Fourth Generation Warfare in the News

Pretty much all news related to 4GW has been substantially lame. Analysis seems to quite clearly either ignore that the we are under attack on many fronts from the use of 4GW or the analysis promulgates myths that further assist those who are utilizing it.

The linked article gives a brief and simplistic description.

Just as the world is watching Lebanon, trying to understand the conflict there, so are experts in modern warfare theory, who see in the battle between Israel and Hezbollah a living and dying test of their ideas.

And in many important ways, they say, Hezbollah appears to understand this war better than its opponent, one of the world's most highly trained and best-equipped militaries.

"I think it's something new, in that a nonstate organization has undertaken a major, sustained, broad-scale, and so far, the successful military offensive against a state," said William Lind, director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "What changes here ... is that nonstate forces are able to challenge states militarily _ and win."

Some experts call it "modern warfare," some call it "unconventional conflict" and others use technical terms such as "netwar" or "fourth-generation warfare."

The definitions differ, but all refer generally to conflict in which small, decentralized, nonstate groups can turn the advantages of large national armies _ overwhelming firepower, high technology, a clear hierarchy of command _ into disadvantages, and in which winning political and public relations victories matters more than counting casualties and bombing sorties.

Elements of that kind of war have been part of conflict since antiquity, but most experts say they moved to the fore in the Iraq war and even more so in the current Lebanon conflict.

"It's both a conventional and an unconventional conflict. It has aspects of both," said Army Special Forces Lt. Col. James Gavrilis, an expert in counterinsurgency tactics. "It includes both state actors and nonstate actors it pretty much has everything."

"Winning" and "losing" can mean far different things from the familiar imagery of swords surrendered and treaties signed. In modern warfare theory, the difference between strategic and tactical victories is crucial.

"Military tactics are the art and science of winning battles," said Thomas Hammes, a retired Marine colonel and author of "The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century."

I've been reading Hammes book and though I have some qualms about how he postures some of his arguments relative to reality, he makes many cogent points. I'm not going to get into any here, since I'm not done with the book.

"Political will is a central component of any combat. Pictures influence political will," Hammes said. It is a lesson, he said, the United States learned in the Vietnam War and Israel in the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, with its photos of boys throwing rocks taking fire from well-armed soldiers. "I really question why Israel didn't understand that in the first stages of the (Lebanon) war."

Its upper hand in the battle of perceptions also allows Hezbollah to make the most of its fairly limited military arsenal, composed mostly of Iranian-made rockets with limited range and no guidance systems.

Right there is a perfect example of an article making fact from fiction. They point out that this is a perception that Hezbollah is the underdog. They in fact have used missiles with sophisticated guidance systems including a version of a cruise missile that was used against the Israeli navy. Hezbollah has major state support and is not limited by the amount of weapons.

Hamme is correct that Israel didn't fight the Media war from the start. But let's be honest, they have lost that war and will always lose that war in the region. They also are losing it in the western press because the talking heads always route for the underdog irrespective of the realities on the ground. Should I also mention the grooming of the journalistic output? Reuter's tampered photos and other press organs using staged photos and film footage is a perfect example of the western press irresponsibility.

Then there is this article on 4GW in Lebanon. I especially like this bit:

The political will of Hezbollah is most worrisome for Israel. As the chief recipient of America's cutting-edge military technology, and as a possessor of its own impressive military-industrial complex, Israel is rightly perceived as a military superpower in the Middle East. What is more important is that it also has established a reputation of using disproportionate military responses to all sizes of military attacks from Arab states.

The list of those disproportionate responses is much too long to enumerate. Just look at what Israel did to the combined armed strength of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the 1967 war. The entire scope of the Arab-Israeli conflict changed, it seems, forever. The Arab states never forgot the humiliating defeat of their armed forces in the 1967 war. Consequently, there never really emerged an "Arab spirit of adventurism" that could challenge Israel on the battlefield.

Even the late Anwar Sadat's decision to start the 1973 war (which Israel calls the "Yom Kippur War" and Arabs call the "Ramadan War" since it was waged during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan) had a very limited purpose, as it turned out. Sadat really wanted to liberate the Egyptian territory lost in the 1967 war from Israeli occupation.

Now how can an honest commenter actually position the 1967 war as an example of disproportionate response? I suppose if you are being responsible, you wouldn't. Three countries simultaneously attacking a single country and losing doesn't indicate any use of disproportionate force to me. And the history of that war doesn't either. So is this a distortion of fact that further damns Israel unjustly?

