tdaxp

"U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba," by David Ruppe, ABC News, 1 May 2001.

"Fifth Generation Warfare?," by William Lind, On War #53, 3 February 2004, http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_2_03_04.htm (from ZenPundit).

"Limitations of 5GW," by Curtis Gale Weeks, Phatic Communion, 2 August 2005, http://www.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2005/08/limitations_of.php.

"Conspiracies & the London Bombings," interview of Alex Jones by George Noory, Coast to Coast AM, 2 August 2005, http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2005/08/02.html.

Over the past few weeks, I have been talking about 5th Generation Warfare (5GW). 5GW, or SecretWar, is the next generation of warfare from the 4GW, which was created by Mao and Ho. SecretWar relies on conspiracy to shape what an enemy observes.

On August 2nd, Curtis of Phatic Communion wrote an essay on the nature of 5GW. On the same day, Arab-American radio host and veteran George Noory interviewed Alex Jones on the possibility that America is under attack from a blinding conspiracy right now. Curtis' speculations on the nature of a possible SecretWar work nicely with Noory's and Jones' claims of an ongoing secret war, so as I respond to Curtis I will quote from the Noory-Jones interview.

I have been delinquent in my blogging, for the last however many days, because recent discussions concerning “fifth-generation warfare” have left me unsatisfied to the point that other considerations, on other topics, have seemed pointless. Often when I’m in a muddle, I withdraw to Emerson and others, in an effort to reacquaint myself with all the old arguments that have thus far shaped my outlook (pro- or con-); and certain irregularities in the discussion of 5GW seem to have been clarified in my reading of those works.

First and foremost, the consideration that 5GW entities would likely be small but determined forces seemed too fanciful: Small 5GW forces would defeat whole societies; but, whole societies are composed of many small forces.

Later on in the article Curtis explains how a small force can defeat a large culture, but it is also important to see why a 5GW or SecretWar army will be small.

I won't go into the generations of conflict right now, but I will quite from William Lind, the genius who invented the concept of "generations of warfare" in the first place

"One simple test for whether or not something constitutes a generational shift is that, absent a vast disparity in size, an army from a previous generation cannot beat a force from the new generation. The Second Generation French Army of 1940 could not defeat the Third Generation Wehrmacht, even thought the French had more tanks and better tanks than the Germans. The reason I do not think the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon mark a generational shift is that Wellington consistently beat the French, and the British Army he led remained very much an 18th century army."

So a 5GW will be small because a every generation has a greater economy of force than the one before it. If a SecretWar army couldn't be substantially smaller than a 4GW army, then SecretWar wouldn't be 5GW at all.

Back to Curtis:

Secondly, if attacking the intelligence is the primary modus operandi of the 5GW force, that force would need to be, er, quite intelligent indeed in order to have any hope of success. Intelligence can take many forms, but whatever form is operative would need to be highly developed. Moreover, that intelligence would need an extraordinary understanding — a fundamental comprehension — of the targeted society or force.

Yes and no. Winners aren't stupid, but that does not mean that a winner needs to intellectually understand either his opponent or his strategy. Victory often comes from fingertip feeling or "fingerspitzengefuhl". A winning warrior needs good implicit knowledge than explicit knowledge, because intuition is used more often than decision making.

Thirdly, as mentioned in my last entry on 5GW, no society is homogenous. Any 5GW entity would need to target the most influential members of a society (thereby spreading the 5GWarrior’s influence, as with a megaphone or a ripple effect) in an effort to influence that society’s dominant decision makers, or would need to create situations most likely to influence those who vote for or otherwise support the decision makers — but in an open society such as America’s, or indeed almost certainly in any society, individuals or groups of individuals will exist who are not so easily fooled: the disenfranchised, the sub- and counter-cultural groups — in short: those who do not subscribe to the worldviews shared by most members of that society.

