CHAPTER I: UNDERSTANDING FOURTH GENERATION WAR---{Text From Defense and the National Interest} (Bold face, Parenthesis links/comment JB)
“The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into something that is alien to its nature.”
Carl von Clausewitz, On War
Before you can fight Fourth Generation war
successfully,
you have to understand it.
Because it is something new
(at least in our time), no one understands
it completely.
It is still evolving,
which means our understanding must continue
to evolve
as well.
This chapter lays out our best current understanding of the
Fourth Generation of Modern War.
Three Levels of War
The three classical levels of war -
- strategic, operational and tactical
-- still exist in
Fourth Generation war.
But all three are affected
and to some extent changed by the
Fourth Generation.
One important change
is that while in the first three generations,
strategy
was the province of generals,
the Fourth Generation gives us the
"strategic corporal."
Especially when video cameras are rolling,
a single enlisted Marine
may take
an action that has
strategic effect.
An example comes from the first phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
U.S. Marines had occupied a
Shiite town in southern Iraq.
A Marine corporal was leading a patrol through the town
when it encountered
a funeral procession coming the other way.
The corporal ordered his men to stand aside and take their helmets off as a sign of respect.
Word of that action quickly spread around town,
and it helped the Marines' effort to be welcomed as liberators.
That in turn had a
strategic impact,
because American strategy required keeping Shiite southern Iraq,
through which American supply lines had to pass,
quiet.
Another change is that all three levels may be local.
A Marine unit may have a "beat," much as police do --
an area where they are responsible for maintaining order
and perhaps delivering other vital services as well.
The unit must harmonize its local, tactical actions
with higher strategic and operational goals,
both of which must be pursued consistently
on the local level.
(When a unit is assigned a "beat," (read link Michael J. Totten's: In wake of the Surge -walking the beat in Baghdad)
it is important that the beat's boundaries reflect real local boundaries,
such as those between tribes and clans,
and not be arbitrary lines drawn on a map at some higher headquarters.)
These changes point to another of the dilemmas
that typify Fourth Generation war:
what succeeds
on the tactical level
can easily be counter-productive at the operational
and, especially, strategic levels.
For example,
by using their overwhelming firepower at the tactical level,
Marines may in some cases
intimidate the local population into fearing them and leaving them alone.
But fear and hate
are closely related,
and if the local population ends up hating us,
that works toward our strategic defeat. (read Michael Yon-"It’s hard to build civic relationships out of body parts.")
That is why in Northern Ireland,
British troops are not allowed
to return fire unless they are actually
taking casualties.
The Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld
argues that one reason the British have not lost in
Northern Ireland is that they have taken more casualties than they have inflicted.
Fourth Generation war poses an especially difficult problem to operational art:
put simply, it is difficult to operationalize.
Often, Fourth Generation opponents' strategic centers of gravity are intangible.
They may be things like proving their manhood
to their comrades and local women,
obeying the commandments of their religion
or demonstrating their tribe’s bravery to other tribes.
Because operational art is the art of focusing tactical actions
on enemy strategic centers of gravity, operational art becomes
difficult or even impossible in such situations.
This was the essence of the Soviet failure
in Afghanistan.
The Soviet Army,
which focused on operational art,
could not operationalize a conflict
where the enemy's strategic center of gravity was
God.
The Soviets were reduced
to fighting at the tactical level only,
where their army was not very capable,
despite its vast technological superiority over the Afghan Mujaheddin.
Fourth Generation war sometimes cuts across all three classical levels of war.
An example
comes from Colonel John Boyd' s definition of grand strategy,
the highest level of war.
He defined grand strategy
as the art of connecting yourself
to as many other independent power centers as possible
while isolating your enemies from as many other power centers as possible.
A Fourth Generation conflict will usually
have many different independent power centers
not only at the grand strategic level but down
all the way to the tactical level.
The game of connection and isolation
will be central to tactics and operational art
as well as to strategy and grand strategy.
It will be important to ensure that what you are doing
at the tactical level does not alienate
independent power centers you need to connect with
at the operational or strategic levels.
Similarly, you will need to be careful not to isolate yourself today from independent power centers
you will need to connect to tomorrow.
Again, while the classical three levels of war carry over into the Fourth Generation, they change.
We do not yet know all the ways in which they will change when Marines face Fourth Generation opponents.
As Marines' experience in Fourth Generation conflicts grows, so must our understanding.
It is vital that we remain open to new lessons and not attempt to fit new ways of war into outdated notions.
