Fourth Generation Warfare: the new face warfare

[Diplomat]

Fourth Geneartion Warfare is the new face of military tactics and strategies in todays world of global terrorism. In todays world the security and paramilitary forces are engaged in constant and intense conflict with terrorists ( all types, not just Islamic, but also the IRA, or guerilla resistance forces) in countries round the world.

Warfare has evolved since the time of kings and empires of the middle ages. Warfare tactics revolutionised in the two world wars especially the 2nd world war. Well planned and devised strategies allowed armies to win battles.

A very good example is the island hopping tactic used by the US army in the Pacific war theater of WWII. Fourth generation warfare is not that recent or a new concept. We have seen this warfare in the colonised countries of the industrial revolution era, where the imperialist armies had to deal with the guerillas fighting for the independence of their nation.

A good example is the Battle of Casbah fought in Algeria against the French imperialists, in 1957-58 where the French forces had to fight urban battles, within cities where there were civilians and terrorists mixed. This dilemma was faced by the UN forces (US Army, 10 mtn div) in Somalia ( 1993).

The US still faces it in Iraq. As a result of changing nature of warfare adopted by the enemy, armies have to reform their own strategies and tactics, to win wars. Thats because fighting in an open field or a desert is different from fighting in heavily populated small towns and cities. In such conditions it is worthless to use bombers, tanks, cruise missiles, fighter aircraft to fight the enemy. Thats because, " anyone could be a terrorist ( enemy) but not everyone is." There are innocent civilians that become collateral damage which all armies want to avoid.

So now my friends after this analysis of 4rth generation warefare. What is your take on this? How can military tactics be reformed to fight todays wars? Do you think just big weapons and aircraft can enable armies to win wars in such conditions and environments???

Eagerly waiting for a response from all military enthusuiats out there!!!

 

[Daelin]

It's been done, actually. Just look at at the Special Air Service (SAS) of the UK, or the Foreign Legion (France), either of them during the 1950s. Sometimes, because an action is not given a lot of press, people miss it.

To specifics, look at the Communist attempts to mount an insurgency in Greece during the 1940s, or the Indonesian terrorist attacks in the 1950s, or the Communist attempts to destabilize Italy and West Germany during the late 1970s/early 1980s.

Not to be confused with "Low-Intensity" combat, the specific actions of groups like GSG-9 in Germany, or even the HRT actions under FBI administration. There's a lot going on under the radar, but you can figure some of it out just by, to use the phrase, listening for the dog that doesn't bark.

 

[FutureTank]

I don't agree with the 'generational' description of warfare.

Its vague and determenistic. 'Assymeric' warfare is Biblical in age (the Maccabies), so nothing new here.

 

[DoC_FouALieR]

A good example is the Battle of Casbah fought in Algeria against the French imperialists, in 1957-58

I personaly don't think that the term "imperialist" is welcomed here...
The Algeria war was not as simple as it might appear, it was not a simple question of independance, rather a civil war... Before the war, Algeria was part of France like any of our others regions.

 

[FutureTank]

Catalyst in warfare

Fourth Geneartion Warfare

Define 'generation in warfare'. So far as I'm concerned William S. Lind never did so.

Warfare has evolved since the time of kings and empires of the middle ages. Warfare tactics revolutionised in the two world wars especially the 2nd world war. Well planned and devised strategies allowed armies to win battles.

Warfare has not evolved, technology used to wage conflicts did.
Tactics were not revolutionised, but evolved subject to influence to the above-mentioned technology
Badly planned and executed strategies still alowed armies to win battles, but they still lost wars (WW2 as an example)

A good example is the Battle of Casbah fought in Algeria against the French imperialists, in 1957-58 where the French forces had to fight urban battles, within cities where there were civilians and terrorists mixed. This dilemma was faced by the UN forces (US Army, 10 mtn div) in Somalia ( 1993).

Urban combat is really old as far as warfare goes! The only difference is that the rules of engagement have changed due to restraints of political systems and popular acceptance of certain moral principles within the societies whom the army represent. Not all societies share these European values.

