The US is spending a fortune on the war in Iraq ($300 billion by year’s end) while at the same time it is restructuring its entire military to combat fourth generation wars that will soon be common. The dramatic expansion of US Special Operations forces, the V 22 transports and the transformation of SOF...

 
Section XX.: (The Series: Beyond Iraq Strategies)

CONCLUSIONS on War, on 4 GW and Options for Resistance

Many issues have not been addressed here – and we know of few useful sources to direct you to.

There are a variety of different and novel ways to structure your investigation of the world’s problems/solutions. This is what should be called Your Life When-You-Care-to-be-Aware – The key question is Why all these problems – from politics to ecology-racism-disease- and many more.

Is this mess that the ruling class has designed with such brilliant minds – this world we live in – the best that humans can do – does it matter how well we do things – Is everything really just a short term selfish pursuit of hedonism, pain avoidance and ?? – whatever the television advertisers tell us is important ??

What drives conflict, what are the weaknesses of those in power, those who call the shots and shape conflict and the perceptions of conflict and solutions?

Why are there infinite possibilities yet people (especially alternative or quasi-radical groups) see only one or two ???

We have to use what is available – the weapons the resources the people etc... We cannot wait – nor encourage others to wait – for some perfect moment – a perfect strategy – or the education and enlightenment of the masses (every indication is that people get more confused each day) – the government – media nexus is rife with psychological warfare manipulations.

We have sought to expose and analyze the strategy, tactics and direction of the military and intelligence forces of the US and their neo-imperialist allies. It is important to understand the enemy, but it is also important to move on and consider the capabilities and skills of the insurgent forces around the world. The areas of Imperialist policies that deserve more research concern changes in US strategy, tactics and weapons – particularly those concerning counterintelligence and counter-terrorist intelligence and strategies; especially important is additional research on US and allied intelligence operations and capabilities. The inclusion of the large numbers of US Special Forces into intelligence gathering and covert operations is a troubling and difficult subject to report on. Research on the media savvy and propaganda efforts of the US is also worthwhile.

The US is spending a fortune on the war in Iraq ($300 billion by year’s end) while at the same time it is restructuring its entire military to combat fourth generation wars that will soon be common. The dramatic expansion of US Special Operations forces, the V 22 transports and the transformation of SOF into a quasi-illegal CIA paramilitary army will give the US awesome and flexible deployment options. With a wide array of listening devices and airborne - or space-borne - sensors the US will be able to attack small targets with devastation. These policies make sense once diplomacy, cooperation, compromise and any hope of a peaceful world are abandoned permanently. But this is a one-way street and the response of the adversaries will be ingenious and unexpected... and so must ours...

America prefers combat where only the strongest wins. US fourth-generation foes prefer 4GW judo, avoiding a decisive fight, leveraging US addiction to technology and "throwing us" using the USA's bureaucratic weight to do so. The enemy's "weapons technology advantage" in the 9-11 attacks consisted of box cutters and ceramic knives, combined with a steely determination to die for a cause... it worked, and the modern world's vast military-security-enforcement bureaucracy was helpless to stop it. Many similar targets and thousands of expensive industrial targets await takers.

We are witnessing the early stages of a major geo-political transition. This shift is characterized by a global landscape of conflict where the division between combatant, criminal opportunist and civilian is blurred. In this potential global insurgency, the urban guerilla (not to forget their rural counterparts) may be a religious zealot or a child for hire with an RPG. As technophiles, Westerners are enraptured by modern weapons of great precision, but have lost sight that people and ideas are the essence of why wars are fought and for how long. In the traditional view, the low-tech approaches of 4GW are the "tactics of the weak." However, they have repeatedly been successful in circumventing our military's far stronger conventional strategy, tactics, and thinking.

Well before the 9-11 attacks al-Qaeda recognized the power of asymmetric warfare and adaptive tactics for their jihad struggle. An article entitled "Fourth Generation Wars," in an al-Qaeda affiliated Internet magazine Al-Ansar: For the Struggle Against the Crusader War acknowledges that 4GW forms the foundation of al-Qaeda's combat doctrine. In doing so, the author, Abu 'Ubed Al-Qurashi, reputed to be closely linked with Osama bin Laden, cites the landmark 1989 Marine Corps Gazette article "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation" as key to understanding contemporary global conflict.

Only a few Western military analysts recognize the deadly nature of 4GW prior to 9-11-01.

If the U.S. military leaves its current hardware spending plans intact and just implements the people and ideas sections of Chester’s paper, the US/Imperialists would make major improvements in the effectiveness of forces. If the military was composed of people trained and selected on their demonstrated abilities to carry out maneuver and fourth-generation warfare, they would demand weapons more suited to these missions. The military-industrial-congressional complex as constituted today could not stand without its military component.

What sort of force would newly trained military personnel come up with? It cannot be known at this time. If it could, potential enemies would react to it, thereby causing the U.S. military to do something else. This idea of action / reaction or shaping / being shaped is central to Boyd’s philosophy, which reflects his remarks in the beginning of -- Patterns of Conflict -- that the theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the two pillars of his study of conflict, survival, and conquest (the conduct of war is the other). This suggests that one should not worry too much about what the final Boyd / Sun Tzu force will look like, but that if we get the people and ideas parts right, the force structure will naturally evolve by a process of experimentation, selection, and rejection.

The Chester paper on Boyd and Sun Tzu, shows that the set of possibilities is not empty for the Imperialists -- the current U.S. force structure can evolve towards something that is greater than that of today by carrying out a strategy focused on maneuver warfare and 4GW. But it is likely that even if it were adopted, it would be merely a way station along the path to something vastly different, that is, assuming the US gets the people and ideas part right. Soon the technology, wealth and desperation of the rich nations will combine to form a deadly – if not invincible – force – with nothing but a few rag-tag groups standing in the way of its planetary conquest.

http://www.almuajaha.com/newswire/display/6214/index.php

The Evolution of War: The Fourth Generation-LtCol Thomas X. Hammes-Marine Corps Gazette-September 1994
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/hammes.htm

1.. A link to a 2nd draft of new series – ex summary – pretty good –
http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=guerrillawar&godate=07/01/2...

2.. A link to additional weapons – PT 2 –
http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=guerrillawar&static=224762

3. Newest version – July 14 – final - ? of Ex Summar y – Series ( new)
http://communitydefense.blogspot.com/2004/07/our-lives-are-war-understan...

FOOTNOTES SEC I.

1. A.) Suicide Bombs – form one of the slides – www.blackwater or emergency.com – titles Improvised Ex Devices -

B.) 1. Fourth Generation Warfare (Continued)
http://www.d-n-i.net/second_level/4gw_continued.htm

2. Grau, Lester W. and Ali Ahmed Jalali. 1999. The Other Side of the Mountain:
Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War. Quantico, VA: US Marine Corps
Studies and Analysis Division.

3. Grau, Lester W. and Timothy L. Thomas. 2000. Russian Lessons Learned From the
Battles For Grozny. Marine Corps Gazette. Vol. 84, no. 4, April 2000: 45-48.

4. a. Lind, William S., Colonel Keith Nightengale, U.S.A., Captain John F. Schmitt, U.S.M.C., et. al., “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation,