to mark passages which seemed to signify the most important ideas in the essays. As Ive grown older, Im glad for the highlights: I can return to the essays without having to trudge through the long and convoluted prose. However, though Ill often skim through the essays looking for these touchstones, I usually end up reading the non-highlighted portions for context! Plus, of course, I sometimes want to get lost in the long and convoluted prose. Recently, I opened the book to a highly theoretical essay, Circles, and was surprised by the 5GW overtones of some of the highlighted portions. A realist, after reading them, might suggest that many of my thoughts posted to D5GW so many years later were probably colored by these passages, if not outright thefts! So Im going to revisit these passages and attempt to tie them to my own thoughts, in the same way that I recently tied Thomas Barnetts flight of fancy to my own, while adding to the highlighted portions some context. Context Nature centres into balls, And her proud ephemerals, Fast to surface and outside, Scan the profile of the sphere; Knew they what that signified, A new genesis were here. Emerson liked tagging poetry to the opening of his essays. His poetry tends to be some mongrel mix of metaphysical poetry and romantic poetry, not always easy to understand. Later critics, with a few exceptions, have often failed to recognize both, the importance and the high quality of Emersons poetry. Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are held up as the two most important innovators in early American poetry; whereas, both of those were greatly influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson might rightly be called the father of American literature, although others came before. (I suppose Thomas Jefferson might be a better candidate for that title; but why quibble? That argument would also be complex and convoluted.) One might even suppose that Emerson was a 5GWarrior par excellence, considering the extraordinary influence he had on those around him and the reverberating influence those individuals have had. One extraordinary and highly recommended biography of Emerson is titled, Emerson among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait, by Carlos Baker Emerson among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait

The biography considers his influence, by looking at the individuals who came into repeated contact with Emerson throughout his lifetime. Not so much a strict biography of Emerson, it is a biography of the times of Emerson, or the social matrix that had him as a center. A partial list of the eccentrics surrounding Emerson, also circling each other in multiple configurations: * Bronson Alcott * Margaret Fuller * Father Edward Thompson Taylor * Henry David Thoreau * Jones Very * Ellery Channing * Nathaniel Hawthorne * Theodore Parker * Walt Whitman * Captain John Brown Emerson met Abraham Lincoln on two occasions; Emerson reported of one occasion in his journal, with an implication from the president that he had attended one of Emersons lectures, this reaction from the president: O, Mr. Emerson, I once heard you say in a lecture that a Kentuckian seems to say by his air and manners, Here am I; if you dont like me, the worse for you! [Emerson among the Eccentrics, page 434] Carlos Baker notes that Lincoln, who was a Kentuckian, had especially remembered that line, at least! But these eccentrics were eccentrics. eccentric adj. 2. Not having a common center; not concentric; eccentric circles. [see eccentric on Websters Online Dictionary] I.e., theyre likely to follow their own paths. A sphere is not a circle, after all; and Emersons ephemerals in the poem he used to open his essay on Circles are all individuals. They are individual in that they follow their own paths, uniquely; but nonetheless, these multifarious pathtreaders on the surface of the sphere rarely seem to grasp the fact that they are attached to surface conditions, and that all their unique movements have a common center. They do not see the sphere; if they did, A new genesis were here. Detour: Ephemerality ephemeral adj. 1. Enduring a very short time [see ephemeral on Websters Online Dictionary] One might suppose that human mortality is a precondition for the prevalence of surface-gazing and surface-treading individuality. From an OODA perspective, we might add a related precondition: the inability to observe all that occurs.

From a network theory perspective, we might consider how such ephemerality materializes as a shifting set of nodes. Although we have a network architecture that would, on the surface, appear to be long-lasting, the actual use of that architecture is constantly changing. (That architecture, itself, is now changing rapidly, as well.) As Ive said repeatedly in various posts: if actual social networks exist, they must be short-lasting and brief. New circles are always being drawn. From a blogospheric perspective, Im tempted to compare the dynamic of Emerson and his eccentrics to others and their own eccentrics. Thomas Barnett, for instance, has a wide variety of interlocutors, as does John Robb, Mark Safranski, and others. But where is the center of the Sphere? Ill make an admission: I sometimes think of these bloggers and their eccentrics and try to match up the various styles, ideas, and connections with persons from Emersons orbit, to see if there is any correlation! From a 5GW perspective or, for the sake of honesty, from my own 5GW perspective, there are these words opening up Emersons essay on Circles, to be considered: The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere, and its circumference nowhere. [Circles, RWE, emphasis added] This has reminded me of a post I wrote on Water, Tao, and Jesus on my blog Phatic Communion. [Skip the introduction and go to the first subheading, and read from there, heh.] The Tao as described by the Tao Te Ching is everywhere and nowhere; Heaven's net is vast. It is loose. Yet nothing slips through. [from # 73, trans. Charles Muller, Ty Gakuen University] Heaven and Earth are not humane, And regard the people as straw dogs. The sage is not humane, And regards all things as straw dogs. The space between Heaven and Earth is just like a bellows: Empty it, it is not exhausted. Squeeze it and more comes out. Investigating it with a lot of talk Is not like holding to the center. [# 5, trans. Charles Muller, Ty Gakuen University] The talk is surface perambulation. From Emerson: Conversation is a game of circles.

[Circles, RWE] Words, opinions, and perspectives are ephemeral they come and go but they may relate to the center of the sphere, after all. Particular family relations, friendship networks, and other social networks may come and go, but individual conscious adherence to God, if such could be achieved, may ultimately connect these individuals far better than the hit-or-miss of conversation and day-today connection. I concluded the post with words from Jesus: Perhaps nowhere else is Jesus anti-network stance as pronounced as in Luke 12:49-53: I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. [Water, Tao, and Jesus, Phatic Communion] Another man greatly influenced by Jesus, Ralph Waldo Emerson once a Unitarian minister who gave up his ministry because he disagreed with the practice of the Communion service considered something similar in Circles; a passage I highlighted long ago: Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit. No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love. No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light of new thoughts. People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. [Circles, RWE] Highlights and Spin Here are some more of those passages highlighted long ago in Circles. With some of my spherical spin or relation to the theory of 5GW. New arts destroy the old. Emerson considered aqueducts made useless by hydraulics; fortifications by gunpowder, etc., just after that phrase. The central premise is this: that innovation rewrites our method of inter-operating with the world. Ways of doing disappear with the appearance of relevant new ways of doing. The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own. This is quite 5GWish. The helm might be considered the center of a persons own OODA sphere, or the measurement by which all observations are measured and categorized. What strikes me as important to 5GW is the proposition that reforming that sphere requires the addition of a new idea commanding it. I.e., rather than a 4GW assault on anothers system of measurement or personal

narrative; or a simple 4GW utilization of that narrative, 5GW would introduce new data that would require a realignment of that persons understanding. His own ideas may remain; but they will be commanded by the new center, which en-compasses them. The result of to-day, which haunts the mind and cannot be escaped, will presently be abridged into a word, and the principle that seemed to explain nature will itself be included as one example of a bolder generalization. In the thought of to-morrow there is a power to upheave all thy creed, all the creeds, all the literatures, of the nations, and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet depicted. I.e., the previous central fact, or the helm guiding the individual, will become abridged vis-a-vis its importance and assume a lesser place on the circumference which is now determined by the new fact or understanding. In this essay, Emerson consistently uses the idea of generalization differently than I have typically used it in discussing 5GW. I have used the term to denote a quick and false circle made by those trying to artificially eliminate complexity they create myopic dreams of reality but Emerson uses the term more in the sense of consilience. Indeed, a true consilient understanding would necessarily command all the particular (particularized) facts it comprises. Emerson also considers the process of creating these new consilient understandings as a process of drawing a new circle that encompasses the old. Finally, for this passage: There is the prescription for eliminating the deadlock of multifarious ossifications, hard-coded networks, etc., presently attempting to force the world of humans and human activity to align with them. Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. This follows up on the last highlight. For a time, Ive been considering the possibility that a 5GW operator may operate in the open. Certainly, some critics of 5GW theory greatly oppose the precondition of secrecy often given for 5GW operations. This post is not intended to address that criticism, however, because it would require its own post. Secrecy can be looked at from various perspectives, requiring some semantic conjugation! But consider the possibility that Emersons thinker could be a politician or celebrity who is capable of managing multiple threads in the open: I.e., an individual capable of taking the chaos which seems ever-present in our contemporary world and offering an understanding which seems to en-compass so many otherwise divergent threads. When I think of this, I think of Barack Obama and his keynote address at the last Democratic National Convention Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, theres not a liberal America and a conservative America - theres the United States of America. Theres not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; theres the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But Ive got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we dont like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the

Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. [Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama] there is a case of drawing ever-larger circles. It remains to be seen if he can tie more than these threads together, however, and offer more consilience. (Or even, cause these understandings to manifest, in the broader scale.) The things which are dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the present order of things as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture would instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits. [Circles, RWE] Here we tie the train of these highlights back to the first and find the 5GWer par excellence. New arts destroy the old; A new degree of culture would instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits. Emerson saw the OODA, even if he did not call it that. Our actions are intimately related to 1) our observations and 2) our understanding of what we observe. Change the understanding, and you change the activity. Change the observations, and you may (but may not) change the understanding. Emerson took it further than the individual OODA, however, or would draw a larger circle by considering the entire system of human pursuits. Culture is something that each person may have; but it is also something that individual persons may share, as individual OODA loops operate together in a system. We each hold some things dear because we are accustomed to hold them dear custom n. 1. A practice followed by people of a particular group or region. 2. A habitual practice of a person [Middle English custume, from Old French costume, from Latin consu etudo, consuetudin-, from consu etus, past participle of consu escere, to accustom : com-, intensive pref.; see COM- + su escere, to become accustomed; see s(w)e- below.] s(w)e-. Important derivatives are: self, gossip, bustle, suicide, secede, seclude, secret, secure, sedition, seduce, segregate, select, separate, sure, sober, sole, solitary, solitude, solo, sullen, desolate, soliloquy, custom, ethic, ethnic, idiom, idiot, idiosyncrasy. [The American Heritage Dictionary, electronic edition] i.e., because of our own ephemerality and quite limited, idiosyncratic observations. Despite our ephemerality, and despite our limitation, we are nonetheless prone to find order. Our mental horizon will cause the present order of things, not only in how we observe it the order we see but also in the way that our activities continue to preserve it. Add a new thought that commands our own, and the old central facts become less dear, are seen as merely ancillary to the new commanding idea. Draw a larger circle, manifested en masse by co-optation that is not secret and manipulative but obvious to all comprised by that circle i.e., make the larger circle apparent to all, or show them the sphere and the system of human pursuits would be instantly revolutionized.

UPDATE: Ive received a comment through email from blogreader Isaac that is quite interesting, and have decided to add it as an update to this post, as well as a few personal observations afterward. (TypeKey authentication was not working for him, wouldnt allow him to comment for some reason; Ive updated the recent Commenting On site notice with a possible solution to that problem.) Very good stuff. Hadnt cracked my RWE or HDT in years. Of course, his famous transparent eyeball would make an excellent 5GW warrior - secret, workin the OODA faster than all it observes Seriously, though, this made me remember my favorite HDT quote, Always the line of beauty is a curve, which caused me to go back and read the HDT essay The Service. The following two paragraphs jumped out at me anew after having read your post: We say, justly, that the weak person is flat, for, like all flat substances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is, on his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides all the way through life. Most things are strong in one direction; a straw longitudinally; a board in the direction of its edge; a knee transversely to its grain; but the brave man is a perfect sphere, which cannot fall on its flat side, and is equally strong every way. The coward is wretchedly spheroidal at best, too much educated or drawn out on one side, and depressed on the other; or may be likened to a hollow sphere, whose disposition of matter is best when the greatest bulk is intended. We shall not attain to be spherical by lying on one or the other side for an eternity, but only by resigning ourselves implicitly to the law of gravity in us, shall we find our axis coincident with the celestial axis, and by revolving incessantly through all circles, acquire a perfect sphericity. Mankind, like the earth, revolve mainly from west to east, and so are flattened at the pole. But does not philosophy give hint of a movement commencing to be rotary at the poles too, which in a millennium will have acquired increased rapidity, and help restore an equilibrium? And when at length every star in the nebul and Milky Way has looked down with mild radiance for a season, exerting its whole influence as the polar star, the demands of science will in some degree be satisfied. Rather apt, Id say. Think Ill go home tonight and break out the ol Self Reliance. Henry David Thoreau is famous for his essays Ghandi declared that his essay on Civil Disobedience was one of his bedside books and wrote a translated synopsis of it in 1907, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who was greatly influenced by Ghandi, nonetheless also had read HDTs essay several times in his student days but he is also famous for living at Walden Pond which was owned by Emerson. Emerson met Thoreau when Thoreau was still in Harvard, nearly twenty years old, in 1837; Emerson, a decade older; and they had a lifelong friendship lasting until Thoreau died in 1862. For me, it is curious to wonder who influenced whom the most, between the two, and how the passage offered by Isaac might relate to Emersons essay on Circles. I suspect, btw, that tracing the effects of Civil Disobedience as well as peering into the text itself might produce some further 5GW-related insights!

On the New not the news, but the new. One thing that has bugged me about many detractors of 5GW theory (and 4GW theory, the generational warfare model, etc.): their perverse concept of newness. The perversion in their use of the concept has three main qualities, or attendant assumptions/presumptions.

1. Newness must mean, Never having existed before. After all, that makes sense, right? If something is described as being new, it cant be old, can it? And a thing is either old or it is new. Period. Thus, if weve seen it before the very present moment, it is old and cannot be new. 2. The It that is seen now, to be judged against all that has gone before, gets to be defined by the viewer. I am sympathetic to this view while recognizing this views limitations. Viz., no one can be expected to judge what he does not see; and so what he sees, however limited, must entirely form the basis of all judgments he can make about it. Unfortunately, another assumption about newness relates to this limitation and often occurs concurrent with this assumption: A thing is entirely new, or else it is old. I.e., if a persons limited viewing of the It fastens upon aspects that have been witnessed in the past and these are all the viewer can see then the It must indeed be old and cannot be new. 3. The old is to be derided, when it is presented, as having existed before. I.e., no one likes a repeating record (those who remember what vinyl records were; others, a repeat-skipping CD player), and anyone presenting what appears to be old as if it were something new must be shut up, halted, edified, etc. Numbers 1 and 2, above, bear heavily upon this presumption, since the viewer gets to decide whether the presentation he views is old or new and knows full well that whatever is created in the present must be something he has never read before if its to be considered new. Old is bad, New is good. (As Ruby Rhod might say, Make it green!)

Lets look at these assumptions through a metaphor. A relatively unknown painter living in New York City creates a painting and takes it to a secondrate art gallery. The gallery owner happens to be available at the moment, although she has limited time, and agrees to take a look at the painting; so the painter hands it to her When Lo! She laughs and says, Um, okay, so youve brought me the Mona Lisa? The painter shakes his head and plaintively replies, But I spent a month painting it! He seems rather distraught, so the gallery owner explains that someone named Leonardo da Vinci already painted it, in the 16th C. The man looks confused, as if this is news to him; the gallery owner chuckles and glances at her watch. She could, theoretically, display the painting as an example of an excellent forgery she tells him this after he starts crying but no one would like it. People want to see something new, and forgeries of the Mona Lisa are a dime a dozen, have been done for years. The painter shifts on his feet, finally quiets his sobbing, thanks her for her time, and leaves with the painting. Next the unknown painter drives to Pennsylvania, to an art gallery in Pittsburgh. When the gallery owner throws the painting back at him Get away with your shit and stop wasting my time, asshole! the painter picks it up (secretly happy; the paintings not been damaged) and leaves.

The unknown painter tries 15 art galleries, even drives to San Francisco, Houston all over the U.S. But the responses from the gallery owners are always the same. He has never once visited a library or looked up Leonardo da Vinci on the Internet. He knows his painting is new; he made it himself, spent weeks painting it. The canvas was a fresh white before he touched it with his brushes, covered it with his colorful and precious materials all of which he mixed himself. When he holds it in its frame (he made the frame himself, as well) and feels its proportions, he knows this thing is all his own and has never existed before. Finally, he decides that the best way to get his work of art into the public realm is not through a gallery those stuck up snobs had their chance, and missed it, he gleefully acknowledges to himself. He takes it to a flea market, where he finds a stall owner who seems quite eager to take it: Ha! Im sure I can sell this excellent imitation! Hows ten bucks sound? The unknown painter wants more than anything for the painting to be viewed by the public, so ten dollars is beyond adequate. He would have given the painting freely, if only he would have been asked. Day after day, for a whole two weeks, he visits the busy flea market and sees person after person pick up the painting, sometimes touch its textured surface, follow its brush strokes. One little boy even put his nose on the womans nose to peer into her eyes! The unknown painter is happy with his choice, although he has not forgotten the snooty gallery owners. Eventually, a fat woman with a Texan accent squeals at her scrawny husband Ooooo; look at that! Get it for me, John! John, obligingly, takes the painting to the cashier and forks over the $35. And the painter goes home, overjoyed that the painting has disappeared into the heartland of America. Within a week of his return to New York, the news hits the airwaves. The unknown painter, however, is dead and does not hear it. A plague, of unknown origin, is sweeping America.

Indirection as a Component of 5GW Courtesy, Against the tide & the necessity of tacking, by Razib Let me assume for a moment that you, the reader, are in the minority of the human race which does not subscribe to the supernatural religions. How are we to deal with the fact of the ubiquity of religious belief and practice? If religion is a natural phenomenon, what engineering responses can be taken to tame it? If one is building a road and one encounters a mountain there are multiple options which are available. One might destroy the mountain with explosives. One might tunnel through the mountain. Or, one might build around the mountain. Each choice has costs and benefits. Tearing down the mountain will be difficult and entail great cost, and, the consequences of such a geological rearrangement on the overall environment are not trivial. Tunneling through the mountain is an engineering challenge, not without its costs or dangers, though one would expect that the environmental impact might be less than tearing down the mountain as the geological rearrangment is trivial. Finally, going around the mountain involves less cost, but would add length to the road which would translate into long term costs of time for anyone traveling the path (so, the short term cost is slight, but integrated over time it would build up). But a choice we make for one mountain is not a choice we need to make for all mountains, and just as some engineers specialize in tearing down mountains, so others focus on efficient road building. Religion is a complex phenomenon, and if we as unbelievers are to engage it and turn it to our own ends our own models must be sufficiently nuanced and our courses of action multi-faceted and conditional. Otherwise, we fall into the fallacies of the fundamentalists, who are wont to divide the world into their imaginings of darkness and light, denying the textured gradations of reality. Read the rest at Gene Expression.

On Future Superpower My high school buddy and science fiction writer Raymund Eich has begun a series of posts which will explore the requirements placed upon science fiction writing by potential future geopolitical realities: Anyone writing science fiction set in the next century has to think about three questions in international politics. * Will China become a superpower or not? * Will India become a superpower or not? * Will the United States remain a superpower or not? [Eight Futures 1, The Transhuman Comedy] Part one opens with these questions. In part two of the series, Raymund responded to a comment I left in part one by offering a working definition of superpower: A superpower is an organization that drives interpolity relations in the medium term (decades) and leaves a legacy across polities in the long term (decades to centuries). [Eight Futures 2, The Transhuman Comedy] The definition is broad enough to be interesting and relevant to the subject of 5GW; Raymund explains the definition further in the post. Where Raymund adds an interesting twist to 5GW theory is in the conclusion to part two. He introduces a consideration of future technology and the peculiar constraints and limitations which such otherwise empowering technology will have on the development of superpowers, but without ruling out the potential for superpowers to exist in a 5GW world: What will superpower mean in the future? Accepting arguendo Curtiss view that 5GW is inevitablea view consonant with both my reading of Van Creveld and my sfnal thoughts on molecular manufacturing, cheap simple robotics, and distributed emergent computingthe time will come when no state has the power to police its territory for criminals and rebels. When no state can prevent pirate and terrorist predations. When no state can conquer territory save by nuclear genocide. Yet within these constraints, some states could be superpowers and drive the international agenda, just as ancient rulers could, in one sense, dominate a large chunk of the world while, in an another, being utterly ignorant of the assets and attitudes of their subjects and the capabilities and intentions of their neighbors. For this reason, the term superpower has legs left. Alternatively, could a non-state actor be a superpower? Picture a James Bond supervillian who really can build a moonbase with a giant laser capable of destroying a city; or more plausibly, an organized crime gang using molecular manufacturing/robotics/computing to dominate affairs in Third World slums or the communes of an ethnic diaspora. Whether such an organization can drive international affairs for decades is another question, but its not automatically ridiculous to ask. Ill leave the question of whether such an organization would leave any legacy other than you too can become Keyser Soze/Dr. Evil to the reader. Ill be keeping my eye on this series as it develops!

Patriotism and Stumblingblocks Recently on tdaxp, Dan highlighted a comment that his friend Aaron had left on a 5GW-related post at tdaxp: I dont find patriotism some quality to aspire to. Its racism minus the pigmentary convenience. [Aaron, from Comment Upgrade: Patriotism and the Iraq War] As might be expected, the comment has created a controversy. Some patriots are wondering how their patriotism makes them racist. Others wonder if the loose use of the concept of racism makes it meaningless. The comment was made in the context of the Iraq war and politics so there we have another occasion for controversy, and a burgeoning debate over whether Democrats or Republicans are authentically patriotic, or liberals or conservatives. Dan left a short comment wondering what was meant by the statement: Im interested in how patriotism is just racism without the skin color. Is it because both are forms of in-group favoritism? [Dan tdaxp] This comment, as well as the looser connection with the subject of 5GW in the original thread which ultimately threaded through various things to the issue of patriotism, led me to leave a comment relating the subject back to 5GW and away from the aforementioned controversies: Wellfrom a 5GW perspective, patriotism might as well be a form of racism, in the sense that Dan has given: both are forms of in-group favoritism. This of course ties in with: * Dans recent post on Jesusism-Paulism, Part VI: Embrace and Extend; * Dans highlight of a Gene Expression post by Razib, at Dreaming 5GW; * Some thoughts given in Emersonian Circles at D5GW; * And the Kinder, Gentler approach to 5GW. The point is, I think, that conducting 5GW will be impossible for anyone who calls himself a patriot whether jingoist or not because the complex global system, static, and the necessity for co-optation will require loving ones enemies as well as we love ourselves. Now, of course you might say that we can love them while hating their nation, also while loving our own nation as patriots; but this in-depth loving that would seek to embrace and extend in order to co-opt so many hands in the field, working the system from multiple sides, might require that we embrace whatever national identity they have even while we try to extend it into becoming something else. I.e., one might be patriotic and build a deformed sphere (h.t. to Isaac), but thats not the whole Sphere and is likely to collapse or roll into a corner from which it cant extract itself.

Or in other words: united we stand, divided we fall. Division along national borders and along national identities (within our own psyches) represents stumblingblocks, or limitations, or occasions for falling. So in a sense, Transnational Progressives would be a very good alternate name for 5GWers but, heh, I would think that the term needs to be coopted, embraced and extended beyond how it is now used, first! [CGW] I would in particular like to thank Isaac for sending me the quote from Henry David Thoreau, now included as an update to Emersonian Circles. For context, Ill add part of it here: We say, justly, that the weak person is flat, for, like all flat substances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is, on his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides all the way through life. Most things are strong in one direction; a straw longitudinally; a board in the direction of its edge; a knee transversely to its grain; but the brave man is a perfect sphere, which cannot fall on its flat side, and is equally strong every way. The coward is wretchedly spheroidal at best, too much educated or drawn out on one side, and depressed on the other; or may be likened to a hollow sphere, whose disposition of matter is best when the greatest bulk is intended. [Henry David Thoreau, from The Service]

Also for context, I would highlight by linking a portion of the book Romans from The New Testament, Websters 1611 translation, and pull out the reference: RO 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock in his brothers way, or an occasion of falling. As a metaphor for 5GW, stumblingblock is very good. As Arherring recently pointed out, when considering the issue of propaganda, I think the main difference between the two is that propaganda seeks to confuse and misdirect thought while 5GW seems more likely to guide and re-contextualize thought. [Arherring, commenting on The Lost Tomb of Jesus]

Similar observations have been made in many posts on D5GW and elsewhere, particularly when also considering the issue of cooptation: Unlike 4GW and even prior generations of warfare, 5GW will seek to gain hands in the field, or willing and motivated actors able to move forward. Exactly where they end up going and the ultimate results of their actions may be unknown to them at the beginning of the journey, but theyre not being hopelessly confused and are not being thrown down while trying to journey.

So how does this relate to the issue of patriotism? Dan of tdaxp has recently focused on the concept of embrace and extend as a successful method of competition when an opponent is either too strong or too entrenched (defended) to defeat by traditional blow-em-up or fence-em-in methods. In his latest addition to his Jesusism-Paulism series, Dan looks at Christianity and Microsoft to find how each would embrace the ideas of a strong competitor by co-opting those ideas and extending them: Micrososofts response to Java was smarter. Instead of condemning Java, calling it a stupid language, and ignoring it, Microsoft opted to embrace and extend. Microsoft devised Visual J++, an implementation for Java that actually provided the best interface for developing Java applications yet. [Dan, Jesusism-Paulism, Part VI] In a similar way, as the Christian church spread throughout Europe, it was able to coopt nativist traditions and frameworks: The Jesusist-Paulists of the Catholic Church behaved the same way. They embraced the old cultures of Europe, refusing to look away when revulsion would have been easier than love. And they extended the old orders, giving new life to the status quo ante sancata romana ecclesia. For instance, in southern France where the old Senatorial families still held sway, the family names of the early bishops were the same as the family names of the last Senators. In Ireland, where an indigenous Church had grown after the abduction of the slave boy Patricius, Romanization was handled primarily through institutional fusion. And in the Viking North, the Church refused to look away from the bloody tribes instead embracing them. [ibid.] A casual observer might see both, an example of successful evolutionary resolution to conflict and a definition for resiliency, in these examples. [For several weeks now, Ive been thinking that resiliency must by nature be evolutionary; its not about being able to maintain the old forms whatever come, but about being able to change constantly without hitting a roadblock. Or stumblingblock. But thats a subject for another post] Similarly, in Dans highlight of a Gene Expression post written by Razib, the overwhelming resiliency of religious believing (i.e., forget for now particular faiths), is so pronounced and seemingly unassailable, the atheist Razib suggests embracing that tendency for superstitious believing while ultimately extending it: Religion is a complex phenomenon, and if we as unbelievers are to engage it and turn it to our own ends our own models must be sufficiently nuanced and our courses of action multi-faceted and conditional. [Razib, from Against the tide and the necessity of tacking] In other words, perhaps, cause it to evolve in a particular direction. (Hows that for wording, you atheist geneticists! ;) ) However, attempting to force it to evolve would probably manifest as a

4GW effort, not a 5GW effort. The believers will recoil, their faith will redouble, if you attack it. But if you can help them to willingly and eagerly move in a direction that will ultimately cause their belief to evolve, they will see their new location as a wondrous discovery they have made on their own So, patriotism. Well, I think my comment on tdaxp explains my thoughts on it pretty well. If you stoke patriotism, you stoke division actual national borders, but also psychological limits which go to limit the sphere of activity possible for your hands in the field that is, you place a stumblingblock on your brothers path while placing huge stumblingblocks on the path for every foreigner who feels patriotic about his own nation. The old clich, whatever wall we build to keep others out locks us inside. If you are an avowed patriot, you may not even see that wall; but your actions will still be bounded by it. Is it bad to love ones own country? Ah, but remember the difference between particularized loves and Love. How can you embrace and extend what you do not really embrace? Thus you shrink; thus you become flat, or a flat line.

Addendum: As often occurs when Im writing a post and waxing the philosophical dream quest to mix metaphors I forgot a thread of thought I intended to include. Arherring had written A Kinder, Gentler Definition in response to a previous post about kindler, gentler warfare (question mark), mildly questioning whether it was actually warfare. I answered with, among other things, an introduction of the possible kinetic activities occurring during such warfare: 1. in the short term, the kinetic activities of targeted actors may well take a destructive course, especially since early stages of a 5GW campaign will have preexisting dreams (targets) with which to work; and 2. that a stick can be used from love as well as a carrot, sometimes more effectively. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Tough love. Pick your clich. It is the second point I would tie to the subject of stumblingblocks and patriotism. Quite possibly, others already have stumblingblocks in place all around them, stumblingblocks that will need removing during this process of embracing and extending particularly, in the process of extending. If we consider psychological stumblingblocks, we might wonder how best to remove those; and, indeed, whether their removal might lead to a great confusion, or many more stumblingblocks. If we consider how psychological stumblingblocks have manifested over time, we might even wonder whether, e.g., removing hateful regimes would be a requirement for removing those psychological stumblingblocks. Unfortunately, we might be foolish to attempt such a thing if even more stumblingblocks are laid down in place of the old. And if patriotism is indeed a form of psychological stumblingblock, we might ponder how we might remove the sense of patriotism keeping others tripping or trapped, or shrunken rather than extending and spherical. (To metaphorize, again.) On the other hand, the very concept of patriotism might be coopted: embraced as it often is but extended which it rarely is.

Loyalty vs Fidelity Alan Sullivan of Fresh Bilge ponders the difference (that he would make) between loyalty and fidelity: Of all the minor virtues, loyalty is most apt for twisting to evil purpose. Unlike fealty, loyalty has no intrinsic value. It is morally neutral. The question must always remain: loyalty to whom? In politics, loyalty to persons is constantly tested against fidelity to principles. In the hierarchy of values, fidelity is more important. Consider the plight of feminists, when President Clinton abused his office for sex with a subordinate. Many kept mum, sacrificing principle to personal loyalty. Some denied, defied, and decried, emboldening future abusers of women. [Loyalty] You see this sort of thing happen all the time. Not long ago, I considered the term primary loyalties and proposed the idea that a persons real primary loyalty is always to himself, even if he may have multiple loyalties to others. This may account for part of Alans distinction, particularly when he considers tribalism vs the rule of law: Throughout human history, until quite recently, most people lived under mafias of one sort or another. The original capos sported bearskins or lion claws. Later, more civilized rulers wore mufti or imperial purple. Now we have power suits. The clothing doesnt matter; loyalty is always the essence of mafia rule. The price of disloyalty is banishment or death. But there is an alternative form of governance: rule by law rather than by men. This system is more difficult to maintain. It cuts against the grain humankinds history of tribalism. It requires constant vigilance to prevent impartial law from degenerating into mere favoritism. When Noonan sees excessive reverence for personalities and indifference to principles spreading among Republicans, she is witnessing the onset of the Republics dissolution. What causes the split, the move toward mere favoritism from the rule of law? Quite possibly, those who move in that direction do not see much personal gain possible in the law: to the degree that it affects everyone the same, no advantage can be gained by sticking to a rule of law regardless of what individual personalities can promise to give you. I would note that such a trend may happen no matter the forms of that law democratic or despotic, it makes no difference when considering the relative advantages of sticking to a rule of law, or fidelity, and sticking to loyalty to persons, if the law affects everyone equally. To the degree that the law does not affect everyone equally, the trend will be accelerated. Despotic rule inspires loyalty to persons over fidelity to principles; or rather, the ruling principle becomes: loyalty to those wielding the power of law. 5GW implications can be found in this conflict. The rule of law, as Alan uses the term, is really a principle, in which individual laws are, together, a complex set of lesser principles. Their individual rule should be basic and complementary if the consilient principle, rule of law, is going to have any cognitive force itself. In discussions concerning geopolitical realities, the consilient principle often becomes merely a vague idea. For instance, Sharia is a complex set of laws and, no doubt, many of those who would institute Sharia globally have great faith in the rule of law even though others looking in on their activities may believe they have no such thing. Those who regularly oppose the institution of

Sharia law in places where it does not yet hold absolute sway may grow confused at their own inability to institute some other form of the rule of law: essentially, such battlefields have conflicting rule-sets, conflicting laws, and the consilient principle rule of law can only remain vague in such an environment. This situation reminds me of a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson I recently highlighted in another post: The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own. [RWE, from Circles] well, there is the primary loyalty, helm; and there is the consilient rule of law, or, idea which commands his own: a star by which he can guide his ship while believing that his own helm is still to be trusted. The more stars, of indeterminate brilliance, the more static; and the more static, the more room for loyalties to shipmates who can promise a safe voyage or transparent and obvious path through the chaos. We can transfer such a dynamic to any consideration of memes at war, ideologies at war, etc. The greater the generalization, the greater the necessity that the ideas it would encompass must be complementary; complementarity in this case means, that those who would be guided by that generalization are, every one, able to see that complementarity. (We are talking cognition, here.) True, we might consider the possibility that each individual being guided by that star may have idiosyncratic and limited observations of that generalization, or may find a unique personal relationship to that generalization or see more clearly some of the subordinate ideas but less clearly other ideas but these diverse individuals will come into contact with one another during their voyage. If they are to steer a single ship to victory, they will need a common perception of that star; indeed, they must have a common perception of a single ship. Otherwise, mutiny can be expected, or else the ship will go nowhere because no one can agree on what part of the ship is the helm, what are the sails, and so forth.

Empires of the Mind The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. In general, the Winston Churchill quote is auspicious for 5GW dreaming. Churchills words alone would sum up the theory of 5GW that I have presented on D5GW, or at least the major thrust of that theory. Whether speaking of OODA loops, or of complex abstractions like patriotism or loyalty and fidelity, or of how 5GW might be operationalized or defined, I have tended to put much weight behind the concept that shaping the minds of individuals will play the most significant role in 5GW conflicts. I base this assumption on many factors, but primarily upon: * The complexity of real globalization. * The interconnectivity and inter-operability produced by advancing technology. * Human nature, individual and social, private and public. * The observation that 4GW depends greatly upon attacks on cognition, already, and that broadcast media will continue to play a major role in future conflict. * The assumption that chaos chaotic interactions cannot increase perpetually without social order being reestablished or the human race ceasing to exist. I have hit these topics in various ways in various places already. To sum up: Increasingly rapid advancement of technology and increasing levels and varieties of interaction in a globalizing world will make vertical establishment of a particular order relatively impossible relative to the efficacy of similar methods used in the past and thus chaos which would be resolved into a beneficial and desirable order will necessarily be resolved at the root level, i.e., at the level of the individual. Guide the most individuals, and you will have the most influence in shaping the system if, that is, you guide them well. I dont intend for that summary to be definitive, but only a limited guide to my thinking! However, variant concepts for the fifth generation of warfare exist, some perhaps on this blog! On D5GW, some disagreement appears to occur when discussing the operationalization of 5GW: I with my head in abstractions continue to deal in broad frameworks and concepts related mostly to human cognition and ideology, and those who want the nuts & bolts consider more fully or at least, more often how 5GW might play out in the mundane, mud and blood environment. Off Dreaming 5GW, concepts for the fifth generation of warfare range further afield: * John Robb has his theory of 5GW, which is quite mud and blood that is, focuses on how conflict will play out on the street level, neighborhood level, and, more distantly (or vaguely, perhaps?) on the global level, in a very kinetic way. I have criticized his theory before here and here; however, one must admit that the future conflict he describes has a tint of indirection permeating it, given how systempunkt attacks are described as causing more permanent (and influential!) damage far from them. * RevG has a blog, Christian Soldiers, devoted almost entirely to the idea of 5GW but just try locking down a description or concept of fifth generation warfare by reading the blog! His theory seems more abstract than mine, even, since he delves into spirituality and spiritual issues almost exclusively, especially lately. However, he does consider the roles that the disaffected technointelligentsia of the future might play in a 5GW scenario. * Fix4RSO has been developing a concept of 5GW that is very technology-oriented while also acknowledging the large role that media will play.

* Thomas P.M. Barnett has given a personal dream of 5GW that appears very similar to what we discuss on D5GW but is maddeningly vague. I.e., from other references to 5GW on his blog, one might say that Barnett believes in a multi-directional, multi-pronged 5GW, for shaping the activities of so many individuals by influencing them at the ground level; but these efforts will still be initiated primarily by states and corporations. Not that Im arguing against that possibility, but only that his concept of 5GW appears to eliminate the need for clandestine operation and a limited core of individual 5GWarriors so often discussed on D5GW.

Others have written of fifth generation warfare on the Blogosphere and elsewhere; this is only a representative list of some of the most divergent conceptualizations that I have read and may be archetypal for understanding the broad-ranging discussion of 5GW. For instance, the Enigma Foundry took John Robbs concept and ran with it, while somewhat adding a twist. I took EFs consideration of Churchills statement, and am now running with it. The quote I mean. A search of the quotation via Google will show it has been used quite often to address issues relating to: education, biotech, business, politics. The FBI even includes it in a list of quotations about the future, for its Futures Working Group area of their website exploring the shape of future policing. All the theories of 5GW I have read, as well as theories relating to technology, education, government, and business, must rely upon one reality: how people think/believe will influence how they operate in the future. Divergent theories related to any human enterprise often have different assumptions about how we as individuals and as members of networks or societies view our world, interpret that world, and act in that world in accordance with what we observe and have observed. If we look at the competing theories of 5GW, we might see which styles of observation still linger in the world. We might wonder how others, who have never heard of 5GW, will nonetheless be motivated to act in ways addressed by each of the theories of 5GW (or any other theories of warfare.) If future empires are to manifest, they will manifest when a sufficiently large number of people join an empire of mind. A manner of thinking produces a corresponding manner of doing. If any one 5GW becomes the reality, it will be because most people involved in conflict buy into that theory for instance, we might not be far wrong to assume that 4GW exists because a sufficient number of people think and operate in a 4GW manner. What will move them out of that habit of thought?

Politics Goes Viral From ShaneBertou.com, in a post considering the YouTube video that uses an old AppleMac ad but inserts Hillary Clinton as the oppressive dictator/mind shaper: This is no doubt an interesting development in the world of political advertising. It will be interesting to see if candidates begin to see YouTube as a powerful ally and begin viral ad campaigns geared more toward it. It will also be interesting to see if there is an emergence of more mysterious ads that will allow campaign managers to skirt around certain legal and ethical limitations in political advertising. and, interesting to see how motivated individuals not directly associated with any political campaign use viral marketing to affect democratic elections. 08 may be the year of YouTube Politics. UPDATE: Interesting tie-in to this story. Did you know that YouTube actually set aside a special section on its web site for the 2008 presidential campaign?

YouTube%2008.jpg

I sure didnt. Today I stumbled across an AP story on the UsaToday site mentioning it, with the headline, Obama leads the YouTube vote: If the 2008 presidential election were held on YouTube, Barack Obama would win in a landslide. Candidates of both parties have established channels on the video-sharing site. Earlier this month, YouTube set up a hub specifically for 08 candidates. It has attracted the participation of Democrats: Illinois Sen. Obama, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd; and Republicans: Arizona Sen. John McCain, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. (A handful of declared candidates, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and California Rep. Duncan Hunter, dont have profiles on YouTube.) YouTube has proven its power in influencing political campaigns in virally spreading clips such as when former Sen. George Allen, R-Va., uttered the word macaca during a campaign event. Though the site is adept at highlighting gaffs and blunders, whether it can do anything to swell positive support is another question entirely. Three things interesting in this snippet: 1. The viral nature of such activity, and its power, is being acknowledged by the MSM. Perhaps I shouldnt be surprised about this use of the term; perhaps Im a few months or even years behind the times. In any case, I wonder if we should pay more attention to how the general discourse may

change, in whatever way, as a signal of generational change. 2. The cast of characters are jolly-ho for keeping up with the times. I cant help thinking that Howard Deans run was the real clicker for them (and for almost everyone else.) 3. The point about differentiating between highlighting gaffs and blunders and swell[ing] support is well-taken, and, I think, very important. But here is why the article would predict such a landslide: YouTube is a democracy of its own every video can be ranked by the number of views its receives. In this online popularity contest, the 45-year-old Obama currently leads handily in viewcounts. That result isnt surprising since the YouTube audience is predominantly young. Obama, who was ahead of most of the competition by getting himself up on YouTube six months ago, had more than 627,400 views of his channel as of Tuesday. Several of his 21 videos have been watched by 100,000-plus. Clinton trails with about 51,000 views on her channel. Edwards, whose campaign joined YouTube 11 months ago, has yielded 40,000 views. Richardson has some 14,100, Kucinich is nearing 14,000, Bidens channel has been seen by about 13,500 and Dodd is last with 3,800. The Republicans have faired much worse, although Giuliani would come in third, with 43,100 views. UPDATE#2: A.E. has linked an item on Simulated Laughter revealing the identity of the unknown creator of the anti-Hillary video. Did you catch the sloppy rebuttal video, btw?

5GW Warriors: Sam Harris I might as well launch this series on [potential] 5GW Warriors with a link to a video I watched for the first time tonight showing a man, a stage, an audience, and memes at work recontextualizing religious belief. I dont know much about Sam Harris, although Ive caught occasional references while surfing the Blogosphere. A little reading tonight confirms one impression I had while watching the video: Harris must surely be a controversial figure. Although very open to the reality and benefit of spirituality and ethics, he is hostile toward organized religious belief and considers the closedbook cognitive approach to be a very dangerous aspect of modern societies. However dangerous religious fundamentalism may be, in his estimation religious moderation may be even worse, simply because religious moderates tend to have no ability to see the fundamentalist belief system for what it is and thus allow the fundamentalists free rei(g)n. One might wonder, as we have often wondered on D5GW, whether a 5GWarrior must always work clandestinely or may operate openly as Sam Harris operates. Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett is another figure who brings the question to the forefront, and I suppose Bill Gates should not be dismissed from consideration, either. Perhaps in a future update to this post or in an entirely other post I might address the question more thoroughly. For now, I want to present a consideration of Sam Harris in three parts: a) the video, b) some key quotes from the video that may bear on the subject of 5GW theory, and c) a few extra thoughts inspired by the video and the man. For a biography and deeper look at Sam Harris, I suggest searching through Google (although possibly, future posts on D5GW may dig deeper.) ideaCity 05 The video is an appearance at the 2005 ideaCity Conference held in Toronto and seems to address the core of Sam Harris arguments (given, admittedly, my limited knowledge of the man.) [Sorry to those who do not have broadband connections; but you can check out the media page on Sam Harris website for a downloadable copy (that will take forever to download on a dial-up connectionAn audio-only MP3 can also be downloaded.)]

Key Quotes On [viral] discourse: We do not respect peoples beliefs. We evaluate their reasons. If my reasons are good enough for believing what I believe, you will helplessly believe what I believe. I will give you my reasons, and reasons are contagious.

On religious fundamentalism and religious moderation: Another problem with religious moderation is that, its not only intellectually bankrupt, it is theologically bankrupt, because the fundamentalists have actually read the books, and theyre right about them.

Once we dignify the claim that the Bible or the Quran (conspicuously) is a book, is a communication that is fundamentally different from any other book be it the plays of Shakespeare or the Illiad these books are not literature; they are the best books we have, in moral termsOnce we dignify those claims, we are really hostage to their contents.

On the roots of Islamic extremism: Intelligence vs belief: It doesnt have anything to do with religion; this is economics, its lack of educational opportunities. I dont know how many more engineers and architects have to hit the wall at 400 miles-an-hour for us to realize this is not simply a matter of education. The truth of our circumstance is quite a bit more sinister than that. It is actually possible to be so well educated that you can build a nuclear bomb and still believe that youre going to get the 72 virgins. Thats how balkanized our discourse is; and thats how easily partitioned the human mind is.

In summation: I just want to say that whatever is true spiritually and ethically about our circumstance there are no doubts that there are spiritual truths, there are spiritual experiences human beings can have, and there are ethical truths whatever is true about that has to transcend culture. It has to transcend our cultural differences. The endgame for civilization is not political correctness and tolerating all manner of absurdity. It is reason and reasonableness and an openness to evidence. [Extra Thoughts] and The Selfish Gene Incidentally, Ive lately been re-reading portions of The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins (1989 edition), and I am struck by a convergence of thinking between Dawkins and Harris I most certainly wouldnt have noticed if I had not also recently watched this video. [True, as you can see on Harris front page at his site, Dawkins is one of his fans] While considering symbiosis between species in Chapter 10 of that edition, Dawkins launched into a consideration of the way slightly differently evolved members of a single species might interrelate, borrowing from the classical Prisoners Dilemma line of theory but also considering Evolutionary Stable Strategies, or ESS. Dawkins considered three types of players: Suckers, Cheaters, and Grudgers. Suckers are always altruistic in their behavior toward their brethren, regardless of whether their helpful favors are returned; Cheaters will happily benefit from the activities of Suckers, but never return the favors; and Grudgers use memory of the actions of other players to decide whether to do something helpful for them. Once burned by a player, the Grudgers will spurn that player; but if helped, they will grudgingly return the favor. On the subject of Harris argument concerning religious belief and the limits placed on discourse, as

these play out, we might say:

Religious Moderates are Suckers Religious Fundamentalists are Cheaters.

That is, the religious moderates enable and help the religious fundamentalists as a matter of course and in practice: * They [everyone] can believe what they want; their belief is entirely up to them, a personal matter; its their right to believe however they want. but the religious fundamentalists will not return that favor: * Religious moderates are really relativists; their belief is wrong, because there is only one belief accepted by God, the True Faith, and the moderates will not acknowledge this. At least, this is the impression I have of Harris definition of these two groups of thinkers. More to the point: His warnings about the power of religious fundamentalists, and the threat posed by such fundamentalism, would have some basis from a theoretical viewpoint, vis-a-vis Dawkins consideration of ESS, since a population with both Suckers and Cheaters will ultimately benefit the Cheaters far more until, perhaps, all Suckers disappear: The average pay-off for both suckers and cheats will be less than that for any individual population of 100 per cent suckers. But still, cheats will be doing better than suckers because they are getting all the benefits such as they are and paying nothing back. When the proportion of cheats reaches 90 per cent, the average pay-off for all individuals will be very low: many of both types may by now be dying off of the infection carried by the ticks [ed. i.e., not enough are left to find a helpful head-scratcher!]. But still the cheats will be doing better than the suckers. Even if the whole population declines toward extinction, there will never be any time when suckers do better than cheats. Therefore, as long as we consider only these two strategies, nothing can stop the extinction of the suckers and, very probably, the extinction of the whole population too. [Dawkins, from The Selfish Gene.] But what about a Harrisian Grudger? Dawkins considered a population that included the third type as well, and argued that a population of Grudgers might start very small and ultimately go extinct in the three-way competition, but if they gained a sufficient number, they would go on to dominate the system (as judged by population size and ESS strength.) I will leave greater speculation concerning what a Grudger might be from Harris viewpoint to others; but I will suggest one possibility. In the video but not quoted here, near the end, Harris suggested the necessity for continually open discourse and open minds; or, you might say, minds willing to expand or be expansive; i.e., minds that have openness to evidence. These might be individuals who have beliefs but will grudgingly give up those beliefs, or alter them, when presented with compelling evidence supporting the beliefs held by others. However, this possible Harrisian Grudger does not quite fit the definitional dynamic I gave to the Harrisian Cheater and Harrisian Sucker, since both of those are defined by an acceptance of the legitimacy of beliefs not founded on evidence; but Harris categorically rejects

such belief for his better world, and I would have a hard time defining a Grudger who wont even grudgingly accept unsubstantiated beliefs. [I am tempted to say that Harris Grudger is really a Montaigne-Pyrrhonian; but Im not sure he would agree and, in any case, I should probably not make that leap just yet!] So the actual Grudger in this mnage trois would probably be that believer who allows for unsubstantiated beliefs when meeting another Grudger who will do the same for him, but not for Cheaters: religious fundamentalists are out (really, only reduced to the fringe), but perhaps loose and largely temporary, shifting, back-scratching faith-networks form, in which people hop from one such network to the other as easily as changing jobs every few months or a year. If we step outside the theological box, we might see this sort of thing happening already.

on Balkanized Discourse and Partitioned Minds I had many more thoughts inspired by the video, but have spent more space than I originally intended on the Selfish Gene tie-in! So Im cutting it off after this. However, I couldnt pass up a chance to link the above coinages to Dan tdaxps recent post, Attractive and Repulsive Paradigms. Lets consider the possibility that fundamentalists are like specialists in fields of study whole groups are balkanized in relationship to each other; there are insular groups but also lets consider the possibility that each persons mind is partitioned, balkanized. So, for instance, we might continue our tying-in by considering how easily a balkanized mind might hop, skip, and jump around the playing field scimaplarge_full_annotated_md.jpg without ever really settling down for long. What would be the long-term effects, not only for any such given individual, but also for a society made up of many individuals who do this? I shant go further right now, with this thought, although Ill note that I saved that image from Dans site to my local folder titled Static before uploading it to D5GW.

Politics and Conflict Five days ago, A. E. of Simulated Laughter posted a follow-up to an entry on D5GW with an entry titled 5GW and Obama Long Post. The Republicans have employed a form of 4GW for a long time. The Democrats did not field a comparable effort, and are only beginning to develop the capacity right now.

I wanted to comment on that entry from the first, but back-end issues have kept me busy working on this site. You can read the post to see what I meant when I finally commented there that I largely agree with A.E.s argument. In fact, his entry ties in rather well with my entry on Toward a Better Understanding of 4GW here at D5GW; I had in mind much of what he writes (minus specifics) in his post when I wrote mine. Dont be fooled by this snippet of the post; mind the title, since its a long post. However, A.E. doesnt actually consider Obama much in the entry and does not appear to be calling Obamas political method 4GW. Ive suggested he needs a Part Two to that post. In other comments there, Dan tdaxp asked an interesting question after quoting something I wrote: Curtis, In any case, proficiency in utilizing a generational style of fighting also usually means greater proficiency at defending against that style, so opponents will need to upgrade if they have any hope of winning against a proficient 4GW foe. Would you say that higher-G warfare is a product of a more complicated/advanced civilization and/or culture? I have to say, that commenting elsewhere is not like posting an entry here; I tend to abridge and might even grow sloppy or flippant. Does greater proficiency in utilization also produce greater proficiency in defending, with respect to a given style of warfare? I think so, at least statistically. However, Dans question inspired another tie-in, with my look at OODA-xGW, Observing the Maturing World, as well as this: Im not sure that maturity requires greater complexity, although it probably requires advancement! ;) However, if we think of a move away from largely linear warfare through asymmetric and widely dispersed and largely undefined warfare to a sort of expansive and yet inclusive warfare, it may seem like a movement up the chain of complexity from a linearlyrestricted or even asymmetrically-restricted p.o.v. But I would consider the reverse: A more complicated/advanced civilization and/or culture may also be the product of higher-G warfare. I.e., the necessities produced by/in conflict have an effect on civilization and culture, as well.

But who knows if any of this makes any sense. Go read the post on Simulated Laughter, though; its very intriguing, extremely well-thought.

The D5GW Paradox Ive been sidetracked by Movable Type woes, which are eating into my time and my peace of mind; thus, havent been blogging much. Check out the new author pages, linked in the left sidebar, when you get a chance; plus, the banner at the top of each page actually links to the main page of D5GW, now. Sorry, still, to IE users, since Ive found no solution as of yet. During this time away from the front page, Ive nonetheless had something in mind that seems to require a post. I dont have much time to dig into it at the moment. (Yay! I can almost hear the chorus sing) So Ill put it simply and leave it there: The Dreaming 5GW Paradox. Simply stated in two parts: * Any successful 5GW effort will almost certainly be secret and unseen; the war may even occur without anyone else knowing it has happened. So how can any exploration of the theory of 5GW, or any dream of 5GW, ever have specific examples of 5GW, to consider or discuss, a la John Robb or any of numerous of other explorers of contemporary conflict? And so, what a futile attempt a blog about 5GW must make * Sure, I know that early 5GW attempts will almost certainly be sloppy, clumsy, and so might be seen and analyzed; but why on earth would anyone serious about 5GW hold those clumsy examples up as exemplary proof or even as a useful guide to understanding how 5GW might play out? How can inept attempts tell us anything about the real deal? They only tell us what 5GW is not. Just had to get it out there.

A Quick Observation Saw this phrase on Tom Barnetts blog and it jumped out at me. Bush seems unable to define a victory, so he leaves it to the Dems to define a loss. I have explored before the consideration that 5GW will in part be about context and more specifically about placing information in context that will lead to the emergence of specific memes. In fact, looking forward to a situation in which 5GW organizations will battle each other for memetic supremacy (Heh, that sounds pretty cool, eh?) the concept embodied by this short statement could very well be the battleground. Just a bit of food for thought.

Memes as Nodes in Complex Interactivity Moral resilience operates on multiple levels. First, at the level of an organization as a result or product of what Colonel Boyd described as: A grand ideal, overarching theme, or noble philosophy that represents a coherent paradigm within which individuals as well as societies can shape and adapt to unfolding circumstancesyet offers a way to expose flaws of competing or adversary systems. Such a unifying vision should be so compelling that it acts as a catalyst or beacon around which to evolve those qualities that permit a collective entity or organic whole to improve its stature in the scheme of things. Secondly, as the membership internalize the values of the unifying vision and acquire moral resilience which in turn produces psychological resilience in the form of the individuals behavioral response to stress or threat. Thirdly, moral resilience is itself an attractive meme, a beacon that draws support in the form of new members ( a catalyst) or the admiration of uncommitted observers. Or perhaps, repeated demonstrations of moral resilience may have a daunting effect or undermine the morale of adversaries and competitors. [On Moral and Psychological Resilience, ZenPundit, 20 May 2006.] * I have said many times: the hardest thing to track is a meme. But I have never given an explanation for why this is so. Here it is: memes do not travel. They are not transmitted. They emerge. Within individuals. This is OODA. Network theorists might postulate a series of concrete effects, or causes, leading to such emergence, and collectively call each set of effects meme for explaining how quite similar memes emerge in diverse locations; and theyre welcome to do so, because that itself is a useful meme. [ Global Guerrillas as 5GW Warriors, CGW, 19 October 2006.] * What causes new linking though between blogs with no prior connection ? I would suggest that memes play a central role in attracting and later sustaining such connections. Sociability is certainly an important variable but I dont think that is critical in making initial decisions to make contact in the first place. The blogosphere is a very detached place; after all, if we really wanted to be social, wed get off the computer and go speak to a live human being ! Many of us are online (or are online addicts) because we are craving intellectual stimulation that may be lacking in our professional or personal relationships. [Bar-Yams Shifting Hub: But Are Memes a Critical Factor in New Links in the Blogosphere? ZenPundit, 01 January 2007.] *

Network theorists may believe definitive networks exist connecting these individuals, but in so doing they often make the mistake of believing that what they have discerned to be stable routes and routings i.e., networks can be understood to exist regardless of the individuals using those paths. I.e., to define a network is to believe that such interaction between individuals is prefigured by the available routes of data transmission. These network theorists may finally be realizing that so-called networks do not lead to the emergence of activity so much as that activity leads to the emergence of networks and that these actual connections are transitory, ephemeral, constantly changing. Any established network may in fact be merely a fossilized account of activity rather than an ongoing account of real activity. We must not equate the architecture with the activity, because they are separate things. Most importantly, in a world of static, and particularly in a future world in which larger numbers of sources exist (many of them more empowered through the effects of globalization and the fluidity of the architecture they are using) i.e., in a world with increasing levels of static the imposition of a definitive network architecture onto the world for the express purpose of channeling activities will become increasingly difficult. Interlude: Static Visualized, Conceptualized, CGW, 2 January 2007. * But these eccentrics were eccentrics. eccentric adj. 2. Not having a common center; not concentric; eccentric circles. [see eccentric on Websters Online Dictionary] I.e., theyre likely to follow their own paths. A sphere is not a circle, after all; and Emersons ephemerals in the poem he used to open his essay on Circles are all individuals. They are individual in that they follow their own paths, uniquely; but nonetheless, these multifarious pathtreaders on the surface of the sphere rarely seem to grasp the fact that they are attached to surface conditions, and that all their unique movements have a common center. They do not see the sphere; if they did, A new genesis were here. [Emersonian Circles, CGW, 8 March 2007.] * Increasingly rapid advancement of technology and increasing levels and varieties of interaction in a globalizing world will make vertical establishment of a particular order relatively impossible relative to the efficacy of similar methods used in the past and thus chaos which would be resolved into a beneficial and desirable order will necessarily be resolved at the root level, i.e., at the level of the individual. Guide the most individuals, and you will have the most influence in shaping the system if, that is, you guide them well. If future empires are to manifest, they will manifest when a sufficiently large number of people join an empire of mind. A manner of thinking produces a corresponding manner of doing. [Empires of the Mind, CGW, 21 March 2007.]

* According to the Jamestown Foundation, a Syrian member of Al-Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Suri, has formulated a new operational strategy growing in popularity among global jihadists. The plans primary feature is radical decentralization. In al-Suris opinion, the biggest mistake that the jihadi movement made was to grow dependent on fixed camps, like the ones Bin Laden maintained in Sudan and Afghanistan. Although useful in training recruits, fixed locations trapped Al-Qaeda units where Western forces could eventually invade and destroy them. Similarly, al-Suri also sees the traditional hierarchal model of a terrorist or insurgent group as a weakness. If authorities capture one member, the organization as a whole is put at risk. Instead, al-Suri proposes a jihad of individual terrorism, with self-contained autonomous cells employing an easily available (most likely on the internet) terror template to start their own jihad. The glue holding these autonomous jihadis together would simply be a common cause, with leadership offering little more than ideological guidance. There would be no organizational links between cells. [Future War: The War on Terror After Iraq, Adam Elkus, Jihad Monitor, 26 March 2007 (pdf) .]

(I once commented at the Bar-Yam link to ZenPundit, above, I cant help thinking that what are called memes are hubs, of a sort but not in the typical, stable-network sense of the term.Heh, Ill probably have to explicate in a future post.) More to come

Online 5GW? Online 4GW?

Courtesy of DDDR this bit regarding Russian domestic counter intelligence: The internet brigades (Russian: -) [1] [2] are real and alleged state-sponsored information warfare teams that conduct psychological operations on-line. Such teams may be affiliated with state propaganda departments, military, or secret police forces. They are said to disseminate disinformation and prevent free discussions of undesirable subjects in political blogs and internet forums by using cyberstalking, cyber-bullying and other psychological warfare methods against political bloggers.[3] Since the existence of internet brigades is often officially denied, such activities may be defined as "black", covert or false flag operations (or "active measures" according to Russian terminology).

The above wikipedia citation is likely to expire or be radically changed soon. The disclaimers that precede it promise as much. As such the rest of the entry can be found here. Comments?

First publications This alleged phenomenon in RuNet was first written about in 2003 by a group of investigative journalists led by Anna Polyanskaya,[4] a former assistant to assassinated Russian politician Galina Starovoitova.[5] The allegations of Polyanskaya and her colleagues have been supported by writer Grigory Svirsky and psychologist Vladimir Bagryansky.[3] They claimed the appearance of organized and fairly professional "brigades", composed of ideologically and methodologically identical personalities, who were working in practically every popular liberal and pro-democracy blogs and internet newspapers of RuNet in the Russian blogosphere. These Internet teams appeared suddenly on Russian language forums in 1999. They have been allegedly organized by the Russian FSB service, the main successor of the KGB.[3][2] [edit] Criticism and discussions The work of the FSB brigades has been extensively debated in RuNet. The discussion began in the internet forum of the "Russian Journal", just a few days after the first publication by Polyanskaya and others, and it lasted for two months.[3] One group of bloggers was led by Alexander Usupovski, head of the analytical department of the Federation Council of Russia. He dismissed the existence of such brigades as a conspiracy theory and noted that the unfair defamation would "contribute to the extrusion of the state security services outside of rule of law". [6]. Other bloggers claimed that Usupovsky and his supporters are the governmental "internet brigade." The discussion ended by a series of personal threats from the first group with address to Ivan Lomko, one of authors of the original publication. According to Grigory Svirsky, "the internet brigade led by Alexander Usupovski is probably the most incompetent team of Russian state security services in RuNet" [3]. A discussion was also conducted on the internet forum of Moscow News.[3] [edit] Brigades on the Polish internet Russian "internet brigades" reportedly resurfaced in Poland in 2005. According to the Polish newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny, "at least a dozen active Russian agents work in Poland, also investigating the Polish internet. Not only do they scrutinize Polish websites (like those supporting Belarusian opposition), but also perform such actions, asfor instancecontributing to internet forums on large portals (like Gazeta.pl, Onet.pl, WP.pl). Labeled as Polish Internet users, they incite anti-Semitic or anti-Ukrainian discussions or disavow articles published on the web."[7] [edit] LiveJournal fighters The teams of "LiveJournal fighters" are claimed to be created by organization "Russia the young", directed and paid from the Kremlin. People reportedly receive extra cash for working in the internet[8] Their ideological work in Live Journal is extremely important, said Vladislav Surkov, a top aide to Vladimir Putin.[9]. According to Surkov, people's brains must be converted to state property (Russian:" "). He said that "We are loosing in the internet in that respect. It is easier to break down things than to do something positive. This [all what we are doing] are jokes and minor infractions. Not only our methods, but also our goals must be radical. We must blow this romantics out of [our opponents]. It is important not only to protect the authorities - this is understood, but we need to attract young people who can work creatively in the internet. This is an important communication place of young people. Make them interested in conversations with you." [9] [edit] Behavior

The postings from people supposed to be part of the Internet brigades have certain distinct features some of which are the following [2]: * Propaganda of the Communist ideology, and constant attempts to present in a positive light the entire history of Russia and the Soviet Union, minimizing the number of people who died in repressions. * Boundless loyalty to Vladimir Putin and his circle. * Respect and admiration for the KGB and FSB. * Hatred of dissidents and human rights organizations and activists, political prisoners and journalists, especially Anna Politkovskaya and Sergei Kovalev. * Anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism. * Accusation of Russophobia against everyone who disagrees with them. * tendency to accuse their opponents of being insane during arguments. * Round-the-clock presence on forums. At least one of the uniform members of the team can be found online at all times, always ready to repulse any attack by a liberal. [edit] Tactics * Individual work on opponents. "As soon as an opposition-minded liberal arrives on a forum, expressing a position that makes them a clear "ideological enemy, he is immediately cornered and subjected to active measures by the unified web-brigade. Without provocation, the opponent is piled on with abuse or vicious arguments of the sort that the average person cannot adequately react to. As a result, the liberal either answers sharply, causing a scandal and getting himself labeled a boor by the rest of the brigade, or else he starts to make arguments against the obvious absurdities, to which his opponents pay no attention, but simply ridicule him and put forth other similar arguments." [2] * Accusations that opponents are working for enemies. The opponents are accused of taking money from Berezovskiy, the CIA, the MOSSAD, Saudi Arabia, the Zionists, or the Chechen rebels. * Making personally offensive comments, especially of sexual nature. * Remarkable ability to reveal personal information about their opponents and their quotes from old postings, sometimes more than a year old. * Teamwork. "They unwaveringly support each other in discussions, ask each other leading questions, put fine points on each others answers, and even pretend not to know each other. If an opponent starts to be hounded, this hounding invariably becomes a team effort, involving all of the three to twenty nicknames that invariably are present on any political forum 24 hours a day." [2] * Appealing to the Administration. The members of teams often "write mass collective complaints about their opponents to the editors, site administrators, or the electronic complaints book, demanding that one or another posting or whole discussion thread they dont like be removed, or calling for the banning of individuals they find problematic." [2] * Destruction of inconvenient forums. For example, on the site of the Moscow News, all critics of Putin and the FSB "were suddenly and without any explanation banned from all discussions, despite their having broken none of the sites rules of conduct. All the postings of this group of readers, going back a year and a half, were erased by the site administrator." [2] [edit] Internet brigades in Russian literature The alleged FSB activities on the Internet have been described in the short story "Anastasya" by Russian writer Grigory Svirsky, who was interested in the moral aspects of their work.[10] He wrote: "It seems that offending, betraying, or even "murdering" people in the virtual space is easy. This is like killing an enemy in a video game: one does not see a disfigured body or the eyes of the person who is dying right in front of you. However, the human soul lives by its own basic laws that

force it to pay the price for the virtual crime in his real life". [3] [edit] Internet police teams in mainland China Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Jintao ordered to "maintain the initiative in opinion on the Internet and raise the level of guidance online," [11] "An internet police force - reportedly numbering 30,000 - trawls websites and chat rooms, erasing anti-Communist comments and posting pro-government messages" [12], although the exact numbers of Internet police personnel was challenged by Chinese authorities [13] It was reported that departments of provincial and municipal governments in mainland China began creating "teams of internet commentators, whose job is to guide discussion on public bulletin boards away from politically sensitive topics by posting opinions anonymously or under false names" in 2005.[1] Applicants for the job were drawn mostly from the propaganda and police departments. Successful candidates have been offered classes in Marxism, propaganda techniques, and the Internet. "They are actually hiring staff to curse online," said Liu Di, a Chinese student who was arrested for posting her comments in blogs.[1] [edit] Miscellaneous Organized teams of information fighters become an increasingly common phenomenon. Some of them are not sponsored by the state, but can push different political agendas [14], be involved in astroturfing [15], or participate in election campaigns [16].

Is Kirking a Tool in all Generations of War? Even before kirking became a verb in its present sense, Dr. Glen Reynolds wrote a scholarly paper on how SLAPP lawsuits may soon have a negative ROI because of the power of blogospheric swaming. Over a tdaxp, Curtis has done a good job arguing that this is an example of 4G-style swarming, and that this sort of blogospheric autoimmunity is worse than a command-and-control style legal system for solving petty disputes. I disagree, but this post is more theoretical in nature. In particular, I am wondering how kirking may be used as a weapon, by both sides. Two methods are obvious * A party may publicize a lawsuit against it, provoking a kirk-style autoimmune response from others, or * A party may purposefully file a petty lawsuit, provoking a lawsuit that actually plays into some deeper plan The first option above seems 4Gish, and the second seems 5Gish. But can these be reversed Can a blogger in a KIRK use it as a method of 5GW? Can a company that has its reputation harmed actually be using it as part of a 4GW? And can kirking be used in 0GW, 1GW, 2GW, and 3GW contexts?

Kinetics and Violence The genesis of this post is the comments section for ZenPundits autoborking post on JL Kirk Associates. However, I think it has some broad applications. In particular, I am wondering if kinetic is the right words in the following progression * Extermination is more kinetic than violence * Violence is more kinetic than threats of violence * Threats of violence are kinetic kinetic than social sanctions * Social sanctions are more kinetic than threats of social sanctions * Threats of social sanctions are more kinetic than manipulation * Manipulation is more kinetic than stasis For context, I would want to use the same word (kinetic or whatever) in the following progression as well * 0GW is more kinetic than 1GW * 1GW is more kinetic than 2GW * 2GW is more kinetic than 3GW * 3GW is more kinetic than 4GW * 4GW is more kinetic than 5GW * 0GW is more kinetic than Peace Your thoughts?

AKA: Static The Blame Game, via Soob, via Younghusband at Coming Anarchy. Or in other words, tracing effects back to causes will only become more difficult, as more voices and more operatives (proxies) affect the system from more locations/domains but people will claim direct paths anyway, simple cause/effect chains: This does approach a consideration of 5GW, in which the 5GW Effectors are responsible for getting others to do the work for them; these others will feel as if they have the control and power, when in fact they are enslaved to the 5GW operations without knowing it. From a 4GW perspective, the targets know it that they are enslaved or at least suspect/fear it, and such a feeling of powerlessness is the goal of a 4GW operation. From an OODA perspective, terror and powerlessness are in the minds of those who feel those things. The 4GWarrior knows this as well as the 5GWarrior, but one would claim responsibility while the other wants to remain unseen. Given the fact that most people can only wield a one-sided sword, they are more likely to blame themselves for their [own] successes see internal strength while blaming others for their [own] failures remain blind to internal weaknesses. Thus the openly acting bogey-man accepts the blame for creating fear in his opponent (sees this strength as being his) [and his opponent] is willing to give him that credit (not wishing to see that fear is an internal weakness.) The hidden bogey-man is not a bogey-man, strictly speaking, and doesnt attempt to create a feeling of powerlessness in his target: No, he wants his target to feel entirely in control of the situation, strong.

Notes Inspired by Larry Sanger The ZenPundit, Mark Safranski, has linked a brilliant essay by Larry Sanger: Who Says We Know: on the new politics of knowledge. Sanger deftly considers the truth behind the truths, in a way that will bear on future 5GW thinking and theory. Ill want to return to the essay when I have more time, but I did not want pass up the chance to make a few notes on passages from the essay.

To be able to determine societys background knowledgeto establish what we all knowis an awesome sort of power. This power can shape legislative agendas, steer the passions of crowds, educate whole generations, direct reading habits, and tar as radical or nutty whole groups of people who otherwise might seem perfectly normal. Exactly how this power is wielded and who wields it constitutes what we might call the politics of knowledge.

True, fighting over accepted ideology really, over the people who buy into an ideology often takes a political turn; but consider Sangers quirky dissimulation in the first sentence. Hes equivocal about determination and establishment of what he has called background knowledge. Thats too bad. One approach seeks to find the generally accepted knowledge whereas the other approach seeks to shape what that knowledge becomes. Either approach can be used politically, and both are. Usually, appeals to the electorate take a form as blurry as Sangers conceptualization. First, a study is made of what background knowledge actually already exists; next, reiteration occurs as the fruits of such study are delivered to the polity in a way that makes clear to everyone that the majority of people have a common understanding. (This concept will play a role later in the essay, although Sanger did not specifically conceive it.) I dont think I would use the same terminology. The process implied in the paragraphs first two sentences happens with or without politics; the process just so happens to have a political use as well. The politics of knowledge has changed tremendously over the years. In the Middle Ages, we were told what we knew by the Church; after the printing press and the Reformation, by state censors and the licensers of publishers; with the rise of liberalism in the 19th and 20th centuries, by publishers themselves, and later by broadcast mediain any case, by a small, elite group of professionals. But we are now confronting a new politics of knowledge, with the rise of the Internet and particularly of the collaborative Webthe Blogosphere, Wikipedia, Digg, YouTube, and in short every website and type of aggregation that invites all comers to offer their knowledge and their opinions, and to rate content, products, places, and people. Compare this to what I wrote in my first hard look at static vis-a-vis Once - Upon - A - Time World. (More in a bit)

Todays Establishment is nervous about Web 2.0 and Establishment-bashers love it, and for the same reason: its egalitarianism about knowledge means that, with the chorus (or cacophony) of voices out there, there is so much dissent, about everything, that there is a lot less of what we all know. Insofar as the unity of our culture depends on a large body of background knowledge, handing a megaphone to everyone has the effect of fracturing our culture.

Yes, static. This, incidentally, may be why John Robb writes what he writes and why he has a devout following (whatever its size.) Establishment-bashers accentuate the fracturing Sanger is describing: see cacophony ascendant over chorus, and rejoice. A giant, open, global conversation has just begunone that will live on for the rest of human historyand its potential for good is tremendous. Perhaps our culture is fracturing, but we may choose to interpret that as the sign of a healthy liberal society, precisely because knowledge egalitarianism gives a voice to those minorities who think that what we all know is actually false. This is the voice of one not too focused on the negativity of cacophony. However, Sanger does not avoid the negatives: As wonderful as it might be that the hegemony of professionals over knowledge is lessening, there is a downside: our grasp of and respect for reliable information suffers. With the rejection of professionalism has come a widespread rejection of expertiseof the proper role in society of people who make it their lifes work to know stuff. This, I maintain, is not a positive development; but it is also not a necessary one. Most of the rest of the essay looks at the role of experts while contrasting Wikipedias dabblerism. In essence, said neologism is what happens when people who are either afraid of The Establishment or otherwise would disassemble it get lost in the cacophony or else rejoice in being able to travel freely and build new paths within that cacophony. [Hint: Global Guerrillas theology/theory.] Dabblerism is a term that should be understood as a social phenomenon rather than a description of any given persons activities. (Although it could be used to describe individuals as well.) That is, as Sanger has used the term, the total system developed in the absence of any recognition of special authority or expertise must necessarily result in a relativistic mish-mash even if some parts of that system (in this case, Wikipedia articles) are indeed of high quality since no common guiding lights direct the flow of activity. When experts cease to be of much relevance, everyone becomes a dabbler with respect to the total system even if each person has a specialty or area of expertise. Sangers critique of Wikipedia is rather brilliant and extends for most of the essay. Sanger envisions a different kind of system The new politics of knowledge that I advocate would place experts at the head of the table, but unlike the old ordergives the general public a place at the table as well. That is, rather than a hierarchical institution of reality/Truth, and rather than the mish-mash of relativistic dabblerism Sangler calls it epistemic egalitarianism the best system would provide for both, experts and the complex mesh of non-experts. Consider the inclusive table Sanger

describes while considering the concept of co-optation in 5GW. Then consider this passage from Sangers essay: The notion that experts cannot play a gentle guiding role in a genuinely bottom-up collaborative project seems to be plain old bigotry. No doubt this prejudice stems from a fear that experts will twist what should be an efficient process into the sort of slow, top-down, bureaucratic drudgery that they are used to. But this neednt be the case. Surely it isnt impossible for professors to exit the cathedralto borrow Eric Raymonds metaphor in his essay The Cathedral and the Bazaarand wander the bazaar, offering guidance and highlighting what is excellent. Will that necessarily make the bazaar less of a bazaar?

That, folks, is a description of 5GW. Im even tempted to mix metaphors and consider John Robbs concept of bazaar of violence with this use of bazaar and say that 5GW forces may, as often asserted, utilize 3-4GW forces or Global Guerrillas by guiding them through that bazaar. Pursuing this line of thought further, I would add another consideration from my first hard look at static: that although an open-source architecture may exist, individual warriors within than environment may see it as static and not themselves be open source warriors. That is, they are experiencing the bazaar directly rather than seeing some sensible whole in which all possible knowledge fits neatly and succinctly together; or else, they see a whole which is localized, insular, and not truly opensource. But I would also add: With this paragraph and the earlier mention of The Establishment, Sanger points at the reason I have so often stressed the necessity of secrecy in 5GW operations. I will break it into two points: * First, who wants to visit a bazaar (or market, mall) and be led around with a leash? No one. In the explosion of choices and the apparent freedom of having no hierarchical authority, most people are loath to give up that freedom. They may fear being led and instinctively oppose such attempts this becomes even more likely when those being led just happen to see the would-be leaders as their enemy. * Secondly, the cacophony cannot be hidden. In fact, it becomes more apparent every day. Open leadership requires convincing those being led that the apparent cacophony is not really cacophony: No, heres the seamless whole, the true Path. With an explosion of sources within an opensource environment and the coextensive increase in static, issues of freedom or oppression and the fear of an Establishment may be beside the point, since advocacy by an openly acting leader will not easily mesh with the apparent cacophony. This becomes even more likely given the fact that many more operators will be acting in various isolated domains with localized worldviews: they are not really open source warriors. They will be operating from a different apparent order within the general cacophony. That last bulleted point also ties in with Sangers allusions to the issue of group think. When he describes background knowledge in his essay and its importance to cultural cohesion, he somewhat skirts the issue of why such knowledge is important. He explores Stephen Colberts concept of wikiality when considering the negatives of group think It is quite another thing to maintain that crowds are wise simply because they are crowds. That is a philosophical view, a variety of relativism, according to which the only truth there is, the only

facts there are, are literally socially constructed by crowds like the contributors to Wikipedia. Its this view that Stephen Colbert was able to mock so effectively and hilariously as wikiality: reality is what the wiki says it is. Colbert has in effect added to what we all know. By brilliantly skewering the notion that facts are whatever Wikipedians want them to be, Colbert has added to our cultures modest stock of background knowledgeabout philosophy. Thanks to Colbert, we all know now that reality isnt created by a wiki. Thats no mean feat for a humorist.

but besides the fact that I doubt we all know who Stephen Colbert is and what he has said on the subject, I also would object to the light touch Sanger gives to the issue. Reality is what the wiki says it is: This is what happens anyway, with or without wikis. This is the basis of so-called social networks, of the Internet variety. This determines whether one is a Catholic, a Methodist, or a Sunni Muslim. I have lately begun to refer to this issue as networked-truth. While I have used the term pejoratively and will continue to do so, I also believe we must come to understand why the tendency toward group think exists in the first place. It is a stop-gap measure ensuring continued growth, an evolutionary response to the individualized OODA. We seek confirmation to ensure the integrity of our own minds and thus our ability to operate within the actual environment but then we stop with consensus which gives the illusion of security. I say, illusion, but only because the environment is changing at a quicker pace than ever before, with incursions into our own localized environments from without. With these thoughts in mind, one might see how easily an eventual consensus might triumph over tyrannies and freedom-loving rebels alike: by meshing them, or co-opting them. In other words, a shared empire of mind capable of withstanding the assaults of both expert hierarchical opinion and general opinion. One cannot as easily see what such an empire would entail, however at present! Addendum: I forgot one train of thought. When mentioning the last bulleted point vis-a-vis secrecy, I had intended to include another: that despite the diversely motivated groups within an opensource environment, and despite the apparent cacophony, any leaders capable of offering a buyable way out might lead toward the worst sort of tyranny. This is always the danger. As Plato explained it in The Republic. This, incidentally, would be an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, or of the force of an apparent way out to alter the world despite the opposing forces.

Conspiracy Theories and 5GW R, Adam. 2007. The death of conspiracies. The Metropolis Times. April 24, 2007. Available online: http://themetropolistimes.blogspirit.com/archive/2007/04/24/the-death-of-conspiracies.html. Jumping straight to the conclusion: The result is that important conspiracies are getting next to impossible to keep secret. No country would dare fake a terrorist attack nowadays - they know that millions of people trying to blame it on Jews or the President would review and overanalyze every frame of video, every word of testimony and every stray shadow until proof was found. medium_shooting.jpgAttempts to suppress the truth by stigmatizing conspiracy theorists dont work. When the evidence is shaky or non-existent, as it usually is in conspiracy theories, the theory stays marginalized (Moon landing, 9/11 attacks). When the evidence leads to a plausible scenario, it is adopted by the mainstream (JFK assassination), and when the evidence is overwhelming, the conspiracy unravels. (1919 World Series, Plamegate). Theres little danger of false-negatives, but of false-positives. (Holocaust, strict creationism) Well have a new Conspiracy Week at The Metropolis Times in May. But if elaborate conspiracies, which some scholars see as the fifth generation of warfare, are so easily foiled in the Information Age, does this mean they are a thing of the past? Or will conspirators just have to be more clever? Subadei, from Soob, has already commented.

To Blorum or Not to Blorum That is the question Id put before regular visitors to D5GW. Recently at PC and also at Soob, a discussion has arisen concerning the use of what I have termed a blorum: Ive also lately considered designing a blog with bulletin board forum software rather than the standard blog software. I had found a plugin for Movable Type that allows any visitor authenticated through TypeKey to post new entries to a common blog; that sounded a lot like the way forums work; and I realized that some forum software is highly configurable, could even be designed to look like a blog in its output. Using forum software, I could allow visitors to register with the site but only with permissions to post comments to threads rather than new threads in one section where Id blog and then have another section of the blorum where visitors could post new threads and start discussions. Ive seriously considered making the attempt to design such a blorum.

The thought occurred within another context, while I explored the possibility of creating a new blog called The Iterate. However, the discussion has led me to wonder if a blorum set-up, of one type or another, would be ideal for D5GW. For some time now, the contributors to D5GW have had a private forum in which to discuss the blog, topics and links related to 5GW, etc., and have already discussed the possibility of opening that private forum to the public. We ruled out that approach at the time. Having a private area facilitated conjecture, brainstorming, and so forth; these activities were more likely to be free outside the constraints of the blog format, where lets admit it the onus of commitment to ideas and clarity of approach/message is in more demand. The blog format is a bottleneck approach (a la: Richard Dawkins Selfish Gene theory) or, as Soob put it: a hierarchical approach. Any hierarchical approach demands, explicitly or implicitly, the aforementioned commitment and clarity, because an easily defined origin also promotes linear confrontation directed at that point of origin. This, in turn, produces the desire to construct messages which are either extremely well-formed and fortified, approaching the dogmatic, or, it should be added, as ephemeral or vague as an oracles pronouncement. The forum format may also produce a similar confrontation, with each new thread or response that produces a similar point of origin. However, the addition of many more voices to a debate, each with the ability to add new threads of thought, may have a salubrious effect one might tie to the oftmentioned static of modern societies. I have previously considered the negativities related to such an environment negativities we at D5GW once contemplated when we ruled out adding a forum to the blog but the potential for healthy friction, the mother of conceptual innovation, should not be dismissed. In fact, when Soob defines the blorum as a hybrid or conflation of the effectively concrete or closed source approach of a blog and the open source approach of a forum, he comes close to describing Larry Sangers concept of a more perfect encyclopedia: The new politics of knowledge that I advocate would place experts at the head of the table, but unlike the old ordergives the general public a place at the table as well. [from his essay, Who Says We Know: On the New Politics of Knowledge.] Sanger gave the idea behind the idea of Citizendium; but it is an approach that might serve to advance the theory of 5GW as well a theory that is prospective rather than reflective (a

conceptualization inspired by D5GW commenter Phil.) The empire of mind, vis-a-vis 5GW theory, is as yet unsettled. Incidentally, Sangers concept for the most advantageous epistemological approach also has close ties to the very bedrock of U.S. society: which is tripartite, or a system through which multiple organizational levels may interact to create the emergence of a more perfect union. [Note to self and others: thus, I doubt the more dystopian elevation of one level over all others as a stable environment/system, whether it be chaotic individualism or totalitarian order.] Anyone who has been wondering why activity by yours truly on D5GW has trickled of late should be aware of my recent exploration of these formating ideas. In the spirit of further exploration, the contributors forum has been temporarily partially opened to the public to allow further exploration: * D5GW Forum There, visitors will be able to view an embryonic set-up (which explains my lack of posts to D5GW; Ive been tweaking the forums design and functionality) as well as a thread recently posted for consideration of the subject of blorums and D5GW, now moved to an open category on the forum for guest viewing: * D5GW > Future. That thread gives some background on my thinking, but vis-a-vis my thoughts in this post, it is more brainstorming than anything else, and Im certain some off-the-cuff remarks would require editing were the forum posting transcribed into blog format! The limited opening of the forum is an exploration, subject to change at any time, as explained in another open thread: * Temporary Trial Run. As explained there, any current membership registration is subject to disappearance, for various reasons. Mostly, these links are provided so that visitors to D5GW may assess the utility, viability, and so forth of having a blorum set-up, and to see where my thoughts lie. Feedback would be appreciated, here or there although, because the open forum is only a very limited trial run, registering for the forum is not recommended since only feedback on existent threads is allowed, to registered members, and the registration process currently requires Admin approval (meaning, registration for commenting could be delayed.) Update 5-3-07: Ive spent a significant amount of time checking into various permutations of blog/forum=blorum over the last couple of days. Ive also discovered that the idea for the blorum is not altogether new, with threads here and there as old as 4 years or so exploring integration of blogging software with forum software, although no name has been given to such an enterprise (that I know.) A CMS system like Drupal would probably be ideal, but Im not too thrilled with having to export/import current Movable Type entries. However, phpBB, in its current incarnation, might serve pretty well. If youve recently visited the links above to check out the embryonic blorum set-up, you may have noticed a new section to the forum that is now open to the public (in a limited capacity thus far; Im still working things out.) In one forum, for now called Theories of 5GW, Ive posted a couple test threads. This forum is

tentatively intended to be the main open forum discussing various theories of 5GW, in all their permutations, with new-thread posting permissions for every registered member of the blorum. A couple other new open forums, Resources and Carnival of 5GW, have also been added. The Theories forum, unlike the other forums, is being tested for blorum formatting. A pretty cool phpBB mod, phpBB Blog, allows the bare basics of blogging through the forum system, including permalinks, trackbacks, and archives (although commenting on entries is still through the forum system.) Heres a fairly decent work-up of what the blorum might look like: Dreaming 5GW: The Blorum. Heh, pretty cool, if I do say so myself. (Given several hours to style it in the D5GW style, which meant some hacking of the php codes for the mod.) As currently configured, any registered member of the forum can start a new thread, and it will appear not only in the forum but also on the blorum. (Thats why I posted two fake threads to Theories, checking out the functionality.) An RSS feed is also created, which will allow members to keep tabs on those posts. Some next steps: Deciding who will actually have access to post to the blorum via the forum. I do not relish the idea of a blorum run wild, with every ridiculous query becoming a post, so some controls, rules, etc., would need to be created: * For instance, rather than run the blorum off the more open Theories forum, another forum could be created and tied to the blorum, to which only moderators of the forums or members with a certain rank are allowed to post new threads (although all registered members could comment on those threads). This would also permit the singling out of important or very active threads, which would become published on the blorum. Incidentally, where this leaves the normal D5GW blog is up in the air, since quite conceivably D5GW could be published through the forum software instead of MT, in which case it becomes that moderated thread on the forum. [This was my initial vision, although Im hesitant to leave MT altogether.] Or else the blorum becomes a sub-blog, of sorts, with control placed outside the hands of the D5GW regular contributors but in the hands of others more than capable of moderating it and highlighting the most valuable threads. (There is no easy way to import threads from the forums to the MT installation, although certainly new MT blog posts for the main MT blog could highlight interesting conversations and link the blorum or individual forum threads.) Plus, posts at D5GW, made through MT, could also be transfered over to the forums, occasionally, I suppose.Or hacked apart by forum discussions, who knows? * Alternatively, registration for the forums could be limited to either invitation-only (not my ideal) or require admin approval, with well-defined guidelines for participation and continued participation. My general thinking on this is: good idea, but most new visitors would be approved without much further thought, with continued membership being contingent upon good behavior, etc. Necessarily, if the blorum goes forward, then a well-crafted set of guidelines and rules, and an operational philosophy (re: who moderates, ranking systems, and so forth) would need to be created. Im not looking forward to this aspect. Feedback, as usual, will be welcomed!

Update 5-4-07: Registration for the forum is now open and relatively simple, involving email validation after which registration is complete. Although the blorum side and various forum organizational matters are still being developed, including tweaking the design, registered members may now use the forums to post new threads and start new discussions. Heres a link to the announcement and a bare guideline/ rule framework: link.

Introducing PurpleSlog Hi! I blog under the name PurpleSlog. The genesis of my interest in Fifth Generation War theory (5GW) comes from the the early/original 5GW post (and the comments) by ZenPundit, TDAXP, Coming Anarchy (though the post no longer seems to exist) and Curtis/PhaticCommunion. My own past contributions have been modest: some questions and comments on other bloggers post, and a few post of my own at purpleslog.wordpress.com such as: * Boiling the Frog 5GW Style * 5GW Will Hide in the Sea of Conspiracy Theories to Avoid Discovery * Bizzaro Fred Phelps and 5GW Speculation * 5GW Thought: Would a Goal of a 5GW Organization Be To Reduce the Resiliency of the Target State * Hint of a Leftist-Tinged 5GW * A Short 5GW Tutorial for ThunerPig The reason I am interested in 5GW is that 1) I am interest in the next next thing, and 2) I want to think about how to counter-4GW with something other then more 4GW. I want to thank Curtis for inviting me to participate in this group blog. Unfortunately, the timing of the launch of D5GW and the spasm of 5GW posting around the blogosphere coincided with a big down turn in blogging activity. This was partially because of work, partially because of laziness, and partially because I was enjoying a spurt of non-blog book reading. I have been keeping up on what others have been writing and I am ramping up my blogging again. I really like the attempts at defining 5GW and even finding common ground with Robbs GG concept (I have read his book now and will be blogging on it real soon now). I have a series posts mostly ready to go, starting with 6 possible archetypes for 5GW: * Puppet Masters * Architects of the Future: The Socio-Political Entrepreneurship Style of 5GW * Memetic Engineers * Strategic Citizen 5GW * Global Guerrillas as 5GW * Super HiTechers as 5GW That all for nowthe rest will start following soon. I promise. Update: I corrected a typo in the Coming Anarchy link.

Colonel Hammes Enters the Fifth Generation Fourth Generation Warfare Evolves, Fifth Emerges. Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, USMC, Retired Military Review May-June 2007 I have great respect for Colonel Thomas X. Hammes. Any time he is mentioned or offers his opinion or analysis in an interview or news article I always pay very close attention. I have always given the highest recommendation for The Sling and the Stone to anyone who has approached me with an interest in the generational warfare framework. I often describe it simply as required reading. When recently browsing Open Thread V of TDAXP I found a link (hat tip: Phil) to the above article in Military Review and followed it immediately. I am, at the same time, excited and disappointed. Let me start with the good part. I am excited that another military thinker that I admire has begun to explore the concept of 5GW. As far as I am concerned, the old clich The more the merrier is literally true. More is even merrier when it comes from an established author with the credentials and clout to expand the conversation and discussion to new audiences and new viewpoints. This is wonderful and exciting stuff that helps move 5GW from pet theory to practical application and proven concept. Then we get to the bad, or at least disappointing, part. First off, the article isnt limited to the concept of 5GW (I wish it was all about 5GW). The first two thirds are about how 4GW has evolved away from Maos three-phased insurgency, a shift from military campaigns supported by propaganda operations, to strategic communications campaigns supported by insurgent combat operations. I have absolutely no problem with that. In fact, I agree almost completely with each of the examples he uses to illustrate his point (one exception I will come back to later). I am also intrigued by his exploration of the role of PMCs in 4GW campaigns and will eagerly be watching for future discussion along that line of thought in the media and on blogs that deal more directly with 4GW topics. But since D5GW deals with Fifth Generation Warfare discussion I will delve deepest into the last third of the article and what I found there. Like always, the old generations of war continue to exist even as new ones evolve. Today, we see grim 2GW firepower-attrition battles in parts of Africa even as the first hints of 5GW emerge. This should not be surprisingcountries that lack the political, social, and economic systems to support new forms of war will continue to use the older forms. Yet a new generation must also evolve and, given the fact that 4GW has been the dominant form of warfare for over 50 years, its time for 5GW to make an appearance. We should be able to get some idea of what this new form of war will be by examining how political, social, and economic systems have changed since 4GW became dominant. When I first read this I had to smile because it seemed that Colonel Hammes was about to walk down the same road I have been exploring, where the battlefield of 5GW is Political, Politically, there have been major changes in who fights wars. The trend has been and continues to be downward from nation-states using huge, uniformed armies to small groups of like-minded

people with no formal organization who simply choose to fight. Economic, Economically, we have seen a steady increase in the power of informationThe content and delivery of information has accordingly shifted from the mass propaganda of Mao to highly tailored campaigns enabled by the new methods of communication and new social patterns. and Social, Socially, we have seen a major shift in how communities are formed. People are changing allegiance from nations to causes, a trend dramatically accelerated by Internet connectivity. Everything is looking pretty good In sum, political, economic, and social trends point to the emergence of super-empowered individuals or small groups bound together by love for a cause rather than a nation until Employing emerging technology, they are able to generate destructive power that used to require the resources of a nation-state. A violent skidding turn away from an exploration of how 5GW works into the technology trap Today, two emerging technologies, nanotechnology and biotechnology, have the power to alter our world, and warfare, even more fundamentally than information technology. Ok, if you havent stopped reading and are still with me in spite of the gall and temerity of my criticism of Colonel Hammes, allow me to explain the reasoning for my disappointment. It comes in two parts. First, technology is a trap in a generational warfare discussion. Panzers dont make 3GW. The dislocation of an opponents mass by a strike at a critical vulnerability makes 3GW. I feel strongly enough about this consideration that I included it as a completely separate Foundations of 5GW post. Technology is a tool and how you use it determines its generational level. For example, use of nanotech to out-mass an opponent is 1GW. Use of nanotech to attrit the mass of an opponent is 2GW. Use of nanotech to dislocate the mass of an opponent is 3GW. Use of nanotech to destroy the will of an opponent is 4GW. Doctrine drives technology. How will 5GW doctrine drive technology? That is the question Colonel Hammes should have explored. Second, I am not trying to imply that super-empowered individuals and groups are not 5GW, but the bottom line is that to make the generational warfare framework hold water, each successive generation must be able to, and in fact is essentially designed to, defeat the generation one rung lower on the ladder. I see nothing in Colonel Hammes thinking that addresses this point. Beside the technology trap, I think this is the biggest hang-up in the whole 5GW discussion. The problem I think is that we, as a society, are so used to being on the defensive, that we dont often enough ask how 5GW will be, and by necessity should be, used to defeat 4GW opponents. This is an incredibly crucial consideration that must be explored. Bio-weapons are so much more effective the lower you are on the generational warfare ladder that by the time you reach the Fifth Generation they are

almost impossible to target. How do you send an anthrax-laced letter to the 4GW al-Queda organization? How does a bio-weapon defeat an insurgency in Afghanistan? But wait. There is hope! There is light at the end of that tunnel! Colonel Hammes is so very close. He just needs to adjust his perspective and look at a couple of his own examples from a different point of view. His example of the October 2001 anthrax attacks can be an example of a 5GW operation, but not in the way he explains. From his point of view the attack was on the legislative body of a nation-state that Using an advanced biological weapon in support of an unknown cause. This individual or group disrupted the operation of Congress for several months, created hundreds of millions of dollars in clean-up costs, and imposed mail screening requirements (and associated costs) that are still in effect todaynot a bad payoff for a few ounces of anthrax and some postage. I submit that this qualifies as a 5GW attack only if the intent of the attacker was to ultimately strengthen the security of the USPS regarding bio-attacks. Do you see? As an attack on the U.S. Congress the letters failed miserably. However, as an attack on a flaw in our postal security it succeeded admirably and now a similar 4GW bio-attack will be less likely to succeed. A second example of where I see Colonel Hammes almost making that crucial connection to 5GW is his evolved-4GW example from the first part of the article examining Hezbollahs 2006 summer war with Israel. Hammes starts out with his definition of 4GW, an approach I take myself with 5GW. Fourth generation warfare uses all available networkspolitical, economic, social, and military to convince the enemys political decision makers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit. It is an evolved form of insurgency. He then continues and shifts into a frame that I think is better suited to 5GW than 4GW. The key concept in this definition is that 4GW opponents will attempt to directly attack the minds of enemy decision makers. The only medium that can change a persons mind is information. Therefore, information is the key element of any 4GW strategy. Effective insurgents build their plans around a strategic communications campaign designed to shift their enemys view of the world. Just substitute 5GW for 4GW and you are very close to the concepts we explore here at D5GW. I understand what he is trying to show is the shift to strategic communications campaigns as the central effort of 4GW, but for it to still be 4GW it must continue to be an attack on the will of the target. He shows this in his Hezbollah example. An example that, when viewed as a well-planned sequential 5GW campaign , shows that the target of Hezbollah was not Israel or the West, but rather the people of southern and central Lebanon who, after being caught in the cross-fire of a conflict initiated and brought down on them by Hezbollah, now look to Hezbollah as patron and protector because of their valiant defense of the land against the predations of the Israeli invaders and Hezbollahs immediate ability to provide the Lebanese people aid in rebuilding while the

government(s) dithered. It wasnt a 4GW attack on the will of Israel, it was a 5GW attack redirecting the will and shaping the worldview of the Lebanese people. In all, I have to say I am more excited than disappointed by Colonel Hammes emergence into the 5GW discussion. Colonel Hammes, welcome to the world of 5GW!

Hammes on 5GW [Originally posted to the now-defunct D5GW blorum, transfered to the blog with date, title, and content retained.] Arherring has a new post up on D5GW critiquing the 5GW prognostications of Colonel Thomas X. Hammes. I agree with every point Arherring made and added another related criticism in the comments.

Essentially: 1. Although Col. Hammes delineates the scope of 4GW very well (albeit, not as well as he should; re: Arherrings post) and announces our need to reorganize defenses in order to combat 4GWstyle opponents, he does so through a state-centric p.o.v. One may wonder whether any nation-state in our modern world can possibly combat 4GW, given the fact that 4GW specializes in defeating nation-states. This goes beyond an US vs Them consideration and straight to the Centralized Force vs Decentralized Force dynamic that exists beyond/before a simple US vs Them paradigm. Simply understanding and recognizing 4GW the very point of Hammes The Sling and The Stone is not enough to ensure the viability of a nation-states winning conflicts with 4GW opponents. 2. In any case, given for the moment the possibility that nation-states can reorganize to successfully defeat proficient 4GW forces, Hammes reliance on the use of advanced biotech weaponry (and other advanced technology) for defining 5GW seemed to me to follow a bigger cannon philosophy: If we, or they, build a bigger cannon, the bigger cannon will allow more destruction and, more efficiently find the targets and therefore allow victory. Arherring does a very good job of critiquing this point of view, especially when he asks, How do you send an anthrax-laced letter to the 4GW al-Qaeda organization? 3. Hammes seemed to have overlooked the fact that emerging technology and emerging social structures are far more than merely weaponized facets of our global system. I commented in the thread that Hammes has weaponized the Internet; I meant, that he (like many other warfare theorists) continues to look through a 3GW (or pre-4GW) lens which distorts theories of warfare by severely limiting the environment. In the past, relatively limited environments went hand-in-hand with warfare operations, and effects could be more easily contained than they will be contained within a future, highly connected, globalized world. Hammes consideration of the use of smallpox or engineered viruses suffers from such myopia. Furthermore, emerging technologies will be used by more people than merely Global Guerrillas or super-empowered nihilists, affecting the environment in which those groups must operate.

Tonight, while reviewing later portions of The Sling and The Stone mentioning 5GW, I detected another peculiar bias or oversight that I would add to these three, which perhaps explains these three. Near the very end of the book, when Hammes introduces his summary, he states,

Quote: In designing our new personnel system and operational forces, flexibility must be a central tenet. Only a highly flexible organization can hope to succeed in 4GW and still be prepared to deal with emerging 5GW or variations on earlier forms of war.

The second sentence suggests an US (or, U.S.) that must confront 4GW forces and be ready to confront 5GW forces. While I agree with Hammes, I find only a limited understanding that we cannot look at the 4GW & 5GW models as merely representative of our foes or potential foes. I.e., Hammes argues that we have 4GW foes and may have 5GW foes; and he assumes these are the types of foes we must fight, but without also suggesting that we ourselves must become 4GW or 5GW fighters. At best, he says in the summary:

Quote: []our primary step in preparing for 4GW warfare is to reform our personnel system to one that selects and grooms those who can function effectively in the free-flowing, networked environment characteristic of this type of war.

That is close to saying that the U.S. must form a 4GW force; however, given Hammes excellent characterizations of 4GW opponents throughout the book, one must wonder if thats what he really meant. Okay, I know that he includes a chapter on Where to from here? in which he describes transitioning our military to a 4GW-styled force; but conveniently or unfortunately, Hammes has defined two types of 4GW: the opponents style and our (suggested) version which he calls netwar in that chapter. Clearly, he is confused, as you can see when he says early in that chapter:

Quote: Fourth-generation-warfare enemies do not see international boundaries as an impediment, nor do they see war as primarily a military function.

There, he has described one aspect of the Opponents 4GW model of warfare; but he goes on within the chapter to described how DOD must change the U.S. military in order to fight these foes. One supposes that he did not feel comfortable suggesting within the book that we ourselves should ignore international boundaries and develop a force which also does not see war primarily as a military function. Not at all; rather, Hammes has attempted to style a different kind of 4GW for ourselves, calling it netwar, which will not break the hierarchy of the U.S. ilitary although it might loosen it up a bit. You can see the disjunction more clearly when Hammes continues to explain the different steps that must be taken: They are very good ideas, if considered loosely; but they can also be summarized as Ive summarized the book in #1 above, Simply understanding and recognizing 4GW . Hammes gives steps that will ensure our forces understand and recognize 4GW and believes that those two things, when netwar is added to them, will be sufficient for ensuring

victory. Again, we see in this the disjunction in his theory of 4GW, in which one style exists for our opponents and our own style consists of 1) netwar and 2) merely recognizing our opponents. God forbid that he should suggest we become our 4GW-opposite.

Rather, he suggests in the summary,

Quote: If the United States can develop a proper force to fight fourth-generation war, that force is more likely than our current establishment to have the intellectual and physical flexibility to recognize and adapt to fifth-generation war as 5GW evolves.

The phrase, fight fourth-generation war, is ambiguous because, as Ive outlined, it can mean that Hammes has a view of our opponents 4GW and wants to fight it, or it can mean that we fight [in the style of] 4GW. I believe it is the first. But worse, far worse, Id bring in something both Arherring and PurpleSlog have mentioned in their recent entries:

Arherring wrote: The problem I think is that we, as a society, are so used to being on the defensive, that we dont often enough ask how 5GW will be, and by necessity should be, used to defeat 4GW opponents. [from the post linked above]

PurpleSlog wrote: The reason I am interested in 5GW is that 1) I am interest in the next next thing, and 2) I want to think about how to counter-4GW with something other then more 4GW.

[from, Introducing PurpleSlog]

Arherrings characterization of our defensive thinking could be a pretty good summary of my recent criticism of Hammes here; but both point at something Hammes seems to have missed in his book and in the article Arherring linked: That we should not wait for 5GW to emerge or to be developed by our enemies. We should be developing it ourselves.

Parallel Development = Iterative Development Not long ago, in a post brainstorming about the OODA and 5GW, I remarked, While trying to grasp the concept of an iterative development process, I ran into this difficulty: in a parallel development process like those already mentioned, each distinct group of actors, however diverse, may be working toward shared or very similar goals may recognize useful innovations made by others, as well as the failures of others and so, in an open-source environment, each groups operation appears to be one iteration of an iterative process spanning that environment, viewed from afar. In an open-source environment, the distinction between a parallel development process and an iterative development process may blur or fade altogether. The thought returns to me after reading a new post at Soob, in which Subadei contemplates a recent entry at MountainRunner. War is Theater and Why 5GW Might Be Redefined, Soob. War as Theater, MountainRunner. At any rate, today in bouncing around the blogs that encompass my suggested daily allowance I came across this post at MountainRunner and got to thinking that either MR has accidentally presented another sliver of theoretical gold regarding 5GW or Ive simply erroneously perverted his post to suit my own means. [Soob] We should not be surprised if the appearance of newness, which gains its novelty from the reality of an apparently isolated source, promotes the iterative design process in a manner that appears to be parallel. 1. In the first case, this exploration of the role of media in our contemporary world and contemporary conflict [MountainRunners focus in his post] will be repeated, as it has been repeated already, by anyone with a personal access to that open-source environment which means, nearly anyone with an interest in the systemic reality of our present. This process is related to stigmergy, a concept that will gain wider recognition as the emergence of open-source conditions continues to develop. Wikipedia: Stigmergy is a method of indirect communication in a selforganizing emergent system where its individual parts communicate with one another by modifying their local environment. 2. The breakdown of traditional networking methods will mean that the indirect communication mentioned at the Wikipedia article will give the appearance of spontaneous emergence. MountainRunner will discover a new way of looking at a subject of interest; but that new way will have been discovered elsewhere, in a multitude of ways, already, and will continue to be discovered as the environmental conditions promote the emergence of identical or very similar memes in diverse locations. 3. As we see in Soobs post, individuals catching a particular source (or, noticing it), will go on to

innovate from that starting point or using that particularity as one inspirational datum in complex frameworks of their own devising: or Ive simply erroneously perverted his post to suit my own means. The appearance of novelty, as an isolation of one particular source within the static while other sources remain indistinct or unknown, will promote a new iteration of the thoughts which are already becoming entrenched in for lack of a better term the Global Mind.

Put simply, the appearance of novelty viewed so by the creators and consumers of information gives the corresponding appearance of parallel development. Individuals seem to be working in relative isolation even if we know that they are connected in some fashion, because the delineations of that connectivity are not discernible. A new idea in the Memosphere may only be a new iteration of an old idea; open-source environments promote the illusion of parallel development while creating the reality of iterative development across a wide spectrum of domains. And so, I recognize the recent suggestion from PurpleSlog on D5GW that special knowledge of dramatics or story telling (theater/drama, Literature, Film Making) would be a good skill set for a 5GW or 4GW groups, made May 8, 2007, in MountainRunners post dated May 9, 2007, and Soobs post written on May 14, 2007. I also recognize elements from my consideration of Emersonian Circles as well as Memes as Nodes in Complex Interactivity, viz. Soobs consideration that To wit, 5GW isnt necessarily a conglomerative effort but an individual effort. [Soob] as well as 5GW transcends even the most dynamic 4GW event in that it can non-kinetically originate, manifest, mature, afflict and intellectually conscript the same culture from which it originates. [Soob] In particular, note my consideration of that essay by Emerson while remembering that last Soobian thought: Emerson saw the OODA, even if he did not call it that. Our actions are intimately related to 1) our observations and 2) our understanding of what we observe. Change the understanding, and you change the activity. Change the observations, and you may (but may not) change the understanding. Emerson took it further than the individual OODA, however, or would draw a larger circle by considering the entire system of human pursuits. Culture is something that each person may have; but it is also something that individual persons may share, as individual OODA loops operate together in a system. [CGW] Each person has his own understanding of that culture while belonging to a Culture; each persons OODA will be developed according to a particularized and limited localized observation of

the system; but because each receives input from that system (through observation) and returns output to that system (through activity), each may alter the overall Culture/System. Right about this moment, some readers may be wondering at the dual nature of this post, in that 1) I have taken liberties myself with what others have written, 2) I have written this post in a manner suggesting a la John Robb that these ideas were first developed at D5GW, and 3) yet I am cataloging sources in an obsessive manner, even sure to over-note, perhaps, who said what vis-a-vis any quotation. Let us say that our future will contain two types of individual, broadly speaking: a) one type who must claim originality and draw a hierarchical path in order to assert that he (or someone else) is the original source of data, and b) one type who cares not so much that he (or someone else) be seen as the origin but that the system he helps to develop may gain ascendancy. For my part, I could as easily note sources much older than my own writing that have made the important earlier steps Emerson, for instance, and Plato no doubt; but also sources sprinkled about the Blogosphere. I could also note that whatever common origins or tangential origins exist for these ideas between PurpleSlog, myself, Subadei, and MountainRunner, may be lost in the static; and that MR may have been inspired by the general environment moreso than by ever having read anything at D5GW. The question of originality is not unimportant, because the opensource nature of the future will create ever more conflict between those wishing to sit at the head of any system; they are those who believe in definitive origin and tend to see a human sitting there, preferably themselves. But Ive maintained for some time now that 5GW operators will not be in that group; rather, 5GWers will consider the question of originality, vis-a-vis primacy, to be irrelevant in fact, distracting.

Laying the Foundations Part 4: The Fourth Wall 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 isnt 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 arent consciously aware of. Ive 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.

A lot of the similarity between 5GW and both theater and stage magic involves indirection. To some degree, 4GW also relies on indirection, to the extent that individual terrorist acts or system disruptions arent necessarily meant to destroy the opponent utterly, in themselves; but you are right in drawing the distinction between 4GW and 5GW indirection. I like the idea of The Fourth Wall. Because 5GW involves the real rather than a play or movie, most people will not be aware of the Fourth Wall. The format makes a difference, since a play or movie occurs within a limited environment a theater, for instance, with a stage or silver screen where the Fourth Wall is obvious. Though I, for instance, come from The Show-Me State, I also know that many of my MO neighbors take the literalist interpretation: If I see it before me, then I know it is real. But you dont have to originate in MO to have such an operational standard! Indirection enabled by the criss-crossing interconnections and inter-operability of our high-tech, globalizing world, as well as by static makes tracing direct lines and paths (cause & effect) more difficult than ever before. Localized viewing will tend to miss the reality of indirection and stop at understanding which is only partial and perhaps quite wrong.

Kents Imperative on Estonia, Russia, The Wizards War and 5GW Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. Kents Imperative writes about The Wizards War and a possible type of 5GW. First the Cause: Wretchard in particular applies an apt name: the Wizard War. This captures, in succinct form, the alienation the typical man on the street might feel in the event of such a war. To be sure, Everyman knows all about the interwebs, and the tubes, and the magic motion picture music box thing that exists to feed their iPods and cameraphones. But the technical understanding of higher level cyber environment dependencies exists at about the same level of comforting abstraction (the legions of Slashdot and the rest of the technical blogsphere aside.) So when more than one banks computers go down, and the panic begins to set in, Everyman will be facing a shattering of illusions for which he is mentally unprepared. The loss of confidence will have a far greater effect than any mere temporary disruption, however mass. Then the possible 5GW opening: It is in the layers of these abstractions that 5th generation warfare (5GW) lurks and hides. Trying to unpack the complexity of the issues involved in facing a concerted series of attacks against what is our collective hallucination of cyberspace (in Gibsons terms) begins to take on the character of a Jesuit debating society. I called something similar to this hiding among the crazies. It is Analysis Paralysis as 5GW opening. It is learned helplessness as 5GW opening. It is forced alienation (well hello again Uncle Karl) as 5GW vector into the mind.

Possible 5GW Archetype: The Puppet Master 5GW Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. The Puppet Master 5GW is the small empowered group behind the scenes. They use/discard/co-opt/create 4GW-ish orgs to further their own 5GW goals. Targeted assassination may be used as a special skill of the small group) but it will be of the the type that appears to be Actor A attacked by Actor B (not the 5GW group), or of natural causes/accidents. Usually, the Puppet Master 5GW will not employ direct kinetic tactics however. The Puppet Master 5GW will look a bit like the classic conspiracy theory group, and I think that is where it starts. The Puppet Master 5GW wants to achieve some effect (on their own or other states or groups) but need to maintain secrecy to avoid the power of 4GW/3GW/2GW groups. Any larger group would increase the chance of exposure and the cost of coordination. Where it is different from the fictional portrayals, is that I think they will want to make many small actions instead of a big attention generating move. This will allow a bit of a feedback on the techniques used. Also, small actions will get noticed less and are easier to conceal. They will be making a point of planting the seeds to foster conspiracy theory thinking in case somebody starts to notice them (deception/counter-surveillance skills will be a must). This was the first concept of a 5GW group that I and others had. In retrospect, I think this type of 5GW will be the hardest to execute and the least likely to succeed.