The US still faces it in Iraq. As a result of changing nature of warfare adopted by the enemy, armies have to reform their own strategies and tactics, to win wars. Thats because fighting in an open field or a desert is different from fighting in heavily populated small towns and cities. In such conditions it is worthless to use bombers, tanks, cruise missiles, fighter aircraft to fight the enemy. Thats because, " anyone could be a terrorist ( enemy) but not everyone is." There are innocent civilians that become collateral damage which all armies want to avoid.

Situation in Iraq is not soved by military force changing tactics, operational methods of strategy. Its part of "badly planned and executed strategies that win battles but loose wars" expereince

So now my friends after this analysis of 4rth generation warefare. What is your take on this? How can military tactics be reformed to fight todays wars? Do you think just big weapons and aircraft can enable armies to win wars in such conditions and environments?

This is not an analysis. You have not defined terms, or established scope of analysis. Much of the above is from US point of view, but US is a recently new arrival in the history of warfare. Nor does US boast a good record for any lessons to be derived that would support this theory of four generations.

A generation is a cycle's full loop.
In warfare it occurs when investment in offencive technology achieves parity with defensive technology creating an environment where resources expanded will not be recouped by resources gains as a result of victory.
When this occurs, invariably someone finds a creative solution for overcoming defensive thinking by challenging established norms.

However these are not revolutionary as such. For example the posiotional warfare in Europe had gone on for centuries despite invention of gunpowder weapons, and was only defeated by universal conscription, an idea unpalatable for contemporary societies. In this case neither the technology nor tactics changed. Operations changed somewhat, and so did strategic methods, but these were made possible by the vastly greater number of troops being fielded. As a consequence the Napoleonic victories bankrupted Europe, and Britain was able to purchase support for his eventual defeat. What followed was a relative 60year peace in Europe during which warfare didn't change much at all from that of early 17th century although effectiveness of the technology did.
What forced change were combined arms tactics coupled with an introduction of a new dimension of awareness by the field commander.
As I see it a generation is a change-point in warfare created through an impact of a catalytic agent. In 1911 fixed wing propeller driven aircraft became this catalyst.

 

[Francis]

Diplomat can you Define the meaning of Generation of warfare ? and if you mention so much about the 4th Generation of warfare , then tell us all what will it look like , what would be the scenarios and who would be the combatants ?

 

[Rich]

Diplomat can you Define the meaning of Generation of warfare ? and if you mention so much about the 4th Generation of warfare , then tell us all what will it look like , what would be the scenarios and who would be the combatants ?

I'll take a stab at it. 1st generation would be the first conflict by organized armies, using manuver warfare, and organized tactics and weapons, in pursuit of territory gains by nation states. When was this? Who knows! We'll use the Greeks or Romans as an example.

2'nd generation would be the use of gunpowder, firearms, artillery, and navies to pursue organized and hierarchical empire on a worldwide scale. Say the Brits, Russians, Spanish, and French of the 18'th, 19'th centuries.

3'rd would be modern war of the 20'th century with industrialization, air power, submarines, armor, mass casualties, instant communication, and WMDs. Say it started in the Jap-Russo war of 1904 and ended in Korea. This period saw the rise of elected Democracies for the first time.

4'th generation would be 21'st century warfare. ICBMs, space systems, computers, networking, precision weapons, and annihilation of entire countries possible. Say it started in the pre-Vietnam Cuba of 1963 and were still in it. Politically of course this stage saw the Cold war and whatever we call the decentralization of the end of it.

Like I said, "a stab". While pretty loosely general each stage did have a evolution of tactics, weapons, destructive power, geological scope, and both the rise and fall of Ideologies and world power.

True nothing ever happened in an instant but there are a lot of examples of tactics and weapons evolving very quickly. Quickly enough to change the face of warfare in a period of months or years. Also ,I would add, the trend is the longer the species is standing the faster we are moving on generationaly.

 

[FutureTank]

Defining generations in warfare

It seems to me that generations in warfare are not much different to generations in anything else, and can be defined as:

A period of relative lack of change in warfare separated from previous, and next periods by sudden and radical change in perception, attitudes or ideas about conduct of war.