Compare with Alex Jones:

"The establishment lied about the new world order, they lied about their plants to build a one world government, they lied about their plants to tax the internet, they lied about their plans for cloning, they lied about Prozac and Ritalin, they lied about sodium chloride, they lied about mercury in the vaccines, they lied about depleted uranium, they lied about 9/11, they lied about Oklahoma City, they lied about the first world trade center, so now, just automatically, people are being skeptical and not believing the official line. And I say that's very healthy. "

Some 5GW discussion has addressed the types of defense required to protect a society from fifth-generation warfare. >The greatest defense is the overwhelming unlikelihood that all the people will be fooled all the time, and it is a natural defense.

I disagree. As Curtis previously said, "Any 5GW entity would need to target the most influential members of a society." Universal buy-in has never been a prerequisite for power.

To see how an open society would fight a SecretWar, consider a core competency chart



The point of greatest resistance for an Open Society attacking SecretWarriors is in the realm of Secret Networks.

A good Open Society warrior might overcome this difference, training to use secret networks to his advantage...

But a great Open Society warrior will force his enemy to fight in the way that gives Open Society forces an unfair advantage, and SecretWarriors an unfair disadvantage.

SecretWarriors fight best in the shadows and worst in the light, so the defending Open Society warrior must make the SecretWarriors fight in the light. The best defense against SecretWar is open government. The more the public can know about the government, the quickly any "conspiracies" or would-be conspiracies will be exposed. This will degenerate the SecretWarrior army into a political faction or party -- something open society routinely deals with on the terms of the society.

Back to Curtis:

The chance that some small but highly organized force will have the intelligence and knowledge required to fool most of the people of a much larger society most of the time is similarly small. Larger 5GW forces (say, nations), though they may have a larger supply of highly intelligent operatives or masterminds, will draw more attention because they have more fingers and more fingerprints: another strike against 5GW activity.

True, but int he same way the chance that some small but effectively organized force will have the intelligence and knowledge required to fight a decades-long guerrilla war is small. That's why America only had lost three 4GWs, not four-hundred.

The greatest weakness for a democratic society in combating 5GW — say, America — is the doctrine of “majority rule.” Those who do not participate in the system or indeed who oppose the political system also do not wield the power that has been concentrated (consecrated) at the topmost level of that majority. A 5GW force, should one of sufficient ability ever form, would only need to influence the majority and the leaders of that majority...

To quote Alex Jones

"I'm not saying George Bush is behind 9/11. I'm saying interests that control George Bush, interest that control Bill Clinton, interests that basically own our politicians like pieces of real estate, they did."

That's how a SecretWar would happen - the President wouldn't be a SecretWarrior, but he would be a tool of the SecretWarrior.

or indeed create a majority will via stimuli such as catastrophes (“natural” or man-made), and sit back to watch the application of a force which it knows will rebound on that society.

Alex Jones believed this happened with the 7/7 and 7/21 London transit attacks

"We know the government was funding it. We know the government had had warnings. We know the government was running drills. We got them!"

The close to a SecretWar that we know of was the proposed Operation Northwoods

"In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

"Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

"The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro."

More from Curtis Gale Weeks:

The disenfranchised (whether by self-determination or by exterior exclusion), the subcultural or countercultural elements, the criminals and hermits of a society, are likely to be the canaries in the mine: A 5GW force will use the weight of the dominant segment(s) of society against that society and not waste effort on the seemingly powerless members of that society, and the oddball elements of a society are more likely to be sensitive to changes in the majority opinion than those who hold the majority opinion. (I’m not excluding the 5GW potential for using criminal elements and homeland terrorists against a society, however.)

The problem with "subcultural or counter-cultural elements" to warn society about a SecretWar attack is that they will be ignored. Alex Jones, George Noory, and the rest of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists are warning us of a textbook SecretWar right now:

""When we say 'the government' we're oversimplifying. There are corporate interests that are bigger than most governments that basically can steer and manipulate our government -- the largest and most powerful in the world -- and their goal is to expand that control over our population, to basically use us as an engine of global domination. This has been stated in major public white papers by different sectors of the elite. So when I talk about 'the government' engaging in different criminal activities, we're talking about very small, clandestine groups within intelligence and security agencies -- but -- those small clandestine groups are up at the very top of the pyramidal power structure, and so through compartmentalization they're able to manipulate and steer our society
""Isn't it also accurate, though, to say rather than 'government,' 'a group of individuals who are doing something for their own sinister means'?"
""Absolutely.... People all the time say, 'Well, a 'grand conspiracy with the whole government?" I'm in the government! My husband's in the government! Are you saying they're evil?' Absolutely not."

and society ignores them.