This is a response to PurpleSlog's post on the master figure(s) he believes will be behind future conflict. As I understand it, Purpleslog is suggesting is a master actor that will operate behind the scenes, manipulating various insurgent/terrorist/mercenary groups, some of them of his own creation. These manipulations, usually small in nature, culminate in the gradual achievement of a given goal. The puppetmaster will be hidden behind layer of dummy organizations and deception. As mentioned before, some of those front organizations will be set up by him to act in a false-flag capacity, staffed by either trained agents or unwilling dupes. In essence, (as Purpleslog notes), this is the classic conspiracy theory set up. It also reminds me of one of my favorite anime series, Ghost in the Shell. Now that I've been given the excuse to go ahead with the sci-fi post that I've been wanting to do for a while, I think this will be long. Ghost in the Shell, which came out in 1994 (although there was a brilliant sequel in 2004 and a rather so-so TV series airing on Cartoon Network right now), takes place in dystopian future very similar to that of Snow Crash and Blade Runner. All human beings and robots are connected to a network through their "ghosts," which as the Wikipedia entry puts it: Quote: "In Ghost in the Shell, the word ghost is colloquial slang for an individual's consciousness. In the manga's futuristic society, science has redefined the ghost as the thing that differentiates a human being from a biological robot. Regardless of how much biological material is replaced with electronic or mechanical substitutes, as long as an individual retains their ghost, they retain their humanity and individuality. The concept of the ghost was borrowed by [Ghost in the Shell creator] Masamune Shirow from an essay on structuralism, "The Ghost in the Machine" by Arthur Koestler. The title The Ghost in the Machine itself was originally used by an English philosopher, Gilbert Ryle to mock the paradox of conventional Cartesian dualism and Dualism in general. Koestler, like Ryle, denies Cartesian dualism and locates the origin of human mind in the physical condition of the brain. He argues that the human brain has grown and built upon earlier, more primitive brain structures, the "ghost in the machine", which at times overpower higher logical functions, and are responsible for hate, anger and other such destructive impulses. Shirow denies dualism similarly in his work, but defines the "ghost" more broadly, not only as a physical trait, but as a phase or phenomenon that appears in a system at a certain level of complexity. The brain itself is only part of the whole neural network; if, for example, an organ is removed from a body, the autonomic nerve of the organ and consequently its "ghost" will vanish unless the stimulus of the existence of the organ is perfectly re-produced by a mechanical substitution (this isn't necessarily true, think of pain in phantom limbs). This can be compared, by analogy, to a person born with innate deafness being unable to understand the concept of "hearing" unless taught. Ghost-dubbing, or duplicating a ghost, is currently an impossibility in the Ghost in the Shell universe. When performed, as a cheap AI substitute in [the sequel] and earlier in the [original] manga, the result is always inferior to the original-which always dies in the process. ... Cyberbrain warfare is the practice of employing ghost hacking as a means of gaining access to an opponent's cyberbrain, and ultimately, their ghost. A successful cyberhacker can intercept, censor, or augment the sensory information being received by a victim, or even go so far as to destroy or rewrite complete memories. Furthermore, a person's cyberbrain can be directly injured, by making the cyberbrain undergo unaffordable computation and thus overheat. (See Cordwainer Smith's "The

Burning of the Brain") Cyberbrain warfare is portrayed as a natural consequence of the integration of cybernetic and wireless communication technology directly into the human brain. Despite the apparent risks, even the most paranoid characters in the story find the benefits of directly networking their brains to be indispensable. Apparently, any conduit by which information is absorbed by the brain can be exploited for ghost hacking. Shirow envisions the use of firewalls for protecting the ghost against attack, and multiple layers of encryption." As the Wikipedia entry states , the "ghost" differentiates humans and machines, as in the future world cybernetic implants have become extensive. The villain in Ghost in the Shell is a figure called "The Puppetmaster," who hacks into "ghosts" and manipulates individuals to carry out terrorist actions for him. For example, a garbageman's "ghost" is hacked and he is manipulated into believing that he has an ex-wife (who he is engaged in a bitter custody battle with) and children. He meets a man at a bar who gives him "ghost-hacking" software, ostensibly for the purpose of getting back at his wife. However, the garbageman in fact is being used as a conduit by the Puppetmaster to hack the brain of a high-ranking minister. The garbageman is being used as a proxy to ensure that the "Puppetmaster" is not caught, as the signal is traced back the garbageman's network access terminal. The Puppetmaster uses other individuals as puppets to hack the brains of important officials and carry out terrorist attacks. Each time, the puppet is caught, without anything that can implicate or suggest the identity of the mastermind behind it. As it turns out, the Puppetmaster himself is a strong AI program designed by an internal security agency to do corporate espionage and wetworks. When it gained self-awareness by accident, it turned against its creators. Of course, this scenario is in a highly futuristic sci-fi universe that has little relationship to our own. But it does illuminate the weakness of highly organized and networked systems to one clever actor. For instance, read this Wired Magazine story about a cyberstalker who targeted a popular rock star: Quote: "The stalking started after [hacker Devon Townsend] saw [Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington]'s email address inadvertently CC'd in a mass mailing to promote a tattoo parlor he owned in Tempe. Using Chester's birthday and zip code to access his Mac.com account, she started guessing passwords until she found the right one: his middle name, Charlie. Townsend suddenly had access to all of her idol's messages. Soon she had [Bennington's wife Talinda's] Yahoo address, too, and after guessing the password, she reset it. From there, her infiltration was a feat of feverish social engineering. As Townsend pored through the Benningtons' email, she began cataloging every detail of their lives: friends, Social Security numbers, photos, plans. Getting Chester's cell phone data was a snap: All she'd needed was his wireless number, his zip code, and the last four digits of his Social Security number to register his Verizon account online and get complete access to records of his calls. Even Townsend herself seemed astonished at how easy it was. When she opened the Verizon account, the user ID she chose was 'ohshititworked.' Townsend told [investigators] she loved Linkin Park, particularly Chester. She said she wanted to be 'part of what he is.' In some of her emails, Townsend had told the Benningtons that she was trying to shield them from any bad information or emails that may be coming their way. It was classic stalker behavior introducing duress, then pretending to relieve it in an attempt to appear useful." In a way, the "Puppet Master" was employing a futuristic version of what Townsend did--

manipulated an open network system through a series of proxies, although the difference is that Townsend's proxies were mechanized and the "Puppet Master's" proxies were real human beings. I do see a possibility of what PurpleSlog is outlining. An individual, given enough resources, could conduct operations behind a wall of deception and misinformation. False-flag attacks, dummy organizations, misinformation, proxies, and information war capabilities could create enough confusion to allow a disciplined actor to decisively shape world events. 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. 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. While deception is part of this game, I don't think the leader of a group like Al Qaeda would stand to sulk in the shadows, especially given that such groups derive political capital from the symbolism and charisma of their "emirs." Still, it is a danger, especially as we move closer and closer to the world envisioned in Ghost in the Shell.

Some ideas for XGW as intellectual framework [Ed. note: This is a post originally made to The Blorum a now-defunct area of D5GW within the D5GW Forums, although the thread is still there as well as comments associated with this post. The date given for this post has been set to that of the original Blorum post.] As a system of thought, the XGW framework is very young. Into the 4th Generation, the famous Marine Corps Gazette article that employed the XGW framework was published in 1989. Since then, weve seen a shockingly vast array of published material, both in print and online, that discuss variants of the original XGW framework. However, we lack a truly comprehensive medium for a beginner to absorb the theory. The blizzard of published material and online writings on the subject that explicitly reference the XGW framework is daunting, especially to one who lacks the theoretical prerequisites necessary for understanding and interpreting it. Adding to the problem is that the only book-length explanation of XGW theory, T.X. Hammes The Sling and the Stone is not a useful guide to the beginner, as its evolved insurgency framework is an interpretation divergent from the totality of XGW thought and does not cover 5GW. Similarly, John Robbs Brave New War, while an accurate introduction to the XGW theory and its prerequisites, is not a true survey text (or for our purpose, textbook), because it does not cover the totality of XGW and advances the Global Guerrillas variant. XGW information overload and the corresponding lack of a one-stop resource reference covering all branches of XGW thought acts as an impediment to the advancement of XGW beyond the small circle of military analysts and bloggers versed in the theory, and leads to misunderstandings whenever those unfamiliar with it engage with it. Given that an open-source model has already led to fruitful discussion advancing XGW theory online, we can speed the perfection of XGW theory by spreading it to as large of an audience as possible. Sometime in the future it may be necessary to set up a wiki similar to MountainRunners ConflictWiki, with a (constantly evolving) database covering the figures, theories, and events behind the XGW framework. Perhaps it could be hosted on Dreaming 5GW, or act as another site entirely. This will allow the beginner to contextualize the various threads and sub-theories that have developed over the last 13 years and confidently develop his/her own interpretation s. A good step towards this was Zenpundits Cutting Edge Military Theory seminar on ChicagoBoyz. I notice that D5GW has links to white papers and resources on 5GW in the 5GW forums, but what is still needed is a Wikipedia-style interface that explains and contextualizes that information for the beginner. Another problem is the lack of empirical and historical context in discussion of XGW. This is understandable, given that most of the discussion takes the form of blog posts. While online discussions provide feedback and a means of communication towards reaching a greater understanding, we might do well to copy the model of the Small Wars Journal. Peer-reviewed, journal-length social science articles may provide the kind of empirical weight and broad historical longview lacking from blogging. It would allow us to develop detailed case studies of XGW models applied to the real world and empirical surveys of those models. This journal (Journal of XGW Studies?) could be published as a PDF on the Wiki around once a year. Despite these shortcomings, there is much to be proud of. As tdaxp writes, The blogosphere has been incredibly kind to 5GW theory perhaps the greatest burst of work on the generations of warfare framework since 4GW theory was introduced more than a decade ago.

Kilcullen on Narratives in Iraq 1. US forces primary contribution is not delivering a message but creating safe space where Iraqis can deliver the message. 2. The single narrative the US has pursued is that as they (Iraqis) stand up, we stand down. That message is not particularly comforting to Iraqis. The single big message (the Iraqi government and coalition are sending) now is that we are protecting the population and trying to achieve sustainable stability. We are improving security and doing it to create a sustainable space so Iraqis can do it themselves. (from Austin Bay Blog.) Neither strikes me as 5GW-effective. From a 5GW-oriented view, creating safe space would be a message. Shaping the environment is how memes are nudged into emergence; certainly, controlling space would be a very strong message, or have great influence over the types of memes likely to emerge. What does #1 mean to everyone but the U.S.? We have a disconnect lurking behind #1. The disconnect is the separation of the concrete from the abstract. The U.S. forces want Iraqis to see that its safe to come out in the open and interact as free citizens; the U.S. forces want Iraqis to see that they can act, themselves, to make a better Iraq; the U.S. forces want Iraqi leaders to propagate such messages of security and all other messages addressing the potential for a better Iraq. These are largely abstract so-called messages, considered in isolation from the concrete reality. They are dreams, phatasmagorias. The Iraqis see any pockets of safety as contingent upon the U.S. presence. They see the U.S. presence and the U.S. contribution. If the U.S. clears an area, with help from Iraqi forces, Iraqis see the U.S. doing so. Even if the U.S. stays the course and Iraqi state forces succeed in achieving competence and efficacy with long-term help from the U.S., delivering stability, Iraqis will still see the role the U.S. has played in shaping Iraq. In 5GW terms, we might say that this is not gaining hands in the field but is instead creating and maintaining a field we can harvest or shape with our own hands. In 5GW terms, we are telling the Iraqi leaders to be our proxies. Openly. Thats in #2. We are also telling the Iraqi citizenry whether peace-desiring or rabid anti-American or fence-sitting Iraqis the same thing. We want a stable, peaceful, relatively democratic Iraq that is friendly to the U.S., and we will stay until Iraqi leaders and the general Iraqi polity create this for us. We have the control; and once weve displayed that control, Iraqis will be able to do whatever they want, as long as they dont upset that cherished paradigm. We should either annex Iraq, or we should leave it. (The second choice is not even an option, really, although a 5GW presence and approach could make it appear a reality.)

Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout: Anything for 4GW or 5GW? Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. I recently read Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout. This is really mostly a marketing/business book, but I am looking for ideas I can swipe from elsewhere fro 4gw/5gw. I love the subtitle: The Battle for Your Mind. I am going to crib and re-use that soon. The authors define positioning as what you do to the mind of the prospective customer of your product. Finding a position for product in the prospects mind is the key. This is difficult because all prospects are over communication- they got to much coming at themand they is only so much room in their mind. The authors also suggest that successful positioning will not involve the introduction of something new and different into the prospects mind, but will instead try to tie into something else already in the prospect mind. That sort of sounds like the embrace and extend idea to me. The authors write: the average person cannot tolerate being he or she is wrong. Mind-changing is the road to advertising disaster. The authors suggest since people are over-communicated to, that they try to keep things simple to cope (optimizing the OODAhmm). Therefore, if you are going to target a persons mind, keep the message super simple and focused. They write: You have to sharpen your message to cut into the mind. You have to jettison the ambiguities, simplify the message, and then you simplify it some more if you want to make a long lasting impression. Here is example I came up with for simplifying a message: Instead of PNM, Gap-shrinking, DoEE, SysAdmin, A-Zthink doing right by bringing liberty and justice to all. BTW, the justice for all as a substitute message comes from a commentator on Barnetts site. If I find the link I will add it. Anyways, the book has some useful ideas for 4GW as information warfare/strategic communications/political theater/ message-sending. It has some application to the memetic engineering aspects of 5GW. Lastly, I want to mention briefly a positioning exercise they mention that they performed for the Catholic Church (I think for some lay leaders)that I found interesting. They started with: What is the the role of the Catholic Church in the Modern World?

and worked there way to: []the role of the Church as that of keeping Christ alive in the minds of each new generation and relating his word to the problems of their time. Wow. Simple. Direct. Focused.

On the Barnettian 5GW Im bumping up a comment I left in another thread And this is where 5GW on a grand scale may diverge from the current Robb/Hammes approach, which emphasizes one superempowered individual as opposed to generating empowerment across an entire society. [Steve, commenting on Kilcullen on Narratives in Iraq.]

Yes. I once included a consideration of the two types of superempowerment when contrasting Barnett with Robb. It would seem that Barnetts approach (which we at D5GW have often labeled 5GWish) requires the general superempowerment of individuals across the spectrum, as an antidote to the Robbian one-man-killing-crew. With regard to some recent considerations on the idea of kinetics, this means creating more routes for the channeling of powers, not only as a distracting maneuver (jobs vs guns) but also as a method of equalizing the kinetics across the system, or forcing kinetics into indirection. It is a kind of perpetual, systemic, mass deflection. [CGW, responding]

This is a long post, so Im putting the rest below the fold Superempowerment The post I linked in that comment, Global Guerrillas as 5GW Warriors, included 5 keys I used for unlocking the door to the future of John Robbs Global Guerrillas. One of those keys: Superempowerment of the Individual. There is a term used variously and vaguely in these discussions; I myself conflated two interpretations of the term. The Robbian view seems to depend on unequal distribution of powerment, in which some individuals or groups become more powerful than the general human population; whereas, at heart Thomas Barnetts Core/Gap paradigm and strategy seem to depend upon an eventual equalization, or a relative equalization (which is a type of oxymoronic phrase), of individual empowerment across the globe. Nonetheless, in my characterization of the two ideas in the older post, I conflated these concepts of empowerment under one heading: superempowerment. One supposes a kind of monopoly on greater powers; the other, a general but increased power for each and all. The term and the old conflation remind me of the kid superhero Dash in the movie The Incredibles. On the way home after being sent to the principals office, Dash complains that he is never able to use his natural powers. Dashs mom tries to explain how everyone is special in some way, not just those with superhuman powers; to which, Dash responds that, if everyone is special then no one is. (This startling intellection was a pleasant surprise early in the movie, followed by others later.) Should superempowerment also follow such a rule? In fact, upon infecting the human mind, the idea of superempowerment seems to follow that rule; so we see actors on the global stage trying to be special. Can the rule be broken? We also see a split in types of empowerment, between the Barnettian and the Robbian paradigms. If superempowerment is to be conflated: The Robbian view of superempowerment hinges upon the ability to cause concrete damages via

technology whatever the level of technology. The Barnettian view of the term would assume an economic empowerment via which those in the Gap are first brought up to the level of individual economic empowerment seen in the Core, and then all upon the globe continue to experience an increase in economic empowerment. For the Barnettian view, we should not equate economic empowerment only with the size of the personal bank account, but with the ability to secure resources, or personal property, necessary for individual happiness or at least contentment. Also, if we conflate these superempowerments, we should make the distinction which then arises concerning the prefix super-. In John Robbs world, the prefix stands for present inequalities among individuals and groups, but in Thomas Barnetts strategic vision, the term would need to be understood as designating an inequality between the past and present/future. In the Robbian world, some people are already super in relation to others currently existing; indeed, in the future he sees, this disparity would also continue and even increase. In the Barnettian vision, the present or, more likely the future peoples will be super in relation to those living in the past (their own past selves or their ancestors or both.) I know that Thomas Barnett is aware of the term superempowerment, and that, as with most who discusses these things, he tends to use it in the sense John Robb would give the term. But Im playing with the term. Barnettism vs. Robbism From being a bystander in the various Robb vs. Barnett debates (not only between the two principal actors, but also between their supporters and even between the subjects they study when forming their theories), I have developed the sense that the Robbian view is dichotomous and vaguely Manichean. If the Barnettian globalization proceeds and everyone is made special, no one will be special; if the Barnettian globalization ever settles over the world, then the general equalization of means must translate into extraordinary weakening for all individuals. The two theorists aside, this either/or style of viewing is probably what motivates the putative Global Guerrillas and other antiglobalists to act. My own criticisms of GG theory one of which both MountainRunner and Dan tdaxp have recently highlighted hinge upon the utter insolvency of the dichotomy which stands like an overstuffed though unobserved elephant in the center of that room. To the degree that these antiglobalists seek to become special, they must more and more resemble the nation-states who have already achieved that feat. Put another way: as they try to develop their own monopolies on power in response to the perception that a general deflection of kinetic powers will weaken them, they will be creating exactly the same sort of structures they would weaken! Inequalities and disparities galore. A house divided. I have not forgotten the title of this post. In a previous cursory examination of divergent theories of 5GW, I noted that Thomas Barnett seems to have a theory much like that theory often propounded here on D5GW, but that his vision assumes that nation-states and corporations can initiate the 5GW and do so openly. This approach is characterized as being top-down by the Robbian crew, occasionally derided as such. Given many of the preceding paragraphs, I wonder if the Robbian crew is correct. The Barnettian Paradox Steve, in commenting on the thread about Iraq, put forth the paradox: WRT Iraq, yes, our specter prevents Iraqis from assuming responsibility. It is an ironic paradox of state/nation building that cannot be avoided: how do we get indigenous groups to act on their own when we try to do everything for them? It is this transition that we still cannot manage, maybe because we have yet to find pols on the ground who have the resources to act independently.

[Steve] to which, I responded, This consideration is itself paradoxical. I.e., our foes are the pols on the ground who seem quite capable of finding the resources to act independently of us. [CGW] This is the Barnettian paradox: To the degree that nation-states and corporations continue to exercise conglomerate powers when initiating conflict, they will be the special ones. The ideal equalization cannot occur globally, and even the oxymoronic relative equalization cannot occur. So long as small groups or indeed individuals remain at the head of nation-states and corporations, those individuals will always wield greater powers with respect to everyone else within the system they are the superempowered actors. (Albeit, given the distinction I have already drawn, their power may be economic more than anything else if Barnetts vision comes to fruition.) Even despite the fact that Barnetts superempowered actors are few but actual, the impression that they exist in the first place creates cognitive conflict. We see the distinct case in Iraq and with the go-it-alone nation-state; but we may also infer this cognitive conflict in the growing distrust for some corporations, such as those in the military-industrial complex, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies (viz., Katrina), and the oil industry. (For an American Rightist list, just substitute the MSM and Hollywood.) The resolution to the Barnettian paradox is not something Barnett himself has offered: a true 5GW approach. Although he speaks in the language of co-optation, he uses the term when addressing inter-national relations; e.g., that Iran can be co-opted. Barnett does not descend to the street level although he does support improving the lives of the persons on the street; he has yet to formulate a clear plan for co-opting the many individuals of which nations and corporations are comprised. For the most part, he seems to assume that nation-states and corporations, if they only do the right things, will be received as benevolent dictators or, scratch that term, as benevolent superempowered entities. He may be half right. Many people seek saviors of one sort or another; many are happy to delegate responsibility for the things they themselves cannot touch or do not have the time or motivation to fix themselves or do not understand, themselves. The crux of the Barnettian paradox involves the manner and method of assigning these delegations so that the general man-on-the-street can rest easily knowing his prosperous future is assured. Even within the Core, much doubt about this process of delegation exists; various superempowerments within and without the Core threaten to upset faith in the systems of the Core. For his theory of 5GW, Barnett needs to reduce the footprint of his preferred superempowered entities, and this will require a re-think about how they operate in fact, perhaps also about who they are. Update: A follow-up post has been made, which covers some Blogospheric responses.

Declaring a 5th Generaton War on America to Shrink the Gap Mountainrunners review of Brave New War was greeted thusly by John Robb: Knew it was going to happen. Oh well. To tell you the truth, I kinda expected more push-back to an outsider like me from the conference crowd guarding the walls around the counter-terrorism money/fantasy machine in Washinton. This guy is the only one to do so publicly. Respondingly publicly, MR wrote: I dont know that I am trying to protect the money/fantasy machine, mostly because I dont know what he means (a little help?). However, it does sound bad and I would probably agree the money/fantasy machine needs to be whacked based on name alone. Whatever it is, my issue with the book pivots on his failure to include and factor in purposes and support systems into the analysis of his guerrillas. Insight into these two not insignificant data sets cant be dismissed or ignored, but that is just what BNW does. At the time, I noted this was a humorous way to turn the other cheek. However, MR is wrong. The money/fantasy machine is a vital part of shrinking the Gap. Read more below, or join the discussion at tdaxp.com. Earlier, Curtis commented on Tom Barnetts view of 5GW: he resolution to the Barnettian paradox is not something Barnett himself has offered: a true 5GW approach. Although he speaks in the language of co-optation, he uses the term when addressing inter-national relations; e.g., that Iran can be co-opted. Barnett does not descend to the street level although he does support improving the lives of the persons on the street; [Tom Barnett] has yet to formulate a clear plan for co-opting the many individuals of which nations and corporations are comprised. For the most part, he seems to assume that nation-states and corporations, if they only do the right things, will be received as benevolent dictators or, scratch that term, as benevolent superempowered entities. He may be half right. Many people seek saviors of one sort or another; many are happy to delegate responsibility for the things they themselves cannot touch or do not have the time or motivation to fix themselves or do not understand, themselves. The crux of the Barnettian paradox involves the manner and method of assigning these delegations so that the general man-onthe-street can rest easily knowing his prosperous future is assured. Even within the Core, much doubt about this process of delegation exists; various superempowerments within and without the Core threaten to upset faith in the systems of the Core. For his theory of 5GW, Barnett needs to reduce the footprint of his preferred superempowered entities, and this will require a re-think about how they operate in fact, perhaps also about who they are. In an unrelated post, Mountainrunner himself says much the same thing: To this end, when operating in conflict/post-conflict environments were the host state needs to be rebuilt, certain tools are missing from our tooklit that demonstrates our commitment to the mission to the host, facilitates capacity building, and deepens host nation commitment, and capability, to the mission, and perhaps most importantly, enlists the locals into their own success.

Both posts can be summarized like this: America needs to subvert her own population, to enlist Americans, to shrink the Gap. Most thinkers are stuck in a low-G paradigm, so obvious solutions are for everyone to pitch in (0GW), organize everyone to shrink the gap (1GW), write harshlyworded letters (4GW), etc. However, a 5GW solution is wiser. If shrinking the Gap is a public policy option, it could be rejected. Shrinking the Gap is a long-term process, and should be insulated from politics as much as possible. We have a model of how to proceed. The Global War Against Communism was a successful, multigenerational effort by the United States to defeat the Communist world, to spinter the Soviet Unions support, and ultimately to turn the USSRs constuent republics against themselves. This was done by institutionalizing the war, building up a military-industria complex for the leviathian what John Robb describes as a money/fantasy machine and Tom Barnett decries a generation after the Cold-War ended. Think about that. The anti-Communist 5GW that was built up at the beginning of the Cold War is still functioning in spite of widespread recognition that is has been obsoleted by its own success. The anti-Disconnectedness 5GW that must be built up at the beginning of this Long War must be similarly durable. Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, globalists and internationalists, they come-and-go. Theyre electoral defeats and victories are as rational as which town is hit by which tornado, which Senator uses an anti-asian slur that was current among North African Jews a lifetime ago, and other quirks of fate. Shrinking the Gap is too important to be left to chance. Rather than decy a money/fantasy machine we need to build our own. We need to build a Military-Industrial-Systems Administration-Complex. We need a Virtual Department of Everything Else. We need to Shrink the Gap.

Declaring 5GW War Dan tdaxp has an interesting follow-up to my last post, and in my latest comments under both posts I wrote some things that have iterated in my head, in combination with both posts, to produce some other thought which Id post simply as a question: Despite the fact that a 5GW org would never declare war in the traditional sense, might we say that a 5GW declaration of war upon some entity group, nation-state is merely the choosing of that entity, or rather the choosing of individuals within that entity, to become the 5GW orgs proxies? Think carefully. Not only does the question relate to the issue of co-optation, not only to the kinder, gentler concept of 5GW, but it involves a very peculiar understanding of the concept of proxy and how 5GW will operate. The question also involves the scale of 5GW and should not depend upon whether we are speaking of proxies elevated by the 5GW org or proxies defeated by the 5GW org. Hmmmm.Definition subject to revision at any time, of course!

scientia media Interesting little reference found in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy that has 5GW overtones: Molina, Luis de (15351600). Jesuit theologian and philosopher, born in Cuenca, Spain. He studied and taught at various leading Iberian universities. Molina is best known for his doctrine of middle knowledge (scientia media), expounded in Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis (1588). This doctrines aim was to preserve human free will while maintaining the Christian doctrine of the efficacy of divine grace. For Molina, although God has foreknowledge of what human beings will choose to do, neither that knowledge nor Gods grace determine human will. Middle knowledge, Gods knowledge of what persons would do under any set of circumstances, enables God to arrange for certain human acts to occur by pre-arranging the circumstances surrounding a choice without determining the human will. Gods grace is concurrent with the act of the will and does not predetermine it, rendering the Thomistic distinction between sufficient and efficacious grace superfluous. [Prof. Jorge J.E. Gracia, State University of New York, Buffalo, and Elizabeth Milln.]

I suppose the usual EBO precautions will apply. This also ties into some of my previous thoughts concerning the term free will, not to mention the issue of co-optation. The idea of scientia media also reminds me of an interesting document Ive neglected blogging. While contemplating and researching a Waterfall Model of 5GW and Iterative Models (following up on Arherrings work), I stumbled onto The Chaos Model and the Chaos Life Cycle (.wpd, 1999) by the pseudonymous Raccoon. Some nuggets from that document: 1. I believe that to truly understand software development, we must not only understand the flow of an entire project and how to write each line of code, we must also understand how one line of code relates to the whole project. It seems to me that we have studied each aspect of software development in isolation, not how all aspects fit together. The Waterfall model, defined by Royce, and the Spiral model, defined by Boehm, discuss management-level issues, such as phases and deadlines, rather than how to write one line of code or fix one bug. Programming methodologies show us how to solve technical problems, rather than how to solve users problems or to meet deadlines. In this paper, I use the principles of chaos (or fractals) as a metaphor to bridge the gap in our understanding of the relationship between one line of code and the entire project. 2. The Chaos model differs from other models in that it imposes little organization on the development process, rather, it allows many organizations to evolve. This allows the Chaos model to apply in many complex situations. 3. Levels are not independent. All levels of a project are connected by a web of influences that stretches between the whole program level and the one line of code level. Adjacent levels influence each other very strongly. Distant levels influence each other very weakly. 4. We can reinterpret the meaning of the whole program level and the one line of code level in terms of users and technologies. The whole program level represents the users needs or the goals of the project. The goals of the project are defined by the users at the top level, so the goals must

trickle down to the bottom level. The one line of code level represents our technical resources or the smallest pieces of the solution. Developers write code one line at a time using established techniques on the bottom level, so the solutions must trickle up to the top level. In the middle levels, developers match up the users needs with the technical resources to satisfy them. 5. Developers work on all levels of a project, but spend most of their time working on the middle levels. In the middle, developers match the pieces of a problem with chunks of code. The problems are small enough to be solved and the solutions are big enough to be useful. Every level of the project, every size of component, and every scope of decision is caught in the web of influences stretching between the users needs and the technical resources available to satisfy the users needs. Because the needs of the users strongly influence the upper levels of the project and the technical resources strongly influence the lower levels of a project, developers have the most influence in the middle levels. 6. So by transitivity, each phase is identical to every other phase. The phases blend into each other and the life cycle dissolves into an amorphous flow of emphasis. The distinctions that we make between phases become arbitrary and show our perspective on the project, rather than any essential truth about software development. When we say that a project is in one phase or another, it shows where we think we are, more than where we actually are. Pretty cool, huh?

Follow-up: On the Barnettian 5GW From TPMB Thomas Barnett responded to my post On the Barnettian 5GW with Nice post by Curtis on 5GW. Shanes right in his comment: I do agree with the vast majority of the post, to include its criticism that my vision to date has relied a lot on stock characters (nations, militaries, corporations). The reason why I dont just elucidate the super-empowered masses is two-fold: [TPMB] Very thrilling to have a response like that, although I must admit I did not expect it. I didnt expect any direct response, mostly because I know Tom is a very busy man and Im just a blogger on the sidelines trying to make sense of things in my own peculiar way. So its also thrilling to have my take on Toms vision validated. I mean, I made some metaphorical, logical, and horizontal leaps in that post. Toms reason behind his lack of elucidation is two-fold. You can go read it, if you like. I left this response: After writing that post, I began to realize my own paradox: Given the stress made at D5GW on secrecy in 5GW operations, my criticism that you havent outlined the street-level 5GW approach seems a little silly. Of course you havent. Ive been contemplating the ways that much of that outline could be incorporated into your Book III even before your response here. In any case, I also realize that your primary audience has thus far matched your prior approach (as well as matching your experience) and that many seeds must be planted for any 5GW endeavor before the flowers can bloom. Anything Ive written on the topic, even criticisms on your Core/Gap strategy, has been greatly informed by your work. If Im co-opted, I would expect my criticisms to be part and parcel of your overall game plan! BTW, I very much like the tale of 5GW can only be told in mosaic. Ill probably have to steal that metaphor. Im also looking forward to your collaboration with Steve, even if I have to work my way there through #3. [CGW] When I mentioned in comments under the original post on D5GW that Tom often speaks in parables, I was not far off in my analysis, I see. His experience, his connections, his audience, have gone to shape his message thus far; and the superempowered individuals are hidden behind the parabolic figures, nations, militaries, corporations. I knew that when I wrote that post. As part of my own peculiar on-going effort here at D5GW, the analysis of those parables requires elucidation but as PurpleSlog once commented, Toms effort to sell his vision may be 5GW even if the particulars he has thus far outlined are pre-5GW operations when considered in isolation. Thats something to keep in mind. To the degree that others-who-are-not-Tom take his ideas and run with them, altering them, elucidating them, we might wonder if they are in fact co-opted without knowing they are. From the ZenPundit

Mark Safranski highlighted my post and Toms post with Globalizations Superempowered Societies. I dont think Curtis use of relative equalization of individual empowerment is actually as oxymoronic as it seems. This is an astute normative economic observation on Weeks part. Instead, it illustrates the aggregate effect of Schumpeters creative destruction rippling across the globe as the spread of economic connectivity and information technology proceeds apace. The spread, of say, cell phone-based wifi internet access to states with sketchy (at best) landline telephone service, is a quantum leap forward for equalization of empowerment on the macro- scale even as certain small networks or individuals of those states on the micro- scale, possess the ability to leverage still greater levels of empowerment to become more equal than others. This seeming dichotomy are flip sides of the same coin in any true market action and is always ongoing to some degree, provided the market is permitted to function. Unless the comparative advantage is artificially locked in by force ( this is what tyrants of disconnectivity, like Mugabe and Kim Jong-Il, do - force everyone else to remain still in order to retain their own local super empowerment), any individual or entitys super empowerment is apt to be a fleeting condition unless constantly maintained by adaptive improvements. [MS] If my grasp on complex economics were as good as Mark implied in the first paragraph, Id have an easier time addressing my uneasiness with his analysis. On the surface, I understand this completely and somewhat agree; but Im leery of the subject of free markets, given the fact that even capitalism within democratic societies is certainly not free. It cant be free, or it wouldnt be capitalism. For instance, the truly superempowered within a capitalistic society will by definition be the best at adapting to maintain that superempowerment. Am I wrong? Then again, the sort of inheritance system we have in America may enable an American bin Laden to emerge one day: How much time should we give to the system to correct such an emergence, given the sort of destruction such an individual could wreak before we realize the nefarious turn? I suppose I could rephrase those questions and ask: What keeps the greatly empowered and, especially, the superempowered from tweaking the system in order to lock in their relative wealth/power? And yet, to the degree that those superempowered rely on the masses for their power and give bread and circuses to the masses, the masses may remain content with the disparity. Something besides the anti-lock-in is at work. Mark makes an excellent point in reference to Toms accent on [SEIs] positively remaking the world Numerically speaking, most highly intelligent, energetic, creative and task persistent individuals who function as change agents are overwhelmingly positive actors. [MS] while cautioning us not to grow complacent given that fact. Negative super empowered individuals may emerge. I particularly like Marks addition of a potential third ingredient for building systemic resilience capable of surviving and even thriving despite the perturbations a superempowered actor might cause:

Steves Development-in-a Box paradigm at Enterra is one effort to begin comprehensively addressing these deficits. Toms Sys Admin is another. Building new, highly decentralized, Wikinomic mass-collaborative platforms from scratch, may be yet a third. [MS] Wheres John Robb? Ah, there he is. Shouldve expected that. Not exactly a response to my post, but Heres the latest entry on his personal blog, short and sweet: Brave New Peace? Working on the ideas for a second book (in the proposal stage) on superempowered individuals and their ability change things for the better. It picks up on the last section of BNW on rethinking security and runs with it. [JR] It also runs with Marks and Toms posts, right on cue. My initial reaction was the above; then, I thought, HmmmmMaybe someones 5GW is coming together. And then I thought something even better: We may one day in the not-too-distant future find Tom, John, and Mark operating in close harmony (with the occasional skeptical remark from CGW lobbed over the fence.) Essentially, my post exploring the Barnettian 5GW, though it carried the familiar criticism of Robbs GG theory, was critical of Barnetts theory precisely where Robb takes up; that is, at the street level, far below the parabolic national, military, and corporate level. We will see.

A short, raw bit of conjecture regarding 5GW. My last post regarding 5GW entailed the necessity of mastering popular media for a successful 5GW initiative. In effect, the 5GW theory utilizes the non-kinetic approach of information manipulation and mastery as opposed to the "barbaric" kinetic or offensive approach engaged by it's 4GW predecessors. Certainly the "insurgent" or "terrorist" tactic entails affecting media as was very apparent during the media blowback following the Tet offensive or, currently, as the "surge," despite it's partial implementation, is popularly regarded in terms of ineffectiveness or even abject failure. But utilizing media and mastering media are two completely different strategic elements. The 9/11 attacks have led to a litany of instances in which Al Qaeda used and continues to exploit the mainstream to further it's message and philosophically reinforce it's will. The mainstream, hungry for ratings, can't wait to obtain and broadcast any evocation of Al Qaeda whether it be a crackling audio tape of Osama bin Laden or a hazy videotape of Ayman al Zawahiri. In this respect Al Qaeda very effectively utilizes the media even as it fails to master it. Despite the media's willingness or hunger for Al Qaeda dispatches it doesn't push the agenda, rather exploits and sensationalizes it for exposure and the financial profit that follows. Mastering the media means subverting and collecting it's will, tossing it into your virtual ideological corner and then exacting your cause through it in an effort that ends in the general populace, or mainstream, conforming to and accepting your cause as "reality." A hypothetical example of media mastery: The Global Warming "Fact" as presented by an ex-Vice President... I'll let that hang a bit as I have more to say regarding this in the near future... In consideration of the above, mastering the mainstream seems to require a realistic pretense or a powerful event (or promise thereof) to shatter the usual homogenous banality that is "news." One simply isn't going to march into the New York Times offices, wave around a half frozen tuna in a threatening fashion and then commandeer the editors office so that they print X to meet the ends of initiative Y. So how does one first snag and then command the attention of a media that caters to what is, perhaps, of the most attention deficient populace on the planet? 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." So if mastering mainstream information and the how and why regarding it's construct is paramount (in my vision) to enacting a 5GW initiative (which is much less an act of overt war and much more an act of mass philosophical and psychological subversion) then the catalyst could be found in either playing off an existing or causing and building upon a Black Swan. Shock the system and

then build upon it's new and popular collective.

It Was the Nightingale, and Not the Lark Romeo: Let me be taen, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so. Ill say yon grey is not the mornings eye, Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthias brow; Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads: I have more care to stay than will to go: Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so. How ist, my soul? lets talk; it is not day. Juliet: It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away! It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us: Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes, O, now I would they had changed voices too! Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day, O, now be gone; more light and light it grows. Romeo: More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!

Thus, the desire to hear a nightingale despite all evidence to the contrary, even welcoming death rather than suffer division from the object of our fantasy. After all, such a death is merely metaphorical, abstract, and virtual it has a place in our fantasy compared to the real dangers that come with the larks song and daylight.

Shakespeare would not utilize pornography to make his point (at least, not overtly); but he was writing in the late sixteenth century, not in 2007. He may not have been aiming for 2050, either. We all have our individual romantic or idealistic ideas of 5gw: For example, to get information that masturbation is our basic form of sex is hard, because who wants to admit they are masturbating? <snip> When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of manipulation

are sown. <snip> Clever people know they can manipulate stereotyped 5gwers. 90% of 5gwers are stereotyped, so the clever people can do a lot of manipulation and there is a lot of money to be made. For example, Mexico was conquered more by manipulation of myth and archetype. [Wet Dreaming 5GW, Warfare 2050.] Breaking the habit of obsessive masturbation is made doubly hard when the masturbators believe they are having real sex; i.e., when they do not see the Fourth Wall. Or any walls. This isnt really a question of not wanting ones mirror to be shattered, or of desiring to avoid acknowledging the habit of obsessive masturbation, since that motivation is made irrelevant by the object of fantasy which is real to the masturbator. Juliets hand is on Romeos penis. Who manipulated Romeo; was it really Juliet, after all? Was it Shakespeare? Romeo and Juliet had the capacity for judgment; they eventually agreed that the birdsong was the lark and not the nightingale Each attempted to convince the other that, twas the nightingale that woke them, true; but both finally agreed twas the lark; and their judgment about what they should do in light of this knowledge involved hiding their relationship further, dividing their companionship, and, ultimately, dying individually and alone. (Forget the Baz Luhrmann atrocity; Romeo actually dies, quite alone, before Juliet awakens; then she, also quite alone, dies.) They had believed the larks message, utterly; and so the lark spoke true. They never realized that the operative message had actually come from humans. Hearing the birdsong and giving the lark a human voice is an instance of masturbation. In this case, the voice is informed not only by hopes, but also by fears. Romeo and Juliet acknowledge the message, the reality of their situation involves other real humans at some distance from this scene, and the two lovers are aware of those actors; but they accept their theory of those actors without question. To avoid questioning their theory of those actors, they invented another cause the lark which merely supported the theory they already had. We will never know what would have happened had they revealed their marriage to their families that morning. Manipulate peoples minds to keep on their bellies and their genitals, and you can eventually enslave them. The bigger the real-life problems, the greater the tendency for the discipline to retreat into a reassuring fantasy-land of abstract theory and technical manipulation. (MANIPULATION FROM LATIN MANUS: HAND ) <snip> 5GW and the Theory of Permanent Adolescence: It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental [5GW and the Theory of Permanent Adolescence, Warfare 2050.]

Most literary critics agree: Juliet was really in love, she had the abundant capacity for real love Juliet: My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite. whereas Romeo was just your typical boy wanting his penis stroked. This is of course entirely in keeping with the archetype, young male, and the archetype, woman. Queerly, the women in other cultures are often thought to be unfairly judged as succubi sometimes kept covered from head to foot in order to protect the young male from himself presumably since these archetypes must never prove false for Western observers. So the Western literary critics rest easy when they make their analysis of Romeo and of Juliet; it is a message others in the West can get off on. Abstract theory and technical manipulation: A good description of Romeos and Juliets game of lark or nightingale? Their problem is profound and seems to have no solution. Was their problem as great as they thought? Or am I the only one who has ever wondered why Juliet never left with Romeo that morning? Perhaps both she and Romeo were pawns or proxies of their parents, cousins, friends, and neighbors and feared the familiar, albeit often virtual, rod. My initial reaction was the above; then, I thought, HmmmmMaybe someones 5GW is coming together. [Follow-up: On the Barnettian 5GW, D5GW.] When a fantasy turns you on, youre obligated to God and nature to start doing it - right away 5gwers abandon the search for Truth and settle for a good fantasy If your 5gw fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no longer be fantasies 5gw fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination [5GW is Coming Together, Warfare 2050.] Regardless of the perhaps-foolish masturbatory act of presenting definitive interpretations of the character of Juliet and the character of Romeo, especially given the variety of people of most cultures who have read it or seen it performed, one might postulate that Romeo and Juliet came together in more ways than one. For instance, they came together in the crypt although each died quite individually and alone; even Shakespeare gave the stage direction, Falls on Romeos body,

and dies. Romeos orgasm that last night together, sometime before the lark began to sing, was not Juliets orgasm, even if they came together. When they married, they came together before Friar Laurence; but he still saw two. When Romeo and Juliet describe their individual loves, the night they first meet, they have quite distinct ideas about those loves. The abstract and technical manipulations of their different speeches have also received much spermatic definition from Western literary critics, as already discussed. The point is: They can come together despite these differences. The second point is: They believe that they have actually become one; they believe they are connected; they believe their fantasy is one rather than two. They believe each other (even when they see the other is dead.) The third point is: When Juliet becomes one with Friar Laurence and Romeo becomes one with Balthasar, the great division prophesied by the lark [sic] takes its ultimate form, i.e., is fulfilled. Romeo and Juliet had no dress rehearsal for their wedding. They did not need to. The entirety of their time together was a dress rehearsal for their deaths. * In my 5GW fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind. * If one is lucky, a solitary 5GW fantasy can totally transform one million realities. * The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the 5gwer that he is possessed by his fantasy. * 5gwers nowadays like to be together not in the old-fashioned way of, say, mingling on the piazza of an Italian Renaissance city, but, instead, huddled together in Blorumstan and so on. Its a new kind of togetherness which may seem totally alien, but its the togetherness of modern technology. [5GW Fantasy, Warfare 2050.]

Though Romeo left the Verona piazza for his exile, the fantasy possessing him continued to operate. Though Juliet schemed with her other One, using technical manipulation to appear dead to the world, and left the Verona piazza for the crypts, the fantasy possessing her continued to operate. The fantasy won. Fantasy is not weakened by distance. Why? Because it goes wherever you go. Juliet will be loved by Romeo not for her fantasy but for his. And vice versa. Therefore, to the extent that one million people will be loved for one single 5GW fantasy i.e., for the roles they appear to fill, via the operation of that individuals fantasy they will be transformed. They must be transformed, if said transformation is part of his fantasy. If he is not fortunes fool, the transformation will be successful. But in order for this to happen, he must make their fortunes his fool. I.e., he must make their fantasies his proxies: the pawns he makes dance for other pawns to observe. As Shakespeare did with Romeo and Juliet.

As Shakespeare did with us, who have seen the dance. Coda and Reprise It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us: [J] <snip> More light and light; more dark and dark our woes! [R]

The operation of this fantasy need not be viewed with a backward-looking gaze, nor with one eye attaching to tits while the other scavenges the murk within our own minds. We fear greatly that politicization is well on its way to becoming ingrained in the next generation of analysts entering the profession. Too many times recently we have seen instructors attempting to insist on degrees of political correctness that would make a commissar blush, and to outright excise materials that conflict with their favoured line of thinking from student work. There is an increasing emphasis on process, and the fig leaf numerics, to hide what otherwise might be transparent biases under the pretense of rigour. And unfortunately, the Millennial generation is exceptionally receptive to being shaped into this mold, having spent a lifetime growing up under increasingly indoctrination oriented education systems which fail to instill critical thinking skills yet insist on ever more dogmatic judgments. We have said before that the wrong lessons have been drawn from the intelligence lead-in prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and we are increasingly concerned by the number of academics that would rely on partially declassified materials (and damnable leaks) in an attempt to teach their own concept of intelligence reform to an eager audience which has nothing else against which to compare. This is normalizing a degree of conformity in judgment, and excusing away the unacceptable behaviors of those who would break their sacred oaths. This is an institutionalization of a new culture, hitherto alien to the intelligence community, in which individuals claiming to speak truth to power place their own assessments, typically made in lockstep with the unexamined assumptions of an inherently political philosophy, above the requirements of professional tradecraft or even the needs of the mission. And when these individual perceive that their viewpoints do not carry the day no matter what evidence may be assembled in favour of an alternative hypothesis (or against their preferred theory) they choose to voice their displeasure to the press. We view this with the gravest of concern, and heed well the related points made by Former Spook regarding the impact of such dysfunctional cultures in the origins of cascading failures. The warning signs are always apparent, and in hindsight may be castigated easily. It takes a far different effort, however, to change them before disaster befalls the unwary. We see constantly in recent analytic debates the pressures to find false certainties, and a profound lack of respect for the unknown unknowns at a time when the means of collection are ever more challenged, and the range of targets growing ever wider.

[Politicization and the leak culture, Kents Imperative.]

The light is frightening enough perhaps with good reason if we are to believe Romeo and Juliet, perhaps not to inspire a million nightingales for each lark. The sweet lullaby helps to preserve ones fantasy, so that, sometimes, there is no dawn that we can see but only the pin-pricks of stars which anyone can connect however he likes. Mercutio knew this Mercutio: Come, we burn daylight, ho! Romeo: Nay, thats not so. Mercutio: I mean, sir, in delay We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits Five times in that ere once in our five wits. <snip> Mercutio: True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being angerd, puffs away from thence, Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. Benvolio did not get that message This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves; / Supper is done, and we shall come too late. Keep them on their bellies, indeed! If kept from themselves, they would be kept from those dreams. Romeo fails to understand the message as well and proceeds to display his failure: Romeo: I fear, too early: for my mind misgives Some consequence yet hanging in the stars Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this nights revels and expire the term Of a despised life closed in my breast By some vile forfeit of untimely death. But He, that hath the steerage of my course,

Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.

See how the stars can be made into anything, even a scapegoat for ones own genitals? Shakespeare kills Mercutio, thus killing the sun, and a million stars will make Romeo fortunes fool. As a coda and reprise, I dont mind gazing backward still, or seeing tits and penises and the virtual hands that continue to operate. I think youll see the connection for yourself.

The Orwellian Problem By my count, Anglophone North America ex Canada is on its fifth legal regime. The First Republic was the Congressional regime, which illegally abolished the British colonial governments. The Second Republic was the Constitutional regime, which illegally abolished the Articles of Confederation. The Third Republic was the Unionist regime, which illegally abolished the principle of federalism. The Fourth Republic is the New Deal regime, which illegally abolished the principle of limited government. [snip] The key to power in the Fourth Republic is that no one who has power wants anyone to think of them as having power. For example, in the traditional iron triangle, legislators do not have power. They are just expressing the will of the people. Civil servants do not have power. They are just making public policy. Lobbyists do not have power. They are just communicating their concerns. This is a profoundly Orwellian situation. The root of the problem is that the modern English language has no word which means power, but carries only positive associations. Perhaps the most important fact about power is that the powerful are almost always sincere. They honestly believe they are doing good. Every Sauron considers himself a Boromir. And - as Acton observed - every Boromir has an inner Sauron. Since this is widely recognized, and since power is generally associated with evil, the people in the US who have actual power do not and cannot think of themselves as having power. However, there are euphemisms for it. Perhaps the most common is responsibility. A good way to find the most powerful people in the US is to find the most responsible people. No one in the US is scheming for power. A lot of them seem to be working for change. No one in the US is brainwashing the masses. A lot of them seem to be educating the public. No one in the US is ruling the world. A lot of them seem to be making global policies. [snip] Lets say that to be a major vertex of the Polygon, you need two attributes. One, a vertex must have power - that is, responsibility. Two, it must be protected from public opinion - that is, insulated from politics, that is, democracy. If you have one of these but not the other, you are at best a minor vertex. [The iron polygon: power in the United States, Mencius Moldbug, Unqualified Reservations, 5-12-2007.] The Orwellian situation described by Mencius Moldbug is peculiar, for this reason: the situation leads to abnegation, not only public but private as well. The reason that power does not carry only positive associations is: 1. power is value neutral; 2. the word addresses our relation to what we are not, particularly our ability to affect or alter what we are not, and alternatively, the ability of what we are not to affect or alter us; 3. this relation may take positive or negative valuations depending on context and personal understandings of various moral imperatives;

4. and so power as a singular and general concept of force relations, applicable to many situations, cannot have only positive associations. The complexity of modern life produces static. Static in turn produces doubt about these relations, and within such doubt negativity is never ruled out, is itself never negated. abnegate tr.v. 1. To give up (rights or a claim, for example); renounce. 2. To deny (something) to oneself. [Latin abnegare, abnegat-, to refuse : ab-, away; see AB-1 + negare, to deny; see ne below.]. We do not deny the possibility that we ourselves may be denied. A bigger fish always swims somewhere in the ocean; we as individuals have severe limits. Therefore, we may often preemptively deny ourselves, or abnegate responsibility, when addressing the future with nothing but static as a guide. Such abnegation is perverse: by preemptively denying ourselves responsibility for the future, we are essentially trying to say, In the future, what-we-are-not cannot deny us power which we have rejected already. It is an attempt to retain power, primarily defensive power, from the unacknowledged understanding that the best defense is a good offense. We would deny to all future entities the power to deny us, or to negate us, by negating ourselves preemptively; yet, our attempt really depends upon negating them into perpetuity. I.e., the areas where what-we-are-not may have the power to affect us or alter us in the future determine the line we would draw limiting those entities; You shall not pass!! To sell that message, the private individual, through abnegation, would tell those entities that passing the line is unnecessary: We cede responsibility, already. Mencius Moldbug attempts to address the public face of this abnegation by showing the absurdity of the dance. As a proto-5GW maneuver, the reassurance of successful personal abnegation will have a dual effect: * Corporations whether strictly governmental or the shadow-governmental MSM, etc. would seek to appear powerless and safe. They will not pass the line you have drawn. Whenever they do appear to cross the line, they apologize profusely. * Such corporate public abnegation would therefore promote the feeling of personal power. You, as a citizen of the U.S., have the real power. We merely follow the polls. We merely recognize the market forces your demand when we act. We are giving you the displays you wish to see. The perversity of the dance must be viewed as a later step in the linear evolution of the U.S. That is, the Constitution of the U.S. is primarily a reactionary document, designed originally as a intentional counter-stroke directed against tyranny; it instituted the mob which had heretofore been a subject of the crown, and the mob has been taught its proper place ever since. Any future king would need to stress, as forcefully as possible, that he merely sits on his ass when he sits the throne. You may ponder that last paragraph from a 5GW perspective. Theorists make a great mistake, similar to Mencius Moldbugs mistake, when they suppose the existence of non-human corporations. While it is true that Mencius Moldbug implies that these corporations have individuals within them who have the greatest responsibility and the greatest power A good way to find the most powerful people in the US is to find the most responsible people.

[MM] he also negates this observation when he later focuses on The New York Times (and more broadly, the MSM) and other corporations: The major vertices of the Polygon, by my count, are the press, the universities, the judiciary, the Fed and the banks, the Hill (congressional staff), the civil service proper, the NGOs and transnationals, the military, the Beltway bandits (defense and other contractors), and corporate holders of official monopolies (such as intellectual property). [MM] On the surface, MMs Polygon makes sense. But it really does not. The individuals within his Polygon are members of the mob as well, subject to the vicissitudes of power/abnegation. The need to appear safe promotes actual negation as well as public displays of self-negation. Any corporation which would make an overt attempt at a coup, or the capturing of the U.S., would instantly face a million foes; thus, every corporation is limited, somewhat negated, denied some types of activity. Furthermore, these collections of humans are not collectives in the purest sense; within those collections, the need to appear safe to others within the collection limits the activity of each. True, this public face of abnegation may at heart be an attempt to exert power, or to preemptively negate all future competitors by turning their eyes away from what we are doing; but rarely do we find only one person, within the U.S. or within these collections of individuals, operating in this way. Rather, we find multitudes striving for power indirectly; or perhaps we suspect multitudes when we see the static. We may fantasize that the individual U.S. citizen has absolved himself of all responsibility, thus placing great power in the hands of others who are his unacknowledged, and uncontrollable, delegates We can tell this by the fact that they write many stories on the subject. Surely if they didnt want us to think about the subject, it is within their personal discretion to avoid it. They dont. And since many people read the New York Times, many of us are concerned about global warming. [MM] but in order to do so, we must rule out the Mob. Do you see how Mencius Moldbug has preemptively and openly negated the Mob? To tell us that so many of us are entirely powerless once The New York Times has written a story is to inspire us to reject The New York Times peremptorily. It is as if Mencius Moldbug has decided to speak in the name of the Times in order to make the Times admit overtly that the paper has such control over the minds of readers; thus, ensuring the blowback. Mencius Moldbug attempts to be our friend; Mencius Moldbug has read the polls and serves the people. True, we may wonder if MM really speaks as a friend by calling the people of the U.S. idiots who are susceptible to the influence of the MSM; but instead of insulting everyone, the message merely plays into their own fantasy of abnegation: they have ceded power to the MSM (most individuals do not want to bother with collecting the news first-hand themselves) which is abusing that power; the people must rise up. This is the perverse dance, through which individuals claim weakness in order to dominate. You may ponder the invention of the cryptocalvinist in the same light, if you like.

Incidentally, this is why so much gridlock happens. You think the MSM is not mired in gridlock, unlike the U.S. Congress? Would you rail against the MSMs failure to address certain topics, in certain styles, or else because it produces banality on a regular basis when purportedly reporting the news. We can also see how the MSM has increasingly become the laughingstock, the Foe, the Great Evil in America, not only for the American Right but also for the Left (a la Michael Moore and other left-leaning liberals). The dual nature of this 5GWish abnegation should not be ignored. The individual citizens of the U.S.do not really believe they are powerless regardless of how much they deny responsibility for the future. Some of these individuals seek positions which they believe will increase their power, but they may only attain those positions after jumping through many hoops set by others within the Mob. Having attained those positions, to the degree that they are actually forced to operate in a 5GW manner, they must utilize the fantasies of others within the Mob their constituents in order to gain and keep hands in the field. They do not actually negate the rest of the Mob, but the contrary; and the Mob does not actually negate itself, but the contrary. A true representation of a Polygon with powerful/responsible vertices would require the realization of individuals who are not subject to the vicissitudes of personal or public abnegation. I.e., the true Polygon would require heroes in the strictest Greek sense. They would be above and beyond the dance really, outside the dance, yet from their privileged place they would appear to serve the needs of all or else, dominate so decisively no questioning of their authority would occur. They would not be forced by the public to negate themselves (nor would privately feel the need) but would be loved for their power and responsibility or hated for their power and responsibility without opposition. At present, what we have is not a polygon, but a danse macabre, or the whinging and vying produced by the confusion of static. Do vertices emerge within the static? Sure, but they are weak and capricious, too volatile to form a polygon in any meaningful sense. Anyone who posits a present Polygon of Power is merely another dancer vying for the right to dominate.

June/July 07 UK Terror Plot: A 5GW perspective As information about this plot comes out I think I see a 5GW or proto-5GW aspect to it. It seems that every person in the cell responsible for this plot is not only a foreigner (unlike the London subway bombing which was homegrown) but a member of the medical profession. I think at last count 2 doctors, a couple of medical students, and a lab technician or two. This tripped my radar and I began thinking Is this a pattern or is it a deliberate lack of a pattern? Why all foreigners (from Jordan, Iraq and India)? Why all medical workers? It also didnt make sense to me because I immediately thought that terrorists with this type of professional training would be better tasked for creating bio-weapons in their basement. These are allegedly rare and valuable skills for terrorists, why are they using these people to emplace car bombs and ram airports. Do they have that many doctors sitting around or do they not have any ambition to release weaponized anthrax or ebola on the world? But then the newscaster gave me the 5GW angle. Handed it to me on a platter in fact as she began to recite how many foreign medical workers are currently employed by the British healthcare system and how they have a desperate shortage they are straining to fill (900 or so Iraqi doctors alone). And now this will mean the rigorous screening foriegn medical workers already undergo before they are hired will need to be even more exhaustive. That is the 5GW attack! It had nothing to do with car bombs, airports, or body counts. This 4GW proxy attack was just as effective (maybe more so) in failure as it would have been in success. The terrorism rule set changes little, the system in place looks like it works. The plots were foiled and the terrorists were captured. The 5GW attack was on the heathcare system of the UK. Are people going to be able to trust their doctor now? Trust is essential between doctors and patients and here is a big wedge to be driven in. Also, as the system is shocked by that distrust the ability of the system to adress the shortfall has now been hamstrug. Rule Set! - System Perturbation! - New Rule set?

5GW Blogspotting: Three Posts on Mitchell Langberts Blog Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. I found three 5GW related posts on Mitchell Langberts Blog. In the first, he references another post mostly. His juices go flowing and two minutes later he posted Fifth Generation Warfare: 4GW No Longer Applies and wrote: The model of 4th generation warfare as enunciated by Thomas Hammes and others is rooted in the insurgencies that Mao led in China and Ho Chi Min led in Vietnam. [] However, the insurgencies he describes are mostly communist or leftist and prevailed in the age of radio and television. Such insurgencies were not Islamic, and pre-existed technological innovations that have occurred since the days of the Vietnam War, namely, the internet and cellular phones. then New technology, Islamic values and relations radically change the implications of Hammess strategic model. In some ways, Islamic culture makes fifth generation conflict more like pre-modern warfare. I could not find his definitionso it his def may be the default that thing that comes after 4GW. There is a nudge toward a definition at the end: In particular, the interactivity of Islamic belief with military action means that a more total approach to war might be necessary than it would be with insurgencies that are built on shorter term loyalties to the personalities of specific leaders. 4GW may be passe. This seems to moving toward Arherrings working definition: An emergent theory of warfare premised upon manipulation of multiple economic, political, social and military forces in multiple domains to effect positional changes in systems and achieve a consilience of effects to leverage a specific goal or set of circumstances. Two more minutes later he wrote in The Need for Counter-4GW: If Lind, Hammes and other advocates of 4GW are right, it seems to me that the response will not come from the state, which is bound by special interest groups. Rather, it needs to come from private individuals who respond to the terrorists 4GW with counter-4GW. This would involve standing up to the media and our leaders who are motivated by personal interest in responding to special interest group pressure rather than the national welfare. I think 5GW responses by citizens to shortcoming in their states response to 4GW will emerge (if they havent already).