 

[gf0012-aust]

I'm not convinced that you can actually define the generations of warfare.

prev its been determined by the emergence of dramatic battle changing advances.

eg:

phalanx/square
spurs/saddle
longbow
US Civil War (total war theory really articulated for the first time, the introduction of aerial observation, hi speed comms, sub warfare etc.... )
dreadnought (Fishers lateral thinking)
aerial warfare (Spanish Civil War, ww1, ww2)
carrier warfare(ww2)
precision munitions (Iraq 1991)
space command (Iraq 1991)
networking and sensor fusion (2001+)

I think the dynamics of warfighting are so rapid and subject to change, that the period between technology advantaged dominance is rapidly diminishing.

it still gets back to battlespace dominance at the engagement level - be that a meeting engagement between conventional forces - or assymetrical clashes.

the generational change per se can be a legacy of variations of a combined arms response, a baptism of successfully integrated and merged systems etc...

 

[FutureTank]

I'm not convinced that you can actually define the generations of warfare.

prev its been determined by the emergence of dramatic battle changing advances.

eg:

phalanx/square
spurs/saddle
longbow
US Civil War (total war theory really articulated for the first time, the introduction of aerial observation, hi speed comms, sub warfare etc.... )
dreadnought (Fishers lateral thinking)
aerial warfare (Spanish Civil War, ww1, ww2)
carrier warfare(ww2)
precision munitions (Iraq 1991)
space command (Iraq 1991)
networking and sensor fusion (2001+)

I think the dynamics of warfighting are so rapid and subject to change, that the period between technology advantaged dominance is rapidly diminishing.

it still gets back to battlespace dominance at the engagement level - be that a meeting engagement between conventional forces - or assymetrical clashes.

the generational change per se can be a legacy of variations of a combined arms response, a baptism of successfully integrated and merged systems etc...

Yes, all of the above, which is why I didn't mention technology. However we get into phlosophy here.
If warfare is part of behaviour of a given society, is this behaviour evolutionary without any discernable milestones, or periodic, defined by specific milestones that force change.

In most disciplines the later view prevails. If I accept the later view, then generations/periods/eras are only definable/devisable by recognising specific instance that separates them.

The issue with technology is that there are few such rapidly emerging technologies. I guess nuclear weapons is one. Powered flight is another. It is difficult for us living in an age of rapid every-day technological change to appreciate that this was not always so.

 

[gf0012-aust]

However we get into phlosophy here.
If warfare is part of behaviour of a given society, is this behaviour evolutionary without any discernable milestones, or periodic, defined by specific milestones that force change.

There's the rub, If it is the behaviour of a given society, then its the ultimate warfighting variation that the society brings to the table that can change the definition landscape.

eg the Mongols were nomads, but they bought civil order and military structure based on a meritocracy into what has oft been called a 21st Century art of war into the pre middle ages. They demonstrated mobile warfare and shock and awe long before everyone else. Subodai demonstrated absolute manouvre warfare almost 500 years ahead of any other military luminary.

the romans were the penultimate engineers of their day, to the extent that their civil engineering dominance when applied to battlefield technology and battlefield construction (sappers and engineers) made their enemies look positively primitive. hannibal might have knocked them off in the first round, but they were beaten by their own hubris more than anything. Look at their focus in absolutely and single minded focus in the application of total war, total destruction of Carthage under Scipio Africanus.

Britains dominance for 300 years was because she initially and fundamentally knew that protection of the island required maritime power - she started off running the best pirate shop in town, migrated to a military naval power and along the way established the worlds "first", biggest and most pronounced PMC (East India Company)

the list goes on.....

In most disciplines the later view prevails. If I accept the later view, then generations/periods/eras are only definable/devisable by recognising specific instance that separates them.

the transition from one superpower to the next is usually blunt. the most obvious example of a non catastrophic (conflict sense) handing over of the baton was Britain to the US.

The issue with technology is that there are few such rapidly emerging technologies. I guess nuclear weapons is one. Powered flight is another. It is difficult for us living in an age of rapid every-day technological change to appreciate that this was not always so.

