tdaxp

The Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) loop of John Boyd is not only a model of human cognition.




It is also useful in aligning the generations of modern war within the framework of human cognition



Likewise, the broader Observe-Orient-Decide-Act/Penetrate-Isolate-Subvert-Reorient-Reharmonize Social loop is not only a model of social cognition


It is also useful in aligning the kinetic intensity within the framework of social cognition



Both of these findings can be synthesized by viewing the generations of modern war within the framework of social cognition.

Consider that the second generation of modern war (2GW), based on concentrate of firepower, is the strong-suit of the state in war. Likewise, consider that the fourth generation of modern war (4GW), based on idealogical coherency, is the strong-suit of the insurgent in war.



From this we can place the third generation of modern war (3GW), based on mobility, in between the state's and the insurgent's spheres of influence.



And this makes sense. In Patterns of Conflict, John Boyd describes maneuver warfare as "blitz/guerrilla."



(One might just as easily as say "Global Guerrilla / Panzer General")

There are two remaining generations of modern war, and both fall outside the realms of the state and non-state. The first generation (1GW), built on total mobilization, was designed for states able to conscript a large fraction of the male population but unable to communicate effectively enough to effective combine firepower. Thus we place 1GW to the left of 2GW, as belonging to an actor which we would describe as a state... almost. (Compare the workings of Napoleonic France to that of a modern state to see how a 1G "state" falls short.)

Likewise, place the fifth generation of modern warfare (5GW) to the right of 4GW. 5GW is the domain of non-states... almost. When a 5GW is used by a state, it's actually the province of a "state within" that acts as an internal insurgency. The Military-Industrial-Complex devised by President Truman is the work of such a 5GW conspiracy-within-the-state.



The take-away from this visualization is as follows:

• each 'higher' generation of war is less kinetically intense than the one before it.


• Further, states tend to be victorious in areas where intensity is high but not overwhelming -- between 2GW and 3GW.


• At the same time, non-states tend to be victorious at low but not underwhelming kinetic intensity -- between 3GW and 5GW.


• Finally, 1GW and 5GW fall outside the realms of both the state and the non-state, and into the lands of the proto-state and the state-within.

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Orientation and Action, a tdaxp series
1. The OODA Loop
2. The OODA-PISRR Loop

This is your waveform



This is your waveform on fast transients



Any questions?

"Exporting democracy: not a job for State," by Thomas Barnett, Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog, 16 July 2005, http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives2/002059.html.

Remember PISRR: Penetrate-Isolation-Subvert-Reorient-Reharmonize: the five steps to victory? The Joe Wilson shenanigans were an Isolation attack on the President, trying to separate him from American people. Here's word on another part of the anti-Bush Doctrine effort: Subversion by the State Department

Review of Larry Diamond's book on the CPA in Iraq (Squandered Victory and David Phillips' bitch-session on how all that brilliant postwar planning at State was ignored by the Pentagon (Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco.

How good was the State postwar planning effort?

Many critics of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq (including Diamond) have cited this project as an enormous opportunity lost, because of turf battles between the State Department and the Pentagon. By this account, Foggy Bottom had planned for a post-Saddam Iraq, anticipating many of the awful things that could go wrong. There is only one problem with this version of events: for the most part, it's not true. The Future of Iraq Project was not a serious post-Saddam planning exercise for a department readying itself for war. According to the Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya, who was perhaps the most influential voice within the democratic principles working group, it was mostly busywork for Iraqi exiles whom State wanted to guide and control. For exiles like Makiya-and some neoconservatives in Washington like me, who would have welcomed serious postwar planning in any quarter-it was clear that the Near Eastern bureau at State, which oversaw the project, did not want to engage in any planning that might make the path to war easier.

This is why the new office of stability and reconstruction ops in State will never work. State will always (and should always) want to avoid war, because it's the Department of Peace. Meanwhile, the Defense Department will always (and should always) want to avoid the peacekeeping that must inevitably follow war. What's needed is a third department between the two, one that focused not on war in the Gap or peace in the growing Core but on getting weak states from the Gap to the Core.

"A Battle Over Programming at National Public Radio," by Stephen Labaton, New York Times, 16 May 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/16/business/media/16radio.html? (from Liberals Against Terrorism).

The Administration's new appointee to the Federal Government-influenced Corporation for Public Broadcasting is trying to move programming away from news and commentary and toward music. This is important because it morally Isolates liberals and Reorients an influential portion of American media [PISRR].

• Morally Isolating liberals is an important goal in the Conservative program. This serves many purposes.
  
  • It breaks apart the ideological networks that support liberal 4th Generation Political attacks on the Conservative movement.
    
  • It makes it harder for those networks to spread, by "removing preachers from pulpits."
    
  • And it also messes with liberal OODA [Observe-Orient-Decide-Act] loops.
    
    To quote John Robb
    
    

    Grand strategy, according to Boyd, is a quest to isolate your enemy's (a nation-state or a global terrorist network) thinking processes from connections to the external/reference environment. This process of isolation is essentially the imposition of insanity on a group. To wit: any organism that operates without reference to external stimuli (the real world), falls into a destructive cycle of false internal dialogues. These corrupt internal dialogues eventually cause dissolution and defeat.

    
    
    This is the insanity which makes liberals personally attack their own leaders and other wonderful things for us.



• Likewise, Reharmonizing National Public Radio. Turning NPR from a high-brow liberal to high-brow conservative vehicle would be a coup. But it is too difficult to do in one swoop. It must be done in stages. This is the first part of a serious attempt to take away NPR's liberal voice. If Conservatives are able to hold the executive, expect news to come back later -- with "balance."

It is fascinating to see an Isolation-Reharmonization PISRR attack that leaves out the middle stage -- subversion. It is even more fascinating to watch President Bush, a natural fourth-generation politician, make his mark.

Update: Praktike does see a Subversion angle.