Conspiracy and Shadow Government in 5GW Wolf Pangloss finds my series Orientation and Action, and adds his thoughts: In other words, 5th Generation Warfare requires a conspiracy to subvert the formal government with a shadow government. There has been speculation here and there about what 5GW would look like. Conspiracy theories being popular, there are many imaginary conflicts involving the Illuminati, Priory of Sion, the Templars, the Carbonari, and so on. But there are some widespread real conspiracies too! The Project of the Muslim Brotherhood is one such conspiracy. So to is the substance of Stalins attempts, coordinated by the Communist International following Gramscis template, to undermine American and British society, using not only Soviet spies like Alger Hiss, Kim Philby and the Rosenbergs but also numerous other informal agents who made it their project to take over the universities, Hollywood, much of popular entertainment, social work, teacher colleges, and newspapers. Even H.G. Wells open source conspiracy to establish a one world government, which has led us to the U.N. and E.U. and other well intentioned but fatally flawed projects, is a conspiracy against the individualist ethic at the heart of the American success story. In the light of this, it seems that we have at least three powerful and well advanced 5GW wars against the United States right now.

Defending Against 5GW Over at Phatic Communion, Arherring has suggested something called 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 maneuvering against him that he ceases to able to function as a legitimate threat. I responded with the following. Or: He can begin to engage his own 5GW plan (if he understands the basic concepts.) I once mentioned on tdaxp that I thought the only effective defense against 5GW would be another 5GW operation. Dan disagreed. I think that Dan might say that preemptive resilience (institutional, infrastructure, ideological perhaps) would be the first defense and that the secondary defense would be an offense which attempts to degrade your 5GW opponent into operating at 4GW or below. I believe the post in question was a consideration of America and federalism; dont remember, just now. The problem with each of these defenses: 1. Preemptive resilience: The 5GW attacker works with an iterative process; hes always judging the reality of any present conditions and tweaking his operations. I view 5GW as being the most dynamic of the generations of warfare. Whatever resiliencies you have built will become part of that plan. (Moreover, I wonder if inherent in the idea of resiliency is a dependence not only on that resiliency itself but also on static conditions able to re-bound after attacks or changing circumstances. This reminds me of the little quibble I had with DeAngelis once, early on, since resiliency is often thought of in terms of bouncing/jumping back into a specific place/condition.) 2. Degradation of 5GW: While degradation can happen naturally, through the fault of the 5GW planner, forcing a degradation would require that the defender be able to surpass the 5GW. I.e., it would require some type of 6GW operation unless, that is, we want to reconsider the generational framework by positing that (x+1)G is not designed to overcome xG, or is not actually able to cause 20-times losses and so forth. A 5GW defense might be able to degrade a 5GW attack; but surely at least an on-par defense would be require for intentional degradation of a 5GW force.

We can put these three possibilities forth, then, for the defender who suspects a 5GW attack is underfoot: 1. He can proceed as if no campaign is ongoing and accept your influence while trying to maintain his objectives.

2. He can search so obsessively for the 5GW maneuvering against him that he ceases to able to function as a legitimate threat. 3. He can begin 5GW operations of his own.

Each of these possibilities is interesting. B is the worst operational framework, the worst defense, because, in the first place, the 5GW attacker will devise the attack(s) to be entirely unobservable in themselves (although their effects may be observable); and, secondly, because part of the 5GW plan may well be to have the target react rashly while trying to see those maneuvers or to run around with his head cut off, utterly distracted. The defenders search may be a significant part of the 5GW plan. A is not necessarily bad. I have said before, and will say again, that not all prawns i.e., proxypawns will be targeted for destruction. In fact, a kinder, gentler 5GW may have as its goal the improvement of the system for everyone within the system. If the 5GW maneuvers cannot be seen, acquiescence to them may really be a good thing: Let those better operators have their full effect; I, in any case, am obviously outside that decision loop. I in fact wonder if such acquiescence to being a knowing prawn might persuade the attacker to see you as a valuable asset rather than an intransigent thorn in his side. However, if the 5GW attacker has planned far worse for the defender, this may not be the best option. C leaves a little more certainty that the defender could come out of the 5GW in a better place than when the war began. Obviously, were down to skill-sets here, which will greatly determine which side becomes victorious. Ironically, A may be a part of C. Quite possibly, B will also occur in C, in that the defensive 5GW force will need to be able to counter the opponents 5GW maneuvers and therefore will need to be aware of those maneuvers somewhat. But generally, I think that much of the observation will be focused on the environmental conditions, the objective reality of the system, rather than on the enemys OODA although that (and all other OODAs) will also be considered.

Shlokys Invisible Hurricane as 5GW Example? Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. On Shlok Vaidyas Website (worth adding to your favorite RSS feed if it isnt already), he links to an article on Oil Refinery problems such as: A third of the countrys 150 refineries have reported disruptions to their operations since the beginning of the year, a record according to analysts. Then commentator Wolf Pangloss asked: How do you know all this stuff is just accidental, and thus fixed by simplifying systems, and not the result of someone nefarious doing something nefarious, which would be fixed by complicating and adding redundancy to systems? My thought is that they didnt know is was accidental. They hope it accidental, and they assume it is. From a 5GW point of view, who might the benefactors from this systematic disruption - who might be behind it if this isnt accidental? * Global Guerrillas testing out techniques, or slowly ramping up? * American citizens concerned about the sorry state of domestic security and infrastructure protection trying to get the State to react a certain way? * Corporate interests and/or American citizens who want reduce Federal dis-incentives for increasing domestic refinery capacity? Any other ideas?

Laying the Foundations Part 5: Security Through Obscurity? 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.

Perusing a Conspiracy Nutjobs Website: The Biggest Secret Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. As an aside to my interest in 5GW, I have been thinking about conspiracy theories as it might applied to 5GW theory. I just found a mother-load of crazyness. Welcome to The Biggest Secret website. It ties together everything and the kitchen sink including: Reptiles, Babylonian Brotherhood (here is your secret Puppet Masters!), also here, ancient Sun God cults, currency control, the reptilian network, Satanist, mind-control, secret languages, The British Royal Family, The death of Princess Di, real magic, Cosmic COINTELPRO, Ancient Aliens, 9/11, a genetically altered Jesus Christ, Bilderberg stuff, the Illuminati (how bad is it that my spell-checker know thaword), Bush and Cheney, The Dulche some sort of stargate, exopolitics and alien immigration, FEMA, FEMA Concentration Camps, Majestic-12 and Alien Insects, genetically engineered Neanderthal, pictures, more exopoliticswell you get the idea. If 5GWers can position the discoverers of their 5GW as craziessecrecy can be maintained. I would suggest proactively seeding the conspiracy theories even (even if that is Security by Obscurity). In a battle for minds, those aligned with conspiracy-mongers are at a disadvantage.

xGW, Plain & Single Cross-posted from tdaxp. As I wrote on tdaxp, in response to a private question from Catholicgauze Since the emergence of the modern warfare, four generations of warfare have been identified. The first generation, or 1GW, emphasizes concentration-of-soldiers. The most famous 1GW was the Napoleonic Wars, where the commander who could throw the most soldiers at the decisive point would in the war. The second generation, or 2GW, emphasizes concentration-of-force. The most famous 2GW was the western front of World War I, where the force that could concentrate the most artillery and explosive power at one point could win the day. Both 1GW and 2GW are made possible by reducing your fog of war, so that you know where your soldiers (1GW) or artillery (2GW) should go. The third generation, or 3GW, emphasizes maneuver. The most famous 3GW was the German Blitz against France in 1940, where the force that could break through and carry the commanders intent would win the day. The fourth generation, or 4GW, emphasis networks. The most famous 4GW were the Communist insurgencies in Asia, where the force that could alienate the population from the other side through unconventional means would prevail in the end. Both 3GW and 4GW are made possible by maximizing your enemys fog of war, so he is unable to properly command his troops (3GW) or rely on his population (4GW). The fifth generation of modern warfare, or 5GW, is more speculative. It is assumed that as each generation of modern warfare goes deeper into the enemys social thinking (from where he concentrates soldiers, to where he prepares for an artillery barrage, to how he springs back from a blitz that seems to come from everywhere, to what he does when faced with insurgents who kill the tax collector), 5GW will go deeper yet. As each higher generation of war looks less like traditional war than the generation before it, it has been argued that 5GW will not even appear to be a war at all

Super-Empowered Individuals and 5GW: Heads or Tails. As globalization economically and socially connects the world , its citizens are paid in the metaphorical coin of super-empowerment. However, like a coin, super-empowerment has two sides. You cannot enjoy the benefits of the positive side without the negative flip side. Superempowerment exploited by the actions of Super-Empowered Angry Men. On the positive side of the coin is the super-empowerment that defines, for example, the writings of Thomas P. M. Barnett and Thomas L. Friedman. In this sense of the concept, everyone has the potential to be super-empowered. This type of super-empowerment comes from technology and connectivity but essentially from knowledge. Even more precisely, super-empowerment provides the ability to accumulate, disseminate and leverage knowledge. Like a tide that raises all ships, this is the kind of super-empowerment that strengthens societies and creates opportunities. This is expressed as freedom, democracy, capitalism and international trade. I think of this as the empowerment of choice. This positive super-empowerment empowers others. The opposite side of the coin is often described by the writings and theories of Robert Kaplan and John Robb, and championed by the actions of Angry Men like Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh. Fundamentally speaking, these Super-Empowered Angry Men are no different than other super-empowered individuals. These Angry super-empowered individuals also enjoy the benefits of technology and connectivity, but in their hands it is used to cause disruption and destruction, to harm rather than to help. Super-Empowered Angry Men usually justify their actions by adhering to a veneer of ideology that excuses them from the consequences of their actions. Additionally, they feel a deep disaffect and frustration, and seek to act out by using the leverage of their knowledge in a negative manner. They make themselves more by making others less. This is the SuperEmpowerment of fear. Not respect, fear. On the flip side of the coin, super-empowerment may be used to disempower others. Zenpundit Mark Safranski recently featured an article on super-empowerment, rich with links to Fifth Generation Warfare sources. The article itself, however, contained only one mention of 5GW, a quote from Thomas X. Hammes. In fact, we may have seen the first of 5GW in the anthrax and ricin attacks on Capitol Hill. To date, neither has been solved. Apparently a small group, perhaps an individual, decided to take on the power of the United States. - Colonel T.X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone At the time Hammes wrote this, before the birth of D5GW or much of the other Fifth Generation Warfare thinking now available, his statement was as valid as any other. While I do not consider this as a possible Fifth Generation Warfare scenario, I do see it as the potential work of SuperEmpowered Angry Men. That in mind, when I asked Mark Safranski how he felt about the relationship between super-empowered individuals and 5GW, Mark responded with this: IMHO, SEI are/will be a facet of 5GW, though what proportion of 5GW they may represent is unknown. I suppose a case can be made, William Lind might make it, that they are the culmination of 4GWs devolution of power to the lowest common denominator. I disagree. Once you reach the level of an individual or even a very small group, much of the importance of the moral level of warfare and legitimacy becomes completely irrelevant. Most SEIs will not or would not intend to survive the cataclysms they wish to set off.

To me, this perfectly highlights the problem that I have been wrestling with. How do superempowered individuals, or Super-Empowered Angry Men, represent Fifth Generation Warfare? Are they an integral part of the theory, or merely a tangential consideration? What is the relationship between the two? My conclusion: Super-empowered individuals are practitioners. Fifth Generation Warfare is a doctrine. This is how super-empowered individuals relate to Fifth Generation Warfare theory. Superempowered 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.

5GW and Command Cross-posted from . Command and Control (C^2) theory is very well developed for 1GW, 2GW and 3GW campaigns. Joint Publication (JP) 6-0 lays a solid foundation for communications between different elements of a joint force, and each uniformed service has well-developed doctrine with respect to C^2. [Note: I have posted an abbreviated primer on the generational model of warfighting methods at Oz along with links to other primers by Zen, Tdaxp and Soob.] In 4GW contests, C^2 becomes more problematic. Lines of authority are often blurred, and effective 4th Gen. warriors rely on mission-type orders (auftragstaktik) and operational empowerment seldom seen in more strictly regimented militaries. Similarly, 4GWs reliance on Mass one of the nine principles of war in conventional military thought is also dramatically different: allowing them to exploit a very small signal-to-noise ratio through dispersion in the general populace and leveraging commercial communications (mobile phones, IM, Internet) to convey intent or objectives. But where 4GW is primarily a moral conflict, there is something else something deeper that can be manipulated, influenced and exploited to achieve desired objectives. The morality of a 4GW campaign is not the most fundamental force that drives people and shapes their support for, or opposition to, or acquiescence to, a campaign. That distinction belongs to the context by which we perceive the world. By altering how the world is perceived, one can achieve what Sun Tzu called the acme of skill: victory without fighting. This raises some interesting questions. For instance, does a 5GW force require cohesion and unity of effort? (I have argued in the past that it does not rather, that a 5GW force becomes increasingly effective the more disparate its efforts become). But what does this do to the notion of command? We Americans love heirarchies rigid, singular command structures with no doubt whos in charge. But is such a command structure valid for a 5GW campaign? Or could a 5GW opponent be commanded simply through the naturally emergent behavior of complex systems? Is self-synchronization valid as a method of C^2 for a 5GW campaign? And is the notion of a campaign even relevant in this context? Or is our lexicon lacking in describing emergent methods of influencing thought and, by extension, limiting our actions to those that a faceless adversary allows?

Super-Empowered Individuals and 5GW: Heads,Tails, and Edges I have been working on a new post for the series on Super-Empowered Individuals and 5GW begun by Arherring; but his post has inspired thoughts I thought I would break out as a follow-up within the series. I began a comment in response to his, but it has expanded beyond the length of a normal comment and may include ideas requiring exploration separate from those he put forth. So this post will be in the form of an extended commentary on his. All quotations not otherwise distinguished are directly from his post.

On the positive side of the coin is the super-empowerment that defines, for example, the writings of Thomas P. M. Barnett and Thomas L. Friedman. In this sense of the concept, everyone has the potential to be super-empowered.

Yes. This type of super-empowerment comes from technology and connectivity but essentially from knowledge. Even more precisely, super-empowerment provides the ability to accumulate, disseminate and leverage knowledge. Like a tide that raises all ships, this is the kind of superempowerment that strengthens societies and creates opportunities. This is expressed as freedom, democracy, capitalism and international trade.

HmmmInteresting way of conceiving it, which fills a hole often left by TPMB. Dan and I once found ourselves in debate over the role of democracy in Toms vision: Dan: I think you overplay the importance of democracy in Barnetts system. Barnett is a materialist in the Marxist sense the economic infrastructure ultimately determines the social superstructure. CGW: Ysee, Barnett may have recognized the perils of pushing democracy upfront, but behind his loud drumbeat of markets, markets, markets, he may have always been chanting, democracy, democracy, democracy. The question is, has he fooled anyone in the GAP or New Core by beating those drums so loudly? More to the point of Arherrings post: CGW: Actually, Im beginning to form an argument that neither Barnett nor Bush nor Americans in general have adequately conceptualized the intimate relationship between capitalism and democracy. Dan: A post that adequately conceptualizes the intimate relationship between capitalism and democracy would be great reading! so is this consideration of super-empowerment a step in that direction? This positive super-empowerment empowers others.

Not sure of that, actually. Ideally, perhaps it does; in fact, I think it must empower most although it might not super-empower most. We run into the problem of the relativity of empowerment, and whether a super-increase for some might limit the increase for others even if they are nonetheless also somewhat empowered by whatever changes occur. These Angry super-empowered individuals also enjoy the benefits of technology and connectivity, but in their hands it is used to cause disruption and destruction, to harm rather than to help.

It is fundamentally a matter of choice. Given equal access to technology, knowledge, and so forth, what will a person do? Super-Empowered Angry Men usually justify their actions by adhering to a veneer of ideology that excuses them from the consequences of their actions.

Do the Super-Empowered Happy Men sometimes justify their actions by adhering to a veneer of ideology that demands they consider the consequences of their actions? This is a question digging at the root of the relationship between the Angry and the Happy within the system. This also may have a connection to the theory of Cheaters & Suckers (Altruists), and who will come out on top in a system with only Cheaters and Suckers. It may be that Grudgers in a three-way system do not bother worrying about the empowerment of others, to give it or take it away, except insofar as those others express, through word or action, an understanding of the Grudgers own empowerment and freedom. Question: If Grudgers are not proactive in creating empowerment for others, but only reactively acquiescent or reactively helpful in establishing greater general empowerment for all, then doesnt the onus of such establishment by nature fall on others? If Cheaters do not stand up for others right to empowerment and Suckers cannot distinguish relative merits when acknowledging others right to empowerment, what will become of a system when that system includes Grudgers who are aware of the Cheaters and Suckers? The question is important. Often when considering the original theory of Cheaters, Suckers, and Grudgers, those who use the theory assume that most observations of behavior within the system will be one-on-one and that this one-on-one interaction will lead to an emergent system that is predictable given a known proportionality of the constituent parts even if, or especially if, the individuals within the system are ignorant of the total proportionality. That is, the emergent system takes shape merely from the cumulative one-on-one interactivity, and that shape is not much in the minds of the individuals within the system while they are interacting. A similar style of viewing has recently been exemplified by Shlok Vaidya, when he gave his definition of 5GW: 5GW is what we label the emergent pattern formed by a distributed multitude of empowered

individuals acting in concert by acting in their own self interest, without any collaboration. [The Wizard And The Invisible Hurricane, August 1, 2007, emphasis added.]

In human behavior, when thanks to advances in information transmission Cheaters, Suckers, and Grudgers may become observable even though they are at a distance and not directly interacting with the observer, the relationships become much more complex. Any of these three archetypes may alter course on the basis of mere expectation of future interaction; and this expectation may or may not have a strong basis in fact, given the likelihood that many distant and disparate actors have never come into direct interaction with the observer making his decisions for future activity. It would seem to me that of the three, Cheaters and Suckers have the easiest time deciding future actions. The Cheater is going to cheat everyone a foregone conclusion and nothing he observes on the horizon need interfere with his general method of operation. The Sucker is going to forgive everyone beforehand, a decision that is made long before actual interactions occur: i.e., the Sucker is going to act on the basis of his ideology, come sun or rain. The Cheater may be acting from ideology, if he has developed an understanding of his own operational process consciously, but may well act merely on the basis of long-set orientation unconsciously. Even the Sucker may have internalized his own ideology to the point of having created an orientation which he follows unconsciously. The Grudgers calculations are greatly confused by the complexity of the system. Anyone who has already come into contact with a Grudger provides that Grudger important data for making future decisions relating to interaction with that other, but mysterious strangers observed at a distance suggest mysterious data yet to be acquired. In a complex and globalizing system, with waves of ramifications emanating from a distance, the Grudger will suspect that he must analyze the influence of distant others about whom he has precious little data and also, that he must proceed to act, not wait a minute longer, in reaction to distant others, for his own actions may have ramifications against them. The Grudger may ask, Do I help to empower them? What are they already doing to affect my own empowerment? The Cheater and the Sucker operate outside of time, in the sense that their orientations remain consistent come what may; but the Grudger is locked in the present (in this complex, globalizing world), always having to shift orientation in order to remain free and empowered. The basis and form of a Cheaters freedom and empowerment is his disregard of freedom and empowerment for others. The basis and form of a Suckers empowerment is his preemptive servitude. The basis and form of a Grudgers empowerment is his ability to analyze the situation. In a world of static, he becomes less empowered; and this may be why so many strategists and futurists are now exploring the utility of transparency. Shlok Vaidya may only see Cheaters and Suckers when he contemplates future dynamics, future emergence. He linked Arherrings post in this series with a reiteration of his definition of 5GW: Herrings onto my thinking on 5GW as the nonlinear total of the actions of billions of actors [Arherring on 5GW, Aug. 10, 2007.]

Besides the fact that a more accurate statement would be that Shlok is onto Arherrings thought e.g., Arherring and the founding D5GW contributors have long considered the manipulation of multiple, disparate actors, in multiple domains, to be a principle of 5GW theory; these disparate activities would lead to an emergence of a system shaped by the nonlinear total of the actions of billions of actors Shlok has continued to assume, similar to John Robb, that none of these actors would be cognizant of the system-as-whole or of so many activities of others quite distant from these actors; in other words, whether Cheaters or Suckers, all people continue to do their own thing while the system just emerges, and said emergence is all 5GW is. Whereas, said emergence has been happening for all of human history, as the systems have emerged on the basis of self-interested actors doing their self-interested things in relation to one another without understanding and knowledge of how distant and unknown activities would reverberate and have an effect on themselves. The folks in Europe had no idea a Black Plague was coming. The folks in Mexico had no idea Europeans were coming; nor, that the invention of gun powder, many years before, would play a role in their future. Some within each of those systems noticed a little more, having looked out upon the system as a whole, or upon as much of that system as they could see, and contemplated controlling or at least influencing the emergence of the next stage in the development of that system. Whether Cheaters, Suckers, or Grudgers, these individuals may have sought a super-empowerment that would enable them to shape the system in advantageous ways (according to their individual ideologies, or their ideas of a better world.) If super-empowerment is relative, we should have no problems isolating individuals within each of these systems who accomplished such grand influence; nonetheless, we may also isolate the limitations of their super-empowerment. Super-empowered individuals may choose to follow any doctrine they desire: 4GW, Global Guerillaism, socialism, tribalism, terrorism, anarchism or capitalism. [ibid., Arherring] The super-empowered Cheater, the super-empowered Sucker, and the super-empowered Grudger: given the basis and form of empowerment outlined above for each of these (provided, also, that a general empowerment on the basis of technology, connectivity, and knowledge will be the same for all), and given perhaps the intimated if unexpressed limitations on that empowerment for each, what sort of conflict resolution would each seek? Given static, what becomes of the Grudgers strategy, what becomes of the Grudger? And how are these three groups related to xGW theory? These are some questions Ill try to address in my next installment of this series.

Open Space Technology Are any of our regular readers familiar with Open Space Technology? I just stumbled onto that link and the initiative today, while working a sideline but important (?) initiative of my own in my ongoing Blogshares virtual corporate war. I stumbled onto it via another interesting site, Siona.com, who described Open Space by quoting Sustainable Sonoma County, Open Space Technology is a method for conducting meetings based on principles and values that enable innovation, problem solving, creativity, teamwork and rapid change. In Open Space, participants self-organize based on what is important to them, and as a result, are committed to implementing the changes they envision. Open Space may also be used as a tool for ongoing organizational learning. In Open Space meetings and events, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme or question of strategic importance. With groups of 5 to 1000working in conferences ranging from one to seven days, or in regular weekly meetingsthe result is a powerful, effective connecting and strengthening of what is happening in the organization: planning and action, learning and doing, passion and responsibility, participation and performance. From Sustainable Sonoma County and then going on to describe a self-organizing meeting, which might include a facilitator who would describe the type of meeting to the participants: A chime rings; someone stands. This is the facilitator. She begins to speak. I know you might be confused, or curious about whats going to happen, she says, But dont worry. By the end of the Open Space meeting, this mass of people will have enthusiastically organized themselves into dedicated committees. Everything that needed to be addressed will have been addressed. The necessary task forces will have been created. Not only will the group be positioned to again move forward, it will be enthusiastically inspired to do so. I was hooked into finding this page at Siona.com by reading, first, the introduction: I facilitate people in connecting to themselves, the organizations of which theyre a part, and to the communities in which they live. Im committed to the dream of a saner and more abundant world starting from within. My professional philosophy is based on the premise that prosperity and peace both personal and collectiveare brought about by the cultivation of responsibility and love. There is an unfortunate lack of attention paid to the value of radical responsibility. Nearly all of us desire change, be it in our lives, in our relationships, in our business practices, or in our financial positions. In order for any change to occur, though, it is necessary to take responsibility for making that change, and taking responsibility involves first accepting, fully, the situation as it is. Such acceptance is rarely easy.

Its necessary, though, and while it may not be easy, its certainly possible. And the results are transformative. Siona van Dijks bio, here, is interesting: Im obsessed with systems thinking, the evolution of community, open space technology, organizational development, and the brilliant beauty of individual subjectivities. Presence capitvates me; I take solace, and delight, in the insane intensity of immediate experience. Im enthralled by complexity and Im fascinated by people. My theme for this year is engagement. Im Zaadzs Synchronicity Coordinator; I work in the area of business development, community building, media relations, and corporate communications. And best of all, I write. Consider me the resident speaker of our shared visionand future. (Yes, that our includes you.) My weekends are often consumed with my organizational development, community building, and facilitation work, which you can learn about at my web site. And I love conducting unconferences; if youre looking for an unusual experience to make your next gathering more memorable, drop me a note. and more on Open Space Technology can be found at Wikipedia: While the mechanics of Open Space provide a simple means to self-organize, it is the underlying principles that make it effective both for meetings and as a guidepost for individual and collective effectiveness. The Law of Two Feet (also known as the Law of Mobility in settings where participants dont necessarily have the use of both feet) a foot of passion and a foot of responsibility expresses the core idea of taking responsibility for what you love. In practical terms, the law says that if youre neither contributing nor getting value where you are, use your two feet (or available form of mobility) and go somewhere where you can. It is also a reminder to stand up for your passion. From the law, flow four principles: * Whoever comes are the right people * Whatever happens is the only thing that could have * Whenever it starts is the right time * When its over, its over The organizing theme of an Open Space meeting is that people who care about the subject will come together. The initial meeting notice takes the form of an invitation, thus the people who have attended have chosen to be there and are willing to contribute. The objectives for the meeting and the time available affect design decisions such as whether action planning is included in the Open Space or not. I wonder how these ideas might be applied to the subject of 5GW, particularly the operationalization of fifth-generation warfare. (Not to mention: in creating resilient societies!)

Fifth Generation Starfish As Thomas L. Friedman describes in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, individuals are superempowered by their access to technology and connectivity, allowing them to act and interact globally. This environment gives them access to an open-source marketplace of ideas and the potential of organizing with others who share their attitudes and ideologies. These organizations may expand knowledge, share music and video, debate obscure topics or act on issues that their members feel strongly about, such as the environment, globalization, religion or politics. With this in mind there is the fascinating possibility for these groups to form and act toward a common goal, possibly becoming practitioners of Fifth Generation Warfare in the context of a decentralized organization. Imagine a Fifth Generation Starfish, engaging in netwar on a global stage. Imagine an organization that through open-source and parallel design methods incrementally manipulates systems and rulesets, swarming critical nodes and key decision-makers with multiple, self-organizing attacks that shape responses and influence actions by simultaneously eliminating and offering choices. Ideology and Doctrine: The glue that holds together the organization is its ideology and its doctrine. It defines why and how the organization acts, uniting it in common purpose and intent. Members are drawn together because they feel strongly about the purpose of the organization and have a vested interest in it. Fifth Generation Warfare doctrine imposes a long-term planning horizon and a strategic outlook, an ideology married to this sort of mindset has the potential to create powerful and lasting change. Open-Sources and Circles The basis of the decentralized organization is a networked collection of individuals who organize themselves into circle, cells or groups. Modern connectivity allows these circles to coalesce from like-minded individuals across the globe, pooling the skills insights and resources of people from many different cultures all united by their common ideology. Members may, in fact, belong to one or more circles, shapers of the organization as their individual skills and resources shape their methods. Parallel Design The goals of the individual circles in a starfish organization may be the same, defined by the ideology shared by the members of the organization. The doctrine may also be the same, guided by 5GW thinking. However, the actions of individual circles may be very different, especially if the circles use a parallel design model. The various methods explored through parallel design best capitalize on the available skills and resources of each circle. Members who belong to more than one cell may pass along information and knowledge throughout the network, reinforcing the methods that work and cautioning against methods that have proven unreliable or dangerous or just ineffective. Members may also be moved through the network to places where their skills are in need or may be better utilized. Security Starfish organizations offer a different sort of active security. This type of decentralized organization does not offer many targets of consequence and when attacked the loss of an individual arm (or circle) does little lasting harm to the larger organization. The starfish organization makes adjustments in its network and reorganizes, usually becoming more decentralized and consequently

more resilient in the process. Secrecy Starfish organizations have an inherent secrecy because, in a certain sense, each circle serves as a cutout for every other circle of the organization. Working according to 5GW doctrine this effect is reinforced as each circle organizes its own cutouts, pawns and proxies. Should an operation be traced back to its cell of origin all that is lost is an arm of the starfish, the rest of the organization is unharmed. Related Reading: The Lexus and the Olive Tree Thomas L. Friedman Networks and Netwars John Arquilla The Starfish and the Spider Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom

Ideology Cross-posted from Soob. What can drive a 5GW campaign? Whats its catalyst? What pumping engine hammers it out and spreads it forth? The Super Empowered Individual? Or the mastery of ideology? Ive talked before of mastering the media and how such mastery is divided from the influence we see in various 4GW efforts. Now Ill discuss the mastery of ideology and how those that could, hypothetically, master ideology are divided from those that are enslaved by ideology. That which divides the two is not so easily realized as it may seem. What of Osama bin Laden? Certainly the argument could be made that he has, quite effectively, mastered the ideology he professes. From his early years as financial kingpin of a propaganda initiative to encourage and invite Arab individuals to join the Afghan Mujaheddin (I.e. the creation of the Arab Mujaheddin via the Services Offices) in Afghanistan to his fomentation of al Qaeda in the nascent form of al Masada (the Lions Den) to the spectacular attacks on America on 9/11 bin Laden has seemed to profess a mastery of his own ideology. What divides him from the 5GW actor beyond the obvious and overt? He believes and identifies with the cause he puts forth. He is, like any follower of AQs counter geo-political cause, a fervent defender and acolyte of his own pious vision of Islam. In short, his own ideology enslaves not only the masses that follow his perverted course but also himself. His convictions and his ideology are one and the same. He has not mastered his ideology, rather been enslaved by his own fervent beliefs and so his ideological cause comes to be truth. He has, effectively, lashed himself to his own ideals. Ive tossed the fantastical idea (depending on which side of the Bible one stands) of the Anti-Christ as a 5GWarrior about before. For many will come in my name, claiming, I am the Christ,[a] and will deceive many. Matthew 24:5 With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. Revelation 19:20 In effect what divides the 5GWarrior from the powerful (even super empowered) like of Osama bin Laden is not the effect but rather the cause. In short, Osama truly believes the rhetoric he espouses to be holy and absolute. Contrarily the Anti-Christ is quite comfortable managing a massive influence and set of beliefs that he propagates as real yet does not, in the least bit, believe. The 5GWarrior presents a convincing ideology from a perspective of absolute emotional detachment and disbelief. You believe, he decides.

Curtis Gale Weeks said: Very interesting post. Im curious what others will say. Is it possible that the 5GWarrior actually does have an ideology he believes 100%, but its not the ideology or ideologies he propagates?

My thinking on this has been a little different from yours. Generally, I agree with you as far as the 5GW effort goes i.e., during the process of building the ideal or targeted system but that when all is said and done, the system that finally emerges will fit the 5GWarriors ideology to a T and most others will have internalized it as well. Its just that during this process, as the 5GW is ongoing, the 5GW master of ideolog(ies) will be master of so many ideologies held by others (even if he has to create them first!), and they will not realize that the end game will include their adoption of an ideology they havent been utilizing. Many will not even realize that the change has taken place, by the end of things.

Jay[subadei] said: Apologies for the vagueness of this post but its been bouncing around in my head for a while and a discussion in the forums sort of completed the circuit, if you will and I wanted to put it down as it came. Make sense? At any rate: I do believe the 5GW actor can have a cause. But I believe his cause will not be the ideology he uses to influence or as I put above, enslave. Much of bin Ladens drawbacks both as an effective 4GW actor and as a possible 5GW stem from the fervent ideology that encircles him. Its constricting and narrows his tactics. It makes him loud (consider this in terms of static) and the consequence of this has been the decimation of his organization. As horrific and spectacular as the murderous 9/11 attacks where they also served a harbinger for the disruption and scattering of what was a very effective 4GW network. Too loud. Contrarily the cause of the Anti-Christ is quiet. Certainly not benevolent to man but the ideology he wields (masters) bears the appearance of goodwill, thus the masses that follow. Present and enforce one set of values in an effort to achieve a very different conclusion that fits with or accomplishes your own goal or ideology. I have more to say on this but will stop for now and await further commentary.

Steve said: Ive been thinking about this a bit more, specifically how a 4GW actor (bin Laden) obtains his ideology and how a 5GW actor (anti-christ) does the same. For bin Laden, his ideology is derived from religion, which has been around for hundreds of years as a cultural phenomenon, so there is a limit to the ideological innovation that bin Laden can undertake. It is the external aspect of religion as an ideology that binds bin Ladens actions and enslaves him. Thus, as a cause, Id say this is more difficult to black box because so much of the basis of 4GW ideology is derived externally, from a historical/social/cultural context. For a 5GW actor, his ideology is far less externally derived and more internally dependent. Rather than being empowered by a culturally derived source, a 5GW actor is empowered by himself, or whatever outcome he is working to achieve. So then this cause can be black boxed because it far more prevalent in the mind of the actor rather than in the context in which he operates.

Culture Jamming as 5GW Tactic? From Wikipedia: Culture jamming is the act of transforming mass media to produce commentary about itself, using the original mediums communication method. It is a form of public activism which is generally in opposition to commercialism, and the vectors of corporate image. The aim of culture jamming is to create a contrast between corporate or mass media images and the realities or perceived negative side of the corporation or media. This is done symbolically, with the detournement of pop iconography. It is based on the idea that advertising is little more than propaganda for established interests, and that there is a lack of an available means for alternative expression in industrialized nations. Proponents see culture jamming as a resistance movement to the hegemony of popular culture, based on the ideas of guerrilla communication. Any thoughts?

tdaxp [typekey.com] said: I agree completely. When I was at the Basillica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception this summer, I saw a procession of shrines to the Madonna and Child. One in particular was fascinating, as the hand gestures and eyesight pattern seemed to be identical to Buddhist statues.

EU Integration a 5GW Swarming Project? From the article at The Economist: There is nothing new in claims that the EU is seizing power by stealth. What is novel is that they come from ardent supporters of EU integration. An early case was Valry Giscard dEstaing, a former French president who chaired the convention that drafted the constitution. Earlier this summer, as EU leaders gathered to salvage bits of his wrecked text, >b?Mr Giscard dEstaing publicly declared that the plan was to camouflage the big changes that his constitution had tried to set out openly. Public opinion, he said, will be led to accept, without realising it, provisions that nobody dared to present directly. After the summit had agreed to an outline of the new treaty, Giuliano Amato, Italys interior minister, who was a vice-chairman of the constitutional convention, hailed the way it had been given an unreadable new form, full of cross-references and footnotes. This, Mr Amato told a meeting in London, was done to help governments that were struggling to avoid dangerous referendums on the new treaty (in Britain, the Blair government had promised a referendum on the constitution). Now, said Mr Amato, a British prime minister could say: Look, you see, its absolutely unreadable, its the typical Brussels treaty, nothing new, no need for a referendum. Unreadible camoflauge certainly sounds like denying the target the capacity to observe that he is a target. If shrinking the gap might be a 5GW swarm-project for America, might not expanding the core be one for Europe?

Blogspotting 5GW:Four aides to Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani have been killed in Al-Najaf over the past two months The 5GW discussion is on Zenpundit: Four aides to Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani have been killed in Al-Najaf over the past two months, raising many questions as to the safety of Iraqs supreme Shiite leader and the motives of the perpetrators of the attacks. Zen notes: For example, it is still unclear which party (or parties) has been behind this series of assassinations, and to what purpose (or purposes).

Architects of the Future: The Socio-Political Entrepreneurship Style of 5GW Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemys resistance without fighting. [] Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemys troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field. Sun-Tzu (ancient chinese 5GW Theorist) The Second Style of 5GW after the Puppet Master (ref Pslog, D5GW) in my long neglected series, is the Socio-Political Entrepreneurship Style of 5GW. The S-P-E 5GWers (or whatever we should call them) dont wait for the future to arrive, they actively seek out to create and shape the future they desire. The S-P-E 5GWer acts out in the open (not in secret), but their true aims or expected/hoped-for consequences are closely held (secret) and/or at longer timespans then most folks consider or notice (theres the secrecy), or the effects are so broad/horizontal that the ramifications are overlooked by most. The S-P-E 5GW will be non-kinetic in war sense - or rather the kinetics will be widely dispersed. The S-P-E will with a creative impulse (perhaps even an ultimate expression of love). The S-P-E 5GW actor is a Super Empowered Individual or group of SEIs (where SEI = individuals super-empowered by their access to technology and connectivity allowing them to act and interact globally) who use entrepreneurial principles to initiate, organize, create, and possibly manage change in a target actor (state, institution, network) or the target actors environment to further the non-trivial socio-political goals of the 5GW actor. The S-P-E 5GW actor will employ and manipulate a variety of actors across a variety of domains to create changes that will have effects even after the 5GW actor is no longer actively participating in the changes. The SEI choosing the path of S-P-E 5GW may include (but not be limited to): * Super-empowered money actors (think Gates, Buffet, Soros) * Super-empowered media access actors (think Gore, Michael Moore, Kos) * Super-empowered idea/meme generating actors When you read of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood Projectthink S-P-E 5GW. When you read of the founders of American Cold War Strategythink S-P-E 5GW. When you read of Gap-Shrinking, Sys Admins, and creating capabilities through a DoEEthink SP-E 5GW. When you read of TDAXPs MISC ideasthink budding S-P-E 5GW.

Pattern Recognition Redux We have no future because our present is too volatile. We only have risk management. The spinning of the given moments scenarios. Pattern recognition. -William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

Wiggins (another name soon due for a redux; but thats a different post.) of Opposed Systems Design recently posted that quote from Gibson in a post exploring the ideas and writings of that futurist author: More Gibson Reading. I did not remember that quote from the book, but I was immediately reminded of two other things. My recent post exploring the subject of SEIs, Heads, Tails, and Edges, contained this nugget: The Grudgers calculations are greatly confused by the complexity of the system. Anyone who has already come into contact with a Grudger provides that Grudger important data for making future decisions relating to interaction with that other, but mysterious strangers observed at a distance suggest mysterious data yet to be acquired. In a complex and globalizing system, with waves of ramifications emanating from a distance, the Grudger will suspect that he must analyze the influence of distant others about whom he has precious little data and also, that he must proceed to act, not wait a minute longer, in reaction to distant others, for his own actions may have ramifications against them. The Grudger may ask, Do I help to empower them? What are they already doing to affect my own empowerment? The Cheater and the Sucker operate outside of time, in the sense that their orientations remain consistent come what may; but the Grudger is locked in the present (in this complex, globalizing world), always having to shift orientation in order to remain free and empowered. Very odd how the corollary suddenly appears, since I didnt have Gibsons idea in mind when I wrote that. I was stretching the limits of my metaphorization, viewing the present situation in terms of both, SEIs and the Sucker-Cheater-Grudger dynamic. I was also reminded, by this corollary, of an old discussion I had with Arherring at my blog Phatic Communion, in which we considered Gibsons Pattern Recognition through the lens of 5GW. The post has since been cross-posted to D5GW, but without the comments/discussion. I suppose, now, that the guerrilla marketing referenced by the character Bigend, and the effort to get others to become aware of something they dont quite yet know that they know could be tied to the quote given at the beginning of this post. Such marketing may help to provide the Grudgers with the analysis they cannot already make on their own. Get them to come to a conclusion about the present situation, and they can then act indeed, they will act, because they must. Its in their nature. Hmmmm

xGW Evolution: Purely Reactionary? Are the generations of war purely a response to developments within the earlier generation? To wit, is (x plus 1)GW driven primarily by a desire to thwart practitioners of (x)GW? Consider this: 1GW: Marked by regimental structure and strict discipline. Noted historians Keegan and van Crevald have attributed this to the advent of firearms, which create a need for more rigorous safety mechanisms. 2GW: In response to 1GW rank-and-file formations, fires are massed to shatter their cohesion. 3GW: Massed fires are countered by maneuverability. 4GW: Maneuver forces are proved inadequate in the face of an asymmetric adversary who exploits the full breadth of the maneuver space by denying sanctuary to 3GW units. 5GW: Moral and cultural warfare is fought through manipulating perceptions and altering the context by which the world is perceived. By presuming a measure/countermeasure approach to the evolution of warfare generations, does this imply that a given entity (be it a nation-state or a transnational terror organization) does not grow by single generations but rather by two generations? (Move, which begets Countermove, which begets Counter-counter-move.) The implication is that even-numbered GWs (0GW, 2GW and 4GW) have common antecedents, as do odd-numbered ones (1GW, 3GW, 5GW). And that a given warmaking enterprise should not focus on growing to the next GW, but rather to leap ahead ( (x plus 2) GW ).

Curtis Gale Weeks said: Wow. That last para is quite the thing! I think, though, that the leap is impossible until x+1 is defined well enough to inspire x+2; perhaps, the requisite motivation will be lacking, also, from a cost-benefit analysis. If you really need to defeat x, you might regret wasting the time to conceive, develop and operationalize x+2. does this imply that a given entitydoes not grow by single generations but rather by two generations? I suppose that will depend on the entity; but then we run into problems of defining and identifying entities. (Problems of identity; heh, going a bit philosophical here.) Time scales are important. For instance, if x+1 is able to truly harm x, x may never be in a position time-wise and finance-wise and mental- or morale-wise to develop x+2. Curtis Gale Weeks said:

I also think that the generational shifts are intimately tied to societal shifts. Leaping ahead of where the society currently is may be possible its called innovation but leaping ahead to the innovation-of-the-as-yet-non-existing-innovation may be quite impossible, to the degree that the general prevailing social structures must be able to support the gen. This consideration, however, prompts an interesting thought experiment, which was really considered once before somewhere about our neck of the Blogosphere: 1. If each gen must be supported by the prevailing societal systems, does this mean that societal system x must nonetheless be able to support gen x+1 if gen x+1 is to possibly develop? 2. To what degree will gen x+1 then alter the societal system, forcing it to become societal system x+1? (From which point, gen x+2 may become possible?)

Steve said: Im very ambivalent about whether or not evolution is a dialectical process. Each generation has always existed prior to their modern incarnations. Further, evolution is most likely linked to a specific societal state and not always about evolving past your enemy. To win World II, we developed a 3GW capacity that simply overwhelmed the Axis 3GW capacity. We did not evolve to 4GW because we had state structure that wanted to preserve its own survival. Offensively, 4GW would require some kind of 4GW German dissident that would develop a network and launch an insurgency, but in an all-powerful fascist state this would be harder to develop. There is something about the characteristics of the combatant that factors into which generation she may choose, some kind of analysis that asks the questions Who am I and Who am I fighting? Im not sure if this is a dialectic or maybe a teleogical process, about who the agent is relative to the structure in which she is embedded.

Hammes 5GW Redux: Via Phil Cross-posted from Soob. Phil of Pacific Empire recently attended a talk given by Colonel Thomas X. Hammes. Phils participation in the Q and A phase: My question was: in the generations-of-war framework, each generation should be able to defeat the preceding generation. How would a 5GW force defeat a 4GW force? The response wasnt entirely satisfactory, I thought. If 4GW requires globalization, 5GW could basically make it impossible by ending globalization. Other than that, Hammes seemed to think that the goals were so mismatched that the two generations wouldnt come into direct conflict (if I understood his response correctly). Hammes iteration, via Phil, on 5gw: The second part consisted of explaining his own view of 5GW, heavily influenced by his experiences commanding the response to the 2001 anthrax attacks. Some of the major points I got from this: -The size of the group necessary to be a threat has decreased. Groups of 5-6 people, or even a superempowered individual could do major damage, and are very difficult to track down (e.g. those responsible for the anthrax attacks). -Virtually all potentially violent groups oppose globalization in some way. Anti-globalization activists are a potential threat. -Militant environmentalists are another potential threat. As climate change increases and little action is taken, they will just get more frustrated, radical and violent. -But on the other hand, motivation doesnt matter that much, and even squirrelly types, social outcasts in a basement somewhere, could stir up mayhem for personal reasons. -It is getting easier and cheaper to manufacture viruses - could be as little as $20,000 in a few years. -Emerging threats include high-yield explosives, viruses, even nanotech. Targets could be unsecured fibre-optic cables to shut down Internet traffic, major ports to shut down world trade, or various other targets which are almost impossible to secure. -It would be almost impossible to guard against a smallpox pandemic, which would be devastating to a disease-naive world population. -The state is in decline - private military corporations, private militia in the US (i.e., security guards in gated communities), etc. -The government cant do much about 5GW on its own. Whereas 4GW required a whole-ofgovernment response, 5GW requires a whole-of-society response. Analogous to how spam, viruses and other Internet threats require a response from all Internet users.

PSYOP Auxiliaries: The Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group as Proto-5GW Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. There is a budding practical 5GW-ish thinker in the form of something called the Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group: PSYOP Auxiliaries must use all available assets to collect the wide variety of opposing information and propaganda existing in media. Avoid being lured by the obvious propaganda and missing the more subtle and potentially effective propaganda being disseminated. and. For about three years I have been carrying this idea of volunteer civilian infowarriors around in the back of my mind and Were going to have to counter the propaganda ourselves.[] We are going to have to blog swarm and harness the collective wisdom of Been There Done Thats to directly refute the misinformation and disinformation our own Main Stream Media partners with the enemy to deliver to us. They must be fisked, debunked, discredited, exposed, relentlessly between now and September, so that when the enemy pulls off their big mass casualty event just in time for General Petraeus Dog & Pony Show for Congress, we have already done an IO Preparation of the Battlefield and conditioned the target audience to be sceptical of the doom and gloom quagmire schtick. and This war is fought on so many levels. We can help our troops my waging our own counterpropaganda here in the states. Smith-Mundt doesnt apply to us. Democrat Senators cant deny us promotion. The House Armed Services Committtee cant defund our program. Were irregulars, and we do this on our own time, for free. and Well, heres your chance. There is no ASVAB, no PT test, no tickets you have to punch to be a volunteer civilian irregular information defense group operator performing distributed IO in denied battle spaces. All you have to be able to do is recognize bullshit when you see it and point it out to as wide an audience as you can reach. and IF we are to avoid another psychologically paralyzing loss of will like 1975, and its a big IF, the enemys supporters must be engaged, discredited, humiliated and silenced. We the People, those of us not subject to military justice, not vulnerable to having our promotions stalled by vengeful politicians, and not constrained by law from targeting domestic audiences, will have to perform the counter-PSYOP mission. and Are not the 101st Fighting Keyboardists a volunteer militia geek battalion? Could concerned citizens with computers not disrupt domestic anti-war, anti-military, defeatist, seditionist, fifth

column message boards and websites that are protected from DoD response? Could a volunteer Army of Davids, unconstrained by the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, the Hatch Act, or fear of being passed over for promotion, in coordination with but not under the control of the DoD PA/IO apparatus, actually be useful auxiliaries in the infowar?

The Weaponization of the Media Cross-posted from Soob. Ive spent some hours digging around the cyber-sphere in an effort to find and define the many references to the fifth generation of warfare. The cause of this being Curtiss newest online endeavor, the 5GW Timeline. A wiki like initiative that seeks to chronologically map online references to 5GW. In my travels across the vast expanse (vast beyond what Id expected, certainly) that entails the online sources mentioning 5GW, this latest bit that struck me via The Patriot Post: In fact, the media has effectively become an altogether different sort of non-state actor on the world stage. The fact that the media can even entertain the notion of affecting political outcomes because it wields that much power, leads to the next concept: The weaponization of the media. This is a dangerous tool and one that our adversaries have mastered. Conceptually, this includes but is different from aspects of psychological operations; and includes but is separate from aspects of information warfare. There are times when it is difficult to distinguish between honest disagreement, and disloyalty; a different vision, and sedition. Indeed, our Founding Fathers well understood the value of the press, and used it to their purposes. Hitlers propagandists were at least as skilled as our current adversaries. Yet government involvement with the media for the express purpose of controlling a known center of gravity the hearts and minds of the people is inherently and extremely dangerous, if one wishes to preserve free speech. Yet this is something with which we must soon contend, because our adversaries have no such constraints. Follow the link and at least skim the writings. Youll find that the author writes this in an effort to explore or espouse his own vision of what might well be into the 5th Generation of warfare. In essence, this fellow is an intellectual kindred spirit as we both have delved into the mastery of the media and the importance of the media regarding a 5GW campaign. Mastering the media means subverting and collecting its will, tossing it into your virtual ideological corner and then exacting your cause through it in an effort that ends in the general populace, or mainstream, conforming to and accepting your cause as reality. This bit of research is arduous but also rewarding and fun.

Should 4GW/5GW Theorist Be Against the State? Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. Commenter Mark Writes at TDAXP: I would have thought everyones interest in 4GW and 5GW would lead to the inevitable conclusion that the nation-state is obsolete and harmful, and is at the beginning of a painful death. One should welcome such events. What do you think will happen when Hillary or Obama (!) is president, there is world-wide deflation and a lost war? How much support for a dysfunctional, taxgrubbing, corrupt system will there be then? And who, if they are decent human beings, would support it? I am not anti-state. I do not want the US destroyed. The international state system (system between states) and the USA intra-state system are the best options for me and mine to achieve security, liberty, opportunity and enrichment. Does it need improvements? Sure. What are the alternatives? An earth patchworked with micro-domains of authority? Hey, is that what John Robb sees coming? Anyways, the System of the US creates the rules-sets that are best for security, liberty, opportunity and enrichment. The System of the World (the state system) is flawed and has much room for improvement: gap shrinking, less tolerance for totalitarian regimes, etc. If you can describe to me a better alternative and suggest how to maybe get there, and I will listen. If it makes sense to me, I will support it or at least try to improve upon the idea. 4GW and 5GW are means, not goals. Some global actors may want to use 4GW or 5GW (along with other tactics) to destroy the state system (or at least benefit themselves) and replace it with something else (unless they are postmodern anarchist, others may want to strengthen it. I think the various 5GW theory bloggers are in agreement on certain things but also disagree on others. Some seem to be liberal, some conservative. I dont sense that any are hard left or hard right, or are anarchists. I am interested in 4GW because that is what is being practiced by the enemies of my country and those opposed to the state system. The US is slowly getting better at it. I dont think 4GW is full expanded or figured out yet. I am interested in 5GW because: 1. I am interested in context of the world as it is, as it is becoming, and as it might be 2. I am interested in what the the next-next thing will be 3. I am looking for a way to counter opposing 4GW actors with something other then just more 4GW. 4. Hey, maybe I can be super-empowered too.

Right now, I define 5GW as: 5GW is secret deliberative manipulation of actors, networks, states or any 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 2GW, 3GW and 4GW powered actors, networks and/or states. There is nothing inherent in that definition as being anti-state.

Curtis Gale Weeks said: Should 4GW/5GW Theorist Be Against the State? Im reminded of a recent reference to Hammes, which is related: that he implies that the only way to destroy/defeat 4GW forces is to end globalization. While I think that may be one way, if it is done in a hyper-destructive manner similar to global Armageddon (and this could be a bio assault), I think that way leads out of the generational model. For more, have a look at my post on the OODA and EBO. To sum up: 1. The definition of EBO needs updating to remain useful; but it will remain useful, if it is updated and broadened. 2. In fact, each generation of the xGW model needs to be understood as a method of war which focuses on a different kind of EBO. 3. The reason we have a theory of EBO (or should have one, provided the theory is expanded and updated) is simply a) that we want to meet objectives through the creation of effects which will take us there, and b) because we are unable to utterly and absolutely kill every member of an enemy host/population. 4. Therefore, absolute destruction should not be considered a type of EBO, nor should it be considered to fall within the framework of xGW; and any theory which either postulates such destruction or is built upon the notion of the likelihood of such destruction automatically falls outside xGW. But to tie, if loosely here in comment form, this notion of EBO/xGW to your question, there are two points to be considered. 1. First, that the anti-state description of 4GW is purely Linds (and his disciples), and I would say that that description places undo burden on the theory in fact, corrupts it beyond usability or meaningfulness. While it may be one aspect of a type of 4GW, and while it might be said that nearly all 4GW forces will be against some particular state at some point during their campaign, I do not believe this should be taken as a sign that 4GW is fundamentally against all states everywhere forevermore. 2. Whereas 4GW does seem to have as its focus destructive capabilities even if for a time only against a particular state or states 5GW as characterized on D5GW will have as its focus construction. The destructive modus operandi and the constructive modus operandi are fundamentally different, although I suppose they may be intimately connected, or both practiced by the same group but with one subordinate to the other.

The notion that 5GW must be anti-state is probably a holdover from a misconceived and misconstrued and severely limited concept of 4GW, perhaps descending from the strong advocacy by Lind et al. [ is Lind practicing 5GW by using it?] Steve said: Curtis mentioned how Hammes suggests that really killing 4GW actors requires ending globalization. Instead, maybe it requires a 5GW solution that completes globalization, and completes connectivity, in the Barnettian sense. Recenty Ive been reading the failed state lit, a lot of stuff by Will Reno and Paul Collier. They describe how belligerents motivated by greed tend to see conflict as an equilibrium phase, much in the same sense as Robb discusses GGs. These guys tend to capitalize on the anarchy in their environments by denying the provisioning of public goods. If one thinks about connectivity as a public good, these GGs are monopolizing connectivity by using their dominant and predatory network position to force all other social actors to go through them for access to things that are locally scare and can only be acquired through global networks. If a state existed, it could guarantee connectivity as a public good, and prevent predatory actors from forcing society to go through them for globally acquired items. In doing so, states guarantee a minimum base of connectivity for all citizens, and prevent any one person from becoming so empowered that he de-empowers the rest of society. So, by completing the spread of the state as a social institution across the globe through 5GW means, we prevent 4GW/GG actors from developing their own anti-state or state-within-a-state networks because the state allows all individuals to feel sufficiently empowered. A lot of this plays on a previous post Curtis made awhile back, about empowerment as freedom from responsibility and freedom to be responsible. So while Im unsure about 4GW as possibly being fought between states, the Barnettian 5GW is absolutely pro-state, and in fact seeks the triumph of the state.

Our State-Without 5GW in Iraq Cross-posted from tdaxp. A military force that fights the a war in modern warfares fifth generation that is, a 5GW Army, focuses on altering the rules of the game so that the fighting of lower-generational forces proceed in a way favorable to the 5G force. The US is now actively fielding what it hopes is a 5G force specifically, the MNFI is transforming into a State-Without 5GW Army. In his testimony (of which I have a pdf copy thanks to the Small Wars Council and ZenPundit), General David Petraeus describes his view of Americas role in Iraq as 5GW in everything but name: The fundamental source of the conflict in Iraq is competition among ethnic and sectarian communities for power and resources. This competition will take place, and its resolution is key to producing long-term stability in the new Iraq. The question is whether the competition takes place more - or less - violently. The United States, and thus the Multinational Force - Iraq more generally, are fighting the statewithout kind of 5GW.