But current technological advantage is somewhat a variation of Moores Law. The period between innovation advantage and nullification against a technology (not against a system) is rapidly diminishing IMV. Usually the transformation is happening within the host faster than the other "runners" though.

 

[FutureTank]

...so you are saying that looking for a 'generational' catalyst need not define the generation?

Strangely I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing

However I still do think that the formulation of '4th generation' is not right either way.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Strangely I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing

welcome to the world of schizophrenic analysis.... nfloorl:

 

[Distiller]

I wouldn't call the campaigns in South West Asia a new generation of warfare. These are more or less colonial uprisings. In earlier centuries hardly any core/European troops were used for that type of action, but auxiliary units made up of natives of enemy tribes, mercenaries, and the like.


Talking about "generations" in warfare:
- Gen00: When a bunch of unorganized fellows tried to break each other's skull with primitive equipment. For tens of thousands of years.

- Gen0: The wars of the Kings. Managed to organize, to think about logistics, plus metal weapons. But organization and planning is core. Egyptians, Hittites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Mongols, ...

- Gen1: Gunpowder = combat is no longer primarily dependent on physical skills. But else everything remains more or less the same. The European Empires from Portugal to Britain, to the Crimean War approx.

- Gen2: Industrial, but more or less static combat along a thin battle line. From the war of Southern Independence till the 1930's approx.

- Gen3: Mechanized, integrated maneuver warfare and drastic expansion of the depth of the battle zone. German Wehrmacht on a good day and everything that follows up to this day.

Don't see any more modern developments, most armed forces struggle with Gen3 anyway! And I don't see any possible next step, other a Startrek-like independence from fuel and ammo thanks to some scifi energy source.

 

[Big-E]

I submit that there is another factor to this new generation of warfare, especially for Western nations... that being cost. Never before has the financial cost of war been so great. It costs 2 billion a week to maintain operations in Iraq. It makes occupation of any country a financial burden no country can afford. Russia can maintain 100,000 men in Chechnya for only 4billion a year. It has been suggested our abilty to field numbers of men is why we are losing. Has our technological edge cost us so much that we are no longer able to pay for war?

 

[Distiller]

Ballooning costs are a U.S. speciality. How much is pork, how much is really combat related?

What was the reason for conquering Babylon? - Ill defined goals.
I tell you, in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus tens of thousands of basically highly capable young men would be ready to fight in Babylon, if the U.S. would give them citizenship and a highschool+college education after, say, 18 month of combat operations. No benefits, no need to rotate them, they wouldn't even have to be paid beyond some basic amount. That is the way Rome, especially Byzantium would have fought. Both would win, the U.S. would have a free fighting force, plus an influx of desireable non-hispanics. Talking about ethinc diversity.

It's soooo much big business and pork, don't even know where to start.
Babylon basically is a MP operation, plus some Special Forces type ops for the hard cases. All these air operations for example! Supersonic jets from far away for jobs a A-1 (or some armed turbo trainer) could do much equally good or better. What is the "technology edge" in the U.S. infantry combat?

 

[SimT]

Well I've read quite a few bad attempts at describing generations in warfare in this thread. I guess I'll have a go at trying to explain it.

First of all, the difference between generations in warfare is not just time (as opposed to generations in age for example) As you will see form my examples 4th generation warfare (4GW) has already taken place in isolated cases before 2nd generation warfare even became the standard.

Someone here mentioned first generation warfare to be manoeuvre warfare and second generation warfare to involve the use of black powder.... well forget all about that. It's nowhere near the truth.

Both Greek warfare and the invention of warfare are actually placed even before the actual first generation.

First generation warfare refers to Napoleontic warfare. In this generation wars are won through superior firepower. The firepower is gained through training and order of the soldiers fighting with muskets. They need to be trained to fire and reload as quick as they can and they need to orderly move in columns in order to apply their firepower in the best way possible.

Aspreviously mentioned generations in warfare don't evolve because of time, they evolve either through technological developments or through ideas.

