There will be 4GW

This book by conservative columnist William Lind expands on the themes set out in his shorter work “The Four Generations of Modern War”. Lind's ideas on modern warfare are similar to those of Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld. The basic perspective is a pessimistic one. The power of the modern state and its military is in decline. For that reason, wars will be fought by a wide variety of non-state actors, including clans, tribes, terrorist groups and crime syndicates. This is similar to the formation of war bands predicted by Toynbee. The process has already begun and will escalate even more in the future. Lind calls the strategy and tactics of the war bands “4th Generation Warfare”. It's essentially a form of more or less generalized guerilla struggle. Lind clearly had Iraq in mind when writing his book. Modern states are still stuck in “2nd Generation Warfare” and are therefore singularly unequipped to deal with the new realities of war. 2GW relies on technological superiority, rigid command structures and equally rigid tactics to “impose order on a chaotic battlefield”. But what if the enemy is invisible and never shows up on the battlefield in the first place? What Lind calls “3rd Generation Warfare” is a version of the German Blietzkrieg, combining superior force and tactical flexibility, but in the end, not even this will work against a 4GW opponent.

Lind's advice is to make the military of the modern state as similar as possible to its 4GW opponents. The task is to “out-guerilla the guerilla”. The troops must fraternize with the locals and attempt to win their hearts and minds by providing protection against irregulars or criminals, taking part in public works projects, and respect their traditions and customs. In many ways, the troops should act more like friendly policemen rather than foreign occupants. The local state should be preserved rather than destroyed. Lind says quite explicitly that cash is even more important than firepower. Yes, the military should attempt to bribe as many influential natives as possible! The best way to combat the 4GW enemy is to mimic its tactics. The army of the future will revolve around light infantry (by which Lind means tactically flexible infantry units often working behind enemy lines), rather than high tech gadgets such as drones. The key word is “de-escalation”. Lind believes that the military must have an explicit exit plan from the start, since a prolonged occupation of a foreign nation simply isn't feasible. Clearly, the author doesn't believe in any grandiose schemes for “nation-building” under US tutelage!

Lind admits that there is another way of fighting 4GW enemies: to use modern military superiority to escalate the conflict in a truly brutal manner. He calls it “the Hama model”, after Syrian Baathist leader Hafez al-Assads bloody suppression of a Sunni Muslim revolt in the city of Hama in 1982. Within a month, about 20,000 people were killed and large portions of Hama destroyed. The catch is that such an escalation must be swift and catch the rebels unaware. It can't be repeated on a regular basis. Prolonged brutality will simply stiffen the resistance (and perhaps the calls for international intervention), but so will too little brutality once you decide on the “Hama” option. It would be interesting to know what the author said about the US attack on Fallujah in Iraq…

Even more controversially, Lind suggests that 4GW is the future even of the Western nations. Yes, the war bands and irregulars are coming to *your* backyard, and Lind believes the Western governments have committed a terrible mistake in permitting mass immigration from the Third World. The immigrants are the material from which future war bands will be formed. Lind believes that the Western militaries nevertheless have an advantage on their home turf, precisely because it is their turf. The problem is creating conditions for good governance. If the governments aren't seen as legitimate, the Western nations could become failed states in the grip of both foreign and local war bands.

“4th Generation Warfare Handbook” is somewhat uneven, with some chapters being mostly of interest to specialists in the subject. Other chapters are written in a narrative (“fiction”) style, which I personally found annoying. I also get the feeling that Lind might be somewhat naïve! Was it really likely that Sunni Muslims in Iraq would tolerate the presence of US troops if they had bribed some notables or built a couple of health clinics? Under any post-Saddam constitutional arrangement, the Sunnis were bound to lose their privileged position. Conversely, “letting the state be” in post-Saddam Iraq would have meant keeping Sunnis (and Baathists) in power at the expense of the Shia majority – not a clever option either if you want to keep on good terms with the local Joes or Alis! Historically, “the Hama model” has been used more often than the more friendly model suggested by Lind. And when the Hama model fails to reach its objective, there's always genocide…

William Lind actually sounds pretty sympathetic! Let's hope his models will work. If not, we will get many new confirmations that war (including 4GW) indeed is hell.