Thinking- and Non-Thinking 5GW Recommended Reading Mark Safranski, ZenPundit 9/11: The Mouse that Roared Nonpartisan, Progressive Historians Interesting back-and-forth at ZenPundit. Mark linked the article on Progressive Historians in his weekly highlight, spurring a negative comment from D5GW contributor Dan tdaxp which in turn spurred a little horizontal speculation from yours truly. You can read the article written by Nonpartisan. Essentially, through a sensationalizing metaphor and purple writing, Nonpartisan has declared that 1) those in America most terrified of terrorists following 9/11 are the elephant petrified by the mouse, and 2) 9/11 was really no more than a bee sting against America by any metric you can imagine which nonetheless has had a profound effect not only on American psyches but also on Americas entire future: The metaphor of the mouse and the elephant is particularly apt here, for of course a mouse cannot really strike in any significant fashion at an elephant, yet the elephant is so irrationally afraid of the mouse that it becomes completely paralyzed by the very sight of him the powerful beast takes on the ultimate animistic visage of a coward. Long after we are all dead, historians will look back at this sorry state of affairs and ask, why? Why did America abandon its promise at the very moment it had the economic and political power to really accomplish something great in the history of the world? Why did the Americans not simply ignore the terroristic mouse, or use the international goodwill 9/11 gave them to promote a world order of lasting mutual peace? And they will turn sadly away from this historical epoch, knowing that the only answer to their query is that too many Americans were, incredibly, afraid of the mouse; too many, like Orson Scott Card and Zell Miller, were even more afraid of the mouse than of the real threats America faced. They traded their unique opportunity in exchange for petty vengeance because only that vengeance could ease their fitful, irrational nightmares. [Nonpartisan, 9/11: The Mouse that Roared] The essay, which also compared the Top Ten Causes of Death, 2001, as computed by the CDC, with the death total from the 9/11 attacks, prompted Dan tdaxp to comment at ZenPundit, The underlying claim that deaths from thinking- and non-thinking- opponents are comparable for the purpose of analysis has been dealt with elsewhere. If that was the entirety of the post, P.H. would have presented us with a boring repetition of claims many years old. [Dan tdaxp]

To which, Nonpartisan replied with this comment: Dan, the underlying claim of my post is that we lost the War on Terror by allowing it to divert us from our previous world goals; I use the actuarial data only as a segue into that broader point.

[Nonpartisan] My first thoughts when reading the essay at Progressive Historians besides thoughts about Orson Scott Card, which I wont address here were bi-fold: First, I remembered a similar comparison I once made on my blog Phatic Communion. In Deaths by Human, I compared all deaths caused by foreign terrorists globally to deaths caused by homicide in America for the year 2003 (Americans killing Americans.) Essentially, murders in America were about 7 times the number of deaths caused by terrorists in that year. I have frequently thought that the 9/11 murders, the falling towers, etc., though extremely horrible were a kind of bee sting: America is very large, very powerful, quite capable of coming out of such an attack scenario at the same relative strength as before the attack. The second thing: a comment by Alan Sullivan to a different post on Phatic Communion, in which he suggested that 9/11 fit the bill as far as 5GW theory goes. I had replied to his comment that, yes, rather than sap the will of so many Americans who never realized we were already fighting radical Islamist terrorists (4GW), 9/11 initiated so many counter-moves by the U.S. as America began to realize a larger, previously unknown narrative existed. Nonpartisans thesis seems to be that our psycho-emotional response to 9/11, as expressed through action (OODA), has hurt America far more than the actual 9/11 attacks hurt America in themselves. With these two thoughts in mind, a third entered my thinking: Dan tdaxps thoughts concerning thinking- and non-thinking-opponents. I have had in the back of my mind the possibility that alQaeda, at least at bin-Ladens level, might have 5GW aspirations; but I have also thought that whatever aspirations he and his closest advisors may have, al-Qaeda is very unlikely to have the sort of resources, connectivity, and sophistication to fight in a 5GW style (at least as of 9/11). Nonetheless, one can make an argument, I think, that 9/11 has had 5GWish repercussions: not only the drain on resources, morale, and military readiness caused by the war in Iraq, but also the political fracturing that has only been exacerbated in America since the invasion of Iraq to a boiling point, actually. In fact, bin Ladens latest meandering video may be an attempt to inject even more noise into the political fracturing or indeed the national narrative of America. But I doubt that al-Qaeda had as much foresight as 20/20 hindsight would ascribe to them. Was 9/11 a 5GW attack? Or does it even matter if it was/not? Dans injection of the thinking- and non-thinking-opponents meme, in combination with these thoughts, inspired me to comment on ZenPundit with a question: Question, though, since Dan brought up the thinking- and non-thinking meme: Is it possible for a 5GW effect to occur by accident? Ha, imagine: thats the ultimate in formlessness! But I mean, basically, that al-Qaeda may have intended a kind of 4GW sabre-rattling and 4GW attack but accidentally achieved more of a 5GW jujitsu kind of attack. Or perhaps in other words, a different way of thinking about it: Is this how 5GW will be discovered and then refined and ultimately utilized by some actors on the world stage?

TPMB: Against Newt, for 5GW Newt wants his Long War to be a shorter, Big War, but the reality is that the integration processed cannot be magically sped up. Globalizations spread and impact is way beyond our control at this point in history. We will deal with many small wars that it unleashes, but we cant bundle them all up into a single notion. Were no longer in that unitary state world, but a networked one that gets built one node at a time. Petraeus effort is seminal and does show the way. Theres just no shortcutting history with a rousing call to arms. In short, we should be exploring what 5GW means, not adding 1GW + 2GW + 3GW = 4GW.

Thomas P.M. Barnett, September 11, 2007. So, Tom, explore. Perhaps its time for another personal dream of 5GW(or at least an update?)

Dispensational Premillennialism Lo! and Behold! a blog post on Thomas Barnetts blog caught me off-guard, because it was something I had never expected to see there: The end times core teaching of Protestant fundamentalism. Dispensational refers to dividing the faiths sacred history into distinct periods, called dispensations. Premillennialism is the view that Jesus will soon return, defeat the Antichrist and establish a thousand-year reign of peace. Put together, you have a package quite similar to the Shia faith concept of the 12th or hidden imam whose return signals a similar and universal period of violence followed by salvation. TPMB, Dispensational premillennialism, 9-14-2007 That is opening a can of worms for the vocal 5GWer. I am a bit surprised for another reason, given that Id recently linked a Barnett post in which he says 5GW must be explored and had said, So, Tom, explore. The surprise is in the fact that his very brief consideration of pre-trib theology recalled to mind one of my own blog posts on the subject called 5GW and Christianity: that may be the only 5GW post from my blog Phatic Communion that I consciously avoided cross-posting to D5GW when I set up this blog. A little too inflamatory, perhaps; a little too metaphorical or horizontal; a subject I did not want to become mired in. My general thesis: that to combat encroaching secularism and various modern mysticisms, John N. Darby with help from a 15-year-old girl who lived in Scotland and spoke in tongues came to theological conclusions in the early 19th C. that he would spread, birthing a counter to the secularism and mysticisms. And, that this was a very 5GW move (even if not entirely conscious. [HT: Soob]) Darbyism is a short term meant to refer to dispensational premillenialism, or pretrib rapture, an eschatology which claims that an end-time rapture will precede the Second Coming. It is the most familiar Christian eschatology, but before 1830, it was virtually non-existent. Previously, for nearly 1800 years, most Christians believed that the rapture would happen simultaneously with the Second Coming; after 1830, and thanks primarily to John N. Darby, many Christians have come to believe in a rapture which precedes tribulation and a Second Coming that follows tribulation. John Darbys revelation occurred after, among other things, a visit to a 15-year-old girl in Scotland who began speaking in tongues and delivering prophetic messages. <snip> Therefore, pre-1830 Christian eschatology, by stressing the present crisis of good vs evil the present tribulations and by not excusing believers from this Tribulation, placed responsibility on the believers for the maintenance of the Good in the present world and enforced the idea that present good works would be rewarded when Jesus returned, during the Rapture. Present good works would also lessen the Tribulations for their fellow humans and for themselves, primarily effected through the Church or at least through Christian faith and Christian works. After 1830 and the birth of pre-trib, most evangelical and fundamentalist believers in Christianity assumed that

Earth was prophesied to go to Hell in a handbasket, anyway, whatever they might do; and, because true believers would be rescued in a Rapture before the Tribulation, their primary responsibility was to ensure self-survival by becoming born-again while their secondary responsibility was to enable others to become born again so that they, too, might escape the Tribulation (rather than merely escape Hell after the Second Coming, as with the amillennialists.) Need I draw the necessary lines? Pre-trib believers have less reason to improve living conditions on the Earth. In fact, such millennialists tend to advocate good works only as methods for earning self-survival, or of being rewarded rescue from the Tribulation. Insofar as a believer can be sure of his own Christianity define it however he will he can safely anticipate rescue from Tribulation and a place in Heaven. But everyone else will receive Earthly punishment before receiving Hellish punishment. Some critics of pre-trib dispensational millennialism point out the fact that current political pre-trib movements to fight abortion, gay marriage, and other hot-button issues are hypocritical, since Earth is destined to fall into evil indeed, the Tribulation is punishment for that evil, and any success in removing abortion, etc., from contemporary society would stall the Tribulation or avert it entirely. But Christian dispensational millennialists might say that fighting these causes will count on their transcripts when Jesus comes to decide who will be rescued from Tribulation and admitted to Heaven even if they and their Christ are fully aware that Earth will sink into evil, leading up to the Tribulation, no matter what they do in the present. That is likely to cause some consternation, if any who believe in the pre-trib eschatology are reading this. But 5GW co-optation requires that those co-opted believe they are following their own will. They know how to judge things; they can act on their own judgments without fear of damnation: When dealing with a complex society formed of multiple networks, efforts toward fulfillment of imperial designs cannot be expected to take root if expressed openly. If the members of that society operate with faith in individual freedoms after a long history of such faith say, America they are more likely to expect freedom of interpretation, as well, when approaching theological and philosophical studies: a major strike against a centrally dictated path toward salvation or security. This may seem paradoxical when considering the widespread acceptance of pre-trib Christian eschatology in America. But consider who is allowed to judge whether the individual has been born again and what that individual must do in this life to achieve such status. Consider also the extraordinary number of Christian denominations in America who believe in some form of pre-trib eschatology even though they may vary in idiosyncratic ways. In 5GW, you want individuals making those personal judgments and definitions, because whatever they do must be judged, by them, to come from them: their choice. [to accept Jesus Christ, etc.] Similarly, by breaking up communal activity forcing the highly individualistic, personal decision for self-preservation before Tribulation (to be born again) you also forestall the development of potential competing networks of socialist and amillennialist Christianity (or some other form.) In essence, a 5GW force may influence the target to become either self-forming [into the form/community you already want them to assume] or un-formed and perpetually chaotic [distraction.] Furthermore, the efforts of those who are not pre-trib, Christian and non-Christian alike, are much less important than the individual effort to become and remain born-again. This separates pre-trib cultures from the rest of the world, since they no longer need to evaluate present circumstances involving these others, their own personal salvation remaining key to their world view. (Essentially: rampant individualism and, at worst, rampant solipsism.) Whatever and, I mean, whatever defines personal salvation becomes the most important consideration, so

whoever or whatever can promise that or help to achieve that becomes valued and may be given a free rein. Also, in pre-trib eschatology, the Tribulation and Millennium are not now but some future date; this means that the stick or carrot whichever way you look at it is always before the individual to keep him moving. They do not have to worry so much about their neighbors, but must remain focused on their own salvation. In order to co-opt at the outset of pre-trib eschatology i.e., circa the last half of the 19th C. the Darbyists had to compete with secularism and the American Way. Threats of Hell and damnation were not enough, even as they seem to be not enough now to avert conversion to secularism. Increased trade and capitalisms advance, and the ability to travel more freely (then: railroads; now: so much more), combined with the Bill of Rights and the expanse of the West in America which could allow religious experimentation the post also addresses the origin of the Mormons, briefly meant that too much could sway a believer away from the Way. So to co-opt, religion had to incorporate individualism. A believer only need declare he is saved; he knows he is. He has felt it. He has accepted Jesus Christ as savior. And who can say otherwise? Rather than dispute the fact, the 5GWer only need say, Glory be! Another is saved! The believer is no longer judged to be saved or Christlike by his works; no, but by his declaration of his own acceptance of Jesus Christ as savior, which is a very subjective metric. These two points are a softening up of the target society. The third important 5GW aspect of pre-trib eschatology may be seen as a natural result of the first two or an extension of them. Because the world is already doomed to evil, pre-trib adherents are often welcoming of signs of that doom. Depending on the interpretation of various signs of the End-Time delineated in the Bible, state action or even NGO action may be supported which appears to bring about those occurrences. This would be an extension of the first two. A natural result of the first two would be something a little different: worldly nihilism, since nothing in the present can matter much, or be valued, when a kind of earthly hell is already inevitable (for all those not born again.) Other signs will be missed. Or dismissed. Ignored. As the 5GWer will want, since you cant have the observation [of OODA] of your co-opted hands in the field disturbed by things that may lead to different conclusions, different activities, a different end-point. The subjective world keeps churning out the same program as long as the metrics remain the same. Im abridging the original post severely; it is a very long post. I commented at TPMB (though the comment hasnt appeared as of this writing), that the pre-trib theology seems to be exactly the opposite of what Tom is trying to do and what he believes.

5GW Mention: August 19, 2003 WASHINGTON, Aug. 19 /PRNewswire/ Afghanistan, Israel, and Iraq are all at risk, says Robert David Steele, a national security veteran and expert on 5th generation warfare. The U.S. has the wrong national security paradigm in effect-the Cold War heavy metal military paradigm, and it is slated to lose Afghanistan, Iraq, and perhaps even Israel in the mid-term. Homeland security is at risk as well-the glaring weakness of the critical infrastructure is likely to encourage terrorists already within America to attack electrical transmission towers and water or fuel pipelines across the country. Steele, who has written extensively about unconventional and non- traditional threats, and about the intelligence and national security capabilities needed to deal with them, is among the first to speak of 5th Generation Warfare.

Link. Found via Google News search. From Wikipedia: Robert David Steele Vivas (b. July 16, 1952 New York City), is a former Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer for twenty years and was the second-ranking civilian (GS-14) in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988-1992.[citation needed] Steele is a former clandestine services case officer with the Central Intelligence Agency.[1] He is the founder and CEO of OSS.Net, Inc. as well as the Golden Candle Society.[2] Steele also was a member of the Adjunct Faculty of Marine Corps University in the mid-1990s.

Leverage Factors Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. I just started reading The Meaning of the 21st Century by James Martin this evening. What I read on page 10 and then page 11 jumped out at me: Leverage Factors In this book, I use the phrase leverage factors to refer to relatively small and politically achievable actions - such as minor changes in rules - that can have powerful results. There are many examples of leverage factors: A tiny catalyst can cause a major chemical reaction, for instance. Antitrust laws have a major effect on the evolution of capitalisms tendency toward creating monopolies. Injecting a tiny amount of vaccine into our blood can trigger our immune system to produce enough antibodies to make us immune to disease. Most harmful momentum trends have leverage factors that could help us avoid much of the harm. [] We need to separate in our minds the momentum trends and leverage factors from the overwhelming noise of smaller issues. By identifying them we can think about how to make the future better.

A 5GWer when planning a campaign, should look for leverage factors to maximize effects while minimizing costs (effort, money, resources, security/deception/secrecy activity).

4GW/5GW Game: The Takedown of Sam Adams and John Hancock Early in my blogging attempts I wrote a post called 4GW/5GW: The Takedown of Sam Adams and John Hancock. It was inspired by a blurb in US News and World Report about a counter-insurgency class at the Armys Command and General Staff College: During a recent visit, we learned that Schmitt has his students test strategies on the Red Coats move against Sam Adams and John Hancock, an act that helped spark the Revolutionary War. His question: Could Sam Adams and John Hancock have been discredited by nonmilitary actions? Could they have looked at nonkinetic ways to address the Colonies grievances? So, here is the 4GW/5GW game for all of you: How could the British have taken on the American proto-insurgency with 4GW/5GW to hang onto the colonies (without magic or hi-tech breakthroughs). You can read mine if you want to critique it. It was written early in my 5GW thinking, so it is more 4GW then 5GW. Submit your take in the comments, or post it at your own blog (but please leave a comment with the link - dont depend upon trackbacks). Update: I decided to include my analysis and recommendations with this post after all. Here is the results of my solitary brainstorming on this (in the context of 4GW and 5GW). Background British vs. a North American proto-insurgency * Similar Culture/Heritage * Long Communication latency between North America and London/UK * North American Colonist consider themselves British * At most 33% of Colonist really want full independence (maybe less in the 1774/1775 timeframe) * Colonist are merchant/merit/Capitalism driven * British are hereditary/hierarchical/Mercantilism driven * Both sides want profit * Colonist belong to a wide variety of churches without coordinated top leadership * Britain is mostly Church of England

* The Colonist have newish intelligence service (Committee of Correspondence) and loosely coupled Independence-minded patriotic societies (The Sons of Liberty) How could a sort of British Pro-Consul defuse the situation (which is being politically led by Sam Adams and John Hancock)? Here are some of my ideas: Release Steam * Roll back some of the repressive acts that have the colonist agitating * Minimal Parliamentary participation for each colony (No Taxation without repreohright thennever mind) * Utilize a strong Crown appointed Governor and a weak (but non-token state legislatures * Create a North American High Court of Appeals to handle judicial appeals (with judges from both Britain and the Colonies) * Create a Kings Commission for Grievances and Petition for North America (have both Colonist and Britons serving on itco-opt Sam Adams time on this) * Remove one Regiment Garrisoned in Boston to outside of Boston. Reposition the other regiments to a coastal fortress. Create a joint colonial/British constabulary to provide policing functions. Recruit/Integrate Colonial Officers into the British Officers * Re-enforces British identity * Gives a positive (to Britain) outlet for martially minded colonist Trade Reform * Dont treat America as a second class trade partner * Move to free trade (away from Mercantilism) * American energy can be redirect toward profit (as we are naturally inclined) Divide and Conquer * Create (and manipulate) a mild anti-slavery society/movement to wedge Northern colonies from southern colonies

* Create (and manipulate) a mild Indian Friendship society/movement to wedge eastern colonies from western colonies * Use/manipulate Freemasonry in the colonies to increase universal Englishman Sentiment * Create (and Manipulate with money through Loyalist) local patriotic organization as an alternative to the various Sons of Liberty organizations * Infiltrate the Committee of Correspondence through spy trade-craft * Manage Agents of influence State Legislators and other public leaders through trade-craft * Discreet/shame/compromise/entrap key folks to destroy their public credibility * The above also necessitate the create a British/Loyalist Intelligence service and an even more secret smaller version (sometimes the actions of the first will give cover to the second). We are All Englishmen * Create a Secretary of State for North American Affairs * Creation of North American High Court * Create a Kings Commission for Grievances and Petition for North America * More opportunities for Colonial gentlemen in the British Army * Establish a UK wide Holiday to Celebrate North American. Have a major dignitary visit the Colonies each year around the time of the holiday (e.g. the King, Crown Prince, PM, Deputy PM, other princes, the 1774 equiv of Lord Mountbatten) * Slots for Americans based on merit at British Universities * Offer Sam Adams a teaching job at Oxford for 2 years with a large large stipend * Create an American campus extension (like the various American University campuses around the world) of Cambridge or Oxford to build colonial candidates for an English-style Civil service emphasising administration, engineering, natural philosophy, diplomacy and English identity. Last Resort Create an Operation Phoenix on the proto-rebel American Leadership disguised as a crime wave of some sort (or pirate attack or something).

What Openness (in Open Source) Will Really Mean/Do or Networks Redux. Whereas network theorists often begin with the assumption that definite pathing can be observed, assessed, and defined when studying social systems, I began with a look at the way individuals operate and interact and the resulting emergent systems. Network theorists may believe definitive networks exist connecting these individuals, but in so doing they often make the mistake of believing that what they have discerned to be stable routes and routings i.e., networks can be understood to exist regardless of the individuals using those paths. I.e., to define a network is to believe that such interaction between individuals is prefigured by the available routes of data transmission. Furthermore, a corresponding faith in perpetual and definable concrete connection often lies behind the frameworks posited by network theorists. Connectivity is assumed to exist between persons who interact, yes, but such connectivity is thought to be resilient, perpetual, and largely unchanging (at least for a short duration, but often assumed to last for longer durations.)

CGW, Interlude: Static Visualized, Conceptualized, Jan. 2, 2007. Regular visitors to Dreaming 5GW and my personal blog Phatic Communion may be familiar with my skeptical arguments concerning the issues of networks and connectivity. In particular, Dan tdaxp of tdaxp who is not only a regular reader but also a contributor to D5GW! may remember a long, drawn-out debate which resulted from a post on PC called Social OODA Loops / Networks! The debate continued in Some Words on Determining Social Network and Mark Safranski of ZenPundit even had occasion to remark on a PC post called Rule Sets and the Revised OODA this: Important point though - network IS not an analogy or a metaphor as they relate to human social networks. They are an actual network subject to the same rules as a network on a smaller, nonhuman, scale. I believe those three early posts, or at least two of them if memory serves, were not incredibly wellwritten and may have meandered. (I remember one of them with dread, from memories of trying to re-read it!) Dan and I have even gone rounds on discussions of Christianity, particularly concerning some words attributed to Jesus, in a post I wrote for PC called Water, Tao, and Jesus that item is quite related to the subject of these other posts and the subject of this current offering. My skeptical quandary involved the difficulty I have had with reconciling observations of human interaction and individual human activity the human, being with the mechanics of computer networking: We see and may trace definite connections between computers these are merely cause & effect chains but if we run a hula hoop around individuals who are connected in conversation or connected financially we will see that they are not in fact connected in the same way. Computers are simple machines with a limited and simple support system the things which allow them to connect, from electricity to wiring and even their own computer chips, and their very limited environment when considered alone; humans are not so simply constructed and

maintained. That is a severe abridgment of my skeptical point of view, however, or a bare summary meant to avert the sort of meandering my earlier entries exhibit. I have approached an exploration of said skepticism by revisioning the OODA loop, expanding the concept of EBO through a look at distinctions between the operation of reason and omnipresent cause & effect, and in many other ways, attempting to find what I mean. More recently, I have claimed that memes do not travel. They are not transmitted. They emerge, and I have contemplated the possibility of meme-based networks a term I first encountered at PurpleSlog using the idea in D5GW posts like Memes as Nodes in Complex Interactivity and Emersonian Circles. Yaneer Bar-Yam is a name you will find sprinkled throughout some of those previous considerations. In the post quoted and linked at the beginning of this post, I even used a finding Bar-Yam reported, concerning a kind of shifting hub involving email usage, to conclude: These network theorists may finally be realizing that so-called networks do not lead to the emergence of activity so much as that activity leads to the emergence of networks and that these actual connections are transitory, ephemeral, constantly changing. Any established network may in fact be merely a fossilized account of activity rather than an ongoing account of real activity. We must not equate the architecture with the activity, because they are separate things. [CGW] I wonder if the old connection is a prime example: The link I used when I originally quoted information about the report no longer leads to that item! Page not found. And of all things, the site is called, The Cooperation Commons! Perhaps the item has shifted to somewhere else.* This post, itself, may be exhibiting such shift, since Ive begun to meander although I did not intend to meander! So I want to conclude, for now, with a list of items for further consideration; these are things I meant to address here and now, but Im short on time and my mind seems to be constantly contemplating them and unready to lay them out in a hierarchical, rationalist sort of way. 1. Ive previously brought into question the distinction between open source and static as used by theorists like John Robb (open source) and myself (static). 2. I had a thought recently: * Considering how modern religions may be Darwinian i.e., survival strategies that have worked just as other -isms might be survival strategies I suppose; * and considering how shifting environments may mean that some ideologies, though once propitious, may ultimately fail in the face of new concrete paradigms; * and considering the dynamism of OODA, in which meme-plexes may alter the concrete environment via human activity and altered environments may alter meme-plexes; * and considering the dynamism of globalization the many avenues, increasing in number, or channels and conduits for directing various concrete and real powers as well as the growth spurt of new social networking mechanisms (so-called networking, that is); * and considering the possibility that the dissolution of more rigid types of connection well-delineated channels; conventional means resulting from severely limited means may well mean that many old meme-plexes are simply no longer viable survival mechanisms (because they developed in collusion with old channels); for instance, this may influence issues of trust and loyalty, not to mention the much-derided notion of the nation-state; nor, rulesets; not to mention, definitions of family; then * what will happen if the promise lets say, the latent potential of such things as wireless ad-hoc networks (and of course, mobile ad-hoc networks) becomes a reality in fact?

* I wonder if the boys and girls of Trace Systems have already tackled this one; and am curious what Kurzweils response would be. I can guess John Robbs response; I just wonder whether it goes far enough. 3. If we are going to consider the possibility of meme-based networks, why not consider the possibility of gene-based networks? I throw this one out to Dan; heh. But seriously: If extreme technology-enabled openness of the communication/cognition type occurs, such that the only real nodes become memes; and if, as Ive drawn in my revised OODA, a significant portion of the dynamic new information feeding into the Abstract OODA is genetic information; and if this information produces shift in meme-based organization; then we must consider how common genes and gene-plexes may create meme-gene-based networks. Or some such. Until, or unless, Shloks 6GW and 7GW emerge

* Note: The link to the article reviewing Bar-Yams findings no longer works, but the paper itself, From Centrality to Temporary Fame: Dynamic Centrality in Complex Networks, can still be found: link to pdf. The opening introduction includes: Local hubs have a power law degree distribution over time, with no characteristic degree value. Our results imply a significant reinterpretation of the concept of node centrality in complex networks, and among other conclusions suggest that interventions targeting hubs will have significantly less effect than previously thought. which should interest those who contemplate security issues for the future.

Wiggins of Opposed Systems Design has a meaty post on Info Militias and 21st Century Peoples War on Chinas efforts to create Internet Brigades (really, a term relating to Russia) and other things: a new kind of peoples war, or really a new fashion of same. For that matter, this sort of effort wouldnt even need to be aligned with a state. Imagine an online campaign (like the movements to put red ribbon .gifs on blogs to show support for AIDS research or click here to donate links) where an explicit or a secret component of the movement was making each members computer a part of the movements personal zombie net. Explicit support might be a bad choice, since it would make members vulnerable to charges of supporting hacking with no offsetting benefit. A better strategy might be to have members download an information orientation package or some such material that would include the trojan. Members would then have deniability (Im just a victim of another nasty trojan!) and the group would still get its zombie net. A small team of skilled hackers could then use these resources to further the groups policy goals.

Over at his blog, I wrote: The qualitative break would be on focus: an 4GW campaign would attempt to weaken some enemy, while a 5GW would attempt to change the rules of the game in which enemies are faced. That said, the ultimate difference truly is one of degree: every higher generation involves wider dispersion of kinetics. and Mark responded: Im not sold on that. First, I think its an arguable trendline ( and you have argued it) that depends on using a particular yardstick for kinetics. Secondly, I think there are a number of possibilities for emerging 5GW ( as well as the possibility of 5GW being a varied phenomena) though shaping the battlespace is, I agree, one of them. Defintions are vital. This blog famously is developing a definition of 5GW even writing a wiki article on the subject. Without definitions, one is stuck in a William Lind-style monologue, with your main theory ever emerging and never useful. Marks post raises the problem that two different things need to be defined: The xGW model and 5GW in particular. The definitions, to be useful, have to explain variation and be falsifiable. So what next?

5GW Makes Use of Another Dimension to Conflict: Institutional Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. In all of xGW, conflict can be thought of as having these as dimensions: * Grand Strategy * Strategy * Operational (aka Boyds Grand Tactical) * Tactical Starting with 3GW and especially with 4GW, three other dimensions where acknowledged and became useful and used: * Physical * Moral * Mental The idea is you can win in the physical dimension but lose still overall in the moral and mental. I have been thinking the past few days that 5GW will make use of another dimension that was not really used in a non-trivial way for 1GW through 4GW. That dimension is the Institutional. Since definitions matter, I will use this definitions for institutions: Institutions are the humanly devised constraints that structure human interaction. They are made up of formal constraints (rules, laws, constitutions), informal constraints (norms of behavior, conventions, and self imposed codes of conduct), and their enforcement characteristics.[Ref: Douglass C. North Nobel Lecture]

I think A 5GW actor can achieve victory by winning the conflict in the institutional dimension (mastering the institutional dimension), even if they lose or draw in other dimensions. I have proposed four 5GW styles: Puppet Master 5GW, Socio-Political Entrepreneur 5GW, Memetic Engineering 5GW, Strategic Citizen 5GW. The Institutional dimension of conflict comes into play strong with the the Puppet Master 5GW and the Socio-Political Entrepreneur 5GW, less so with the Strategic Citizen 5GW (though I fill now more when I blog the concept fully), and perhaps not at all with the Memetic Engineering 5GW style. TDAXP has proposed three kind of 5GW: insurgent 5GW, state-within 5GW, and the state-without 5GW. The last two of those (and perhaps all three) will utilize the institutional dimension. So, what do you think? Is this a useful concept? I think this can help explain how 5GW is different then 1GW/2GW/3GW/4GW. Steve said:

This is an interesting way to conceptualize xGW, especially if the theory is limited warfare by states. States are institutions themselves, and the role of this dimension may vary depending on which generation is involved. 1GW through 3GW would have a relatively common institutional dimension that increases in intensity; states use their institutions to mobilize resources (materials, labor) and develop purely coercive means (military forces) of violence that do battle with the means of other states. States-as-institutions competed on the battlefield, and so they didnt seek to break down the institutions of the other state, only defeat their institutional outputs and demonstrate their superiority of force. Institutions have a different role in 4GW because it is moral warfare, and wants to destroy the will to fight of an opponent that possesses superior force. They might be thought of as the targets of 4GW, as they are used by transnational insurgencies to transmit public sentiment to state decisionmakers that hurts their political self-interest, and by domestic insurgents that attack the social underpinnings of the relationship between state and society. Economically, this means denial of public goods, objects generally produced by the state by its institutional configurations. (Robbs Global Guerilla might fight into this as it seeks decentralization and debureaucratization) Either way, 4GW works to weaken or create tension for state institutions that cannot be resolved by the coercive means available to the state. Instead, and as PurpleSlog notes, 5GW is about using (and building upon) the social institutions of the enemy to achieve a desired outcome, without the enemys awareness that were using their institutions for the self-interested motives of the 5G actor. RyanLuke also mentions this, discussing how getting the enemy to self-impose a code of behavior is the most subtle. It becomes a subconscious aspect of individual behavior, but it becomes socially imposed upon society through specific institutions. If this is how institutions matter in xGW, then there are several implications. First, something profound happens between 3GW and 4GW, and institutions-states go from fighting each other with armies on battlefields to actually undermining the institutions that produce those armies. Van Creveld captures this with the Rise and Decline of the State. However, 5GW might instead be thought of as a renaissance in terms of the use of institutions, one that regularizes them with other institutional arrangements.

Politics and Imperatives A couple of recent links to D5GW: Phil at Amicable Collisions linked our Soros post with Political Activism as a Form of War. While I do not agree that the only use for an xGW model is primarily in showing the sequence of emergence of different forms of war, the idea that the linearity implied by the generational model may be inaccurate for describing different types of conflict is one that has been expressed often, more often recently than ever before. Phil makes a very interesting point that save for 1GW, the previous generational styles continue to be viable options for anyone wanting to engage in conflict, and also that choices will depend upon the prevailing conditions for any particular conflict: So the sequence of emergence over time is irrelevant. Today we can wage the forms of war identified in the generational model as 2G, 3G, and 4G, but not 1G. With the exception of 1GW the emergence of the succeeding generations did not make the previous generation obsolete, rather they gave war-fighters more options for waging war in different circumstances and for different purposes. That may be a new spin on the xGW theory but is not altogether new, since even Lind argued that many features of succeeding generations are holdovers from previous generations. A qualitative shift is not a complete break; then, would the possibility arise that whatever innovation defines x+1GW might occasionally be unnecessary in some conflicts, leaving the fighter fighting with x+1GW that just happens to look largely like xGW (in a particular conflict)? I have been using the term conflict so far, because several of the more prominent (!?) theorists now contemplating the xGW model have long folded into their considerations the idea that politics has emerged as an important component of warfare. Quite possibly, politics has always been a component of warfare, but to the degree that socio-economic demands have forced would-be fighters to abandon the highly kinetic, in intensity and/or focus, methods, politicking has inherited some of that intensity and focus. A socio-economic influence might be the relative lack of a large economic infrastructure for some 4GW fighters thus demanding styles of fighting which are asymmetrical or else a general public squeamishness over the use of force for resolving conflicts. Interestingly, these can go hand in hand, with one force using asymmetrical kinetic attacks against another force that must tip-toe around the use of kinetics due to some squeamishness on their side of the system: not only does the squeamishness prevent a symmetrical response, it produces the result desired by the asymmetrical warrior when he places kinetics front-and-center for the squeamish publics viewing. Phil introduces this idea of a shift toward the political arena and extends it: As this phenomena continues to evolve, what would, in the past, have been wars fought with armies will be conflicts fought through non-violent political activism, without a battlefield component at all. This idea is one Ive brushed before: that 5GW may ultimately become socio-political conflict, alone, although such a dynamic is far from actualization at present:

is it possible that this is the desired paradigm? I.e., 5GW conflict in which few die but some rise while others fall, unbeknownst to the majority, in largely non-violent conflicts? [Dreaming 5GW: In Surround Sound] When I consider the possibility that 5GW will be the last generation of war as Ive only recently written for all to see, this is the sort of thing I have in mind (but not the only thing!) Phil folds the preceding considerations together to wonder, first, whether such entirely non-violent conflict should be called war an oldish question for many of us and, second, whether we ought to take a closer look at political activism, perhaps with an eye for distinguishing different types of political activism, similar to the way we discuss xGW for warfare. Dan tdaxp, A.E., Thomas Barnett, and I myself have contemplated different types of political maneuvering that might fit the bill; but Phils call is very interesting for the fact that he would eschew the xGW framework, and any consideration of the styles described by the theory of generational warfare, and look at politics itself. I.e., whereas the aforementioned theorists find a place for politics in xGW, as if politics is merely one tool of warfare, Phil calls for a better understanding of political activism simply because politics is apparently becoming a primary method for resolving conflict. What if the prognostications are correct and we find ourselves in a world in which 5GW has fully come into being, nearly eliminating large-scale violent activity for resolving conflict? If politics in the broad scale (including media, entertainment, blogs, social networks, etc.) becomes the style of conflict, might we benefit from a more thorough understanding of the various ways such conflict may be conducted? [Incidentally, that last question has me suddenly remembering PurpleSlogs recent post elsewhereparticularly also a comment made there by Colin. Linked again below.] Even if that actualized ideal 5GW dynamic takes its time in coming, a better understanding of political maneuvering may greatly help us to understand what makes us win or lose other styles of conflict.

Kents Imperative has linked the 5GW Theory Timeline, a post at PurpleSlog, and Shlok Vaidyas blog with Intelligence for the sixth generation warfighter. A frequent theme at Kents Imperative is this: What of intelligence? The assumption is first made, accurately I think, that much old-style intelligence gathering and analysis is and will be inadequate; then, that we must consider how the intelligence community must adapt to the present and the future world. A recurring theme at the blog. Adapting to the future world now may be a problem, for reasons given in the linked entry. Nassim Nicholas Taleb is paraphrased by Kents Imperative: In this, we would crib Nassim Nicholas Talebs analogy that in order to predict current events in Mesopotamia from the perspective of the Neanderthal, one has to understand the invention of the wheel first, and every subsequent technological and social change after - an impossible task, given that if one has the knowledge to predict an innovation one usually has the concept required to build it sooner rather than later.

You would think, perhaps, that I would have great affinity with Taleb, given my moniker here (The Skeptic) and Talebs introduction of himself at the last link: My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who donthave the guts to sometimes say: I dont know. Perhaps I do. However, I have often said that a true skeptic must also be skeptical of his skepticism! I.e., even skeptics can be dogmatists. (I hope youll contemplate that koan.) While adding entries to the Timeline, I came across one from ZenPundit that contained an argument that I had forgotten: 5GW Reloaded: Reflecting on 5th Generation War Concepts. Mark suggested as much as Kents Imperative: I do have an important caveat in pondering Dans excellent 5GW work. What he and other commenters have or may have discerned about 5GW is less than what 5GW will comprise when it is fully realized and a generational shift in warfare has taken place. We have to hold out the possibility that attacking the enemys intellectual strength and secrecy as proposed by Dan and my longitudinal vision-short execution and shaping the battlespace may end up be less significant than aspects of 5GW that have yet to materialize. Societal shifts by 2050 or 2080 are likely to be sizable - perhaps more extreme than the changes that occurred from 1860 to 1945 - and these shifts will produce new advantages and conditions that may favor defense over offense. I would say, instead, that the Neanderthal may have safely predicted that humans would still kill humans in 2007. One thing I have only once written on the blogosphere while discussing 5GW (I think its only been one time), and only in passing, is something Id propose now. Arherring and others have been adamant about ruling out the advent of new technologies as a driver of generational shift, while yet others have based their concepts of xGW largely on the technology available to any given era or force. I am ambivalent vis-a-vis that dichotomy. I believe that technology is certainly an enabler of conflict, and I am certain that those who fought only with their hands, feet, and teeth most generally fought differently than those who threw stones, used sharp sticks and spears, and fought on horseback, etc. This is common-sensical, and I am often amazed that it is dismissed from some theories. xGW must take into account everything in existence at the time of conflict, whether some things are broadly addressed and others take center stage. Let me propose this: that the preeminent weapon of 5GW the preeminent tool for conducting 5GW will be the human. That is a tool that has only dimly been understood, which accounts for the sloppy use of it pre-5GW. But 5GW will refine its use. I suppose the tool can change, or be changed in the future, with various modifications made; but I also suppose that as long as humans are human, there will not be a generation after 5GW. I dismiss for now contemplating the advent of intelligent machines that were never human and any conflict with intelligent extraterrestrials.

Funny Thing Timing Cross-posted from Soob. Over eight decades after the Ottoman slaughter of some one and one half million Armenians the US Congress has seen fit to introduce a bill that will define said Ottoman endeavor in a most accurate fashion applying the label genocide. Why the sudden interest in a near century old atrocity? According to Nancy Pelosi: because many of the survivors are very old.

One could toss that explanation into the category of political subterfuge. Whats most interesting here is not the very obvious recognition of Armenian genocide but the timing of this sudden geopolitical epiphany. Turkey has long struggled with the Kurdish/Marxist separatist group, the PKK and in recent months began amassing military power along the Turkish/Iraqi border in preparation for possible crossborder operations designed to repress or destroy the PKK network that exists (in much the same fashion of the Taliban in western Pakistan) within Kurdish Iraq. The interesting bit is this piece of legislation comes about (in a very publicized fashion) at the same time that the Turkish parliament is hashing out whether or not such military operations will take place. The Democrats seem to be running what might well be defined as a very nascent 5GW operation against what will be the political 800 pound gorilla should they ascend to Executive power: The inheritance of the Iraq war. Knowing full well that the most efficient route to ending the Iraq war (a strict redefinition of the funding) leads to political suicide the Democrats are increasingly more reliant on more subtle designs for usurping the increasingly flagging popular support, both domestic and geo-politically, for the Iraq war. Through a political stunt that has, on its face, the compassionate recognition of travesty the Democrats might well deliver three mortal blows to the Bush administrations Iraq policy: 1. The effective severance of a very important strategic way point in terms of supplying the war effort. Turkish military leaders have promised military relations with the US will never be the same again and that America has, by proposing this bill, effectively shot its own foot. 2. The erasure of what is/was the only success of American policy in Iraq from Bush Sr. to Bush Jr. A stable, democratic, pro-American Iraqi Kurdistan. 3. Yet more ideological ammunition for al qaeda as another non-Arab military with an oppositional strategy to the current occupying non-Arab military enters en force into the fray. Political collapse within Iraqs rather tenuous government. The Bush administration and fellow Republicans are relegated to somehow denying the Democrats initiative and at the same time showing a degree of recognition and compassion for what was genocide. In this respect one belligerent entails the moral message but with a destructive agenda (the collapse of current Iraq policy.) The other entails a morally repugnant (denying a very obvious genocide) message but with an agenda that hopes to maintain the hard fought for and built infrastructure for a war. The anti-war crowd has handily mastered the media both through political spin and the unsung American idiom that Bad News is Good News in terms of marketability. By seizing this apparent axiom the Democrats have built a sound domestic framework for taking apart the Iraq war in terms

of popular support. This latest piece of legislature might well prove to be the final blow as it very effectively concentrates on dissolving the strategic framework for much of the Iraq effort.

Offloading and 5GW Lately Ive been reconsidering the term offloading and finding great correspondence with other terms frequently used on Dreaming 5GW: * cognition * OODA * co-optation * freedom * globalization * resilience * consilience * open source * static This will be a very long post; so if you are reading this from the front page, Ive put the rest below the fold Offloading offload or off-load v., -loaded or -loaded, -loading or -loading, -loads or -loads. v.tr. 1. To unload (a vehicle or container). 2. Computer Science. To transfer (data) to a peripheral device. 3. Slang. To get rid of and pass on to another: He does come close to offloading some of the blame for the launch on the dear old media (Meg Greenfield). v.intr. To unload a vehicle or container. Answers.com

offloading - the utilization of the fiscal framework to shift financial responsibilities for services from one order of government to another Indian and Nornthern Affairs Canada, glossary.

offloading Definition 1 Unloading of cargo from the transporting vehicle or vessel. Also called discharging. Definition 2 Selling gladly at the offered price.

 BusinessDictionary.com

TCP/IP offload engine In recent years, the communication speed in Ethernet systems has increased faster than computer processor speed. This produces an input/output (I/O) bottleneck. The processor, which is designed primarily for computing and not for I/O, cannot keep up with the data flowing through the network. As a result, the TCP/IP flow is processed at a rate slower than the speed of the network. TOE solves this problem by removing the burden (offloading) from the microprocessor and I/O subsystem. The manner in which TOE is implemented depends on the needs of the customer. Considerations include flexibility, scalability, and performance. Network performance and scalability are optimized with application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) implementation. Network flexibility is optimized with processor-based implementation. SearchNetworking.com My take, from a previous discussion on D5GW: Freedom from and Freedom to freedom to be responsible for A, B, and C, may mean freedom to not have to hassle with X, Y, and Z. To the degree that we are each quite limited, with only a small range of operational and observational capability, and are therefore restricted to some A, B, and C unable to be all places at once, as it were then freedom from having to worry about D, E, and F, would be beneficial. (Worrying about anything but A, B, and C would distract us from those, or limit our ability to be responsible for those efforts.) Naturally, this would raise some serious questions about the natures of democracy and capitalism. The vote is a kind of salve for our limitation, by which we delegate responsibility for X, Y, and Z to others. This delegation in turn produces a system 1) that is characterized by very indirect chains of cause & effect, in which individuals may only claim indirect and weak responsibility for X, Y, and Z, if even that; and 2) that allows individuals to disregard X, Y, and Z, as being none of their concern or in fact quite foreign to them, perhaps opposed to them. Cognition and OODA I have previously given an example, via my re-tooled OODA diagram, of three general kinds of activity: 1. Impulsive Activity 2. Focused Activity 3. Reflexive or Habitual Activity Generally speaking, #2 and #3 follow a cognitive act of understanding, memorizing, etc.; meaning, that we consciously decide to act a certain way after we have built an understanding of circumstances (2), or in fact over time we may develop habitual or reflexive manners of reacting to circumstances (3). D5GW contributor Dan tdaxp would perhaps refer to #3 as automaticity:

Automaticity - taking in information and perform a task automatically - rearrange minds, exploit implicit guidance & control - enables fast OODA cycling - relation to fingertip-feeling [Cognition & Instruction in the Context of Human Struggle, tdaxp] #1, impulsive activity, results from an interruption of the OODA process. Information cannot be processed, so no mental act resulting in understanding, memorization, or ideologizing may occur. The introduction of (new) information cannot be synthesized with prior learning, either because its presence is entirely unanticipated (does not flow from a prior conception of prevailing circumstances) or else because the information is quite foreign to the individuals prior understandings of the world. E.g., a type of EBO operation that is quite kinetic which came suddenly (without any forewarning; i.e., unexpected but not entirely new data), could leave the target in a state of shock, unable to process what is occurring, or else might provoke impulsive acts reminiscent of a chicken running about once its head is cut off. Alternatively, consider a party-goer who arrives at the party with a pre-plan to woo the party host, and succeeds in leading said host into the bedroom whereupon, he discovers that she is a he: the impulsive act may be leaping from the bed or something more violent. (Unexpected and entirely new data.) Both reflexive/habitual acts (3) and impulsive acts (1) result from a habit of offloading cognitive processing and are in fact quite related by this feature. The reflexive/habitual actor offloads onto the environment and other individuals: he does not have to consciously process, or rationalize, related prevailing circumstances, because his cognition depends upon unchanging, familiar circumstances. Other actors in his environment are expected to act in expected ways. The impulsive actor also depends on unchanging and familiar circumstances; but his fault is the offloading of cognition, onto other actors and environmental conditions which he expects to remain the same but do not. The focused actor offloads least. He consciously considers other actors and the environment and chooses a course of action based upon what he has seen; he takes responsibility for his own cognitive processes. However, these are archetypes being considered, and one might often find a focused decisionmaking process which operates by viewing other actors and the environment in habitual ways rather than purely objectively this, incidentally, may describe the impulsive actor and the habitual/reflexive actor, both, but is more likely to describe the impulsive actor. (The habitual/reflexive actor, operating with automaticity, is far less likely to analyze circumstances consciously, or rationally.) Co-optation, Freedom, and Globalization Offloading responsibilities becomes necessary in a globalized world. Specialization will reach its apex, having begun very long ago with guilds and so forth and moved through the assembly-line specialization of industrialization. A great reason for this is mere complexity and the interconnectivity which further globalization brings: we do not wish to drill for oil and refine it ourselves; we need others to do this, which means we need others to secure those resources as well. To secure resources, we need technicians who can build satellites, technicians who can build rockets to deliver the satellites, and technicians who can map out oil fields and military forces, etc., based upon the imaging delivered by satellites. We need diplomats and warriors for negotiating how said

analyses will be used. We need ship captains and ship crews, drilling and refinery crews, truck drivers, gas station attendants, and so forth to deliver it. We need auto makers to supply us with the machines that will use it. We need investors to keep plugging money into the necessary specialized corporations. And so forth, for nearly every item we want or need. Much of the activity upon which we rely is entirely hidden from us or so masked by static i.e., the criss-crossing and interdependent activities of unknown specialists we have no choice but to offload responsibilities, cognition, powers, etc. Naturally, the more we offload responsibilities, cognition, and powers, the more likely we may question our individual freedoms. I am not free to do whatever I like, no matter what, if I am also dependent on others having the responsibility and power to deliver the products I need or desire. I cannot shoplift whatever I like whenever I wish; no, I must respect the rules that the given store and governments have designed for the transaction process (or suffer the consequences of my actions). I am not free to watch cable television until I have bought a television, subscribed to cable, and paid my electric bill which necessitates more than respecting the rules of transaction with those suppliers; it necessitates respecting the rules of my employer as well (who, it might be said, must often follow a similar but different set of rules himself.) In a similar vein, the primary argument against the ultimate Global Guerrilla force is simply the fact that Global Guerrillas must follow a chain of rules not entirely created by themselves if they wish to move freely and freely acquire the weapons, etc., they need for their activities: a complete destruction of The System would be like suicide. (However, asceticism, or the elimination of many needs and desires, might mitigate this. But then, how shall they defeat The System which continues to produce these extra tools and abilities via extraordinary offloading of powers and responsibilities?) In such light, co-optation is almost a redundancy. Within The System, or at least the extreme globalized version (The System v2.0), we are already co-opted. This is what President Bush had in mind after 9/11 when he told us to continue shopping and taking vacations. This is also what Thomas Barnett has in mind when he says, Shrink the Gap! Interestingly, the old American idea, that we cannot be free unless others are also made free, may answer the question of offloading and freedom and co-optation: greater general freedom may result in a larger number of hands in the field for each person, or more sources for offloading our needs and cognition. We give them powers and responsibilities so that we need not worry overmuch about X, Y, and Z although to be sure, we depend upon the successful operation of X, Y, and Z. Resilience and Consilience Once while contemplating resilience, I came to the conclusion that resilience would not be enough. Resilience, which means bouncing (or jumping) back, requires a generally unchanging dynamic, or in other words, ossification. A point or condition to jump back to. And ossified things can be easily broken. Some who prize the idea of resilience alone are conservative thinkers, not to be confused with the conservative political theory although to be sure, there is overlap. Conservative thinking might be tied to the OODA and cognition discussed above: The attempt to create unchanging environments and actors who operate within severely defined & expected limits is an attempt to create a world in which automaticity may predominate. I.e., a world in which reflexive and habitual activities never lead to situations which provoke impulsive acts but are entirely dependable. On the political front, we might find many such thinkers on either side, the Right or the Left: each is guided by a set of principles, or beliefs about the objective world, and each would make others accept those and only

those principles. Wouldnt everything be nice if that could just happen? Then we could offload responsibilities and powers secure in the fact that, well, the world will not change in unexpected and unsatisfactory ways. Offloading the discovery and creation of new principles is a much scarier enterprise, especially because activities arising from those principles may alter the world in ways which require us to alter our own principles; however, consilience, or pro-active resilience, may demand it. As I previously wrote, On the etymology of the two terms in question, I would like to point out that resilience always requires a unifying principle or set of principles ossification, protocols, consistent world views, etc. because these things are a precondition for jumping back. There must be a back to jump to. When disruption happens, the resilient entity is not quite changed by that disruption; or, lets say that even if the entity is changed, the change does not obliterate the routines & protocols & principles, which have thus far guided the entity. Those routines are capable of being continued, even if the milieu has been altered through disruption, and can be continued even if other rules have changed for the entity. I suspect, however, that a highly dynamic milieu, of escalating disruptions, will have this effect: as rules are changed, the set of reliable protocols will continue to diminish, until a singularity is reached. That singularity is the tipping point for the resilient entity, because beyond is a future in which no guiding principle exists. However, social consilience offers the benefits we normally associate with democracy, free market capitalism, liberal education, etc: when more entities are able to define guiding principles for any given entity in the network, or influence the definition of guiding principles, there exists the possibility of an ever-renewing, refreshing set of guiding principles. But really, this line of thinking re-introduces the subject of freedom into the equation. Given the complexity and interdependency within a globalized system, no individual has the power to judge properly what is required for X, Y, and Z but that individual engaging directly with X, Y, and Z. Furthermore, dis-allowing the creation and formation of principles by those at a distance who are actively engaging X, Y, and Z, would be like shooting ourselves in the foot. Or the hand. So it seems that we must be willing to offload that responsibility. Open Source and Static On the one hand, offloading responsibility within The System may seem to make perfect sense. Open source initiatives recognize the strength of co-opting many to help build The System. No single individual can be all things at once, i.e. On the other hand, we cannot yet say that a System actually exists; no, but there are many ideas of what it is and how it is shaped, many Systems (each trademarked by the believer!) So we see the difference, or may see it, between open source and static when in fact, those two terms go hand-in-hand. The explosion of sources of principles and activities, when those sources are each quite limited in their activities as well as cognitively, may lead to static endeavors. Ive long put off the correlation between static which is viewed as static and static as an unchanging dynamic, although the correlation has often tweaked my brain. We cannot consciously offload responsibilities and powers to those we do not see, who act and believe in ways we do not know or even misunderstand. Is part of our own individual responsibility

the act of assessing those others before we decide to offload? Or do we offload automatically whenever we turn our eyes from those others or otherwise fail to see them? Is there a static system in fact although the open-sourceness causes it to appear dynamic and chaotic? Offloading has obvious advantages and automatically creates hands in the field. However, determining what those hands do may require a more conscious method of offloading. The obvious paradox is this: If offloading works precisely because no one person can hold in mind all that occurs within The System, how is said person supposed to be able to understand the others within The System, and the various and multifarious circumstances well enough to make a rational decision about whether to offload responsibilities and powers? Given static, how can we trust to open source? Offloading and 5GW The obvious answer, though perhaps vague, seems to be this: Open source works when, despite static, a very general System is held in mind by each actor, or a common goal, though vague and quite general, is held. In all likelihood, that goal will be, Good for myself. I.e., individual actors may be motivated to work if, and only if, they can have some faith that their own actions will lead to benefit for themselves. This may mean that each continues to view a System which is not The System but is rather a subset of The System; alternatively, perhaps a vision of The System itself a glimmer may be communicated to all. In fact, a 5GW campaign will probably attempt both: delivering the glimmers while altering the individualized visions bit by bit. In any case, no 5GW organization will be able to operate without offloading. There is too much work to be done, too many domains. The greater dispersal of kinetics goes hand-in-hand with offloading.

XGW: Left of Boom - Right of Boom A New Point of View on the Relationship Between Kinetic Action and XGW.

The Generations of Warfare model is most often viewed as a progression. The term generation itself reinforces this, implying the process of one leading to another. As a result, many of the concepts we have studied in our explorations of 5GW in particular, and XGW in general, have their roots in this step-like or ladder-like point of view. A prime example is the consideration that each successive generation is specifically designed to circumvent the relative strength of the immediately previous generation. Another example of progression is the observation that the higher the generation of warfare used by an organization, the more generally dispersed the kinetic activity will be. This point of view contains a great deal of merit and shows consistent results and patterns that help theorists grasp the underlying truths the model contains. However, there are other ways to view XGW that can offer valuable insight.

A New Point of View:

Imagine a continuum in the form of a timeline. In the center of the timeline is a fixed point that represents kinetic action, or the Boom. To the left of the Boom are events that influence the kinetic action. To the right of the Boom are events that are influenced by the kinetic action. When the operative actions, or the actions that embody the distinctions between each generation of XGW, are placed on the timeline relative to the Boom a very interesting and somewhat striking pattern seems to emerge. The Operative Actions of XGW

1GW Operative Action: Organization and concentration of mass to move toward or from key points on the field of battle.

Hannibal to Napoleon, the great captains of history knew the key to victory lay in attacking into and from, or holding, the key points of the battlefield. To do this most effectively, they organized their army, and the force represented by its mass, in order to most effectively and efficiently accomplish this. The organization and placement of mass in 1GW puts it just to the left of Boom on the continuum.

2GW Operative Action: Destruction of an opponents mass in order to weaken the opponent to the point that resistance is impossible.

As the King of the Battlefield artillery ruled the muddy trenches of World War 1, just as air power shattered any resistance inside the Kill Box of the First Gulf War, and with the Shock and Awe of the Second Gulf War. Both are examples of the 2GW effort to cause enough direct attrition of enemy forces that the opponent is unable to organize and concentrate its mass, becoming unable to effectively resist. However, without the kinetic action the attrition does not occur. This places 2GW just to the right of the Boom.

3GW and 4GW seem to represent a somewhat murky stage where the transition of actual kinetic action to the threat or implied threat of kinetic action causes room to question their placement on the timeline.

3GW Operative Action: Dislocation of the opponent by attacking and defending critical vulnerabilities.

When an opponent is dislocated positionally, functionally, morally or temporally, the opponent loses the ability to oppose effectively, this is the essence of 3GW/Manuever warfare. In relation to kinetics, however, does 3GW move to fight or fight to move? This question has a direct bearing on the placement of 3GW relative to the Boom. While a boom may occur before the movement occurs, the dislocative aspect of the movement prior to the Boom (or the overwhelming threat of the Boom on a critical vulnerability of the opponent), places 3GW on the timeline farther to the left of both the Boom and 1GW.

4GW Operative Action: Using a disruptive attack or threat of disruptive attack to cause the perception of an unwinnable situation in an opponent, resulting in a loss of morale or will until the opponent is rendered incapacitated.

Even more than 3GW, 4GW employs a threat of kinetic action more than actual kinetic action. At first glance it may seem that the threat of attack always precedes the Boom. However, without the Boom or the perceived threat of the Boom there is no effective attack on the will of the opponent. This places the operative action of 4GW on the continuum farther to the right than the Boom and 2GW.

5GW Operative Action: Manipulation and influence in order to define and shape outcomes and effects.

5GW embodies an overwhelming focus on positional manipulation and shaping of the battlefield so that when kinetic action or the threat of kinetic action occurs the outcome is essentially predetermined. The opponent is, as a result, without resistance because the response is by the targets own choice or follows a previously established pattern that is familiar to the target. This places 5GW far to the left of 3GW, 1GW and the Boom on the timeline.

The result of placement on the timeline looks something like this:

Boom.small.jpg

Conclusions:

The XGW operative actions that take place on the left of the timeline relative to the Boom are positional in nature. Their intent, even if only occurring immediately prior to the kinetic action, is to cause the Boom to best shape the result and accomplish the objective. Operative actions to the right of the kinetic action use the kinetic action itself as leverage or to motivate an opponent. The pattern represented by the arrangement of each generations operative action seems to imply an interesting clue to the potential shape of 6GW and other future generations of XGW beyond 6GW.