Second generation warfare came to existence through a technological development. In this case the machine gun. Good luck marching your soldiers in columns against an enemy machine gun. This was a hard lesson to learn during the first world war. The technological development caused warfare to develop into wars that got stuck in trenches and in which the front would hardly move.

The third generation of warfare came largely through ideas and is usually illustrated by the Blitzkrieg at the beginning of the second world war. Here the idea of manoeuvre warfare and non-linear fronts created the new generation of warfare.

Now here comes 4GW, many here have described it as "terrorism" or "guerilla warfare" or "assymetric warfare"... while all of those are certainly elements of 4GW, they are not a description of it.

The actual difference between previous generations of warfare is that in 1GW, 2GW and 3GW the two opponents in warfare are states. The big difference in 4GW is that one of the actors is a non-state entity. This means that the enemy here does not have access to advanced technology (which also explains why this evolution was not based on technology, instead it came from newideas). This of course results in assymetric warfare. Another notable difference in 4GW is the importance of media (or rather how it is used by tne non-state entity to influence the public opinion in order to make the enemy lose support for its war). 4GW also often ends in attrition warfare.

Now, an important thing to note is: 4GW is not new. The problem with handling 4GW is not that we have yet to get to know it, the problem is that 3GW has become the standard and some are having trouble adapting to 4GW scenarios.

For example, higher generations of warfare than 1GW could already be spotted in history when the Brittish Empire fought in Sudan. The Brittish troops were still using their 1GW tactics (if you want to know what I mean think of the movie "The Four Feathers", this scene to be specific, where the soldiers line up in the square, a sensible tactic in 1GW, but they are completely destroyed by the Sudanese tribesmen which are in fact using tactics closer to 4GW).

4GW has also been applied by "revolutionaries" throughout history, even Che Guevara and Mao applied rules of 4GW.

Generally a higher generation of warfare will defeat a lower generation since it is more higher developed in ideas and ways of applying accessible technology (or the lack thereof).

The United States have in the past been struggling with 4GW in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia. It seems that the United States have not yet been able to create a solid answer to 4GW.

For those here who want a thinking exercise. Try to imagine what 5GW will be.

Anyway, I only try to put some stuff straight here, I'll leave a link to the article in which the concept of 4GW was described in the Marine Corps Gazette back in 1989.
The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation

 

[Tasman]

Thanks for the definitions SimT and for the link. At least we now know how the USMC defines the four generations!

I think we still need something to describe pre generational warfare prior to the development of effective firearms. I think Distiller was on the right track with his 00 and 0 generations (or should it be pre-generations?).

Cheers

 

[Waylander]

4th generation warfare exists since the beginning of war.

Just take the Romans as an example. They faced 100 years of guerilla warfare in Spain but they had their "own way" of dealing with uprisings and guerillas and after 100 years the country was secured.

But such a behaviour is nothing western troops can or should think about.

 

[SimT]

You are indeed correct when you say 4GW has existed throughout the history of warfare, only the actual definitions of these "generations" don't seem to take that history in account since they only start counting from Napoleontic warfare.

The reason they use for this is that warfare before that age was not warfare conducted between states. As this powerpoint presentation shows.

I wouldn't agree with the way the powerpoint explains it though, I think you are certainly right when you say the Roman empire already had to deal with 4GW and it certainly existed throughout the periods of 1-3GW as well.

It is however a fact that western armies need to adapt in order to be able to counter 4GW. One can't really deny the existence of 4GW and as such it would be stupid not to formulate a solution.

So Waylander I can't really agree when you say this is something western troops can or should not think about. As a rather succesful attempt at trying to counter 4GW strategy and tactics I would refer to the Selous scouts who were active in Zimbabwe as well as the Brittish campaign against Greek guerillas during the Greek civil war. Although both situations didn't present an actual solution to the problems posed by 4GW they did manage to adapt to the new kind of warfare much better than a regular 3GW warfare campaign could.

I'm actually of the opinion that the main goal for the United States to win Iraq should be on the diplomatic level as well as on the military level trying to adapt to the 4GW challenges posed in Iraq. This is of course easier said than done.