4GW: The American Way of War - Good Enough?

Lots of visitors to Trent Telenko's JSOW piece yesterday here at Winds of Change (thanks, Glenn!). Just one more example of how far beyond the rest of the world America's military capabilties are headed.

Now, here's a question for everyone: when it comes to military effectiveness, are technologies like that enough? A recent article in the US Army War College magazine PARAMETERS was clear and unequivocal: No.

It's one of the apparent paradoxes of conflict that technologies can change the nature of battle, but not win wars. Col. John Boyd's insights into that conundrum produced some important thinking, and led to the concept of 4th Generation Warfare (4GW). It doesn't supplant or replace classical views on the subject, but it is an important adaptation that's especially relevant to our current situation.

We ignore his ideas at our peril.

Winds of Change has covered 4GW for a while now (see our Quarterly Archives, conveniently arranged by date and title). Recently, Atlantic Magazine's James Fallows began an Atlantic Unbound email discussion with a couple of Boyd's disciples:

"...a word about each of your books. I was surprised when reading them to find that despite their differences—in approach, tone, length, documentation, official subject—they're really about the same thing: the role of character in military affairs. Robert Coram's biography of John Boyd is about an under-appreciated pioneer in twentieth-century military tactics and strategy. Donald Vandergriff's Path to Victory is about internal changes in Army rules and culture that are at odds with military effectiveness."

Fallows himself makes some good and valid points about the way American debate about the military has ossified from both sides... which makes this exchange worthy reading regardless of which side of the political fence you hail from.