Here at Winds of Change.NET, we've spent a fair bit of time covering 4th Generation Warfare ("4GW", try it as a search term). In D-N-I.NET's words:
"Roughly speaking, "fourth generation warfare" includes all forms of conflict where the other side refuses to stand up and fight fair. What distinguishes 4GW from earlier generations is that typically at least one side is something other than a military force organized and operating under the control of a national government, and one that often transcends national boundaries."Sound familiar?
We've also thrown in more than a few hyperlinks to information about an American warrior named John Boyd. Col. Boyd was the original Top Gun, and he may also have been the greatest military thinker America has yet produced. His infamous "OODA Loop" (Observe - Orient - Decide - Act) is part of fighter pilot parlance, and has exercised a growing influence on military thinking. Many note that the concept of 4th Generation Warfare owed a great deal to Boyd, and so does current Marine Corps Doctrine.
Not to mention much of the thinking behind Gulf War I - and his ideas will be even more influential this time.
Fortunately, Parapundit has a superb collection of Boyd-related links and discussions with his disciples for those who wish to immerse themselves in these ideas before the war starts.
It's a minor point, but I've never bought into the "3rd generation" of war (firepower + maneuver) as being meaningfully different from the 2nd generation of war.
At the Air Force Academy in the 1970s, we were taught that there were two eras of war: ancient and modern. With the first modern war being the U.S. Civil War (or the Crimean War, maybe). That makes sense to me. For example, were Stonewall Jackson's lightning marches THAT different from Patton's race through France?
For most of the pre-modern era, no army could move further than the distance it could march in a day - typically about 20-25 miles. In the early modern era (around the U.S. Civil War), the 20-25 mile maximum still held for the most part, though railroads were used occasionally to move further, faster (see Longstreet's journey to Chickamauga, for example). With the blitzkrieg of the German army in World War II, it was possible to annihilate the enemy much faster than before the development of airplanes, tanks and parachutes, but is that different enough to deserve its own generation of warfare?
I still think not. So give me just three generations of warfare, thank you very much.
The advent of the blitzkreig enabled the French to surrender in two day rather than the customary six days.
for whomever may happen to read this, the first poster's comments provide clear evidence that he has not been able to move from a 2GW way of thinking. 3GW is not firepower + maneuver. Haubold has missed the forest for the trees. As Americans (read: second generationists) usually do, he is viewing warfare strictly in physical, technological terms. To oversimplify a bit, 3GW is a mindset in which you seek to attack your enemies weaknesses and avoid his strengths. To many Americans, the whole idea is cowardly; real warriors are expected to charge bravely into enemy machine gun fire and get awarded their medal of honor posthumously. The idea is outdated; get it out of your head. Run when you can't win, and fight when your enemy has his back turned. That's 3GW.
#3 from jason lemieux: "for whomever may happen to read this, the first poster's comments provide clear evidence that he has not been able to move from a 2GW way of thinking. 3GW is not firepower + maneuver. Haubold has missed the forest for the trees. As Americans (read: second generationists) usually do, he is viewing warfare strictly in physical, technological terms."
I don't think the Americans are an inferior species in matters of warfare. Americans can see new ideas as well as anyone else. And sometimes, some Americans think these new ideas are wrong. And sometimes, the new ideas are indeed wrong. Being critical is not the same as being stupid.
#3 from jason lemieux: To oversimplify a bit, 3GW is a mindset in which you seek to attack your enemies weaknesses and avoid his strengths. To many Americans, the whole idea is cowardly; real warriors are expected to charge bravely into enemy machine gun fire and get awarded their medal of honor posthumously."
Warfare as suicidal spasm is uncharacteristic of Americans. They don't like the whole "Banzai!" or "Allah hu Akhbar!" thing. They prefer to think in terms of winning. The Americans think George Patton was right about making the other guy die for his country.
No, Americans aren't an inferior species (I'm American; you refer to us in the third person as though you are not-just clearing that up), they are simply doing what people do best, which is what they were taught. As a group of people we are mentally capable of recognizing new ideas, but the mindset that makes 2GW possible (robotic obedience and slavish adherence to process and tradition) has turned us into a closed system that is incapable of assimilating new ideas into our warfighting philosophy.
Haubold is not stupid, but he is also not "critical" as the word relates to objective analysis. If he were critically examining 3GW philosophy he'd understand that it's not about "firepower + maneuver," it's about reaching past the physical to attack the enemy on the mental and moral levels of war. Of course, if he hasn't heard anyone outside of the U.S. military speak about 3GW, he may not have heard a worthy definition in the first place.
The bottom line is that we Americans are almost exclusively Attritionist in our warfighting philosophy, even when we're trying to be otherwise. 2GW has permeated our culture so far that obsolete weapons like the F-22 Raptor are sold to our Congress as part of the "Global War on Terror," as if "terrorists" are somewhere in a lab working on fighter planes that will defeat our F-15's, F-16's and F-18's...but I digress.
In your reply, my last quote is worded a little unclearly. I wasn't trying to suggest that we are big on banzai charges. However, we do not think in terms of winning unless "winning" is defined as methodically pushing headlong into the largest concentrations of enemy we can find, taking casualties the whole time, and killing them one by one until they give up or are wiped out. As a former Marine who served three tours in Iraq, I can tell you that our reliance on ECMs to jam IED signals (which they don't even do a good job of) so that we can continue to cruise the streets looking for the one resistance fighter in a thousand who makes himself visible is a symptom of our 2GW mindset.
Unfortunately, your assertion about Patton is correct. We think that, instead of defeating the other guy's strategy or will to fight, our job is merely to kill him...and his replacement...and HIS replacement...and HIS replacement...