Authors Note:

The thinking in this article was inspired by a series in the Washington Post titled Left of Boom. The article chronicles the duel between U.S. Military forces and insurgents on the IED seeded battlefields of Iraq. Tacticians in the U.S. Military have come to look at the explosion of Boom of an IED as a point at the center of a timeline with the cat and mouse game of countermeasure, counter-countermeasure, counter-counter-countermeasure occurring to the right of the Boom. Their effort now is to move the U.S. Militarys focus to the left of the Boom and attack the insurgent groups that are planning, improving, manufacturing and emplacing the IEDs. The series is

excellent and I highly recommend it.

5GW in Clausewitzs Trinity berblogger ZenPundit has summarized a ten-part series by Fabius Maximus from Defense and the National Interest. Though only posted about two hours ago, ZenPundits post has already elicited feedback from FM, as well as myself and D5GW moderator Curtis Gale Weeks. ZenPundit has underscored a crucial factor in the evolution of the xGW model: how does one discriminate between 4GW (culture-based asymmetrical warfare focused on the rage of the people) and 5GW (perception-based warfare focused on the context of conflict)? Recent posts here at D5GW (in particular ARHerrings Left of Boom/Right of Boom analysis of kinetics in xGW, and Curtiss X vs. X follow-up) describe interrelationship of the various generations key to any theoretical framework. Id like to add another element to the foundation: the Clausewitzian Trinity (developed in Book II of Karl von Clausewitzs magnum opus, On War). Clausewitz, in developing his famous assertion that war is a continuation of politics by other means, describes three core elements of any campaign: * Rationality (of the state) * Probability (in military command) * Rage (of the population) Much of the Cold War ethos of warfighting was vested in the first premise: the rationality of the state (q.v., Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine in nuclear warfare). Similarly, insurgencies like the U.S. faced in Vietnam forty years ago and in Iraq today are driven by the third premise: the rage of the people. Could 5th Generation Warfare (where perception and context are key) be described as a fusion of popular rage with political rationality, where the very idea of conflict is altered in order to create conditions favorable to the 5th Generation warrior? Such a feat would logically factor the second premise (the probabilistic calculus of the military commander) out of the equation or at least reduce its relevance in the larger battle of ideas. Steve Pampinella said: (I think) I also see 5GW as iterative process, but Im drawing on the example offered by Dan awhile ago (regarding the US Army as a 5GW force), so a state-without 5GW. The conduct of that 5GW operation has continuously been subject to slight adjustments and tweaks. Perhaps also the distinction between continuity and change in paradigms of knowledge is also relevant here, as understood by Boyd and described by Osinga. Getting to the idea of 5GW requires a Kuhnian shift away from modern ideas about war, but once there, the idea is perfected through its application and learning from the outcome(s). This is the more Popperian side of the campaign which speaks to an iterative process. WRT to Clausewitz and the Trinity, I see the xGw framework as explaining how the relationship between the state, military, and society develops across history. Although I have yet to read Van Crevelds the Transformation of War, from reading Through a Glass Darkly (which according to Fabius Maximus is the article-version of the book), he points to the influence of nuclear weapons on making war irrational, in terms of the inability to use war to advance ones goals, or even survive. So (and this is an assumption based on Van Crevelds work), it would seem that there is no longer a

rational reason for the state to wage war. This might be part of the origins of the shift to nontrinitarian warfare, which further exploits the irrationality of war-by-the-state by creating military uncertainty, which leads to actions that turn the rage of the people against the state. Again, this is speculative, because I havent read all of Transformation of War. But, if the above is remotely accurate, then it could be said that 5GW is some sort of fusion between rationality and rage, depending on how the idea of conflict is defined, or even constructed. In this fusion, it should only be rational for the state to engage in conflict when the rage of the people is behind it. If the state can manipulate the construction of conflict, and provide information regarding who the enemy is as a distinct Other, separated from the collective Self, then the rage of the people must be channeled through the state, making conflict with the Other rational.

Darknet: A Model for 5GW Organization CLOSED SOURCE WARFARE Networked insurgents and Global Guerrillas are, by definition, open source. Transnational and decentralized, they sacrifice secrecy in favor of flexibility and collaboration. They are by nature self-improving, as many users collaborating can make the organization more efficient, flexible, and resilient than a top-down hierarchy. Much analysis of current 4GW has employed the analytical model of the open-source network. 5GW, in contrast, is closed-source. As combatants in a secretive and conspiratorial form of warfare, 5GW organizations must carefully conceal their activities. This need for secrecy will severely limit the size and nature of 5GW networks. How then are 5GW networks structured? One model, as advanced by tdaxp and Purpleslog, involves a small group of super-empowered individuals with deep loyalties working in concert. Decision is made largely by consensus, and each individual has a stake in the outcome. They use and discard smaller non-state organizations, playing them off against each other to achieve a larger goal. While 5GW still remains largely speculative, there is one important current closed-source network we can examine: the darknet. THE CHANGING FACE OF ILLICIT CONTENT DISTRIBUTION In 2002, a group of Microsoft engineers published a paper titled The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution. In the paper, the Microsoft engineers examined the evolution of illicit copyright networks. I separate each different linear evolution using the generational framework. * 1st Generation: Small-scale copying in small, informal networks. Because of the technological limitations of cassette copiers and pre-1990s computers and the lack of widespread distribution mechanisms, copying was limited to small groups of friends, family, and acquaintances. * 2nd Generation: Digital revolution enables large-scale copying and distribution of music. Copying involves users downloading from centralized databases of MP3 files, often hosted on college and university networks and ISPs. However, these are easily detected and disabled. * 3rd Generation: Napster improves on the centralized database by creating a decentralized peerto-peer (P2P) interface. By creating a distributed network of users sharing copyrighted content, Napster increases the scale of content distribution and lessens legal liability. However, Napster was not totally immune from the reach of the law. It maintained a maintained a centralized database with a searchable file index, making it liable for its users actions * 4th Generation: Gnutella becomes the dominant mode of P2P distribution. Unlike Napster, it is totally decentralized. All one needs to download content is the IP address of another user, it is not run by any one individual or company, and it has substantial legal uses. However, in practice, 4th generation P2P networks are not totally decentralized. A small group of users provides the vast majority of the content while the rest leech of them. These users have become the targets of record company lawsuits, as the RIAA hopes to take down the network by attacking its nodes. * 5th Generation: A return to the informal distribution networks of 1st generation, with informal networks of friends and acquaintances distributing files among each other. As long as they do not share with strangers, they are largely undetectable by media companies. Content diffuses from larger aggregate super-users to smaller networksboth consisting of informal friend/family groupings and encrypted invitation only file sharing networks. The chief innovation of this distribution method is that it largely guarantees user anonymity. Additionally, as the Microsoft

engineers observed, it is hard to control individual dissemination of copyrighted material once it spreads from the super-users to smaller networks. Although the Microsoft engineers use the word darknet as a catch-all term for illicit content networks, darknets are popularly understood as comprising solely the 5th generation. 5GW DARKNETS Darknets are solely designed to spread illegal entertainment content, while 5GW organizations subvert and change systems. However, just as there is some important overlap between networked terrorists and transnational criminals, darknets and 5GW groups are broadly similar. Like darknets, 5GW groups are closed-source information networks. They both subvert law and order from within, and their small size and internal cohesion makes them effectively invisible to authorities. Just as open-source software development is used as a model for networked insurgent organization, we can use invitation-only and friend/family darknets as 5GW analytical models. Also, the core-periphery relationship between the larger super-users and the smaller darknets mirrors the relationship between 5GW organizations and the unwitting pawns that they manipulate. How so? Just as the super-users aggregated content trickles down to the darknets, 5GW misinformation and misdirection is injected into the public sphere, where it is disseminated among smaller groups of individuals. These groups of individuals can range from social communities to informal groups of friendswhat is important is that they spread the 5GW misinformation virally, amplifying and mutating the original effects of the propaganda. An example of this process can be seen in urban mythology. Many uban legends may have started out as one story, but are spread by audiences that change the details of the story with each telling. The essence of the story does not change, but its ability to adapt its particulars to fit different locations and cultures makes it well-known over time. There is no reason to believe that 5GW misinformation will not be similarly modified. Additionally, these small communication networks provide cover for 5GW organizations in that they provide a ready explanation for the source of the misinformation.

THE CONSPIRATORIAL STRATEGY IS 5GW EVOLVED CONSPIRACY? In the course of an exchange on my previous entry, Strategist raised an important point: [I]s there much difference between the 5GW organizations you describe, and good old-fashioned conspiracies against the state? As I was reading your post I was thinking of the Nazi Party in the 1920s. This is what counterinsurgency and terrorism expert Bard O Neill calls the conspiratorial strategy. As Globalsecurity.org notes, the strategy involves A small and well-disciplined conspiratorial group form a party to exploit grievances that have largely alienated elements of the population from the government. The insurgent does not seek to bring the general population against the government but it will mobilize segments for mass support in riots and demonstrations. When the government is no longer sure of the loyalty of the military and police, the government can be collapsed by terrorism and mass demonstrations. Although this mode of conflict shares some important similarities with 5GW, they are not interchangeable. The conspiratorial strategy is essentially materialist, while 5GW is idealist. Conspirators seek control of the state by overthrowing the government through either a limited but swift use of force or a campaign of sustained subversion. In contrast, 5GWs center of gravity is the perception of the decisionmakers and the general populace. The 5GW actor aims to compel a change in behavior through a series of increasingly sophisticated manipulationsnone of which the target is ever aware of. The modern conspiratorial organization is also a political party. Its essence is expressed through leaflets, marches, and selective terrorism and assassination. The 5GW organization is very small and derives its power from extreme secrecy. The point of defeat in 5GW is not when an opponent learns of your plans. Rather, it is when he discovers you exist. MAOISM IN THE INFORMATION AGE It may also be useful to conceptualize 5GW through a neo-classical insurgency framework. The conspiratorial strategy is in essence the Leninist vanguard, a strategy that largely failed. Leftists took on the full might of the state without the support of the people, and were usually crushed. The Maoist protracted peoples war strategy solved this problem by hiding insurgents within the populace, shielding them from the wrath of state security forces. The mass conventional organizations built through cultivation of popular support eventually gave Maoists the ability to weaken loyalty to the state and defeat it in a force-on-force engagement. 5GW actors are also fish swimming in a seaa sea of information. We are currently swamped in an excess of media, both print and electronic. Control of this information is an essential element of state power. The massive amount of this information, coupled with the increasing difficulty in distinguishing between reality and fiction, provides a secure base from within 5GW actors can safely execute their plans. And just as Maoists built parallel political hierarchies that eventually enabled them to take on the state, 5GW actors control of information allows them to defeat vastly more powerful opponents. The 5GW equivalent to Maoist political organization is the vast network of false information,

dummy organizations, and unwitting proxies deployed in an effort to control (and dictate the content of) the information consumed by the target. An important difference, however, is that one can defend against the Maoist strategy by controlling the population. Doing so would drain the sea and isolate the guerrillas from their natural source of power. Draining the digital sea by completely shutting down all forms of media is not an option for all but the most despotic regimes. Additionally, the target would have to be aware of the 5GW campaign against them in order to begin planning countermeasures.

Theoretical 5GW Operation: The Pre-Election Hostage Situation For several hours yesterday the news networks were captivated by a hostage situation at one of Hillary Clintons New Hampshire campaign offices. A news reporter on the Fox News Network speculated on a sympathetic surge of good-will toward the victim of the situation, (sadly no, not the people trapped inside the building with the man claiming to be wearing a bomb) Hillary Clinton. He noted this might have an affect on her popularity as it is only a few short weeks before the start of primary elections. As the hostage taker demanded to speak to the Senator and campaign offices for other candidates across the state were evacuated, this notion that the event may positionally change the race sent the 5GW / Conspiracy Theory wheels turning. The 5GW conspiracy theory begins with the consideration of an organization that would engineer a hostage taking, or multiple hostage takings, prior to an election in order to ride the sympathetic surge. The 5GW aspect is in the process of causing an affect in order to effect a systemic change in the relative positions of the candidates. The target of the operation is not the candidates or the organizations of the candidates, but rather the voting public. Some thoughts to keep in mind: While the candidate him or herself may not necessarily have anything to do with the operation, the better prepared the candidate is to handle the MSM attention and steer the fallout effects the more the candidate will benefit. The operation may be designed to be as spectacular as possible in order to ensure the greatest possible amount of attention from the MSM. This may involve multiple hostage takers, multiple and possibly simultaneous hostage situations, even acts that will be immediately and repeatedly replayed by the media in order to maximize the visual aspects. An organization that attempts such an operation is necessarily looking at each of the direct participants; hostage takers, hostages, MSM, emergency / law enforcement personnel and bystanders, as pawns on a chessboard. Even if great care is taken to minimize the risk of injury to any of these parties, there is still the very real possibility that people will be injured or killed in the process. The hostage takers and any organizations that recruit or support them will need to be very well insulated from the 5GW organization in order to maintain secrecy and deniability. Attacks on candidates and their organizations are not taken lightly. Investigation will be exhaustive and agencies with powerful resources will be involved. I will admit envisioning the most lurid details of this operation including the movie script situation of the candidate himself or herself personally contacting the hostage takers and brokering the release of the hostages to great media acclaim. I even speculated on how the hostage takers might extract themselves from the situation in order to maintain their anonymity and escape law enforcement or their theatrical demise before the combined attention of the media leaving nothing but questions and incomplete answers. The essential fact remains that any organization that believes the ends justify the means could find utility in this theoretical situation.

SCENARIO: SIMULACRA AND SIMULATION THE MAN WHO WASNT THERE A recent ThreatsWatch briefing by Steve Schippert and Nick Grace focused on the Islamic State of Iraqs (ISI) creation of a fictional character, Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi. Al-Baghdadi was called into existence to put an Iraqi face on the ISIs largely foreign leadership. An Iraqi actor portrayed alBaghdadi, as Al-Qaeda wanted the appearance (but not the reality) of Iraqi control. Ultimately, Al-Baghdadi had little strategic effect. Al-Qaeda-backed organizations in Iraq alienated the populace with their religious fanaticism, savagery, and ham-handed attempts to alter tribal social codes. The foreign makeup of their leadership no doubt aggravated those problems, but was not a huge issue in itself. However, the Al-Baghdadi case inspired me to have my own personal 5GW dream. I consider this scenario more high-level 4GW than 5GW, but elements of it could be applied to 5GW. I use a mixed model that combines todays networked terror groups and some of the future terrorist organizations that I outline in my Athena Intelligence paper. This scenario isnt meant to illustrate a larger pointits intended as a thought exercise about memes, brands, and information warfare. SIMULACRA AND SIMULATION PART I It is 2015. An Al-Qaeda splinter group wages violent war against infidels and takfir Muslims. This terrorist organization is a small, secretive group that relies primarily on attention-grabbing strikes. A small inner core gives ideological and strategic guidance to various operational affiliates. These affiliates carry out the groups operations, which are selective and extremely destructive in nature. On the outside is a decentralized mass of lone-wolf cells and copycats. Although they derive ideological inspiration from the group, they have no real connection. The quality of their attacks is scattershot, but they fan fear in the mass media. The lone wolves and copycats also create enough noise to mask the activities of the real terrorist organization. Intelligence organizations, lacking reliable human intelligence within the tight-knit inner circle and operational affiliates, frequently conflate the activities of the lone wolves and copycats with the organizations legitimate operations. Adding to the confusion are the activities of NGOs that sympathize with some of the organizations broader political aims. At the top of the pyramid is the organizations leader, Abu Asad. Little is known about Asad. His name is an obvious pseudonym, he has never been seen in public, and details about his origins are scarce. Rumors, however, are plentiful. Some say he is a grizzled veteran of the Chechen war. Others claim he is a wealthy European convert formerly active in the anti-globalization movement. Most of these rumors are genuine speculation. But a significant portion is misinformation disseminated by the organization through proxies. Asad himself says only that he is a veteran of previous struggles against the Zionists and Crusaders. He interacts with the outside world through videos and webcasts released through the organizations media arm. One day, the United States announces it has killed Abu Asad in an airstrike on a terrorist safehouse. A careful analysis of the dead mans background from both open and classified sources seems to support this conclusion. However, a day later the organization releases a video featuring Abu Asad alive and well! This pattern is repeated until American credibility is completely degraded. SIMULACRA AND SIMULATION PART II

It is 2010. Mahmoud, Salim, and Jawad have returned from Iraq. They witnessed firsthand the destruction of the ISI, and though disheartened, are in the midst of building their own organization from the contacts they made since they entered Al Qaeda in 2004. However, they realize that none of them have any charisma or motivating qualities. Mahmoud suggests their friend Mokhtar, an unemployed grad student with a gift for oratory. The problem is that Mokhtar has no military experience or leadership qualities. Fortunately for the organization, Mokhtar is nave and easily manipulated. Mahmoud, Salim, and Jawad give Mokhtar a role as figurehead, while they make all of the strategic decisions. To enhance Mokhtars mystique (and prevent him from being co-opted by other factions within the organization) they isolate him. They are the only ones who see him in person. At first, Mokhtar is happy with his role. He is misled into believing he is the leader of the group, and that his isolation is for his own protection. Eventually Mokhtar begins to realize who really holds the power. He attempts to leave his safehouse and is killed. Mahmoud, Salim, and Jawad solve the problem with actors and advanced voice manipulation software. Since they are the only ones aware of the deception, they run into little trouble. SIMULACRA AND SIMULATION PART III However, the organizations fortunes soon wane. Syrian military intelligence, wishing to use the organization as a pawn in its own designs, manages to turn Jawad. Acting at the behest of his new masters, Jawad embroils the organization in a futile series of actions that lead to internal disputes and strategic failure. The organization disintegrates into a variety of decentralized cells and goes quiet. The counter-terrorist community breathes a sigh of relief. However, they are extremely disappointed that they never managed to discern Abu Asads true identity. High-level defectors from within the organization tell them about the Mokhtar deception. Counter-terrorism analysts, burned by their previous mistakes, do not believe such a wild story. Five years later, the World Bank building in Washington, D.C. is bombed. Many are killed. Abu Asad takes to the web to claim credit for the attack. This puzzles FBI analysts, as the organization has never carried out an attack on American soil. In the coming year, many IED/sniper attacks are launched on various targets in the Mideast and Southeast Asia, all sanctioned by Abu Asad. Each operation has a different modus operandi, Abu Asads messages are contradictory, and the terrorist groups behind the attacks have little relation to each other. Meanwhile, the culprit behind the World Bank bombing is revealed to be a disgruntled insider within the buildings security team. Eventually, an CIA analyst puts the pieces together. The original organizations use of Abu Asad was so successful that he has become a popular legend. As his true identity has never been conclusively discerned, virtually anyone can assume his identity. If they are caught, they are written off as a copycat, rather than the real Asad. Thus, even after his real death, Asad continues to function as an emergent figure that motivates terrorism. Ironically, the World Bank bombers use of the Asad identity to throw investigators off his own trail was the trigger for the renewed round of terrorism. The analyst is ridiculed when he presents this theory to his superiors. Abu Asads identity continues to be employed by various organizations. Eventually, one particularly

effective terrorist organization using Abu Asads persona is touted by analysts as the real Abu Asad. The news media fill with stories about how the fearsome master terrorist Abu Asad has returned from a long absence to terrorize the world. And the cycle repeats again.

Nuts and Bolts Recent discussion on the mechanisms for the manipulations of Fifth Generation Warfare has prompted me to think specifically about how 5GW would work in an operational context. In short, thinking about the nuts and bolts. I currently envision two main types of 5GW attacks. I am not willing to limit 5GW to these two methods but they present a good starting point for a conversation on putting 5GW into practice. Black Swan 5GW:

If you havent read Nassim Nicholas Talebs excellent book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, (my review here) you should, it is required reading for 5GW theory. 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.

Stimulus / Response 5GW (Automaticity 5GW)

The second type of 5GW sometimes works in conjunction with the first in order to strengthen or reinforce a newly created system. In this type of 5GW, the 5GW organization intentionally triggers a specific rule-set in order to create a specific response. A good example of this is a fire-alarm. When you trigger a fire alarm at an office building typically the local fire department responds. When you trigger the alarm for a forest fire there is a similar response, but that response is most likely different in scale and may involve different responders from a different geographic area. The 5GW organization may trigger a rule-set for any number of reasons, but always to provoke a specific response. It may be to desensitize responders or observers. It may be to decrease the resources and abilities of responders through attrition or (hat tip: TDAXP) cognitive load. It may also be to increase experience in certain situations and thereby increase resiliency versus a competing system or rule-set, or to introduce subtle change into behaviors in certain situations.

As I stated before, Im not willing to limit 5GW to these two methods of action. 5GW is far too new and complex for that. However, I do see them as core elements of 5GW action . Additionally I would like to note that in isolation I dont believe either of these methods can be considered a 5GW campaign. A true 5GW campaign would likely entail a great many instances of each of these methods of attack directed at several targets. It is only in the larger scope that the pattern would begin to emerge and the goal of the 5GW organization would be achieved.

hackers, power grids, and (dis)information During the last few days, many people have written about a supposed "event." The Washington Post reports that a group of cyberattackers infiltrated an electrical grid and caused a power disruption that affected multiple cities. The cyberattackers then demanded money to restore electrical service. The names of the cities have not been released. The primary source for this claim is the CIA. Planetary war strategists such as John Robb, tout the actions of the attackers as a strategic work of "systems disruption for economic gain." He calls the attackers: guerrilla entrepreneurs. Guerrilla in the sense that they're decentralized, mobile, and asymmetrical. Entrepreneurs in the sense that their actions are primarily monetarily driven. They work for the highest bidder. The concept of "Guerrilla entrepreneur" is just an updated version of the good-old-fashion mercenary. What Robb and others miss in their intricate descriptions of systems disruption at the hands of guerrilla entrepreneurs, is that the construction of systems--power, transport, water, sewage, computer--incorporate their own destruction. Along with the benefits of each technological "advance," are the seeds of the technology's destruction. Paul Virilio calls the embedded possibility of destruction within every technology, the "integral accident." Virilio explains the "integral accident" as such, Accidents have always fascinated me. It is the intellectual scapegoat of the technological; accident is diagnostic of technology. To invent the train is to invent derailment; to invent the ship is to invent the shipwreck. The ship that sinks says much more to me about technology than the ship that floats! Today the question of the accident arises with new technologies, like the image of the stock market crash on Wall Street. Program trading: here there is the image of the general accident, no longer the particular accident like the derailment or the shipwreck. In old technologies, the accident is "local"; with information technologies it is "global." We do not yet understand very well this negative innovation. We have not understood the power of the virtual accident. We are faced with a new type of accident for which the only reference is the analogy to the stock market crash, but this is not sufficient. (Source) Here Virilio moves from the particular, "integral accident" of a train derailment or shipwreck toward the generalized, "integral accident" of a planetary market collapse. With techno-cyber innovations such as the Internet, geospace and time collapse. The Internet constructs a planetary cyberspace where you can be everywhere, simultaneously. In essence, the Internet produces super-empowered individuals who operate within a simultaneous planetary time. But, back to the point: hackers, power grids, and (dis)information. Virilio's theory suggests that in an information war (one tactic of 5GW), the dominate form of 21st-century warfare, "information and disinformation have become indistinguishable from each other, so have attack and mere accidents." So, in other words, disruption is built into the construction of a system. Disruptions can appear as accidents or attacks. The line between the two categories is "indistinguishable." A government agency, such as the CIA, has a stake in calling recent power disruptions (that may or may not have taken place) attacks. By calling disruptions attacks, the CIA can augment its power and expand Internet surveillance. In fact, the expansion of surveillance is a central facet of the information war that is now occurring. Virilio writes, "the information war, which will make general what espionage and police surveillance inaugurated long ago, though they were unable to draw, as we are today, on the limit-acceleration of 'global information.'" We live in a techno-cyber surveillance society.

In the echochamber of the Internet, it's not so much the content of the message that matters, but the speed in which the message circulates. Keep that in mind when you navigate through cyberspace and read article upon article about the coming cyberwar and recent cyberattacks on power grids. Ask yourself, as an individual living in a state of perpetual, multifront planetary war: who is disseminating this information; why do I think it's valid; and how does my position within a techno-cyber interconnected planetary world influence my interpretation of a message produced by hyper-velocity instantaneous telecommunication?

5GW Attack on JFCOM? Yesterday a good friend from Virginia sent me an article from DataTech Government Newsletter that harshly criticizes the Training Transformation program at U.S. Joint Forces Command (one of ten joint [all-service] Combatant Commands in the U.S. military). Besides harshly maligning the corporate culture at my former employer (claiming the parking lot isnt full until nearly 9:00am, and almost empty shortly after 4:00pm), it also accuses the Joint National Training Capability of failing to deliver a product despite a budget of over $170 million. The curious thing about this article is that DataTech Government Newsletter returns zero hits on a Google search. And a search for Bob Gerlach, the alleged AFU Correspondent who penned the article, yields a similar doughnut of results. Furthermore, there is no date in the excerpted pages as one would expect from a legitimate publication. And the reference to the current four-star USJFCOM commander (Gen. Jim Mattis, USMC) as Lt Gen Mattis (using the U.S. Air Force honorific for a three-star general, not the U.S. Marine Corps LtGen) further erodes the credibility of the piece. Lastly, the subsequent article references a non-existent North American Health Logistics Forum (again, zero Google hits) and Section 16 under USC Code [sic] 27, the portion of U.S. federal law that addressed Prohibition and has been repealed for more than seventy years. You can download the excerpted 1.4MB .PDF file here. Could this be an elaborate hoax an attack designed to change the very context by which an entity is perceived to discredit U.S. Joint Forces Commands training activities? A former colleague told me that not only are they aware of this piece, but that Major General Kamiya (the Joint Training Director) distributed it to all personnel. When faced with an anonymous foe who wants to distort perceptions, I think MG Kamiyas response was very appropriate.

Nuts and Bolts 2 addendum to Nuts and Bolts

Memetic Warfare Another manipulative tactic or strategy of Fifth Generation Warfare, and something that I see as a core element of 5GW theory, is the controlled introduction of specifically tailored memes into systems in order to achieve a specific effect or consilience of affects. This viral spread of thoughts and ideas can be very powerful in influencing behavior and if successfully attached to powerful memeplexes (or groups of memes) can piggyback on their successes and possibly even hijack and redirect them.

10 Reasons Why Elections are the Perfect Test Bed for 5GW 1) Defined timeframe allows for 5GW organizations to plan to specific points in time and the election cycle allows for a truly strategic planning horizon.

2) Defined geographic areas involved allow for a 5GW organization to precisely define the scale of their operations.

3) 5GW organizational goals may be precisely and measurably defined due to the existing systems in place to progressively measure results in detail.

4) The campaign and election process is already optimized for rapid information dissemination providing ample vectors for meme transference.

5) Well connected political parties and multitude of long-standing issues offer powerful memplexes for a 5GW organization to piggyback or hijack.

6) Previous election cycles have created a vast amount of pre-existing expertise in political manipulation for 5GW organizations to recruit as 5GW affecters or 5GW proxies.

7) Discovery of 5GW manipulations may be conceivably and believably be attributed to the campaign process as business-as-usual.

8) There is already competition built into the campaign and election system that may be able to simulate 4GW vs. 5GW or 5GW vs. 5GW opposition.

9) Election and campaign system is designed to support and protect false-front and proxy organizations.

10) Voters expect to be manipulated by political campaigns and will either allow themselves to be manipulated or resist overt manipulations.

Cyber-Jihad meetsCivil 5GW? As many know the internet entails a largely (thankfully) uncontrolled and vast plain of information. Within this lawless land, ideas flow free. The internet is, arguably, the purest incarnation of Americas First Amendment. The double edged sword is ; it entails a myriad of online platforms that are either sympathetic or instrumental or both in regards to al qaeda and other related rogue (jihadi) networks. Of course any online initiative is bound to an ISPs terms of agreement. Recent events have seen my involvement in an initiative to take down these sites through various (not yet truly defined) means. Weve realized recent success in what I suspect is a collaborative between our own PIST and the JAWA Report as they succeeded in rendering the demise of the Lee Media Forum. The instrument of success was a swarming technique in which many fold complained to the host that the site violated the TOA of said host. By now youve followed the Lee link and arrived at a suspended notice from the host. Follow this link for an idea as to what the forum and its members entailed. Im a bit reticent to consider this initiative within the theoretical shell of 5GW. Is it a harbinger of 5G, a bellwether for an advent of such? Or is it simply a civil form of 4GW?

Cringley touches upon the emergence of Super Empowered Individuals Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. Cringley is a documenter/pundit of computer geeks and their world. He does calls them nerds though which shows he does not have a full understanding and is apart from them. Anyways, in a recent article he wrote: There is a technology war coming. Actually it is already here but most of us havent yet notice. It is a war not about technology but because of technology, a war over how we as a culture embrace technology. It is a war that threatens venerable institutions and, to a certain extent, threatens what many people think of as their very way of life. It is a war that will ultimately and inevitably change us all, no going back. The early battles are being fought in our schools. And I already know who the winners will be. [] Here, buried in my sixth paragraph, is the most important nugget: weve reached the point in our (disparate) cultural adaptation to computing and communication technology that the younger technical generations are so empowered they are impatient and ready to jettison institutions most of the rest of us tend to think of as essential, central, even immortal. They are ready to dump our schools. Note the part I bolded again: younger technical generations are so empowered they are impatient and ready to jettison institutions most of the rest of us tend to think of as essential, central, even immortal. Narrow it down more: impatient and ready to jettison institutions Therein lies future 4GW, 5GW, and civil Wars.

Information, No Information, and 5GW Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. Blogger Lance Miller at Progressive Positive dips into 5GW blogging pool: It is interesting that we call our age the Information Age. Information seems to the body of 4th generation warfare. Sounds like 5th generation warfare may be about no information. The enemy learns from mistakes, can even become repentant and change course in their lives and switch to your side, because your information is so compelling. With communication always transferring across boundaries, dead ends/pathos in societies can be averted. Not so if you send no information that helps the opponent associate an attack with previous interactions (with you) or a synopsis of your moral ideology.

I am not sure that no information can be sent. The trick is minimize what the 5GWers adversary. This could be done by: 1) Secrecy - The 5GW is hidden by multiple layers of cutouts, organizational security (small size, closely bonded), and operational security (sunshine is defeat). 2) Deception - False information is planted to hide the trail, to play upon the misperceptions and fears of the adversary, and anything else to much up the observational abilities of the target or adversary. 3) In-Plain-Sight-ness - I dont have a good one word description of this. Either the 5GWers actions can be in slow motion and therefore dont seem to be part of a conflict;and/ or the conflict relies upon N-Order effects far removed from the actual action of the 5GWers. I am sure there are more ways this can be done.

Shrinkwrapped on Conspiracy Theories [Update] Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. One of my earliest thoughts on 5gw was regarding conspiracy theories: 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. Blogger Shrinkwrapped is a Psychiatrist and wrote this recently on Conspiracy Theories (but not directly on 5GW): Human beings are prone to believe in nonsense. We typically find ways to use our rational thinking to support our nonsense theories, and usually the nonsense we believe in is harmless so long as it doesnt interfere with our ability to work, love, and play (to use Freuds old descriptors of mental health.) In The Value of Conspiracy Theories I described a relatively harmless conspiracy theory that is ascribed to by perhaps 40% of our British friends. JFK conspiracy theories have been a staple of the American zeitgeist for 45 years and have spawned a cottage industry and made many people quite wealthy. In these cases, the conspiracy theories reinforce some peoples existing anxiety about government and also reinforce the comforting idea that life is not completely random. Even if the they who are in control are evil, it is a comfort to know someone is in control and knows what is going on. Other conspiracy theories are extraordinarily damaging to the holder. Those conspiracy theories are the ones that support the holders view that he or she is the victim of circumstances, forces, and people that are much more powerful than they, are inimical to them, and are beyond their control. Those beliefs lead to passivity and anger, and away from self reflection and responsibility. Back in 2006 Shrinkwrapped wrote this on the subject: For the non-psychotic, conspiracy theories can offer the same kind of balm. Our world is increasingly chaotic. At its best we experience the world rushing into the future sweeping us along in a rapidly changing dynamic equilibrium; those of us who are most adaptable can surf the bow front of the wave of change; many more are able to follow along just past the crest, but for those who have less agility, such rapid change is disorienting and anxiety producing. Because of the increasing complexity of the modern world we all are constantly at the mercy of strangers. We rely on strangers to keep our electric flowing and our lights on; we rely on strangers to get food to our markets and onto our tables; we rely on strangers not to kill us through inadvertence or malfeasance. We depend on strangers stopping at red lights! In such a complex world, we are as out of control as the most primitive and superstitious Caveman, whose life was at the mercy of events both large (storms, lightning bolts, earthquakes and tsunamis) and small (smilodons, infections, broken bones). In such a terrifying world, our anxiety leads us to imagine that some all-powerful individual (at one time thought to be God, but he has been devalued by modern, secular sophisticates who keep themselves unaware of the primitive nature of our minds) or individuals, are actually in control. A random world is not only terrifying but poorly comprehensible; a world controlled by secret cabals of Jews, Americans, the CIA, multinationals, or some other nefarious grouping, may be frightening, but at least it is understandable. That Princess Diana, loved by so many, could be killed simply by the random vicissitudes of existence is too disturbing to contemplate. How much better to imagine she was killed by powerful, hidden forces? If the world is filled with uncertainty, we are all

at risk; if there are hidden cabals controlling the world, we can feel safer by either staying out of their sights, or by attacking them as the cause of our problems. Either way, we can feel less anxious and uncertain. Nonsense contaminates and warps the observational ability of an actor. A 5GWer can make use of that.

Purpleslog has a post on conspiracy theory. I don't agree with some of the points raised by the Shrinkwrapped blog that purpleslog has linked too. Just to make it clear on where I stand. I don't believe in bizarre conspiracy theories about lizards ruling the world, or controlled demolitions of the world trade center. However, I spent the last seven years [1] mostly in the military, and a little in the police, where I encountered groups of people that resemble what could be called a conspiracy, I'm not talking about conspiracies within my own workplace. I'm talking about the people and groups that militaries and police have interests in. That is, other militaries, non-state actors and criminals who often try to act in secret and have intentions that are counter to ours. I would say a lot of law enforcement and Intelligence professionals would not subscribe to my world view. They wouldn't think they are investigating conspiracies. So I'll outline my argument. A conspiracy can be defined in many ways, one of the major definitions is a group of persons operating in secret for some end, usually an untoward one. Some functions of an Intelligence or LE professionals job are to penetrate the veil of groups operating in such a manner. An important side point as well, conspiracies are quite rare. It wasn't like I was encountering them everyday. So whenever I see arguments on the Internet from individuals who have never encountered a conspiracy, and therefore disregard those who believe in them, my spidey senses go off. No doubt there are some wacko, mentally ill people out there who espouse illogical conspiratorial views, I have encountered my fair share of them. My favorite conspiratorial rant from a mentally ill person was involved Bin Laden being in a submarine under Antartica and that governments were helping him live there (It all makes sense now!). Those mass of illogical, irrational rants out there don't discount the existence of any specific conspiracy. It says something about the person, and the illogical argument they are presenting, but it doesn't discount the idea of conspiracy or the presence of other conspiracies. So it gets on my nerves when individuals like Shrinkwrapped make sweeping statements about the mental states of those that deal with conspiracies. In fact, whilst it is healthy to be sceptical of such claims, claiming that those who bring forth a conspiratorial view are mentally ill could be detrimental to society. Let us try a thought experiment that tries to explain that point. Let's say it is the beginning of the year 2001 and I stated that 19 terrorists (mostly saudia arabians) affiliated with a global Islamic militant organization, whose organizational make up has its roots in the soviet-afghanistan war and egyptian prisons, were going to simultaneously hijack four airliners in the domestic U.S, after training as pilots within the U.S. with financial support from groups and substate actors within central asia and the middle east, and then crash those planes into the central economic and military centers of the western world. Would you believe me? It is fairly specific right? No way no single man could know such a group could have done that at the time (apart from the guys doing it, or affiliated with the core network, hence the need for penetration by LE and intelligence). Let us continue the thought experiment, if I had said that back in the year 2001 and started a website proclaiming that view, would you all discount me as a psycho? After the event actually happens what then? You might say such a thought experiment is useless and doesn't prove a thing. Well, one example of a person with evidence of a conspiracy shows such a theory isn't so far fetched. The example was FBI field agent Ken Williams who wrote the Phoenix Memo about the possibility

of Al Qaeda members training in flight schools. His memo was discounted by his leadership. Whether or not they thought his views were conspiratorial we don't know, but Williams uncovered a smaller part of a greater conspiracy and he was discounted. We all know what happened after Williams theory was discounted right? Thousands of people died. But that is ok, because LE guys like Williams with his crazy theories are "prone to believe in nonsense" according to Shrinkwrapped. Another problem with the Shrinkwrapped posts is the claim of complexity within society means everything is out of control. No doubt, human affairs are complex and it is almost impossible to do forecasting with such complexity. However, Human beings have interests. The extremely rich and powerful are a subset of humans and therefore have interests too. I too have interests because I am human. I walk around in this world interacting with others and the world. I try, often unsuccessfully, to make my goals into real actions that have consequences and results that resemble my goals. Other humans do this to. Groups of humans that have common goals do this as well. The extremely rich and powerful also have goals they want to achieve because of their interests, and they make actions to achieve those goals. That doesn't prove a conspiracy though, as we don't know the moral intentions of the actors, but it certainly is a counter-example to the claim that the world is completely random. There are people in it, trying, unsuccessfully much of the time, to make it nonrandom to themselves. [2] Where does this leave us? Well, crazy conspiracy theories and their theorists are within the domain of bloggers and laymen to refute and argue with. Go right ahead there are plenty of them worthy of being refuted. Real conspiracies within the world are discovered by Intelligence gatherers and law enforcement (and to some extent investigative journalists). They are the only ones who will probably ever see such conspiracies (apart from the conspirators themselves). So to discount the mental states of those that see conspiracies is to put into jeopardy the only early warning systems we have against secretive groups. Edits 1. Actually it was from start of 2000 to the start of 2008 when I quit in February, so that makes it seven years. 2. This paragraph could be one of the differences between information gathering on conspiracy and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists of the wacky kind automatically assume what the conspirators motivations are. They automatically think they are evil. Whilst those investigating conspiracies, especially intelligence gathering, are trying to find out what the conspirators motivations are for future actions. They might start from the assumption that the conspirators are a competitor, but they still need to get to the truth of the matter involving their intentions. Law enforcement are a different case again, in that they are interested in concrete examples of the conspirators actions and outcomes.

Dreaming 5GW LinkSpotting: Where are the super-empowered hopeful individuals? Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. A cross-posted article called Super-Empowered Hopeful Individuals [1][3] and Empowering Hope [2] references a post by fellow D5GW blogger Arherring. Here is an excerpt: A leading fear for those of us looking at the longer-term implications of molecular manufacturing is the technologys capacity to give small groups or even individuals enormous destructive capacity. This isnt unique to advanced nanotechnology; similar worries swirl around all manner of catalytic technologies. In fact, some analysts consider this a problem we currently face, and give it the forbidding label of super-empowered angry individuals. As a parallel, the core of the super-empowered hopeful individual (SEHI) argument is that these technologies may also enable individuals or small groups to carry out socially beneficial actions at a scale that would have required the resources of a large NGO or business in decades past. They would rebuild towns or villages after a natural disaster, or provide health care to refugees; they would clean up environmental toxins, or build renewable energy systems. The Millennium Development Goals would be their checklist. They would carry out the kinds of projects that humanitarian organizations do today, but be able to do so with smaller numbers, greater speed, and a far larger impact. To an extent, these are tasks we might expect governments, NGOs or businesses would seek to accomplish, and theyd be welcome to do so. But catalytic technologies like molecular manufacturing could so enhance the capabilities of individuals that, just as we have to account for SEAIs in our nano-era policies and strategies, we should pay attention to the beneficial role SEHIs could play. They change the structure of the game. I would call the 5GW practice of the happy/hopeful SEIs as a possible instance of the SocioPolitical Entrepreneurship Style of 5GW. Keep in mind 5GW is not the only option open to SEIs. Also, 5GW actors dont have to be SEIs.

5GW Discussion Topic: is it still useful to discriminate between tactics, operations, strategy and grand strategy I culled this from comments to an old post from around Christmas that people may have missed ( I certainly did at first). Arherring commented: How about the terms tactical, operational, strategic and grand strategic. I think these terms need to be better understood when applied to the planning horizon of 5GW. Deichmans then commented: Arherrings right: we need a fundamental reassessment of temporal terms that, in my opinion, are taken for granted. In particular, is it still useful to discriminate between tactics, operations, strategy and grand strategy? A British chess grandmaster (I cant recall his name, maybe Nigel Short?) once said Tactics is what you do when youre doing something; strategy is what you do when youre doing nothing. Ive long had an issue with the knee-jerk reflex by many military theorists (esp. in the defense transformation community) to focus on the operational level of war. However, that level with its antecedents in Napoleons model of command and limitations in staff communications is fast becoming anachronistic at best. At worst, it is a rationale for bloated staff organizations. Is it still valid to discriminate temporally between tactics and strategy? Or does 5GW remove the space-time dimensions from the battlespace in favor of purely cognitive domains? Moon commented: Perhaps the multi-level hierarchy of war (tact, op, strat, grand strat) dilates under symmetric/bipolar conditions and the operational level of war emerges; and then folds away under asymmetric/unipolar conditions. I will add to this: is it worthwhile to bring in the other dimensions - Physical, Moral, Mental, and Institutional? I have been thinking of it as a matrix with grand-strategy/strategy/operations/tactics as one axis, and physical/moral/mental/institutional as the other axis. I am not sure if the operational level matters to a 5GW effort. Perhaps in 5GW the Operational level is all about security, deception, hiding, secrecy and survival. What say you?

Social Networks of Control Wednesday, Apr 09, In the last couple of days I've been reading a great book entitled 'The Exploit: A theory of Networks' by Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker. It was only published last year but for those interested in 4GW/5GW the authors of the book have coevolved a line of thinking very similar to the failure of the state, netwar, conspiracy, and superempowered individual view of fourth and fifth generation war. Anyway, to get to some of the main ideas the book has so far. The main historical assertion of the book is that networked forms of power arised as an asymmetric correction to bloated bureaucratic forms of power. The authors state that Bureaucratic forms of organisation like governments have been trying to form networks because "it takes to networks to fight networks" (with the authors quoting Arquilla and Ronfeldt). The author states this is a bad idea because networks are a form of control and deindividuation. There is no outside control but there are internal forms of control which the authors called 'protocols', similar to the computer networking term. The protocols can lead to the internalised states of networks following group think, mob mentality or mindlessly following the swarm. These examples could be used for good or evil but what the authors argue is troublesome is the submission of the individual mind to the group mind. The network will decide on what you do. One of the reasons the authors think governments forming networks is troublesome is because they will engage in the assimilation and destruction of other diversified networks. The authors claim leading political parties will become less about controlling policitical ideas than about the "control, production and regulation of networks." Take for example left wing politics. They are a diversified group of ideas. To tie them all together takes the ability of activists and politicians to regulate and control the diversified networks. They then become part of the protocols of a greater network. The solution the authors posit is to build an anti-web form of organisation that is an asymmetric power to networks, as networks were to hierarchy. I haven't got through most of this part yet but the basic idea is that to build an anti-web form of organisation, which the authors arn't sure what looks like yet, you need to create individuals who cannot be assimilated into the networks. One possible way to do this is to create individuals who are "invisible" to the network forms of control. The authors call this "tactics of nonexistence" which means tactics to escape control of the network. The authors then quote Agamben: "A being radically devoid of any representable identity would be absolutely irrevelant to the State." (For more of Agamben's theory of individuals like this click here)

The authors go on to say that measurable identity would be fatal to anti-web actors. I haven't read the whole book yet, so hopefully I haven't made a strawman of the authors' account. Some of the ideas aren't new e.g. submission of a person to groupthink. Whilst some are a coevolution of the ideas put forth on Dreaming 5GW. Other ideas I'm not so sure I fully agree with e.g. total submission to the group through interrelations with others. The book is also very much along postmodernist lines. Ortho of Baudrillard's Bastards would love it, other readers of this blog may not. I really like it, and I think if you like futurist accounts of power and war then you'd like it to.

PurpleSlogs 5GW Working Definition 0.91 Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. Here is a minor update to my working description of Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW): 5GW is the secret deliberative manipulation of actors, networks, institutions, states or any 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 2GW, 3GW and 4GW powered actors, networks, institutions, and/or states. I just made a point of adding institution (per this idea) to my older definition.

Proto-5GW Manipulation May Not Necessarily be Done in Secret It may, in fact, be quite visible.

For example:

We were fourtunate that we were able to seed it. And a few places kept picking it up and wondering if it was real, was it fake? And then I think we had a little Ah-Ha moment and said, could we keep this going. Could we extend the life of a viral video and make the McCain Girls a story rather than a one-hit-wonder. Sarah Bernard President of 23/6

While a Fifth Generation Warfare campaign may itself be shrouded in misdirection and secrecy, the lessons, theories, practices and elements that inform its development may be completely transparent and available for study by an actor who grasps the implications.

A Day Late, $3 Trillion Short and a Generation Behind Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict By JOHN GOEKLER While presidential candidates carefully nuance positions on how long and how many US troops should remain in Iraq, the facts on the ground indicate only one viable course. The situation has evolved beyond the capacity of the US to achieve any kind of acceptable outcome, and we should immediately begin a total withdrawal. Iraq has morphed from a fourth generation war (4GW)--for which US forces began belatedly to prepare under the leadership of General David Petraeus--into a fifth generation conflict (5GW). The difference is profound, and it obviates our political strategy, our military strategy and our superior firepower. 4GW is a known entity. It's been around at least since Mao (and many would argue before), and has been well documented in Malaysia, Algeria and Viet Nam. Its key characteristic is asymmetric force levels and capabilities, which dictates that the militarily weaker side must primarily wage guerilla warfare. While 4GW is "messy" in that it primarily attacks soft targets, it is "neat" in terms of grand strategy. It entails two well-defined sides, each of whom wishes to emerge as, or maintain, the recognized government. The battle is for "hearts and minds" and winning is defined as controlling the levers of state power. Insurgents try to delegitimize the state by disrupting delivery of services and security, while counterinsurgents attempt to shore up the state through "armed social work". 5GW is a whole other kettle of fish. In 5GW, the goal is not to seize the levers of power so much as it is to weaken or "hollow out" state control, in order to fill the ensuing vacuum. The actors are not necessarily political movements, or even recognized groups. Their motivation is as likely to be micro-economic as ideological, and may be social or--most likely--some blend of the above. To conflate these under any label, be it "jihadists", "losers and dead-enders" or "militias" is to misunderstand them completely. In fact, the most fundamental "organizing principles" of 5GW groups may well be protection, social identity and simple entertainment. In a disintegrating culture lacking social anchors and awash with weapons--much like some of America's inner cities--joining a "gang" simply makes sense. It offers identity, belonging, livelihood and lifestyle. It is the ultimate social network, because the stakes-literally life and death--are so high. Fighting the American occupation, as well as competing groups, bestows honor and prestige as well as meaning and purpose in a society otherwise devoid of these. 5GW is sometimes called, "open source" warfare, or "war of super-empowered individuals", because modern weapons and technologies have conferred tremendous power on small actors. One person with a kilo of plastic explosive and a simple detonator can do millions of dollars in damage to key infrastructure, such as pipelines, electrical grids, water treatment plants or bridges. What the US did by disbanding the civil and military infrastructure of Iraq was create the underlying conditions for 5GW. By failing to supply adequate troops to provide security, we allowed looters and entrepreneurs to dismantle the physical infrastructure of the country, and militias and death squads to dismantle the social infrastructure. Shattering the authority of the state opened myriad opportunities for 5GW actors. Today, it's nearly impossible to identify all the players in Iraq. They range from large, visible groups such as the

Mahdi Army and Iraqi Security Volunteers, to shadowy groups like Al Qaeda in Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, to tribes, clans and neighborhood gangs. Their motives are as large as expelling all foreign forces, and as small as controlling rentals, electricity or fuel sales in a neighborhood for income. America's strategic leaders, unfortunately, have not recognized the implications of this shift. Our troops are operating under the guidelines of FM 3-24, the US Army Counterinsurgency Manual. (Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5) FM 3-24 defines insurgency as, "an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict." In fact, we are fighting a shadowy web of networks that sometimes collaborate and sometimes compete with the government and each other. The "enemy" is a "shape shifter"--sometimes police, sometimes militia, sometimes civilian, sometimes tribal and sometimes simply criminal. But, supporters of the war argue, the "surge" is working. Violence and US casualties are down. We just have to stay the course. We're winning. NOT! Those trends are the result of complex interactions, almost none of which are within our control, or even within our capacity to significantly influence. (Further, many of the statistics that detail these trends are "cooked" to provide evidence of success, just like body counts in Viet Nam.) The truce declared by Muqtada al-Sadr has largely stood down the Mahdi Army, perhaps the largest and most capable militia in the country. This single factor has reduced violence by an estimated 60 percent. But while the Mahdi Army is not overtly fighting our forces, it is continually upgrading its weapons, training and tactics, while al-Sadr gains greater political influence. They will be back when al-Sadr deems it appropriate--or when his influence over them wanes and they begin to selforganize and take independent actions. It is important to note that throughout the truce with US forces, Mahdi fighters have continued to battle in the south for control of oil and the lucrative pilgrimage trade. Most of the decline in sectarian violence is attributable to the near completion of religious / ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and provinces. As with the decline in the murder rates of American cities after drug gangs consolidated their territories, the displacement of Sunni and Shia from each other's areas has largely stopped the killings that effected that emptying. It is an indicator of further splintering, not integration. The Iraqi government remains a joke, incapable of controlling even the Green Zone, much less providing the jobs and development necessary to offer an alternative to militia or gang membership. Bear in mind we're over four years into the process of the Iraqi government "standing up" so we can stand down. Progress in that time has essentially been non-existent, or even negative. The decline in clashes with Sunni fighters is a result of US forces arming, funding and training the very elements we have fought against over the past four years. We have essentially given our primary opponents a pass, and in the process violated the cardinal rule of counterinsurgency, which is to enhance the legitimacy of the host government. These "Awakening" groups, which number in the dozens, will provide a focus of armed opposition to the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government far into the future. If anything, the surge has provided both the Shiites and the Sunnis with more and better weapons,

and greater legitimacy, while further undermining the central government and creating even more enemies to stand against it and us. Our military is severely overstretched, and civilian and military casualties are again rising. Are there viable options other than immediate and total withdrawal? In a word, no. Maintaining the surge is impossible. We simply do not have the troops. Moreover, the troops we do have are needed elsewhere, especially in Afghanistan, where we can still succeed. Withdrawing to the "permanent" bases we are building around the country is not sustainable either. To secure and pacify the surrounding territory requires more resources than we can deploy longterm. The inability to do so makes out troops constant targets. In addition, that reality will worsen. Within a short time, insurgents will be able to use cheap GPS guidance systems and Google Earth coordinates to send their own precision guided munitions at those bases. Random rocket attacks and mortaring will evolve into effectively targeted attacks, with all that implies. (Israel would do well to understand this, too.) As long as US forces are in Iraq, it will indeed be the "central front" in the war on terror--for the bad guys. Iraq is a first class training ground for al Qaeda and the Taliban. As long as we're there, they gain sympathy, converts and, most important, experience. The Taliban is already employing advanced tactics learned in Iraq, including "martyr attacks" and more sophisticated IED's. The hard reality is, Iraq is no longer a counterinsurgency campaign. It is a hostile occupation in a 5GW environment. And while not all counterinsurgency campaigns fail, all hostile occupations ultimately do. The question is only over what time frame. The United State has failed in Iraq, and there is no way to reverse that reality with our logistical and moral constraints. It is time to withdraw all of our troops, beginning immediately. John Goekler is a consultant and trainer in Complex Adaptive Systems from Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Of the People, By The People: The Strategic Citizen 5GW Style Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. This is a third style of 5GW in my slow-motion series and follows the Puppet Master style and the Socio-Political Entrepreneurship style. Working Definition of Fifth Generation Warfare (aka 5GW aka SecretWar): 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. Working Definition of Strategic Citizen (v0.1): 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. Working Definition of Strategic Citizen 5GW: 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. Disclaimer: Not all SC are involved in 5GW; not all 5GW will be done by SC Characteristics/Notes: * The hardest style to spot or to fathom * No central planner or leader * A competitive market of related / competing / supporting memes * Action by SCs can be directed at their own states or other primary loyalty groups as well as other actors. * Self-reassuring network * Resembles a grand conspiracy to an observer. However, there is no vanguard, there is no puppet master. * Some members of the 5GW SC network may be more influential then others. Call them charismatic instigators. They push, nudge, influence and inspire the 5GW. They do not control it or aim it. They may not even be aware of it. * Question: How do you fight or counter a SC 5GW? 1) Recognize; 2) Disrupt / Distract / Co-opt / Expose * Expose is hard for a SC 5GWand maybe it is a so what? * It is hard to focus or steer a SC 5GW. * The SC 5GW has will have no grand success, only small victories or small adjustments to: rulesets, institutions, societies, and culture * Faces co-option attacks * Faces coherence weakness * Faces attention-span weakness. Challenge: How to keep SCs interested and active in the 5GW? Maybe only if a positive feedback loop of sorts emerges in the network. * Faces focus challenge: How to keep focus, how to not loose focus?

* Question: What is the Center of Gravity of a SC 5GW? Perhaps the attention-span and purposefulness of the SC actors * Timeframes are longs - messes with observation and orientation of the SC 5GW target(s) * What about Secrecy? The SC 5GW doesnt exist. It has no email address. It has not central web site. It has no face or a commandant-hiding-in-a-cave * Important dimensions of War: mental, moral, and especially the institutional * It is not clear how the levels of grand strategy, strategy, operational/ grand tactics, and tactics play out. This warrants more thought and a post. * I think institutional infiltration will be a common way of the SC 5GW [this was mentioned in an early TDAXP 5GW Theory post - which I cannot find] * SC 5GW may make use of Culture Jamming and may focus on Leverage Factors * In SC 5GW, Kinetics actions are widely dispersed Note: This is not the Shloky version of of 5GW. Shloky has defined 5GW in a superficially similar way as: 5GW is what we label the emergent pattern formed by a distributed multitude of empowered individuals acting in concert by acting in their own self interest, without any collaboration. Dreaming 5GW co-blogger CGW critiqued this definition: Useful theory of warfare : i.e., the actors have some understanding of what they are wanting to achieve, a theory of the conflict, and that understanding, however it plays out, has a direct correlation with the larger dynamic of the war. These individuals you propose, entirely selfinterested and perhaps often unaware of each other, may indeed act in particular and quite different ways, thus causing the larger system to be shaped by what they do, but this is not warfare any more than a flock of seagulls or a collection of atoms or an infestation of roaches. I furthered critiqued this definition elsewhere: I think Shloky is saying there is nobody doing the manipulation. These actors just doing things on their own and the result is 5GW. I dont understand this at all. As I see it, successful 5GW must look something like: there is some thoughtful human-based actor (hehno angry volcanoes!) starting at condition A manipulating (via techniques X, Y, Z, etc.) another actor or set of actors across possible domains M, N, O, P, etc. to achieve or get closer to desired end condition B. Yeah, there are alot of blanks to fill in. Getting to condition B is the goal of the 5GWers. The actors being manipulated either dont realize whats going on or are okay with getting there regardless of who is nudging them. and I dont see any value in that view. I cant make predictions on the world and I cant formulate or suggest policy using that 5GW theory. and

If the results are accidental/coincidental - meaning nobody is trying to achieve them - then that def of 5GW is useless for planning or historical analysis. I dont mean it that there to be a Puppet Master behind it (there are other styles of 5GWI have been too lazy to make those post yet). You idea of a common vision of a better world publically shared by many players would be a possible valid way of having the decentralized actor connected and that possible 5GW style is worth looking into. That is not what Shloky is suggesting. His 5GW theory idea is that the actors are not connected in anyway, that they are all acting on their own with separate visions and incentivesand that the aggregate end result of their unconnected actions is 5GW. I am not trying to beat up on Shloky (whose blog I RSS subscribe to)I just want to be very clear that the Strategic Citizen 5GW Style that is not what he was defining.