Then there is William Lind and his analysis of what may happen in Lebanaon:

The cease-fire in Lebanon will last only briefly, its life probably measured in days if not in hours. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah has genuinely accepted it. The notion that the Lebanese Army and a rag-tag U.N. force will disarm Hezbollah is absurd even by the usual low standard of diplomatic fictions. The bombing and the rocketing may stop briefly, but Israel has already announced a campaign of assassination against Hezbollah leaders, while every Israeli soldier in Lebanon will remain a target of Hezbollah.

Unfortunately for states generally, Israel appears to have no good options when hostilities recommence. It can continue to grind forward on the ground in southern Lebanon, paying bitterly for each foot of ground, and perhaps eventually denying Hezbollah some of its rocket-launching sites. But it cannot hold what it takes. It may strive for a more robust U.N. force, but what country wants to fight Hezbollah? Any occupier of southern Lebanon that is not there with Hezbollah's permission will face the same guerrilla war Israel already fought and lost. Most probably, Israel will escalate by taking the war to Syria or Iran, and what will be a strategy of desperation. That too will fail, after it plunges the whole region into a war the outcome of which will be catastrophic for the United States as well as for Israel.

Before that disastrous denouement, my Fourth Generation crystal ball suggests the following events are likely:

• Again, a near-term resumption of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, with Israel succeeding no better than it has to date. In the past, the IDF has been brilliant at pulling rabbits out of hats, but this time someone else seems to occupy all the rabbit holes.

• A fracturing of Lebanon, with a collapse of the weak Lebanese state and very possibly a return to civil war there (which was always the probable result of Syria's departure).

• A rise of Syrian and Iranian influence generally, matched by a fall of American influence. If Israel and America were clever, Syria's comeback could offer a diplomatic opportunity of a deal in which Syria changed sides in return for a peace treaty with Israel that included the return of all lands. The crystal ball says that opportunity will be spurned.

• A vast strengthening of Islamic 4GW elements everywhere.

• Finally and perhaps most discouragingly, a continued inability of state militaries everywhere, including those of Israel and the United States, to come to grips with Fourth Generation War. Inability may be too kind of a word; refusal is perhaps more accurate.

Are there any brighter prospects? Not unless Israel changes its fundamental policy. Even in the unlikely event that the cease-fire in Lebanon holds and Lebanese Army and U.N. forces do wander into southern Lebanon, that would buy but a bit of time. Israel only has a long-term future if it can reach a mutually acceptable accommodation with its neighbors. So long as those neighbors are states, a policy of pursuing such an accommodation may have some chance of success. But as the rise of Fourth Generation elements such as Hezbollah and Hamas weaken and in time replace those states, the possibility will disappear. Unfortunately, Israeli politics appear to be moving away from such a course rather than toward it.

For America, the question is whether Washington will continue to demand that we go down with the Israeli ship.

Lind's analysis is close to accurate, if not pessimistic. I also have qualms with his last sentence. America isn't going down with the Israeli ship. Israel is a regional ally that should be supported and this recent Lebanese fiasco has not been helpful. The US allowed a far too nebulous a resolution to come out of the UN and that is causing even more trouble. In fact, I'd say it is working right into Hezbollah's favor, since Israel is still being postured as the aggressor with reports on the Israeli alleged violation of the ceasefire in general completely ignore that the action was in response to rearming of Hezbollah by Syria. The fact that this part of the context for Israeli action is minimized further strengthens Hezbollah's reputation unjustifiably.

Unfortunately, I am starting to believe that the US will continue to lose all 4GW conflicts. The reasoning is simple. In the long term, the citizens of the US have a distrust of their government that is well known. It also is unjustified in many cases. Conspiracy theorists are pretty much the norm in politics, whether they believe their delusions or not. This in itself limits the ability of the government to obtain successful resolution to conflicts. The government can't use propaganda in any form. This is obviously the case since any MSM body will report it as such irrespective of what the message is. I'm beginning to see the MSM less as the "fourth estate" and more as the "anti-estate." (Yes, that is me being especially pessimistic.)

In the short term, the Bush Dementia Syndrome has locked in so completely that at least half of the country is incapable of analyzing the Administrations actions with any honesty. Go to any Fever-Swamp-Left blog or posting board and you'll see that.

Hopefully Hamme will end his book with some reasonable suggestions for action to combat 4GW. I certainly haven't seen any in the news, and the web hasn't provided much but the same rehash on what 4GW is.