Another Book on the 5GW Shelf: Daemon by Leinad Zeraus There have been other works of fiction discussed in 5GW circles that, to some extent or in some part, contain elements that could be used as examples of Fifth Generation Warfare theory. Enders Game and other books of the Enderverse come to mind. Daemon by Leinad Zeraus, however, doesnt just contain elements of 5GW thought; it is a book that embodies nearly every aspect of a 5GW conflict.

All of the elements of Fifth Generation Warfare are here. The Daemon controls a highly distributed organization that works by proxy and in secret. Even when its targets know the Daemon exists and is attacking them they themselves are forced to keep its existence secret. The Daemon uses the rulesets of its opponents against themselves so that when they attempt to respond to it they are doing exactly what the Daemon wants them to do. The Daemons proxies resemble everything from multinational corporations to Global Guerillas and are sometimes, willing, sometimes unwilling and very often unaware.

For 5GW thinkers this is a great opportunity to see some 5GW thinking in (if only fictional) action. Truly, a must have for the 5GW bookshelf. There are that many lessons to be learned, and examples to be illustrated upon. For those who are not 5GW thinkers, this is just, plainly put, a really excellent book. One of the best reads Ive had in a long time.

Purpleslog on Covert Radio - Topic: 5th Generation Warfare - What does it all mean? Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. My voice is disguised by a heavy cold, I talk way to fast (as I do in real life when excited), and I didnt sleep much the night before, but none the less, an interview I gave on 5GW for Brett Winterbles Covert Radio has been published. The time runs 18m40s. http://brettwinterble.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=338215 The interview covered the following: - How we got to 5GW thinking - My current 5GW definition - Mentioned most of the USAs 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 Barnetts 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 gapshrinking. -I suggested that Sun-Tzu thinking was in harmony with 5GW. - When asked about a possible 6GW I didnt think it was likelyI wasnt 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 dont 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.

SEI:4GW::Nukes:3GW? My last post, composed of the title of this post only, elicited only one response from a confused coblogger. It was my first post on D5GW in five months. The question was inspired largely by the recent focus in other places (as well as recurrent manifestations here) on the issue of superempowerment of individuals as a basis of 5GW; but the question was also informed by an old discussion, about nuclear warfare, spanning a few blogs. However inspired or informed, I phrased the question simply and perhaps ambiguously in order to reflect my own curiosity and lack of coherent frame of mind with respect to the issues it would raise. In this post, I will try to frame one of the questions I have had regarding the issue of SEIs and the xGW model, however leaving some other questions to the side until a later post.

Issue: Technology does not drive doctrine! (Arherring, Laying the Foundations Part 3) Summarizing the issue: In general, some contributors to D5GW have made the point, often enough, to distinguish between particular technological achievements within societies and the style of warfare used by those societies within an xGW framework. I.e., the tools of warfare do not define the style of warfare, since quite obviously (e.g.) an automatic rifle can be used in 2GW, 3GW, and 4GW; etc. The doctrine that Technology does not drive doctrine! has most often been used when arguing against the theories of those who would draw 5GW on the basis of the new technologies that are appearing and gaining prominence in the world. Drone aircraft may be used by a 2GW force, a 3GW force or an open-source 4GW force should it acquire that technology. Quite regardless of the technology used, the style of 2GW, of 3GW, and of 4GW will be the same, since these types of combat are defined by how they: target the enemys OODA in different ways; seek different methods of overcoming that enemy; and indeed, within the xGW framework, are often utilized to combat a foe who depends upon a different generational style of combat for his own victory. (Cross-generational conflict.) Technological distinctions may in fact give a specific generational style of combat a slightly different appearance one force used arrows, a newer variant uses bullets but such distinctions do not define the strategic and tactical goals so much as color the style of warfare used by all within that xGW with a different tint; the xGW remains the same. My take: I am of a slightly different frame of mind. While I understand the arguments above, I also believe that certain technological advancements may make one style of fighting more or less attractive. E.g., in my exploration of the OODA and xGW already linked above, I speculated at length on the way that technological achievements in our modern era have gradually increased our observational range and thus have led from 1GW to 2GW, from 2GW to 3GW, and ultimately to greater prominence for 4GW and 5GW styles of fighting. Al-Qaeda, for instance, or any number of 4GW foes, can see first-hand and immediately how our populace and government will react to certain events, thanks to our media and the Internet. They are better able to target those CoGs at a greater distance than ever before. So while efforts to demoralize the enemy have always been used in warfare, the taunting that now occurs gains a boost from communication technologies that never before existed and need not be conducted within arrow range. Incidentally, in the linked post I discussed examples of weaponry technology that could act at

greater distances and with more precision and/or with a wider area of effect, as a boost to operational observational range. One need not observe in exact detail the bulls-eye when one uses a shotgun or if the missile is guided by GPS. Similarly, the ability to spread a meme may not require knowing the name, birthplace, astrological sign, gender, religion of an individual living in Seattle! Issue: The Lost Generation of Warfare (John Robb) Summarizing the issue: Mark Safranski also linked the John Robb post in a ZenPundit entry titled, Downgrading The Unthinkable to Thinkable. In a nutshell, nuclear warfare, which was once unthinkable and formed the basis of the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, may have been a neat partition between 3GW and 4GW, since the advent of nuclear technology made large scale conflict between states much less attractive. Admittedly, John Robb implied a missing xGW by calling nuclear warfare the lost generation in that post; and, Mark Safranski wondered if smaller, micro-atomic and specialized nuclear arms with proliferation to non-state actors might well play a role in future warfare, requiring expansion of the xGW taxonomy to include the possibilities. The thou shalt not define xGW according to technology arguments arose: even if nukes were used by non-state actors, such use could fit within a 4GW style of fighting or perhaps within a 3GW style of fighting if individuals acted as blitzkrieg infantry to deliver those smaller, focused nuclear attacks. My take: I took a different approach, finding that indeed the advent of nuclear weaponry had a profound effect on the transition from a 2GW/3GW frame of mind to a 4GW frame of mind. (Second half of Toward a Better Understanding of 4GW here on D5GW.) Not only did MAD inspire nation states to conduct proxy warfare when fighting each other, as with the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but also the destructiveness of the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima had a profound effect on the consciousness of the West: Given the awesome weight of the nuclear specter in America throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, a corresponding 4GWish manner of thinking about conflict may have set in. Direct confrontation between great powers became terrifying; but the use of proxies and memes for doing battle i.e., indirect conflict, plus a dispersal of smaller operative forces could bypass such massive direct confrontation. We know what the Cold War was like, of course; andwe know that an establishment of the meme The Evil Empire aided Ronald Reagans strategy for winning the Cold War. Evil Empire was more than a concept; it was a moral statement. Importantly, a continued use of nuclear weapons did not have this effect; rather, the effective force was the idea of nuclear warfare. One might say that nuclear weapons have been used as a deterrent, however, although I think that even then we must admit that the operational force was more psychological, or occurred more in the mind, than on the battlefield. In any case, we might wonder, as I have, if the presumed weakness of 4GW forces which leads them to conduct 4GW operations against technologically and economically superior forces is more than analogous with the presumed weakness those superior forces may perceive in themselves when they are confronted by equally powerful nuclear-wielding states. I.e., does the proxy warfare approach utilized by the Cold War enemies (as well as the ideological, meme-driven media efforts) have this in common

with the 4GW forces now operating in the world: the acknowledgment that direct and kinetically focused conflict costs more than it is worth? To return to the question posed in the title of this post: I use Nukes rather than Nuclear Warfare because, for me, the term connotes the operative psychological consideration of the existence and theoretical use of nuclear weapons. Issue: Superempowered Individuals, One Way or Another Summarizing the Issue: The preeminent conceptualization of superempowered individuals involves not only the acquisition of extremely destructive technology by individuals but also the acquisition of what might be called connectivity. An example might be the villain in 12 Monkeys, who had access to lab equipment and biological material suitable for the construction of a killer virus as well as the means to travel quickly, globally, to spread it. Similarly, access to nuclear material might enable individuals to create and deploy nuclear weapons. John Robb, of Global Guerrillas fame, has suggested that such superempowerment of individuals will be a key feature of the 5GW world: A prevailing theme of global guerrilla theory is that personal superempowerment will change the face of warfare. My take: As linked in the last heading, the concept of superempowerment can be understood in various ways. However, I have to admit the prevailing conceptualization exists and that I also think that the dangers of super-empowered destroyers of order (via high-tech weaponry) is a real threat. While I am not altogether certain that the possibility is anything new, since certain individuals within the modern atomic era have had access to destructive technology and the means to utilize it outside the state system if they wished, already, I agree that globalization and the continual modernization of the world increases the odds for destructive superempowerment. I have previously placed such superempowered actions in the realm of severe accident or psychopathology rather than a model of warfare, because quite honestly the type of destruction caused by a new virus, for instance, would be extremely difficult to target effectively. How do you limit its scope? Similarly, the complexity of globalization even black globalization would mean that individual actions of a highly destructive nature, like nuclear attacks, would have downstream fallout the superempowered individual could not predict, possibly putting his own objectives in jeopardy. (Pun intended.) This is not to say such activity would not happen, nor that no specialized use of nuclear weaponry or biological or chemical warfare could not be used in a 4GW effort, however, or even a 5GW effort.

With these thoughts in mind, I asked myself, SEI:4GW::Nukes:3GW? I was reminded of an excellent early consideration of 5GW written by Bryce Lane titled On Fifth Generation Warfare? which I once included on the severely un-finished 5GW Timeline I began months ago. (Original pdf at Defense and the National Interest, and summarized on the 5GW Timeline.) Specifically, I remembered this intriguing line from the article: The drive for narcissistic individuals, isolated ideologies and pathological groups to see

themselves and their identities writ large across the fabric of humanity and history itself is taking up where many cultures have left off. And: A classic insurgent, guerrilla or fourth generation enemy has a material-political-social goal in mind. The new problems may be initiated by people who are little more than stalkers, fire starters, narcissists and misfits who wish to see themselves writ larger than life across the psycho-social landscape of the earth and now have been shown that they certainly have the means available of doing so. The observation is meant to explain how/why some individuals who become superempowered might decide to act upon the world in highly destructive ways even though the down-stream effects of those actions may not be discernible to the actor. Regardless of how we characterize the destructive tendencies and activities of the super-empowered individual and I am nearly certain that John Robb would vehemently reject the idea that Lanes characterization would apply to all destructive SEIs still, we must begin to wonder if some psychopathic SEIs will successfully cause carnage far beyond what America experienced on 9/11. We might consider how so-called global guerrillas would purposely cause such carnage. And we must consider what these destructive activities or even, the mere thought of them will do to the collective psyche. One might easily make the argument that the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima was the epitome of 3GW, or even the epitome of 2GW+3GW. The attack was an end-run around the 2GW and 3GW that had occurred and might still occur in WWII. Subsequently, proxy and memetic warfare and MAD would characterize the Cold War, and we were moving into the era of 4GW. (Not that 2GW and 3GW had entirely left the world, however.) With the advent of nuclear weaponry, the ultimate in state power, a new form of fighting had to be developed. With the threat of what John Robb called catastrophic superempowerment, will a new form of fighting need to be developed which will preempt it or circumvent it? Bryce Lane contemplated some measures that could be taken to preempt catastrophic superempowerment, including: 1) improved civic skills for managing the general chaos, 2) greater networking within a society which would put eyes everywhere that of individuals to spot potential problem SEIs, and 3) streamlined infrastructure and internal systems to remove opportunities for SEIs to cause problems. John Robbs new book will reportedly explore resilient communities that could withstand the effects of destructive SEIs. Thomas P.M. Barnett wants to shrink the gap in order to prevent increased dangers to the globalizing world: an effort which has been characterized as a potential 5GW effort. Indeed, equalizing opportunities for success globally, for individuals, might help to preempt the rise of those misfits Lane predicts. In short, the rise of SEIs might signal the eventual end of the 4GW era in the way that the advent of nuclear weapons would bring about the end of 3GW between powerful (nuke-enabled) states. In order to defend against the threat of SEIs, something more than 4GW will need to be employed,

because we will need to target the whole environment which would give rise to destructive SEIs.

Doing the Unthinkable I think the problem comes from the simple power of the word war. It immediately brings up images of uniformed soldiers with weapons hurting other soldiers (at best) or, more likely, innocent civilians. That concept of warfare is pretty solid in the minds of most Westerners and will need a long time to acquire a redefinition. Sen at Skilluminati Research I agree 100% that 5GW is an event horizon for warfare theoryits where war merges with everything else, where things become so radically different that the old theory is more of a hinderance than a help. Thirtyseven at Skilluminati Research.

The conundrum is nothing new. October 12, 2006, I wrote a post to answer another blogs commenters question, Where is the war part? using a little hyperbole to vent a little frustration: This manipulation of observation would appear to be non-war by traditional definitions. The glory of dismembering bodies and destroying infrastructure in the pursuit of showing the enemy whats what! would seem to be sidelined. In fact, the question seems almost to come from a 1GW perspective, and I have occasionally witnessed the greatest disdain for 5GW theory coming from soldiers and their officers in the field. They have after all been trained to dismember enemies and destroy battle placements, or to wipe out an enemys operational capability through a quite limited EBO which seems less limited simply because the devastation can be directed over large areas through targeted aerial bombings and missile strikes.

The conundrum will be new for everyone who must contend with unfolding circumstances in the future. As I concluded after the above statements, in reference to the traditional conceptualization of war I gave there, We are witnessing the effectiveness of these strategies in Iraq and on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, are we not? To put it another way without drawing the whole picture for you dear reader, what sorts of bombs and EBO will work against the destructive super-empowered individual? How does traditional warfare play on the little screen, as opposed to the big screen; and what hinders its efficacy? What else must be attacked which cannot be hit by soldiers in uniform or precision-guided missiles? To put it another way, this one more geeky (a label I recently received from elsewhere) I will refer to a post I wrote in February 2007, A Kinder, Gentler War?, and these lines: The belief that utter destruction of our foes is possible, or else that sufficient kinetic force will either force them to our way of thinking or fence them in, is founded upon the notion that what goes into the OODA loop of our foe comes out without interference from his reasoning. I.e., it is the grossest form of Objectivism possible, entirely entrenched in the assumption that what is done to

the physical world will have a direct, predictable result in shaping the enemys activity (whether he dies or submits), as if all enemies are merely carbon copy constructs of our own imagining. It is a linear epistemology; and those with the most faith in kinetic force tend to be those who overlook complexity and confluential processes, preferring to eliminate complexity by obliterating whatever does not hold to their line of sight.

but such people continue to exist, and will continue, which is why so much that is unthinkable will continue to shape the world around them in unexpected ways. Indeed, 5GWarriors yes, Im using warriors will be especially grateful to those opponents who look linearly, or, that is, only straight down their noses at what lies directly in front of them. Then, the observation will continue to be something like this:

I.e., all those straight lines become static, as nothing makes sense; attacking each linear threat will cause them to dissipate themselves physically, operationally, materially, or despair of ever achieving victory. The invisibility or the Secret in 5GW depends upon the inability, in their opponents, of making sense of the static. This does not mean that actual activities, occurrences, and so forth are entirely unwitnessed or invisible/Secret but Ive gone over that before as well (here and here) In fact, I began to wonder if an entirely secret SecretWar is possible, and I wondered if maybe the concept of an absolutely secret SecretWar has led some of our recent brainstorming on 5GW down the wrong path. If, indeed, absolute secrecy is impossible, then a SecretWarrior might need to shape the processes by which her opponent reacts to the effects of 5GW. Indeed, the 5GWarriors will want their foes to react to dangers, dangers that will need to be utterly apparent. What wont be apparent, however, is the fact that a 5GWarrior is behind the events; thats his secrecy.

XGW as a System for the Classification of Doctrines 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). Im 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 enemys 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, its 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.

Triangulating Clausewitz and Boyd Recent discussions re: GMW vs xGW [1] [2] [3] suggest that William Linds Generations of Modern Warfare model is insufficient and that the newer model xGW proves more useful for understanding warfare in our present era as well as in previous eras. In point of fact, Linds model has often caused dispute, particularly on the fourth tier, that is with regard to the prognostication of 4GW. Useful or not, the first three generations are descriptive of what has already occurred in our modern era and so are pre-verified. The fourth generation is a guess of what is to come, which has been partly verified by current conflicts but was left open enough to suggest all future conflicts. The fact that Linds GMW leaves fourth generation warfare open to becoming whatever happens in the future the definition is vague and fluid enough severely limits the usefulness of GMW. What are we to learn from GMW that will benefit us, whether as a state or as individuals engaged in conflict? By leaving no room for the development of a fifth generation of warfare that could defeat a fourth generation warfare, we are left no recourse in GMW except the ability to describe: Having described 1GW through 3GW, we come to 4GW which we can use to tag all future events. What we are to do about those events doesnt matter and is conspicuously absent from the GMW model. xGW, on the other hand, would seek to suggest a framework which would allow problem-solving. If we eject the word generation from the model and instead use something else, such as grade [2], and by so doing eject the most common connotations of generation, we can perhaps begin to postulate not merely the styles of conflict as they emerge exterior to us, one after another, but also the relationship of these styles to one another in a useful manner: i.e., we may postulate an interior activity, or a reflective and prospective activity which becomes problem-solving. One force sees its opponents activity, assesses itself, and seeks to develop a better method of fighting. For me, this is at heart the greatest strength of xGW. This is why I have some difficulties accepting the most recent trend exemplified in the discussion under Arherrings latest post on Dreaming 5GW, XGW as a System for the Classification of Doctrines. The post has received a lot of activity since it was added to the blog, quite a few visits. While I recognize the usefulness of having simple descriptions of 0GW-5GW (what I imagine to be its biggest draw), I would avoid encapsulating xGW as a merely descriptive model. A note: while the simple descriptions, though they could be improved, may be a necessary early step toward understanding and using xGW, the discussion there and even now elsewhere The advantage to Boyds categories is the ahistorical aspect there is no chain of causality. As mentioned by Dan above, this is one of the biggest criticisms of xGW. I maintain that xGW should abandon the timeline altogether. (Younghusband, Coming Anarchy) which seeks to eliminate issues of causality by eliminating sequencing and temporal relationships would reduce xGW to a merely descriptive taxonomy. Looking back at a battle, whether 50 years back or 2000, we could call it 1st Grade Warfare or 4th Grade Warfare. We might see a 2GW force defeating a 4GW force, a 4GW force defeating a 1GW force, a 3GW force defeating a 5GW force, and feel secure that we were able to categorize these forces within potential categories; but be left in the present believing that quite possibly a 2GW force structure would be just fine for defeating whatever 4GW foes we face. And why not? If xGW is merely to be a system of categorization of label-making we would be freed to fight however we want without

bothering to think much about xGW. xGW would not be terribly useful for guiding our decisions: a system of labels rather than a system for strategizing. On the other hand, any system of strategizing must necessarily begin with a workable cognitive framework, which a system of description could provide. Younghusband in the Coming Anarchy post suggested a return to John Boyds Patterns of Conflict: Categories of Conflict Now looking back and reflecting upon the panorama of military history we can imagine three kinds of human conflict: * Attrition Warfare as practiced by the Emperor Napoleon, by all sides during the 19th century and during World War I, by the Allies during World War II, and by present-day nuclear planners. * Maneuver Conflict as practiced by the Mongols, General Bonaparte, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, Union General Ulysses S. Grant, Hitlers Generalsand the Americans under Generals Patton and MacArthur. * Moral Conflict as practiced by the Mongols, most Guerrilla Leaders, a very few CounterGuerrillasand certain others from Sun Tzu to the present. These descriptions, I note, are not entirely different from Arherrings descriptive taxonomy; he even uses some of the same practitioners in his descriptions of 0GW-5GW. But what will distinguish the 3-pronged descriptive strategy of Boyd from the 6-pronged descriptive strategy Arherring used? (Note also that Arherring, by use of the numerals 0 - 5, suggests a progression, whether temporally linear or a linear progression of grades.) In order for xGW to have any use whatsoever greater than the use of the GMW system, we must come to understand how xGW would move beyond the merely descriptive strategy to a proactive decision-making strategy. Merely enabling description of warfare pre-Peace of Westphalia will not do us any good. Furthermore, I would posit: we are not now needing to fight those medieval and ancient wars which have long been decided. I.e., our modern era concerns us far more; or, present conflicts. While understanding why certain strategies have succeeded or failed in the far past might be of some use, I do not know that we can use uniformitarianism to suppose that our present activities will succeed or fail for the same reasons. Only a belief in warfare entirely separated from other socio-economic political systems would support the theory that identical types or grades or generations of warfare, past and present, will have the same utility regardless of when they occurred or may occur. I wonder, then, whether we should extend the xGW framework from the merely generic/descriptive taxonomy that would place all warfare within 6 grades, by supposing how the general types of conflict may operate differently in different environments and we might look to Clausewitz for a guide. Recent discussions have reminded me of an older discussion on Dreaming 5GW initiated by D5GW contributor Deichmans: 5GW in Clausewitzs Trinity: Id like to add another element to the foundation: the Clausewitzian Trinity (developed in Book II of Karl von Clausewitzs magnum opus, On War). Clausewitz, in developing his famous assertion

that war is a continuation of politics by other means, describes three core elements of any campaign: * Rationality (of the state) * Probability (in military command) * Rage (of the population) How do rationality, probability, and rage of the state, in military command, of the population triangulate with attrition, maneuver, and moral warfare? In very general terms, Clausewitzs Trinity gives a framework for the environment in which Boyds Categories of Conflict must operate. In similarly broad terms, I would suggest that moral warfare, for instance, might have very different outcomes if it is directed to target the rationality of the state, the probability/chance faced by the military command, and the rage of the population. Similarly, attritive strategies may have more or less effect depending on the specific target. Finally, changes within the geopolitical and social structures, not to mention technological changes, might influence the environment sufficiently to make some targets more feasible than others, and thus some strategies of conflict more or less efficient. For xGW to be useful, we need to understand how these various factors interrelate, and then we need to see the correlation of these factors within our present day.

Iran's Mini-Quasi-5GW? Munz sent this along a few days ago: Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have "been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service ... to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government," a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday. A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's top brass never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report said. The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator... I'd encourage you to read the entire article. All obvious and alleged political conclusions aside (the rather shady nature of the Bush admin, for instance) this is an intriguing article when looked at in terms of the xGW framework. The misinformation provided (especially that bit about screwing up traffic [???] as a precursor for coup) would seem to focus entirely on disrupting the "victims" (in this case Ledeen and the above mentioned "cabal") ability to correctly observe the situation at hand. Consider the tdaxp diagram below that quite effectively links the various gradients (see post and commentary here) of warfare to how they focus upon and disrupt each cognitive step laid out in the infamous OODA loop: Just as interesting is the idea that Ghorbanifar's apparent misinformation also served to toss a much larger 4GWish wrench into the decision making process of the Defense Department in a rather top down approach with Donald Rumsfeld halting the counter intelligence investigation. This effectively killed not only the investigation at hand but also, one presumes, any nascent plots to overthrow the Iranian regime that were brewing as a result of that misinformation. Two birds with one multigradient stone.

GW Theory Cast Too High? Ive thoroughly enjoyed the rich intellectual debate broiling this past month in the blogosphere over the construct of the generational model of warfare: from D5GW host Curtis Gale Weeks to co-contributors tdaxp (several posts and more) & General of the Hordes Subadei, Younghusband (twice) at Coming Anarchy, Smitten Eagle (channeled by Lexington Green), Fabius Maximus (who also critiqued a Friedman piece from STRATFOR), Arms and Influence, Stephen Pampinella (twice), and Skilluminati. Much of these analyses focus on the implicitly ordinal nature of the generational model. tdaxps lucid post on The Terminology of XGW attempts to overcome this fundamental shortcoming in the model, but doesnt go far enough in jettisoning the troublesome implication. His recommendation to abandon generation in favor of grade or, later, gradient still connotes an ordinal nature of the methods of warfare. Recent efforts to diminish my anti-library (which have proven fruitless, since my propensity for borrowing books exceeds the rate by which I actually read and return them) has me deep into Karen Armstrongs outstanding biography, Muhammad. Early in chapter 1 (Muhammad the Enemy), Prof. Armstrong describes the 9th century monk Perfectus of Cordova, in Andalusia (ne the capital of the Muslim state of al-Andalus). His diatribe against the Prophet of Islam warranted a death sentence, and inspired dozens of others from all levels of society to similarly insult Muhammad and receive similar fates from the Qadi. Perfectus, his contemporaries Eulogio and Alvaro, and the many other Cordovan martyrs had been influenced by an apocalyptic biography of Muhammad that (with extensive artistic liberties) linked the Prophet of Islam to the Great Deceiver predicted in the Apostle Pauls second epistle to the Thessalonians. The association of Muhammad with the rebel [who] would establish his rule in the Temple of Jerusalem and mislead many Christians with his plausible doctrines (2 Thes. 1:4-8, cited in Armstrongs Muhammad, p. 24), and with Johns Book of Revelation through selective addition (claiming Muhammad died in the year 666 even though he lived another 38 years), were what we may call a 5th generation war: a secret war that exploited cultural icons in order to diminish and defeat an opponent. My personal epiphany, while reading Armstrong in the midst of the ongoing blog dialog (diablog?), is that none of the generational models are necessarily exclusive nor for that matter are they strategic. Rather, they are simply tactical methods that one may choose to apply in the achievement of an objective or the fulfillment of a task. Consider George Friedmans recent STRATFOR analysis on Secretary Gatess dismissal of CSAF Mosely and SAF Wynne, where he describes the GMW put forth by Lind, Nightengale, Schmitt, Sutton and Wilson in their groundbreaking 1989 Marine Corps GAZETTE article: There is a school of thought in the military that argues that we have now entered the fourth generation of warfare. The first generation of war, according to this theory, involved columns and lines of troops firing muzzle-loaded weapons in volleys. The second generation consisted of warfare involving indirect fire (artillery) and massed movement, as seen in World War I. Third-generation warfare comprised mobile warfare, focused on outmaneuvering the enemy, penetrating enemy lines and encircling them, as was done with armor during World War II. The first three generations of warfare involved large numbers of troops, equipment and logistics. Large territorial organizations namely, nation-states were required to carry them out. Fourth-generation warfare is warfare carried out by nonstate actors using small, decentralized units and individuals to strike at enemy forces and, more important, create political support among the population.

Whether a commander chooses to align his forces in columns (a staple of close order drill, one of the most basic elements of modern day Basic Training in the armed services), or to mass fires, or to exploit maneuver, or to focus on creating political support among the population as GEN Petraeus is doing with the Surge, the fact of the matter is that ALL of these are valid tactics at some point. In fact, I submit that the methods are force structure neutral in many respects albeit some force structures are optimized for certain methods. The crux of the matter is that warfare is no longer the sole purview of the nation-state. The proliferation of information technologies and ready access to design best practices is collapsing the barriers to entry in the bazaar of violence, as John Robb has been telling us for some time. Even seemingly advanced weapon systems like cruise missiles (the rich mans IED) will soon become accessible to self-subsidized organizations with DIY ingenuity, GPS-enabled cell phones and a modicum of propellant and guidance. And we have all seen the power of networks for manipulating and influencing perceptions. While the nation-state is optimized for the first of Boyds three Categories of Conflict (Attrition, Maneuver and Moral [q.v. Patterns of Conflict, p. 113, cited by Younghusband]), the latter two have very low barriers to entry and are readily accessible for nearly any size of organization. And while I disagree with Kotares dismissal of Clausewitz and the overarching aim of breaking an enemys will, his emphasis on the tangible nature of strategy as a target of collective effort is compelling. In closing, Curtis Gale Weekss Triangulation of Clausewitz and Boyd offers a finite, n-space description of the ways by which an entity may seek to compel another. His taxonomy, with three principal environments (rationality, probability and rage), three primary target sets (governance, military and population) and three categories of conflict (attrition, maneuver and moral) elicit 27 strategic permutations. Perhaps rather than debating the merits of the individual yardsticks by which we measure any one of these metrics, we should rather be examining which of these permutations pose the greatest risk to our own strategies and guarding against them.

5GW Chess This is from a comment I left over at Phatic Communion in a conversation that had to do with Centers of Gravity (CoG). It seems to me that 5GW is less about looking for one particular CoG (be it stregth or weakness) but about engaging the target on as many different chessboards as possible and attacking the CoG that gains you the most advantage on each board. The idea of multiple chessboards reminded me of something else that I saw about a year ago on a television program starring mentalist / illusionist / magician Derren Brown and marked for possible 5GW exploration. (Actually Derren Brown could be the subject of a whole series of 5GW posts, something I may have to further explore. Stage Magic and Illusion as 5GW is one of my original topics of exploration.) The lesson to be gained from this particular situation isnt exactly the one I was going for in the comment at PC, but there is a 5GW lesson there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZmpsl3jI0 So what is the lesson? Ill leave that to the readers to put in the comments. I know what I see, maybe somebody else will see something even deeper.

On Information A Twitter tweet from @Selil earlier this evening roused a long-dormant post idea. Since Twitter is a micro-blog, its constraint of just 140 characters limits its utility to low-bandwidth, big-idea (or mundane-activity) broadcasting. Prof. Liless big-idea (in response to @mtanji of Haft of the Spear and CTLab fame) was: C4isr as the battle space. More than the Arquilla network centric warfare concept. Beyond hacking. Sun Tzu and Clausewitz I certainly agree with Prof. Liles that there is more to the information domain than John Arquilla and net-centric warfare (which always struck me as an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophesy despite the fact that network superiority has no deterrent value). Where I differ is in the proposition that C4ISR is a battle space. C4ISR, or (as ADM Giambastiani liked to refer to it during his tour as my boss at U.S. Joint Forces Command, C2 + C2ISR), is simply a tool. The technology only provides a medium by which information can be shared, the same way that Roman signal towers allowed information to be conveyed rapidly across great distances millennia ago. Part of the Tanji-Liles dialog emphasized the lack of any truly revolutionary capabilities in recent decades. Im inclined to agree from a purely technological perspective. Our modern technology though impressive has not ushered in a unique Information Age. In fact, todays technologies have not created wholly new capabilities; they have simply enriched capabilities that have existed for centuries. Rather than living in The Information Age, I believe we are actually living in the fifth information age: 1st: Verbal exchange of information (oral communication) 2nd: Physical representation of information (Sumerian writing) 3rd: Portability of information (papyrus) 4th: Mass-production of information (Gutenbergs movable type press) 5th: Information freed from physical form (telegraph, telephone, Internet) The most significant effect of proliferating information technology and communications capabilities has been to neuter the initiative and empowerment of subordinates stunting the audacity that makes (or breaks) battles. Rigid hierarchies coupled with pervasive communications grids with Net-Centricity are demonstrably less effective than ones with weak links (q.v. Linked by Albert-Lszl Barabsi). Consider the Operational Level of War the level between Tactics and Strategy. Many organizations of the U.S. Department of Defense invest inordinate numbers of labor hours in developing an idea that peaked in Napoleons time (when it was called Grand Tactics). Napoleons logic was simple: he commanded an army so vast that its interior lines could exceed the distance of daily information propagation. (Information in the late 18th/early 19th century could propagate at approximately 100 miles per day.) But when technology increased the bandwidth of information transfer (as well as the speed, thanks to decoupling it from physical form and allowing velocity=c), the intermediate layer that once served as a proxy for the Imperial edict (i.e., empowerment of the on-scene commander to act on behalf of the Emperor) has remain entrenched. Modern C4ISR tools have served to perpetuate this folly, giving todays commanders a beguiling sense of Situational Awareness. MIL STD 2525, the military standard for unit symbology merged with theater-scale maps, can give a commander a realtime snapshot of the entire physical

battlespace. But as the scale increases (since warfare is not scale invariant), the trade off between relevance and intelligibility becomes akin to Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle: as one becomes more precise, the other becomes dangerously less so. The temptation to treat warfare like a game of chess (with its ordinal moves and perfect battlefield intelligence) is fallacious. ARHerring, a co-contributor at Dreaming5GW, recently opined about the nature of chess on multiple boards a closer approximation to the adaptive and complex nature of war. Clausewitzs description of Genius in battle is the antithesis of a reductionist thinker who seeks the unique solution to a given problem. Complex adaptive environments can have multiple solutions but an even larger number of incorrect options. Therefore, a better description of an effective military leader is not simply charisma, but network fitness: per Barabsi, the ability to attract links in order to influence their perceptions. This applies not only to COIN, but also to Information Warfare (h/t mtanji) and the renascent field of Public Diplomacy championed by Mountainrunner.

Updated: Where You Vote and How You Vote: Proto-5GW Thinking in a Study of the Context of Voting From NPR News: All Things Considered. Study: Your Polling Place Affects How You Vote June 23, 2008 A new study shows that where you vote affects how you vote. People who vote in schools, for example, are more likely to support a school funding initiative. The researchers suggest that the same sort of psychology might affect people who vote in churches. This story caught my attention not only because it has to do with elections (see #3), but because as proto-5GW thinking (not secrecy-shrouded full-on 5GW) it is an observable manipulation of context. Granted, in this particular study the difference in the voting pattern is small, yet with only this one variable of context being affected there is a measurable difference in the effect. I would envision a true 5GW actor affecting multiple variables in order to achieve a desired context and an ultimate effect that has become compounded in the process.

Contextual priming: Where people vote affects how they vote 1. Jonah Berger,, 2. Marc Meredith, and 3. S. Christian Wheeler 1. Marketing Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104; 2. Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; and 3. Marketing Department, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 1. Edited by Claude M. Steele, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, and approved May 8, 2008 (received for review December 19, 2007) Abstract American voters are assigned to vote at a particular polling location (e.g., a church, school, etc.). We show these assigned polling locations can influence how people vote. Analysis of a recent general election demonstrates that people who were assigned to vote in schools were more likely to support a school funding initiative. This effect persisted even when controlling for voters' political views, demographics, and unobservable characteristics of individuals living near schools. A followup experiment using random assignment suggests that priming underlies these effects, and that they can occur outside of conscious awareness. These findings underscore the subtle power of situational context to shape important real-world decisions.

5GW DECEPTION OPERATIONS AND THE SOVIET PRECEDENT Deception is 5GWs central offensive weaponthe secret war equivalent of the combined arms strike. Some may say this is an overstatement. Can active deception really be classified as a weapon? Our disbelief in the offensive power of deception springs from our limitedand staticconception of deception operations. Most Western strategists believe that deception operations are chiefly used to cloak military capabilities and confuse the enemy. When we think of military deception, we tend to imagine something like the successful cloaking of the Normandy invasion in World War II. But deception is more than just camouflage and strategic feints. A holistic conception of deception operations holds that deception can sway an opponent to act against his own interests and undermine his political and military organizations. I propose utilizing the Soviet deception apparatus as a baseline model of deception operations. While Al Qaeda uses tactical and operational deception for security and strategic surprise, its opensource model precludes extensive offensive strategic deception. Al Qaedas tactics and strategic goals are articulated in the publicly available writings of senior strategists, available to anyone with Arabic language skills and an Internet connection. Translations are also available from both government (The Open Source Center) and commercial services (SITE Institute) devoted to tracking jihadist operations. Al Qaedas relative transparency is an inherent feature of the opensource warfare model it depends on to galvanize its global movement. For the Soviets, deception was a way of life. The Soviet Uniona secretive and paranoid totalitarian state-sealed itself from outside influence and extensively utilized deception to mislead Western policymakers, journalists, and intelligence analysts. The cultlike nature of Soviet life has ample parallels to 5GW. Back in the USSR Richard J. Heuer Jr. (see the excellent volume Soviet Strategic Deception) classifies Soviet Deception efforts as Active Measures, Counterintelligence, and Maskirovka (Military Deception). Counterintelligence and Maskirovka are limited and more or less self-explanatory. Neutralizing or co-opting enemy intelligence networks is an operational mission, as is misleading OPFOR in an attempt to preserve operational security or retain strategic surprise. This does not mean that Soviet CI and Maskirova did not at times assume a strategic dimension. In the 1920s, the CHEKA and OGPU created a fake resistance movement called The Trust. It was marketed as an authentic opposition umbrella movement in the hope that enemies both home and abroad would flock to its banner. Opposition networks and foreign intelligence operatives made contact with The Trust, allowing Soviet intelligence to penetrate and neutralize their organizations. When the Trust outlived its usefulness, Moscow revealed and closed down the operation. If The Trust itself had liquidated the Soviet oppositions best operatives, its exposure humiliated and shattered the Soviet migr network. The West no longer trusted their expertise and they no longer trusted each other. The example of the Trust demonstrates how a 5GW adversary might respond to an attempt by an opposing organization to penetrate and destroy its operational network. 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. Active Measures

The Soviet Unions main covert strategy involved in use of Active Measuresextensive attempts to undermine the Wests unity and influence its decision-making. The battlespace was truly worldwide, ranging from the Third World to the homeland. The Soviets relied on a worldwide cabal of agents and contacts to agitate against America and her allies through a series of front organizations. The methods of agitation ranged from black propaganda to sophisticated media campaigns. Agitation meshed with strategic influence operations utilizing agents and sympathizers highly placed within government, academia, and the press to mold both policy and public perception to Moscows benefit. Not all of the KGBs proxies were committed believersKGB officers also developed unwitting agents of influence for the purpose of spreading messages favorable to the USSR. As Heuer Jr. argues, we should not conceptualize Soviet influence operations as exclusively characterized by one-way transmission. Deception was altered based on feedback from the one being deceived. Messages were altered to accommodate shifts in public opinion. Deception operations depend on adversary mirror-imaging and a willingness to be deceived. Western analysts in both the government and the media often own force their own pre-conceived cultural norms onto the enemy with the erroneous belief that Western concepts of government, strategy, and morality are universally applicable. Additionally, elites and thought leaders already pre-disposed to distrusting their government and society were more willing to highlight American perfidy while ignoring the horrors of Soviet totalitarianism and imperialism. Conclusion Thankfully, the relative skill of Soviet deception operators wasnt enough to overcome the larger strategic failure inherent in the USSRs political, military, and economic spheres. History has often demonstrated that brilliant tactical and operational success cannot compensate for strategic dysfunction. Nazi Germanys armies were at one point the most powerful and skilled fighting forces in Eurasia, but that alone couldnt compensate for the Allied industrial advantage nor mitigate the Fuhrers self-sabotaging myopia and madness. 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 enemys 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 healthythough skepticalpatriotism.

The Joker: Epitome of Global Guerrillas Made the note on Twitter. Heres the review that particularly catches my eye: The Dark Knight, rated with an A by Emanuel Levy, who goes on for some length but writes this nugget: The storys most dangerous enemy is Batmans infamous nemesis, the Joker, the maniacal, remorseless fiend. In this tale, the Joker is the ultimate arch-villain, as much an icon as the Dark Knight is, presenting the filmmakers the challenge to exploring an utterly perverse character with a distorted point of view (actually more of a philosophy of life). Perhaps following the tradition of villains in German expressionist cinema, this Joker represents the most extreme form of anarchist, a force of chaos, a purposeless criminal who is not motivated by money and greed; in one the films most disturbing scenes, he [burns] down a mountain of cash. A massively destructive force, he is truly unsettling, appearing out of nowhere, when he is least expected and taking great delight in his murderous nature. As interpreted by the inventive actor Heath Ledger (in his last screen role), the Joker is colorful, outrageous, and dangerous, devoted [to] the spectacle and excess for their own sake. Ledger throws himself completely, in looks, body, and soul to the exploration of the multiple effects he can have as a solitary figure on the entire population, the scary ways in which he upsets the social order, the specific means he uses to take the citizens rules, values, ethics, and humanity and turn them on themselves. Bent on destruction for destructions sake, including at a later point self-destruction, the Joker is a man devoid of any norms or principles, a formidable foe defined by total lack of morality. This element posits the Joker in direct opposition to Batman, a man who has a very strict moral code for what he will and will not do, which the Joker uses to his own selfish advantage. Under the Jokers escalating influence, though, Batman needs to reassess his philosophy, make sure that in chasing an ultra monster, he doesnt succumb to the temptation of becoming a monster himself.

Then there are these nuggets written by Todd Gilchrist at IGN.com, in The Dark Knight Review: Meanwhile, a new adversary named The Joker (Heath Ledger) proves particularly dangerous because he seeks not only to advance the cause of Gothams underworld, but obliterate the foundations of liberty and order that Batman protects. & More important than this, however, is the idea that Batman is not just a guy in a suit, but a symbol and there are people in the film - most notably The Joker - who want to destroy that symbol. While Batmans identity remains secret and his motives unknown to Gothamites, he represents hope in a city that has little to spare and embodies a pursuit of justice - and further, a code of behavior that quite literally threatens these criminals way of life. By throwing Gotham into chaos and testing the limits to which Batman holds himself, The Joker is not merely plying death and destruction but willfully destroying the philosophical foundations of organized society. &

While all of this sounds lofty - and it is - Nolan examines these themes in beautifully human terms, projecting his examination of the hero into the hearts and minds of his characters. Wayne, less outwardly conflicted than in Batman Begins, sees Dents ascension as an opportunity to stop playing dress up and reunite with Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) - the one woman who knows his secret. Meanwhile, Dent and his sometimes partner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) look at Batmans existence as a good thing, a fulcrum against which they can enforce the law and sometimes bend rules to accomplish loftier goals. And, of course, The Joker wants to destroy all of that, albeit less because of some law of movie villainy than because he sees his existence as the necessary antithesis - or perhaps ultimate extension - of the murky morality of Batmans brand of justice. When, after all, was the last time a movie criminal wasnt merely mad, but had a deeper ideological motivation for his dastardly deeds? And this from Peter Travers in Rolling Stone: If theres a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976s Network, sign me up. Ledgers Joker has no gray areas hes all rampaging id. Watch him crash a party and circle Rachel, a woman torn between Bales Bruce (she knows hes Batman) and Eckharts DA, another lover she has to share with his civic duty. Hello, beautiful, says the Joker, sniffing Rachel like a feral beast. Hes right when he compares himself to a dog chasing a car: The chase is all. The Jokers sadism is limitless, and the masochistic delight he takes in being punched and bloodied to a pulp would shame the Marquis de Sade. I choose chaos, says the Joker, and those words sum up whats at stake in The Dark Knight. The Joker wants Batman to choose chaos as well. He knows humanity is what you lose while youre busy making plans to gain power. Over at Phatic Communion, I once posted an article on 5GW, There Are Times, Admittedly, in which I also considered a Joker, but this one was from W.H.Audens essay The Joker in the Pack from his book of essays, The Dyers Hand. (My favorite book of essays, next to Montaignes.) In the essay, Auden used Iago from Shakespeares play Othello to give a picture of the practical joker in action. Iagos actions are intended to give him a better understanding of Othello. I.e., the manipulation he practices is not entirely meant to destroy Othello but rather to reduce Othello to an object for study, only: Iagos treatment of Othello conforms to Bacons definition of scientific enquiry as putting Nature to the Question. If a member of the audience were to interrupt the play and ask him: What are you doing? could not Iago answer with a boyish giggle, Nothing. Im only trying to find out what Othello is really like? And we must admit that his experiment is highly successful. By the end of the play he does know the scientific truth about the object to which he has reduced Othello. That is what makes his parting shot, What you know, you know, so terrifying for, by then, Othello has become a thing, incapable of knowing anything. In describing the practical joker (as archetype), Auden zooms in on the sinister nature of playing practical jokes: The satisfaction of the practical joker is the look of astonishment on the faces of others when they learn that all the time they were convinced that they were thinking and acting on their own initiative, they were actually the puppets of anothers will. Thus, though his jokes may be harmless in themselves and extremely funny, there is something slightly sinister about every practical joker,

for they betray him as someone who likes to play God behind the scenes. Unlike the ordinary ambitious man who strives for a dominant position in public and enjoys giving orders and seeing others obey them, the practical joker desires to make others obey him without being aware of his existence until the moment of his theophany when he says: Behold the God whose puppets you have been and behold, he does not look like a god but is a human being just like yourselves. The success of a practical joker depends upon his accurate estimate of the weaknesses of others, their ignorances, their social reflexes, their unquestioned presuppositions, their obsessive desires, and even the most harmless practical joke is an expression of the jokers contempt for those he deceives. Given the persistent mention of manipulation in discussion on Dreaming 5GW, the above is worthy of consideration, if only because the near-godlike powers of manipulation through an extreme number of domains is often assumed to not only be possible but desirable. However, since maintaining secrecy will be key in such efforts, the 5GW manipulator would not quite fit the practical joker archetype. The 4GW warrior and the Global Guerrilla, which is not necessarily the same thing as a 4GW warrior quite possibly would fit the archetype. In context with The Dark Knights particular Joker, Audens practical joker might share one other thing in common. Following the last consideration of contempt for victims, Auden expands his view to consider what the practical joker is to himself: But, in most cases, behind the jokers contempt for others lies something else, a feeling of selfinsufficiency, of a self lacking in authentic feelings and desires of its own. The normal human being may have a fantastic notion of himself, but he believes in it; he thinks he knows who he is and what he wants so that he demands recognition by others of the value he puts upon himself and must inform others of what he desires if they are to satisfy them. But the self of the practical joker is unrelated to his joke. He manipulates others but, when he finally reveals his identity, his victims learn nothing about his nature, only something about their own; they know how it was possible for them to be deceived but not why he chose to deceive them. The only answer that any practical joker can give to the question: Why did you do this? is Iagos: Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. In fooling others, it cannot be said that the practical joker satisfies any concrete desire of his nature; he has only demonstrated the weaknesses of others and all he can now do, once he has revealed his existence, is to bow and retire from the stage. He is only related to others, that is, so long as they are unaware of his existence; once they are made aware of it, he cannot fool them again, and the relation is broken off. The practical joker despises his victims, but at the same time he envies them because their desires, however childish and mistaken, are real to them, whereas he has no desire which he can call his own. His goal, to make game of others, makes his existence absolutely dependent upon theirs; when he is alone, he is a nullity. Iagos self-description, I am not what I am, is correct and the negation of the Divine I am that I am. If the word motive is given its normal meaning of a positive purpose of the self like sex, money, glory, etc., then the practical joker is certainly driven, like a gambler, to his activity, but the drive is negative, a fear of lacking a concrete self, of being nobody. In any practical joker to whom playing such jokes is a passion, there is always an element of malice, a projection of his self-hatred onto others, and in the ultimate case of the absolute practical joker, this is projected onto all created things.

These considerations were brought back to my mind when reading Peter Travers review. Near the opening, Travers gives this nugget: How can a conflicted guy in a bat suit and a villain with a cracked, painted-on clown smile speak to the essentials of the human condition? Just hang on for a shock to the system. The Dark Knight creates a place where good and evil expected to do battle decide instead to get it on and dance. I dont want to kill you, Heath Ledgers psycho Joker tells Christian Bales stalwart Batman. You complete me. Dont buy the tease. He means it. Thats extremely close to Audens description of the practical joker and his goal: His goal, to make game of others, makes his existence absolutely dependent upon theirs; when he is alone, he is a nullity. Addendum: I had written in the Twit that TDK could accelerate the GG process, on the basis of a few very subtle hints mostly meaning at the time that more than one reviewer commented on how the ideas, images, etc., of the movie, and particularly the Joker, stayed in their minds after the viewing. Essientally I wonder if the Joker, as epitome, may really become an icon for GG for those so inclined, even those not quite on that side of the fence. The movie could serve as a kind of primary memetic hub, via which disparate individuals and groups are inspired toward global guerrillaism of one type or another. Of course, so much depends on the entire movie, which I have not seen. I do think however that the case is already being made to make Heath Ledger an iconic star of the James Dean variety; more than one reviewer suggests an Oscar for the performance.

COPYCAT CLOUDS Close to a month ago, a deranged individual went on a stabbing spree in Tokyo. The incident might not have been big news here but it certainly shocked the Japanese. Now, however, it appears that the Internet is full of threats to commit similaror more gruesomecrimes. The science behind copycat crimes has never been conclusiveno one really knows whether the individuals who tend to commit them are already screwed up or whether the media attention creates a tipping effect. What is novel is how online anonymity creates an outlet for sociopathic urgesand how those in cases like these the transmission of those urges seems to follow an emergent path. Manipulating and channeling copycat clouds virally would be a source of great power. Its already been done to some extentmany riots in the developing world are organized via text message. But its not just a Gap problem. In Cronulla Beach, Australia, a wave of anonymous calls and text messages calling on white Australians to attack immigrants provoked a vicious race riot. There is a certain Puppetmaster potential inherent in the mobilizing power of media that so far has been largely untapped.

Operational: Check as Tactical 5GW Recent discussions of Operational Check (such as at tdaxp and WSJ) have talked about many aspects of the hostage rescue, but now from the perspective of xGW theory. Was the rescue an example of tactical 5GW operations? Consider the Operative Actions of 5GW: 5GW Operative Action: Manipulation and influence in order to define and shape outcomes and effects. 5GW embodies an overwhelming focus on positional manipulation and shaping of the battlefield so that when kinetic action or the threat of kinetic action occurs the outcome is essentially predetermined. The opponent is, as a result, without resistance because the response is by the targets own choice or follows a previously established pattern that is familiar to the target. This places 5GW far to the left of 3GW, 1GW and the Boom on the timeline. While Operational: Check was subsumed under the larger Plan Colombia, Check still seems to be a tactical 5GW operation. The rescuers could have easily been killed if the FARCs observations were better. Indeed, the rescuers impersonated a a nonexistent NGO (h/t tdaxp), hidingg in the static of the rise and fall of pro-FARC NGOs. Operation: Check did not rely on killing the FARC (so not 0GW). Operation: Check did not rely on overwhemling FARC with men (so not 1GW). Operation: Check did not rely on overwhemling FARC with fire (so not 2GW) Operation: Check did not rely on breaking through fluid lines (so not 3GW) Operation: Check did not rely on collapsing FARCs will to resist (4GW). Rather, Operation: Check relied on manipulating FARCs observations. It was a 5GW operation. As Snowden wrote: I think the defining characteristic of 5GW operations will be surprise declarations of victory, without any indications hostilities had commenced. We - and for that matter, the FARC - did not know about Operation: Check until it was over.

Blog Tank: National Strategy for a Few Nuclear Weapons - 5GW An Interesting puzzle for 5GW thinking. (Hat tip: Zenpundit) Blog Tank: National Strategy for a Few Nuclear Weapons - Expanded by Cheryl Rofer Andy at Nuclear Mangoes reminded me over the weekend of my irritation that nobody has addressed the strategy of one to a few nuclear weapons. Thats a different problem than something in the range of 5-10, which is a different problem from a higher number. None of these have been addressed systematically for todays world. So lets have a blog tank. Anyone who wants to participate should post a scenario (or scenarios) on their blog or, if you dont have a blog, in the comments to this post. Here is the problem I want to address: What strategies are available to a country with fissionable material sufficient for 1-5 nuclear weapons, some of which may be assembled? Take into account probable responses, and assume some sort of rationality on the holders of these weapons and material. You may specifically refer to Iran and North Korea, or any other nation, or make the scenario(s) more general. Flesh out the scenario with some support.

My thinking is that it really isnt very cost effective for a country to build a nuclear program that provided only a few useable weapons, Once the infrastructure is in place an arsenal of a few dozen weapons would likely be possible as a country plays for time, betting that the program will reach maturity before international sanctions could ruin the country. From there it just becomes a question of the range of the possible delivery vehicles. In the event of military preemption before the program reaches its production goal, the existing weapons, if used, would most likely be used tactically, a situation that already has a well developed doctrine. A more interesting scenario to me is what would happen if a nation or organization without a nuclear arms program should happen to find itself in possession of one to five nuclear weapons, a few former Soviet nuclear artillery shells for example. Perhaps through some sort of logistical error a few of these rounds made it into circulation in the Caucasus. Several countries militarily active in the region, including Russia, have 2S7 Pion self-propelled guns and / or 2S4 Tulip self-propelled mortars capable of firing 203mm and 240mm nuclear shells respectively. The yield of a slightly larger US weapon, the W19, was 15-20 kilotons. Reportedly, Russian weapons had higher yields than their U. S. counterparts so this range seems a good ballpark for comparison and places it in approximately the same range as Little Boy and Fat Man, the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This gives these devices a very respectable amount of potential destruction to compliment the greatest possible asset for these weapons, their portability and size. Yes, these weapons are intended to be used tactically, but is it possible to craft a scenario to use them strategically? This situation also suggests four different types of players (aside from the pure terrorist). 1) The Outpost of Tyranny #7: Basically, a country with an authoritarian regime that wants to make waves with the big players, yet doesnt want to be paid a visit by the Leviathan and will use these weapons to prevent that possibility.

2) The Independence movement: A country or organization that desires to set itself apart and / or establish its own country or government independent from the government that currently rules it. They want to change the map and they want to ensure that the change is permanent.

3) The Prince among the Paupers: Several countries around the world are making a concerted effort to increase their connectivity and enter the ranks of the Core while their neighbors remain firmly and resolutely in the Gap. and unfortunately those neighbors only seem to export unrest and deter foreign investment. Worse they quite often become the fourth type of player.

4) The Covetous Neighbor: These are countries, mired in third-world status, that see more prosperous and resource rich neighbors around them. Should they acquire the means, how could they acquire those resources, and how would they prevent the world for stopping them?

Looking at the problem through the problem-solving lens of XGW a few considerations become rapidly apparent for all of these players. The opposition to the possession of these weapons will likely respond with a 2GW, 3GW or 4GW (especially in the case of player #3) doctrine. Therefore a 4GW or 5GW doctrine is required. Also, as General Sir Rupert Smith would argue, the force needs to be placed in a political context or it will have no Utility. Therefore, I propose a 4GW doctrine for the operational use of these weapons within a political context shaped by a strategy using a 5GW doctrine.

The 4GW Operation: As noted before, the greatest strength of these weapons is their size and portability. Assuming that the devices could be modified for transportation and detonation they could be possibly smuggled virtually anywhere in the world. This capability means that the weapons could very well be prepositioned as nuclear blackmail. To add to the confusion of where the weapons are positioned and to maintain the ongoing threat I envision a nuclear shell game, where dummy weapons (maybe enhanced with slightly radioactive medical waste) are emplaced alongside the real weapons in various points around a target with dummy weapons allowed to be discovered from time to time, or whenever an object lesson is desired on the part of the player emplacing them. Each of the players that I have described could find targets that would serve their purposes in this way. As 4GW this is a strike against the will of the target, making them choose between their political goal in opposing the player or sacrificing something potentially very valuable to them (like the center of their capital city, military base or main shipping port). The more weapons that are available, the greater the potential for deterrence.

The 5GW Strategy: Ironically, even though the 4GW Operation benefits from more weapons being available, the 5GW strategy only requires one (and with the proper preparation you might even be able to get away with

none, but thats an advanced class). Essentially, the objective is to prove the potential of multiple weapons by openly displaying the existence of at least one weapon. Should you possess only two, one should be test-detonated and the other should be openly displayed to an authority that can realiably vouch for its authenticity. This very controlled transparency is a 5GW affect on observation that triggers existing assumptions, rule-sets and responses both in countries that are targeted and in countries that are merely in the audience. At this point even if the target believes you are bluffing your target must at least honor the threat. When that happens the shell game your 4GW Operation is playing may as well be Three-Card Monte. The key to making that happen is for the player to act in every way as if the weapons actually exist, and that the player has the ability and the will to use them. This means having a dedicated logistical and security force to service and guard nothing, exercises to employ weapons you dont have, foreign policy that embodies deterrence by weapons that dont exist. The reason for this is that your enemies will search relentlessly for evidence of your bluff, yet each exercise, each discovered operation, each policy decision, each and every action taken as if your nuclear capability is a reality is a confirmation that your capability is a reality.

More 5GW Fiction: Halting State by Charles Stross Halting State Halting State by Charles Stross

Halting State is set in the near furure and centers initially around a bank robbery. That in itself isnt especially SciFi or even 5GWish except that this particular bank robbery was carried out against a bank in an MMORPG virtual world by a band of Orcs backed up by a Dragon. As the investigation starts to gain a clear picture of what actually happened this has very serious national security implications.

Much like Daemon, the 5GWish aspect of Halting State involves how communications technology, MMORPGs, Augmented Reality (AR) and other concepts that people now use for, or look to be the next wave in, entertainment and work, can be easily and invisibly turned into platforms for warfare. Especially warfare by proxy.

Not to spoil any plot aspects of the story but those interested in 5GW should pay very close attention to SPOOKS, an espionage game played by two of the main characters and STEAMING, a game that is under development at the beginning of the book.

Mutually Exclusive Paths to Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW) Success Cross-posted from PurpleSlog. 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. References [1] Purpleslogs 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 - CGWs Loving Co-Option 5GW Style (and here) [3] TDAXPs 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] http://purpleslog.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/terminology-question-how-should-we-refer-tothose-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 dont 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] Arherrings 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 heres 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.

Skilluminati

Re-Opening Skilluminati Research for 2008 REAL QUICK SYNOPSIS I lost interest in the Skilluminati project because I was framing it wrong. I believed I was engaged in anthropological and historical research -- studying How People With Power Behave. Obviously, the defeatism is built into the premise, with that kind of phrasing. What I've recently come to realize is that Skilluminati Research is actually instructions for my fellow power weirdos and future mutants on how to apply their power. From RAND documents to UN studies to Neo-Con think tanks, strategic thinkers across the political spectrum agree that the biggest problem of our century is power asymmetry -- in other words, our "leaders" are becoming less empowered while everyday human beings can access more information and power than ever before. Let's take a moment to savor the flavor of Newspeak here -- "Asymmetrical Warfare" is actually the most "symmetrical" form of warfare that's ever existed, because it puts small dedicated groups of insurgents on equal footing with any military on earth. It is actually the restoration of power balance in human culture, and these birth pangs of the Kali Yuga are the sign of something better on the horizon. Or, unimaginable horror. I'm honestly not too clear on that one. WHAT TO EXPECT Models Instead of Narratives. What Maurice Strong has done is way less important to you and me than how he did it. The same is true for Willis Harman, Roland Stark and all the other parapolitical players I've profiled in the past. There's already too many projects keeping track of the past -between History is a Weapon and Conspiracy Archive, it's already taken care of. Skilluminati will be focused on underlying technique. Exhuberance Instead of Fatalism. Every problem really is an opportunity. That's not just smile-tard optimist tripe, that's an operational fact of life. Sure, we're diving headlong into a global food shortage, World War Three and probably billions of deaths in the next 10 years, but if you're smart enough, fast enough, strong enough and lucky enough to survive, HOT DAMN WILL IT BE INTENSE. My interest in 5GW (5th Generation Warfare) is rooted in it's potential for positive social and cultural change. Suggestions Instead of Answers. I'd explain this one, but that would defeat the point, huh?

Get Familiar with John Boyd To comprehend and cope with our environment we develop mental patterns or concepts of meaning. The purpose of this paper is to sketch out how we destroy and create these patterns to permit us to both shape and be shaped by a changing environment. In this sense, the discussion also literally shows why we cannot avoid this kind of activity if we intend to survive on our own terms. --from Destruction and Creation I've covered military strategist/taoist warrior John Boyd once before, and as the tone of Skilluminati Research turns toward real-world instruction and application, Boyd will become a central figure. He was a very precise thinker and a very concise writer -- in terms of being stripped-down, bullshit-free and clearly understandable, you'd be hard pressed to find a better author in military history. Well...barring Sun Tzu. But for my money, John Boyd is light years beyond Machiavelli and still running circles around existing military doctrine. Boyd recognized, decades go, that the chain of command would eventually be used as a weapon against the military itself. Specifically, it would be wrapped around the neck of the top brass by small bands of insurgents who travel lighter, react faster, and refuse to abide by conventional warfare. RESPECT THE TROOPS. Earlier this afternoon I was out on the porch with my laptop and wound up talking to a passing stranger. He was a Marine and he was broke -- trying to raise gas money to get back home to Carbondale, Illinois. He said he'd been walking around all day and getting harassed everywhere he went. Local police had a problem with him being black and broke, and local liberals apparently mistook him an official spokesman of the Bush administration. I gave him as much as I could but less than I should have. I mention this because doing this research has given me a newfound respect for our troops. Not merely because of their bravery -- and if you don't think volunteering to be on the line of fire qualifies as "bravery," you're just being stubborn (and dumbfuck). What really got me thinking was reading The Small-Unit Leader's Guide to Counterinsurgency, which outlines the training and the daily job description of ground-level commanders. The sheer amount of details they need to keep track of is nearly super-human. The learning curve is more of a vertical brick wall you must scale or die. The Marine I talked to was broke because our soldiers aren't paid well and there's less support for them on the homefront than ever. I don't mean people cheering and throwing confetti at them on the streets -- just health care and economic security. He's headed back in a month for his 3rd tour of duty in Basra. As I will be repeating constantly in the weeks to come, I think a lot about what the next decade will bring. What happens when our warriors realize their masters view them as interchangeable meat property? What happens when young recruits in terrorist organizations like Hezbollah or FARC come to realize the beliefs they got raised with were merely bullshit? As the division between Superwealthy and 6 billion peasants and slaves becomes increasingly obvious to even the most domesticated humans, what will become of their warrior class?

The John Boyd Conceptual Spiral To keep track of the dizzying responsibilities involved with modern warfare, you need a clear, simple, and effective overall system to organize your information overload. Here's the entire conceptual framework, laid out in John Boyd's own words: "Patterns of Conflict" represents a compendium of ideas and actions for winning and losing in a highly competitive world; "Organic Design for Command and Control" surfaces the implicit arrangements that permit cooperation in complex, competitive, fast moving situations; "The Strategic Game of ? and ?" emphasizes the mental twists and turns we undertake to surface appropriate schemes or designs for realizing our aims or purposes; "Destruction and Creation" lays out in abstract but graphic fashion the ways by which we evolve mental concepts to comprehend and cope with our environment; "Revelation" makes visible the metaphorical message that flows from this "Discourse." All of the documents I linked to are hosted by the folks at Defense and the National Interest. BIG THANK YOU to Chet Richards for making this available. That's more than enough brainfood for now, huh? I apologize for the overdose. When I find the single most concise summation of his overall body of work, I will definitely let y'all know.

The Irreversible Problem of Dangerous Information Thanks to my friend Garrett Heaney for the discussion that inspired this one. With publicly available infomation, self-training and luck, a single human being can have a huge effect on the everyday lives of millions of people. I could be talking about a terrorist attack or I could be talking about a YouTube video. Is there any safe way to talk about this material? I'm dumbstruck by how much Peter J. Carroll and John Boyd have in common. Here's the problem: there's a very defined vocabulary of destruction available today. Futurists and policymakers are concerned about "SEI" -- Super-empowered Individuals." Power asymmetry is presented as a bad thing, but for us peasants it's a more level playing field. As you can imagine, that apparently spooks the shit out of the formerly ruling class. What I'm doing with Skilluminati is codifying technique for solo warfare. Not only because it's a "manual" but also because it's an accurate model of the problem. Personally, I happen to prefer living in a peaceful community, being healthy and not having to carry weapons around. I would imagine anyone reading this feels the same, even those of you enlisted. I am probably more concerned with defending against these tactics than I am with codifying them. After all, how precise can I be? I need to be at Esozone this year, so I can't get deported until November at least. Check out the John Robb thinkpiece "The Disruption of Saudi Arabia" -- he can only say so much. I will probably say way more than that, way too often. Blogger Types The military gave humanity the Brevity Code, and thinking in military terms can be clarifying and useful. For instance, the Pentagon is engaged in ongoing "Information Operations" -- spending billions every year on what was formerly termed information warfare. It's a small detail, but I bring it up because if online communication, information broadcasting and persuasion is being used as a weapon, where is that "common sense" metaphor actually taking us? The battlefield is "hearts and minds" of civilian "non-combatant" populations, as stated in Joint Doctrine. The insurgents are anyone counteracting military propaganda and gathering intelligence on their interests...you know, most bloggers, probably including you. Stakes is High We approach many problems from many different angles. Only a few of them actually work. I'm a big advocate of trial and error -- in fact, that's the only way to explain most of my conscious life. But it's mostly error, and most of what intelligent humans devote themselves to is fluff. I don't think where I'm taking Skilluminati Research is irresponsible. I think this is signifigant information, unlike my stoner fluff at Hump Jones. Warfare is just another skillset that future mutants need to learn, and it's a logical application of time, much like martial arts. I'm actively researching it, putting it into practice, and then codifying it for other people. Back when Skilluminati was running on the regular, way back in '07, I featured an old Kevin Kelly

essay title "Information as a Communicable Disease." He was meditating on how experiments tracking the spread of ideas, when graphed, bear a startling resemblance to maps of how diseases spread. As I've implied in the title, dangerous information is an irreveribile problem, from nuclear weapons to improvised explosive devices to pdf maps of electrical grids. "Information," much like the "electricity" it's based on, is everywhere at once, interacts with everyone and everything, and yet it's impossible to precisely define. When information gets crystalized, though, it's undeniably dangerous stuff -- like the hotel room full of Ricin in Las Vegas, for instance. There's a lot of good comments in an earlier discussion, Is Secrecy Ever Justified?, that relates to this. I'm definitely still curious what people think. I welcome opposition but tend to delete long rants.

One Billion Earth Homeless? Is this for real? One Billion Earth Humans Homeless If it's accurate, the situation is way worse than I thought. I feel like a total dick when I type something like that, but damn, it's true. I was startled to find this on page 287 of the super-dope book Worldchanging, which was very much worth the $20. There are 1 billion squatters in the world today, almost one in six people on the planet. If current trends continute, there will be 2 billion squatters by 2030 and 3 billion (more than one third of humanity) by the midpoint of the twenty-first century. To keep up with the influx, the world must build 96,150 homes a day - roughly 4000 homes every hour. Generally, only squatters are prepared to make this effort. Their homes start out as mud and cardboard hovels. But once they know they will not be evicted and they can exercise control over their communities, they create permanent, thriving neighborhoods. There's a couple other gems as well: Alone, squatters have little power. Together, they can create great things. "The problem of the urban poor can only be solved by the urban poor, not anybody else," says Jockin Arputham, head of Slum/Shack Dwellers International, a global squatter-organizing effort. "The urban poor will be the change agents of the city." And from the "other cultures are beautifully surreal" department: A generation ago, the tiny hamlet of Sultanbeyli on the Asian side of Istanbul was just beginning to attract immigrants from the east. Those early arrivals lived in hovels, pirated electricity, and survived without water or toilets. But as more people came, the citizens of Sultanbeyli pursued their political rights - and this has made for an amazing transformation. In Turkey, if squatters build overnight without being caught, they cannot be evicted without being taken to court. This is why Turkey's squatter areas are known as gecekondu, meaning "it happened at night." Further, once a gecekondu community has two thousand residents, it can petition the federal government to recognize it as a legal municipality. Today, Yahya Karakaya, Sultanbeyli's popularly elected mayor, works in an air-conditioned office on the top floor of the seven-story squatter city hall building, with a view over the city of 300,000 people who do not fear eviction. I'm still waiting on a recently ordered copy of The Job, a collection of interviews with the late great William S. Burroughs. In it, WSB proposed selling people in the "Third World" some Authority Kits, which were basically all the fixings for an official-looking police roadblock. Uniforms, badges, decorations, letterhead, stamps: everything, for a couple hundred bucks. (And over time, much much less.) This generates incomes for indiginous people and this undermines overall trust in authority. Not saying it's a good thing, just saying that option is out there. Also worth considering that there's already a thriving global market in "Authority Kits" -- as Mao said, power comes from the barrel of the guns which are sold by the billions, all over the Earth, every year. Official-looking, comfortably fitted police unforms are nice and all, but in actual practice all you need is a group of people who all have guns, right?

Yeesh. Welcome to the Kali Yuga, and enjoy your workweeks.

The Language of Power Homeland Security Chertoff Smirking Chimp QUESTION: Some are raising that the privacy aspects of this thing, you know, sharing of that kind of data, very personal data, among four countries is quite a scary thing. CHERTOFF: Well, first of all, a fingerprint is hardly personal data because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world, theyre like footprints. Theyre not particularly private. His stance has remarkable implications for the future of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) in a post-Bell's Theorem world. It's also a very naked statement that the only "privacy" you can expect to have ends at the surface of your skin -- everything else is exposed to the panopticon. Clothing hides nothing anymore. Spooky action at a distance is a great single-sentence summary of 5GW. For brainfood I submit Henry Okah, David Myatt and Ronald Stark. In terms of clinical psychology, 5GW operatives are NOT SANE -- they are sociopaths, they are monomaniacs, etc. Effective 5GW is all-consuming and requires greater discipline than most humans are willing to subject themselves to. Henry Okah, Nigeria Superempowered Individual Henry Okah ran a multinational fuel-piracy ring, which funded the purchase of huge stockpiles of weapons, which were used to arm constantly-shifting groups of mercenaries who were organized and mobilized via SMS text messaging. He's repeatedly crippled the infrastructure of Nigeria, and done over $29 billion in damage to Shell. He pulled all this off while living a respectable life in South Africa: he's since been arrested in Angola and deported to face charges in Nigeria. Read more. David Myatt, Triple Agent David Myatt wears many masks: he's a leading neo-nazi philosopher, he's a Satanic occultist, and he's also a radical Islamic cleric. Sounds crazy and gets far stranger than that -- get to know David Myatt aka Ashton Long aka Abdul Aziz. Jeff Wells at Rigorous Intuition has the best summary and meditation on Myatt's twisted legacy: read Nine Angles of Separation. Ronald Stark LSD, Spy Ronald Stark was the subject of the most entertaining article I ever did research for: The Man Behind the LSD Curtain. It was mostly guesswork, quotations and my own blend of horseshit, but characters like Stark -- or Barry Seal, or Finis Shelnutt -- are worth studying for the patchwork of connections they reveal. Along those lines, check out the excellent Zenpundit thinkpiece, Who Would Declare War on the World?

The Language of Power II Posted Apr 28, 2008 30 comments When I wrote "Plain and Simple: Fuck 9/11," the title wasn't an afterthought or even a joke. Words were chosen carefully for maximum effect and sure enough, I still get an email a week about an article I wrote a year ago. It was in the context of asking 9/11 Truth activists what they expected that I raised a question I've been chewing on ever since: Be honest with yourself: who are you asking for justice? Are you expecting the same power structure that has been running the United States of America for the past 50 years to give up because you're right? Because you can prove mathematically that two buildings collapsed faster than they should have? Because you have thousands of pages of evidence to prove every point you're making? Does the truth matter? Seriously. Does the truth matter? Or does power matter? That's really the central question, and I'm not proposing it as an either-or. Both would be nice, but I'm also proposing it might be too late for that kind of hope. I've had a number of Skilluminati readers email the instant classic quote from an anonymous source, of course, in the Bush administration -- named as "a senior advisor to Bush": The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' This article emerged from some conversations I had after the first installment of The Language of Power. I was only sketching out a few points I would like to state much more clearly here. Happiness is Slavery Until about six months ago, I was unable to put my finger on why Barack Obama makes me uneasy. I was having a (deeply hilarious) conversation with an Obama volunteer who stated it perfectly for me. She told me that Obama was all about how American 20-somethings were transforming -- from the Me generation to the We generation. Skilluminati Research has nothing to do with the United States or the US military and I personally view all 195 "legitimate" nation-states on Earth as equally damaging to human progress. As Doug Stanhope puts it, nationialism is "baggage from dead people." All governments are founded on violence and maintained by exploitation. I am very much indebted to the work of Curtis Gale Weeks, John Robb, Mark Safranski, and everyone at Dreaming 5GW and Small Wars Journal, but our language has some differences. I am unlike most 5GW bloggers in that I'm not worried about the future of the US as a global superpower. I'm writing for an audience very much like myself: post-nationalism, post-racism, postreligion human beings with no respect for authority, national borders or even the laws of physics.

Happiness is a Warm Gun Peter J. Carroll, who is himself a 5GW veteran, operating under a pseudonym and re-wiring tens of thousands of brains around the world, posed this question in terms of religion. On a planet with over 10,000 actively worshipped Gods -- none of which are currently visible, none of which can be proven to exist -- how can you be sure which Divinity to bet upon? Doesn't it make more sense to invest that faith in yourself? With Skilluminati Research, I'm making the same argument on a political level. Why make appeals to power when you could build your own? You could be learning to weld, working out or reading a book with that valuable time. Why worry about your leaders when they can't actually control you, and don't care what you personally think, want or feel? 5GW is power. Specifically, 5GW is dedicated individuals exercising their power to achieve their own goals at the expense of everyone who gets in their way. I think this kind of clarity is missing from the discussion because the occult dimension of power has no place in a respectable debate, from military theory to politics to history. For thousands of years, small groups of humans using ritual magick have been controlling nations, waging wars and engaging in economic and psychological warfare. One occult warfare master who does get mentioned in military circles is Hassan i Sabbah, long a muse of William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson. I'm open to the argument that I'm only engouraging a plague of lone psychopaths declaring war on the world, but my own 5GW practice is informed and indebted to D.J. Kilcullen, author of the 28 Articles, which you should probably read right now if you haven't already. Article 26 states: "Build your own solution -- only attack the enemy when he gets in the way." As I said at the outset of this project, "my interest in 5GW (5th Generation Warfare) is rooted in it's potential for positive social and cultural change." I am investigating warfare for the same reasons I investigated psychology and marketing -- beacuse the tools of social control will be less damaging when they're widely distributed. Executives who have power over millions of other humans are inherently dangerous -- millions of humans with executive control over themselves is where we're headed this century. The dinosaurs of governments and corporations and media conglomerates and think tanks and universities -- the old legitimate White Control System -- will not let go quietly and politely. So I think every future mutunt has a common-sense obligation to learn how to disable and disarm them as effectively as possible. This is going to be a very bumpy ride and we can all help minimize the bloodshed. In closing I realize that I have used the word "I" far, far too often in this post. That trend shall not continue -- it's all technique from here on out. Thank you for listening.

5GW Defense: John Robb on The Resilient Community Let's rewind. I've been talking about 5th Generation Warfare, but that's because I'm a hyperactive little kid who's fascinated by everything in the Universe. Here's a remarkable fact: 4GW is a problem that hasn't been solved yet. Sure, there's a lot of written material about counter-insurgency operations, some of it truly brilliant. However, on a reality-based level, 4GW outfits are still doing billions in damage to better-armed, better-funded nations and corporations. In the face of this continuous loss, something remarkable has happened: the generals and the technocrats are sounding like damn hippies and calling for smaller, sustainable communities, energy independence and other radical cultural changes. The important point to remember is never underestimate the motivation, patience, and creativity of an adversary! He is attacking against a defense that is nave, arrogant, unbalanced, and fragmented. We are critically dependent on our technology, but the gap between offensive and defensive capability is huge and growing. We must find a different path. We have to recognize that our systems are vulnerable to sophisticated attacks and find ways to defend against them. Urban Sprawl and Suburban Virus Now, that sure sounds like Amory Lovins, especially his classic article "How to Get Real Security." But it's not: that quote is actually from James Gosler at Sandia National Laboratories. Of course, scientists are always saying weird things, so perhaps his call for rethinking the fundamental infrastructure of Western Civilization is just another voice in the wilderness. Gosler made that statement at the 2008 Unrestricted Warfare Symposium held by Johns Hopkins. The proceedings of the conference are available online, and there were some definite gems in what I read through last night. Here's another clear-cut sign that 4GW remains an unsolved problem -- witness the palpable frustration of Philip Mudd, the "Associate Executive Assistant Director" of the FBI's National Security Branch: What we have is an architecture of youth that is not organized in ways that we have seen in the past. They do not touch a known person; they do not touch a known cell. We cannot use known security tools. We cannot follow their phone calls because they are not calling anybody. We cannot follow who they are talking to on a computer because they are self-radicalizing on their own computer, and they are not chatting. We cannot follow them in terms of a vehicle or somebody they are meeting on the street because they are not a member of a cell. How do we stop them? Good question, Mr. Mudd... The Answer is: You Can't. You can't defend strip malls, interstate commerce, nationwide electrical grids and our current system of agriculture. You can't defend the physical infrastructure of the internet and you can't defend huge borders.

As the distribution of power gets wider and deeper, old forms like nations and imperialism are no longer sustainable. As a general design rule: if it's not sustainable, it's not secure. I'm a Vermont native -- an obscure part of the continental US, for American readers who might be unfamiliar -- and most folks there reached this conclusion about 200 years ago and have been trying to reverse the mistake of getting United to the US Federal Government. So it's remarkable that John Robb would be headed to my homeland to give a speech on "Defending Our Energy Security -Building Resilient Communities." (He'll be at the 2008 Vermont Distributed Energy Conference, if you'd like to attend.) John Robb is a subject of controversy in 5GW circles, but more importantly, he's a really solid author and an original thinker. His last book, Brave New War, was excellent brainfood, and his blog Global Guerrillas is the best coverage on the topic I've found. So I'm obviously looking forward to his next project: My goal with this book? I hope this book will provide readers with a useful eschatology for the current global system and a conceptual blueprint for the DIY (do-it-yourself) efforts necessary to build a Resilient Community. The reaction the book will get? For those that completely tied to or immersed in the legacy system, this book will be a very scary read. For those that are fearless and willing to adapt in order to progress, it will become a go to reference. You can get an early sense through his previous posts: exploring the pressures behind this transition with Transition Towns and Food and the RC, an exploration of energy independence through Microgrids, and the original brainstorm, The Resilient Community. "The Internet is Killing Us" That's from Philip Mudd again...I'll give him the last word: CONCLUSION In the nuclear age when the enemy was the Soviet Union, we had the luxury of imagery to look at sites, SIGINT (signal intelligence) to look at communications, HUMINT (human intelligence) to recruit sources and defectors, and international organizations like the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to watch material. Try to apply a single one of those to a 17-year-old in the United States today.

A Simple Question About Violence We Will Eat You All While I'm working on the next round of material (for a number of sites) I would like to pose a question to the folks who've been commenting so far. Frank discussion of weapons and personal security is of course "dangerous," in terms of both potential consquences for myself and the potential applications of this information. However, I'm also of the opinion that Western culture is very much full of shit when it comes to violence. I could write a separate essay on how violence can be simultaneously morally wrong and acceptable entertainment. I find it hard to reconcile how violence can be forbidden for citizens and compulsory for soldiers, or how violence can be admirable when practiced by our military, yet despicable when practiced by others. I think it's a white luxury to even discuss "whether or not" we should be using violence, when fireams and explosives are a fact of life for the majority of the humans on Earth. We are a planet at war, but yet most of us with Internets will never be touched by it. I have been told that Ghandi's name does not come up very often in Palestine, but I've never been there. So my question: how does a super-empowered free moral agent approach violence in 2012? Is violent action part of your toolkit?

A Dose of Informed Optimism from the Tellus Institute I don't want the reader to think I'm a cynic or a violent extremist...or a fucking moron. I realize the claim that 5GW has a role in positive cultural change raises eyebrows, and I'm working on an article explaining this in some depth. Meanwhile, I came across some truly potent brainfood that states it all better than I could. What follows is an excerpt from the Marjorie Kelly and Paul Raskin essay How Food Riots, Pricey Gas and Home Foreclosures Point to a Better Future -- a highly recommended read. Mostly for this section here: http://www.alternet.org/story/84960/

Transitions announce themselves in the language of crisis. We are in a time of turbulence as old patterns give way and new ones form. The multiple crises today signal a system transformation operating at the scale of the planet. Transformation is distinct from adaptation, which is the normal process of incremental adjustment to new conditions. Transformations are rare moments in history when dominant societal structures cannot cope with emerging developments and change in fundamental ways. With the converging lines of crises we face today, we may be entering a perfect storm of destabilizing stress. We cannot predict the future. It may be good, bad or ugly, depending on how events unfold and how we respond. But scenarios can help us envision alternate futures, and our organization has -- with the aid of an international group -- crafted four scenarios of possible futures. In a "market forces" scenario, the United States continues with business as usual, other nations converge toward American lifestyles, economic growth remains the sine qua non of development, and environmental strain and cultural polarization intensify. In "policy reform," government seeks ambitious policies to protect the environment and reduce inequity; but with the ethos of consumerism unchecked, the reformist path could be overwhelmed by unsustainable trends. In "fortress world," reform fails and problems cascade into self-amplifying crises as the affluent retreat into protected enclaves amid oceans of misery. In a "great transition" scenario, mounting crises lead not to breakdown but to breakthrough into a sustainable culture, where we shrink our environmental footprint, not only because we must live lightly and equitably on this small planet, but because quality of life matters more than quantity of stuff. It is a world where global interdependence -- as both a fact of history and a moral imperative -- replaces the heedless pursuit of self-interest as a guiding ethos. Such a resilient, just and livable world order is possible, though not inevitable. We do not offer facile hope. Large-scale social transformation does not come from small-scale woes: A time of troubles lies ahead. Nevertheless, there is a case for hope. In the turbulence of transition, small actions can have big effects. We stand at a moment of unparalleled creative opportunity that calls for bold leaders and engaged citizens to articulate new visions of a 21st century social order and to mobilize a global movement to bring these visions to reality. Our world today generates more despair and resignation than vision and action. But it would not be the first time that an effervescence of popular political energy arrived unexpectedly to shift the direction of history. We are beset today not by random bad luck, but by a systemic crisis that could -- on the other side of calamity -- open the way to hopeful transformation. It is up to us.

But remember: random bad luck still happens, at every level of scale. Big "thinkpiece" on Wednesday....where do you guys put the probability between those four events? My best guess: "fortress world" 40%, "great transition" 40%, "market forces" 15%, policy reform 5%. I obviously have no faith in top-down government solutions, and I'm fundamentally neutral on the moral character of human nature. We do what we do -- hopefully, we do the right thing.

Two Cautionary Tales From the Front Lines This article is entirely indebted to the ongoing work and original research of Cryptogon. One of the very best sites online, if you're into "being informed." This article might appear to be mere pessimism. To the reader with a good imagination and better common sense, though, I'm advocating an entirely different angle from the traditional binary trap of Fighting Against Power Elites vs. Fighting For Power Elites. Humans fight -- let them. (Seriously, trying to stop a fight is dangerous and stupid 99% of the time, unless it's kids who are smaller than you.) The 5th Generation Warfare angle we'll be pursuing at Skilluminati is based on leveraging the existing fault lines, ongoing conflicts and profitable culture wars that we live within today. I'm not advocating that we should stir up more bullshit -- I'm suggesting that we practice the martial art of invisibly exploiting the bullshit that's already here. To do otherwise is to ignore history -here's a look at why. Those Who Would Overthrow Them Let's bypass Kent State, the fate of the Branch Dividians, disappearances in Chile, Argentina and everywhere else in Latin America, and the assassinations of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, since none of them were actually advocating the overthrow of the United States government, they just happened to get in the way. Let's focus on a single event which is much more recent, and far more relevant to the inept wouldbe "5GW warriors" among us. This is the story of a federal agent who tried to get three hippies to commit to a plan -- any plan -- to blow something up and break Federal laws. It took her many months of prodding, lots of pushy confrontations, and a lot of her FBI money, but they finally managed to frame their targets. Yep, that's the story in two sentences -- here's a great article that explains it detail if you want more narrative backgroun. I'm going to be exploring the tactical insights here. What amazed me most: how "Full Spectrum Dominance" applies to the surviellance of activists. On January 10, the four toured the Institute of Forest Genetics in Placerville, using fake names and posing as college students for a tour. They were under surveillance the whole time by FBI agents and agents of the U.S. Forest Service. On the morning of January 13, the FBI was keeping a close eye on a cabin in Dutch Flat, about a half-hour north of Auburn. The government had the cabin and its four occupants--two men and two women--under 24-hour surveillance for nearly a week because the group was suspected of plotting acts of domestic terrorism in the name of the Earth Liberation Front. The four left the cabin at around 10 a.m. in a 1997 maroon Chevy Lumina and traveled about 30 miles to a Kmart in Auburn. There were agents inside the store, watching them shop. Hippies are the butt of jokes for a reason, and these kids were basically stumbling around in a minefield. Lesson: Effective 5GW is a process that takes total surveillance for granted. It must be exceedingly subtle and executed in plain sight.

YOU MIGHT BE WONDERING, as I was, how exactly Federal agents justify the dirtywork they do undercover, and there is a precise answer. It's referred to as a Tier 1 Otherwise Illegal Activity when an agent breaks the law in order to catch someone breaking the law. The question of legal rights and entrapment is far too boring and irrelevant to pursue, though, so let's move along. Since this is a cautionary tale, it's worth remembering the overall rules for how punishment is distributed. Here is how a 4-member cell being set up on a Federal level will fare, on precedent: Zack Jenson, age 20, spent 6 months in prison, then agreed to testify against McDavid. Lauren Weiner has an unfortunate last name, but at least it was a wealthy one -- she's been free on bail with her family and also agreed to testify against McDavid. She was also 20 years old. Eric McDavid was sentenced to 19 years and 7 months. He's 28 and got logically framed up as the dangerous ringleader. (Note to Derrick Jensen fans: shave the beard.) And as for Anna? The article says she made out alright: "According to testimony from Sacramentobased FBI Special Agent Nasson Walker, she got paid at least $75,000 for her work." The reader could be forgiven for thinking I'm telling some sort of moral story -- perhaps implying that "Anna" is down with 5GW and one of the cool kids. NAY. "Anna" is just a servant of power -and those who serve power historically fare no better than those who oppose it. Which is the subject of my next cautionary tale. Those Who Would Work For Them Let's just bypass Paul Wellstone, Vincent Foster, the assassinations of JFK, RFK and the strange fates Roberto Calvi and Frank Olson. The past is dead, and the news has given us a even-more interesting example. Roland Carnaby was a company man -- a veteran of the CIA, although that's a matter of some dispute. The other publicly known facts about Carnaby are not disputed, though, and they're eyeopening. At the age of 52, he was shot in the chest, handcuffed, and left to bleed to death while Houston Police officers watched. The image above is real -- I cribbed it off a Fox News website and it was taken from a news helicopter. My own interpretation of facts is obvious and predictable -Carnaby either knew too much or threatened the wrong people, both essentially the same problem. When you serve power, you cannot protect yourself from those who protect you. Of course, when you fight power, you're left with the exact same problem again, and I apologize for making resistance sound futile. It is, though. Resisting the momentum of your culture is absurd. Who can seriously talk about fighting globalization? You might as well resist the Pacific Ocean. "All of this other stuff (about Carnaby's mysterious life) is all very interesting, but it is of no consequence when you consider a man is dead and he died handcuffed and nobody tried to stop the bleeding or anything," Brooten said. "You know what you call that? You call that an assassination." Jett defended the officers at the scene, saying they are not trained to assist people with serious

gunshot wounds. "We would handcuff people and try to get them comfortable, but we're not paramedics, and most officers don't know about giving first aid like that other than CPR, and you don't want to give CPR to a gunshot victim," he said. Investigators later found three weapons in Carnaby's car, police said. One pistol was under the passenger-side floormat. A second was between the seats. On the back seat floorboard lay a pistolgrip shotgun with a round in the chamber and the safety off. No Moral to the Stories This is only food for thought, of course. Things are going to change a lot in the next decade, but archetypes will repeat like always. We will always rationalize our actions, no matter how callous or brutal. I'm sure you think you're a good person, too. Here in the 21st century, talking about warfare is essential. Our planet is being turned into a slaughterhouse and Control is going to be a lot more elusive for everyone -- especially those in power. We've seen a nearly infinite array of permutations of "kill the enemy" -- 5GW is something new. Harmonize with the enemy, control the enemy, use the enemy. Next week: my first Dreaming 5GW contribution, working out the details of my own theory, beta version though it may be. Sorry for the long lead-up, and thanks for all the brainfood from everyone commenting, especially Eric Patton who's been a huge help behind the scenes.

5GWhat? The Meaning of Warfare in 2008 A number of Skilluminati readers have voiced the concern that calling benevolent 5GW campaigns "warfare" is misleading or outright wrong. As Bruce Scanlon puts it: WE have a great deal of choice about which scenario we will end up in, and WE have the power, within the scope of our own lives, to make significant contributions to these different scenarios. I am not saying you can get the whole world to do what you want it to do, but I am saying that you can make your part of the world/find a part of the world a lot more to your liking-- and that you have a lot more power to do this than most people think. This sizable power for change to me deserves more than to be categorized as warfare, 5th generation or not. Is war merely overt violence? If you subdue your opponent using judo or aikido, is it still a fight? Bands of primates go to war, and I'm hoping humans can do better than the hunt-kill method. (Then again, maybe not: recently Israeli general Yossi Peled said "The only effect I know in warfare is to kill the enemy.") So first, let's take a look at my own cognitive biases... Aikido Anarchism My interest in warfare was awakened by the article Neocortical Warfare, which I immediately wrote a Brainsturbator article about. (I go into more depth about my vision for 5GW in a recent Wishtank interview.) I suspect, but I cannot prove, that human beings can greatly amplify their personal power by aligning their goals and techniques with natural design. By fighting on the side of Life on Earth, we've opted for the most powerful available ally on the planet. Advances in human technology are based on principles decoded from nature, and nature remains vastly more sophisticated and robust than existing human technology. So although my friendly local wikipedia has a detailed article on the history and theory of war, I find the "spectrum of conflict" and "measures short of war" drivel to be mostly intellectual apologies for the naked exercise of state power. We're all grown-ups, and we all know that power kills people every day. C'est la vie for better or worse, and it's obviously worse. Let's set academia aside and ask some questions instead. Pointed Questions Can you wage war without your opponent knowing it? Well, Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfield were both totally shocked by 9-11, weren't they? The concept of planes as weapons was utterly unthinkable, despite the fact they were both repeatedly briefed about exactly that. You can view that as proof of conspiracy, or just another example of how cognitive bias blinds all humans equally. The concept of the secret war is not new to 5GW, and I refer the reader to earlier and excellent reads from dan tdaxp, dan tdaxp again , and Zenpundit. Is blogging warfare? According to the Department of Defense, the answer is "Yes." See, us

independent media types are engaged in Information Operations (IO), formerly known by the less friendly and ambiguous term "Psychological Warfare." As John Rendon so eloquently put it: "Information is an instrument of national power, just as military, economic and political. Like any weapon or tool, the United States Government needs to use it or cede the 'battlefield' to someone else." Is activism warfare? According to the White House, absolutely. All you non-violent liberal types are engaged in "Low-Intensity Conflict." Low intensity conflict a political-military confrontation between contending states or groups below conventional war and above the routine, peaceful competition among states. It frequently involves protracted struggles of competing principles and ideologies. Low-intensity conflict ranges from subversion to the use of the armed forces. It is waged by a combination of means, employing political, economic, informational, and military instruments. Low-intensity conflicts are often localized, generally in the Third World, but contain regional and global security implications Are domestic law enforcement operations warfare? It's an armed conflict, there's casualties involved, and the parallels between domestic law enforcement and foreign counter-insurgency are striking. Lethal use of force by police is legally justified, but does that nescessarily make it legitimate? (Every non-civilian casualty of war is legally justified, too.) If You Want My Opinion Resource shortages are manufactured and wars are not nescessary. However, in 2008 there exists a global power elite -- probably less than 100,000 of them altogether -- who posess far too much power and abuse it at will. As a result, millions of human beings around the world are suffering on a daily basis. Is that something worth fighting against? Would you term that conflict a "war?" image That graffitti basically sums up my outlook for 2008-2012. Every single human community on Earth has expanded exponentially and bumped shoulders on an abruptly crowded planet. Communities need to rethink everything and rebuild for a global future -- anyone trying to force a top-down solution is either willfully evil or catastrophically stupid. This applies from Al Gore to Vladimir Putin to Hugo Chavez to George Bush: you need to stop looking up to your leaders and start looking around to your neighborhoods. More Pointed Questions When the peace of Western affluence is made possible by the violent opression of Third World countries, what is the "spectrum of conflict" useful for? The thing to remember about the whole humans species is that it's the whole human species and all the lines we draw beyond that are arbitrary, often misleading and occasionally very useful. When you grow up in a home that's financed by profits from Lockheed Martin, is that peace? Is "peace" the condition that exists within the fortress walls of the gated communities and Green Zones? Is the city of Chicago at war? Wikipedia has an outstanding map of ongoing conflicts around the world that's worth considering here -- armed conflict with organized crime surely qualifies as warfare, right? As the supporting data notes, "major wars are those that cause at least 1000 battlefield deaths annually," and if you dig around, you might it's kind of hard to find crime reported in human terms. The usual factoid is the "Homicide Rate" -- how many homicides are reported annually, per 100,000

local residents. This renders death into an abstract index instead of a distinct and specific number of dead human beings. Reporting the numbers honestly is a body count, and body counts are alarming. Homicide Rate is like humidity, which is why you'll find most FBI/DoJ statistics published in that format. In 1994, the city of New Orleans had 424 reported homicides. Drawing off data from Swivel's "Homicides in the US" spreadsheet, the Drug War in California is claiming more than enough lives every year to qualify as a "major war" -- a year before New Orleans peaked, Cali reported 4,096 homicides. From 1990 to 1994, the total number of US homicides floated between 23,000 and 24,000 annually -- then began a sharp decline. It's been stable at over 16,000 a year since 2001. Last Word: Smitten Eagle Smitten Eagle said "Im not sure I necessarily buy into the 5GW frameworks yet. Trying to nail 4GW Jell-O to the wall is hard enough. 5GW is like nailing said Jell-O while its still liquid." His explanation of this is some of the best writing on 5GW I've found so far -- from a comment at Chicago Boyz: As far as 5GW goes, I dont think there is even a solid framework to rely on. Some have referred to 5GW as tactically being about changing the enemies Observation in the OODA loop to make him think hes not even in conflict with the enemy. For me, this is too close to the political end of the Policy-War continuum of violence to be considered warfare. Others have spoken about the role of the Super Empowered Individual (SEI) as a major actor in 5GW. Im afraid that lone gunmen, in my conception of warfare, do not qualify as organized violence. For violence to be organized, it requires an Organization. An Organization of One is not an organization. I think there has to be more to organized violence than a single pissed-off dude with lots of cunning. Finally, for 5GW to actually exist, it needs to have a strong track record of convincingly beating 4GW fighting forces. Im afraid there really hasnt been any evidence to support this. (Unless, of course, my denial of 5GW is evidence of its successbut if thats the case, I think were getting a bit too close to Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle to speak anything authoritatively about 5GW, or any xGW for that matter.) A great example of the circular reasoning and collapsing logic of Invisible War. My next post is what I've been working on this whole time -- a thinkpiece on how to wage war in a Universe that actually runs on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Since that's the Universe we happen to live in.

Dreaming 5GW: Invisible War "Whoever finds me will kill me." --Gen. 4:14 5GW and marketing have a great deal in common. The one similarity I'd like to emphasize here: effective techniques are constantly mutating so fast that written theory is basically an autopsy. By the time we can recognize a pattern or strategy, it will be useless to actual 5GW operatives. It's hard to overstate the speed of the turnover here -- basically, what worked in 2008 will not work in 2008. My Personal Dream of 5GW image The core tenet of Invisible Warfare is this: circumstances dictate. This is not a cop-out, but a rigorous challenge to expand your personal power, because most of the time, what circumstances dictate will involve skills you don't currently have. That core tenet contains the first imperative: situation awareness. Circumstances can change in a second and you need to maintain focus and awareness. This more complicated than merely "paying attention" -- our human brains have built-in biases and design flaws that are hard to counteract, even after we've become aware of them. What you see is seldom what you're looking at. "Thanks to telegraphs and modern communications, commanders are flooded with a tsunami of almost meaningless facts." --Naval manual from 1949 It's impossible to achieve situation awareness when we're constantly distracted, and unable to isolate the important details from the meaningless noise. There are several aspects of warfare and power projection, all taken for granted as nescessary, that I believe are counter-productive although not useless: secrecy, violence, and intelligence. Secrecy only matters when secrecy matters. In my own experience, it seldom does. Bear in mind that real secrecy is extremely difficult to maintain -- an intensive demand on time and resources. Violence is only nescessary when violence is nescessary. Again, it can usually be averted or avoided, and more importantly every non-violent resolution you can create will increase your network and your strategic power. Rather than destroying your enemies, make them tools, if not allies. Intelligence-gathering should be critical, and I'm not advocating that you run around blindfolded. I am cautioning against the downward spiral of paranoia, the disinformation hall of mirrors, and most of all, the delusion that your assumptions and information are correct. Awareness of the present moment trumps any and all models, patterns and beliefs that exist in your monkey head. image The Death Spiral of Containment and Control. Here's one more common mistake, which is both counter-productive and useless: the strategy of containment and control. Government power is achieved through their population base: citizens generate the income, obey the laws and serve in the military, voluntarily or otherwise. Because of the extreme strategic importance of maintaining this power base, governments spend an absurd amount of resources on the containment and control of their civilians.

Fortunately for those of us on the recieving end, containment and control are both impossible goals. We're raised to imagine a grid of defined nation-states with precise borders, but in reality the entire system is riddled with tunnels, shortcuts, criminal networks, secret alliances, holes and cracks and just plain blindspots nobody's noticed yet. Perhaps you will. Centuries after the myth of entropy first took hold, people are still catching up to the common-sense work of Ilya Prigogine, who demonstrated that "closed systems" exist nowhere in nature. By interacting freely with our environments, we free ourselves from the heat-death of entropy, but modeling our communities after a closed system is a literal death sentence. Endless books have been written about the advantages of collaboration, freedom of speech, open source development and globalization. Actually applying that logic is difficult, opposed by the powerful vested interests of those who have become wealthy and powerful protecting the sheep. The containment and control system is dangerously stupid, and free humans have an imperative to disable that system wherever possible. Invisible Warfare The definition of warfare is being reconsidered, but the discussion among generals and academics is secondary to the more hands-on approach of global terrorists, field commanders, organized crime, religious cults, tech companies, and upstart corporations. There is an evolving martial art of systems disruption that is radically skewing the power balance between individual humans and the existing control and containment system. Put bluntly, with open knowledge and legal tools, you personally can fuck shit up on a catastropic scale. Global civilization is inevitable, and terms are being negotiated as you read this. Most of the humans on Earth are not part of these negotiations -- only a vanishingly small minority of powerful, connected and wealthy people. This is inevitable, too: why would the powerful negotiate with anyone else? As officers Dunlap claim in their recent essay America's Greatest Weapon: "There is really no escape...Today's captains carefully cultivate information sources among the locals as the Armys new counterinsurgency manual teaches them to do. Schooled in the manual, such captains deliver offers the insurgents cant refuse: be captured or be killed. These are exactly the kinds of dilemmas the U.S. military loves to impose upon our enemies." Systems disruption changes the containment and control game by offering a third choice: stalemate. This is somewhere between a Masada self-sacrifice and Mutually Assured Destruction. The social contract needs to be radically re-negotiated to accomodate citizens who are capable of crippling society itself. Containment and control is no longer an option because of this precise problem of empowerment. You only need to protect citizens who are incapable of defending themselves -- the entire complex of "homeland security" and border control relies on ignorant, disempowered citizens -- helpless normal folks. This is not written for them. Without the excuse of protection, government control and intervention become a naked power play. The choice is presented to you as "be captured or be killed." Submission equals life, resistance

equals death -- the Military of a "free country" parroting science fiction monsters like the Borg. Systems disruption offers a third choice, but at great cost. Frankly, it's pretty stupid, but nescessary, because it brings us to a higher synthesis... Invisible Warfare as Militarized Nomad TAZ Dowsing In the interest of the proliferation of dangerous ideas, I'd like to propose a fourth alternative: organized groups of friends forming mobile TAZ units -- camouflaged as a circus, a business, or a music group if need be...but better yet, disguised as nothing at all and functionally invisible. Military manuals refer to this core discipline as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) and these TAZ units would be able to scatter into individual parts, disappear from view and recombine elsewhere. This obviously involves a high degree of planning, training and reliable tools and technology. All of which translates into "hard work." Barring a well-placed shot to the back, the classic rhyme is true: "He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day." However, it's important to know which way to run. When you are attacked by either domestic law enforcement or foreign counter-insurgency, their approach will be the same: using a spearhead unit to chase you towards a larger ambush unit. In other words, the first agents you see are the weakest line of defense, and your exits are probably covered. That's just a single, specific example of the counter-intuitive logic of...well, reality. All power plays and confidence tricks are designed to distort your situation awareness, and you need to discipline your mind to remain calm. If a stance mentality leads to failure, can constant mobility (and invisibility) prevent that -- or does "no stance" just become a stance of it's own? I'm advocating mobility through national borders, as well. Randomly swinging through small asian nations and undermining the containment and control machine with an unpredictable broadside will do a great favor to the natives. In the aftermath you will create large avenues of escape, and resources previously devoted to domestic repression and genocide will be turned towards a paranoid quest to defend against a threat that will never return. 9. Lurk! Withdraw! Upon them! this is the Law of the Battle of Conquest: thus shall my worship be about my secret house.

Strange Loops and Disinformation: Readings from Robert Anton Wilson The Shroedinger's Cat Trilogy, pg. 380 "Knight knew what most people only vaguely suspected -- that Intelligence Agencies engage in both the collection of valid signals (information) and the promiscuous dissemination of fake signals (disinformation). They collected the information so that they could form a fairly accurate picture of what was really going on; they spread the disinformation so that all their competitors would form grossly inaccurate pictures. They did this because they knew that whoever could find out what the hell was really going on possessed an advantage over those who were misinformed, confused and disoriented. This game had been invented by Joseph Fouche, who was the chief of the secret police under Napoleon. British Intelligence very quickly copied all of Fouche's tactics, and surpassed them...by the time of the First World War, Intelligence Agencies everywhere had created so much disinformation and confusion that no two historians ever were able to agree on why the war happened, and who double-crossed whom... By the time of the Second World War, the "Double-Cross System" had been invented -- by British Intelligence, of course. This was the products of such minds as Alan Turing, a brilliant homosexual mathematician who (when not working in espionage) specialized in creating logical paradoxes other mathematicians couldn't solve, and Ian Fleming, whose fantasy life was equally rich (as indicated by his later James Bond books), and Dennis Wheatley, a man of exceptionally high intelligence who happened to believe that an international conspiracy of Satanists was behind every conspiracy he didn't invent himself. By the time Turing, Fleming, Wheatley and kindred British intellects had perfected the Double-Cross System, the science of lying was almost as precise as Euclidian geometry, and nearly as lovely to the detached observer. What the Double-Cross experts had invented was the practical political applications of the Strange Loop. In logic or cybernetics, a Strange Loop is a set of propositions that, while valid at each point, is so constructed that it leads to an unresolvable paradox. The Double-Cross people drove the Germans bonkers by inventing disinformation systems that, if believed, were deceptive, but if doubted led to a second disinformation system. They enjoyed this work so much that, at times, they invented Triple Loops... These Strange Loops functioned especially well because the Double-Cross experts had early on fed the Germans the primordial Strange Loop. "Most of your agents are working for us and feeding your Strange Loops." Many German agents, it later turned out, had managed to collect quite a bit of accurate information about the Normandy invasion, but many others turned in equally plausible information about a fictitious Norwegian invasion; and all of them were under suspicion, anyway. German Intelligence might as well have made its decisions by tossing a coin in the air." --Robert Anton Wilson

The 2008 Elections Are Not About The Issues The title of this piece is not an original statement, it's actually a direct, and verifiably real, quotation from Rick Davis. Rick Davis, believe it or not, is a (currently still employed) campaign manager for John McCain. The response I've seen has mostly alternated between disbelief and cheering victory -- my Democratic friends took that quote as a tacit admission of failure on behalf of the McBush campaign. I'm here to say that it's not: Rick Davis was telling the truth. Welcome to post-reality. I don't expect anyone to get used to this anytime soon. Even CBS News is reporting on how most of the military footage from the Republican National Convention was paid actors in a stadium somewhere -- this is the real 2008 Election: The soldiers were actors and the funeral scene was from a one-day film shoot, produced in June. No real soldiers were used during production. The footage, sold by stock-film house Getty Images was produced by a commercial filmmaker in Chicago. Both Getty and the production company, Mr. Big Films, confirmed that the footage was shot on spec and sold to the Republican National Committee. One of the actors, Perry Denton of Chicago, IL also confirmed that he was hired on a day-rate as an actor for the shoot and told CBS News he was surprised to learn the footage was shown at the convention. Remember the Last Post? Previously on Skilluminati, I did a simple post juxtaposing the podium for the 2004 Republican Nation Convention with the podium for the 2008 Democratic Nation Convention. I also posted this a number of times as a myspace bulletin. In both experiments, I got some highly entertaining and insightful responses. Specifically, I found out that people were responding to something that only existed in their own heads. I provided no commentary, yet people had created -- confabulated, really -- a whole explanation for why I would post the photographs, and they responded to that. So why did I post the photographs? Of course, as one commentator noted, the design is hardly original. Not only that, the design is actually done by the same company in both instances. They're the same company that pulled off the 2008 Olympics Games ceremonies, and this reflects a long-standing interest of mine in the business of staged ritual and mass spectacle. The power of mass spectacle is well known, and it's dangerous. No matter what the cause, it's a clear-cut form of deliberate manipulation. Bob's First Rule of Power We live on a planet with 6 billion humans, and most of them are uninformed and ignorant. Here in the United States, despite high standards of living and abundant material wealth, the situation is no different. In 2006, during coverage of the manufactured debate over "Intelligent Design," Newsweek conducted a national poll about scientific literacy. All of the participants were adult residents of the United States. The results were astonishing: Fewer than a third of those polled know that DNA is the molecule of heredity Only 10 percent know what radiation is

20 percent think the Sun revolves around Earth. But of course, that was from 2006, and Bush's educational reform program has probably improved things considerably since then. I truly hope so, since that same year an even more disturbing poll was conducted by the Washington Post: While the country is preparing to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and shocked the world, 95 percent of Americans questioned in the poll were able to remember the month and the day of the attacks, according to Wednesdays edition of the newspaper. But when asked what year, 30 percent could not give a correct answer. Of that group, six percent gave an earlier year, eight percent gave a later year, and 16 percent admitted they had no idea whatsoever. This memory black hole is essentially the problem of the older crowd: 48 percent of those who did not know were between the ages of 55 and 64, and 47 percent were older than 65, according to the poll. The Post telephone survey was carried out July 21-24 among 1,002 randomly selected adults. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points. I'm Not Pointing Fingers and Laughing Don't mistake this for crowing about how dumb people are. This is a serious and intractable problem. The vast majority of voters in the United States are dangerously ignorant and easily manipulated. Here's the moral quandary: is it ethical to use deception in order to control these people? If you don't do it, guess who will? Karl Rove. Rick "not about the issues" Davis. The same paid operatives who have been running the real power structure of the United States since John Rockefeller and Edward Bernays were alive. Here's the logistical problem: how can you and I compete against multi-million dollar budgets? The business of spectacles, like any other, is a business that runs on money. Those who have money shape the spectacle, and the rest of us are consigned to...well, meaningless critiques on obscure websites. Further Reading George Lakoff wrote a really excellent article for Tikkun called "The Reality of the Political Mind" that I highly recommend. One of the most potent passages: Our national political dialogue is fundamentally metaphorical, with family values at the center of our discourse. There is a reason why Obama and Biden spoke so much about the family, the nurturant family, with caring fathers and the family values that Obama put front and center in his Father's day speech: empathy, responsibility and aspiration. Obama's reference in the nomination speech to "The American Family" was hardly accidental, nor were the references to the Obama and Biden families as living and fulfilling the American Dream. Real nurturance requires strength and

toughness, which Obama displayed in body language and voice in his responses to McCain. The strength of the Obama campaign has been the seamless marriage of reality and symbolic thought. The Republican strength has been mostly symbolic. The McCain campaign is well aware of how Reagan and W won: running on character: values, communication, (apparent) authenticity, trust, and identity - not issues and policies. That is how campaigns work, and symbolism is central. One of the best articles I read about the 2008 election -- being a human that's primarily interested in the mechanics of actual power, which seldom play out onstage in front of TV cameras -- is the Fast Company cover piece from April, "The Brand Called Obama." Of course, FC is a business magazine, so this is a look at the image shaping that went on early in his campaign, and for me, it's fascinating stuff. The fact that Obama has taken what we thought we knew about politics and turned it into a different game for a different generation is no longer news. What has hardly been examined is the degree to which his success indicates a seismic shift on the business horizon as well. Politics, after all, is about marketing -- about projecting and selling an image, stoking aspirations, moving people to identify, evangelize, and consume. The promotion of the brand called Obama is a case study of where the American marketplace -- and, potentially, the global one -- is moving. His openness to the way consumers today communicate with one another, his recognition of their desire for authentic "products," and his understanding of the need for a new global image -- all are valuable signals for marketers everywhere. "Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand," says Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide. "New, different, and attractive. That's as good as it gets." Obama has his greatest strength among the young, roughly 18 to 29 years old, that advertisers covet, the cohort known as millennials -- who will outnumber the baby boomers by 2010. They are black, white, yellow, and various shades of brown, but what they share -- new media, online social networks, a distaste for top-down sales pitches -- connects them more than traditional barriers, such as ethnicity, divide them.

Invisible Experiments

"Stigmergy is a method of indirect communication in a self-organizing system where individual parts communicate with one another by modifying the local environment."

Effective insurgents build their plans around a strategic communications campaign designed to shift their enemys view of the world. It is clear that many insurgent groups understand this fact. Hezbollahs strategy during the 2006 summer war with Israel is an excellent example. During the fighting, they focused not on damaging Israel, but on insuring they were perceived as defying the most powerful army in the Middle East. Thus, the fact that Hezbollah fired as many rockets on the last day of the war as the first was critically important. They know 122mm rockets are notoriously inaccurate and cause little damage, but the rockets are highly visible. Their appearance proved the powerful Israeli Air Force and Army had not hurt Hezbollah badly. --from Col. Hammes

In biology, if you look at groups with large numbers, there are very few examples where you have a central agent, says Vijay Kumar, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Everything is very distributed: They dont all talk to each other. They act on local information. And theyre all anonymous. I dont care who moves the chair, as long as somebody moves the chair. To go from one robot to multiple robots, you need all three of those ideas. One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no ones in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at allat least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing.

"World War Three will be a guerrilla information war, with no diversion between military and civilian participation."

The affairs of man are conducted by our own, man-made rules and according to man-made theories. Mans achievements rest upon the use of symbols. For this reason, we must consider ourselves as a symbolic, semantic class of life, and those who rule the symbols, rule us. Now the term symbol applies to a variety of things, words and money included. A piece of paper, called a dollar or a pound, has very little value if the other fellow refuses to take it; so we see that money must be considered as a symbol for human agreement, as well as deeds to property, stocks, bonds. The reality behind the money-symbol is doctrinal, mental, and one of the most precious characteristics of mankind. But it must be used properly; that is, with the proper understanding of its structure and ways of functioning. It constitutes a grave danger when misused.

When we say our rulers, we mean those who are engaged in the manipulation of symbols. There is no escape from the fact that they do, and that they always will, rule mankind, because we constitute a symbolic class of life, and we cannot cease from being so, except by regressing to the animal level. --Korzybski

Break any rule, sooner than lose the initiative. In counterinsurgency, the initiative is everything. If the enemy is reacting to you, you control the operation and, provided you mobilize the population, you will win. If you are reacting to the enemy even if you are killing or capturing him in large numbers then he is controlling the environment and you will eventually lose. This is because, in counterinsurgency, the enemy almost always has the tactical initiative. He initiates most attacks, targets you unexpectedly and withdraws too fast for you to react. So instead, you must focus on the local population, build your own solution to the environment and its systemic problems, further your own game plan and fight the enemy only when he gets in the way. This helps you keep the initiative.

Idea of fast transients suggests that, in order to win, we should operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than our adversaries -- or, better yet, get inside adversarys observation-orientation-decision-action time cycle or loop. Why? Such activity will make us appear ambiguous (unpredictable) thereby generate confusion and disorder among our adversariessince our adversaries will be unable to generate mental images or pictures that agree with the menacing as well as faster transient rhythm or patterns they are competing against. --John Boyd, Patterns of Conflict

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 wilingness to use it.

The binary trap of us vs. them thinking ensures that victory will be both difficult and temporary. Playing a zero-sum game, like King of the Mountain, is ultimately a losing proposition for the winner. The United States of America has been playing at the top of the hill for a long time although that means weve enjoyed an insane standard of living that whole time, it also means every other opponent in the game has been studying and preparing for conflict with the King of the

Mountain. The imperative for Invisible War is to recognize that were all intimately attached to our enemies and opponents.

...humans are manageable and our behavior is stochastic. They never know which particular rat is going to do whatever. But they have a pretty good idea as to what proportion of the total rat population will do whatever or something very close.