Any real SecretWar attack met with warnings that are lost in the background noise is the same as a SecretWar without warning.

I can easily imagine the formation of a counter-5GW development in a targeted society: If a small 5GW attacker succeeds in manipulating the wielders of conventional power and the conventional power brokers, a small 5GW defender may mobilize within the targeted society. The oddness of such an event is quite pertinent: The 5GW defender may or may not know of the true attacker; but either way, the defender may appear to be attacking the dominant elements of the society to which he belongs. (Those dominant elements have already been motivated to follow a self-destructive path, if a 5GW attacker has been successful.)

Again, the best defense against SecretWar is Open Government.

A brilliant 5GW attack might indeed include, perhaps will require?, instigation of civil war, particularly if the targeted society is a large, highly developed and complex society; but then, perhaps there would still exist the possibility that the counter-5GW force will win and then turn on the original attacking 5GW force?

An interesting thought. If a SecretNetwork could "latch on" to visible political movements (say, neocons and theocons), the SecretWarriors will benefit from polarization as the ideologies they are subverting benefit from it.

"Epilogue," by George Friedman, America's Secret War, http://www.americassecretwar.com/about_book_finalchapter.html, 4 October 2004.

Coming Anarchy must be on a George Friedman kick, first with a dual-review of America's Secret War and Thomas P.M. Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map, and then with a shout-out to his dated The Coming War With Japan.

I do not know what to make of Friedman. While my reaction to The Pentagon's New Map was the sort of rah-rah enthusiasm I last had for The Lexus and the Olive Tree, and I met Embracing Defeat was the slack-jawed horror similar to We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Murdered With Our Families, the epilog to America's Secret War was a strange combination: slack-jawed enthusiasm. I do not know what to make of it. I will need to buy the full book to understand the author's arguments (unlike the ignoramouses at Washington Monthly, I like to know what I am talking about). But for now, some excerpts with minimal comments

The Two Foes

BETWEEN AUGUST AND OCTOBER 2004 , all eyes were focused on the Iraq campaign. The basic strategic reality, however, on October 1, 2004, is this: Al Qaeda has failed to achieve its strategic goals; there has been no rising in the Islamic world; virtually all Muslim intelligence services are working with the United States against Al Qaeda; and Al Qaeda’s credibility and operational integrity are being questioned everywhere.

On the other hand, the United States has not achieved its own fundamental strategic goal: It cannot guarantee the security of the United States against an Al Qaeda attack. It has not broken Al Qaeda with any degree of confidence. Indeed, in the worst-case scenario, it has not been able to guarantee that Al Qaeda
does not have weapons of mass destruction.

The Most Dangerous Month

Credibility, timing and the reality on the ground made it imperative for Al Qaeda to do something, and to do it before the U.S. election. Now, there is a peculiarity about American political life. In the immediate wake of any national crisis, a president’s approval rating soars, as Americans rally around him. Over the next months, depending on the president’s performance, that approval can bleed off rapidly. Therefore, attacking immediately before the election would increase Bush’s chances of winning. Attacking weeks or, better yet, months ahead of the elections could potentially destroy his chances of winning.

The United States is not Spain. The question among analysts was whether Al Qaeda knew this. After
studying the documents about Spain, most analysts were unprepared to dismiss Al Qaeda’s intellectual
capabilities. It was assumed—with good reason, considering the sources in the United States—that Al Qaeda
had a sophisticated understanding of American political culture. This meant, in practical terms, that Al Qaeda
would attack—if it could—by August 31, in order to allow enough time for Bush’s support to bleed off. In
fact, the assumption was that the ideal time was in early August, simply from the standpoint of political
effectiveness.

Worst-Case Scenarios

It came down to this. It had to be assumed that there was a direct threat to the United States. You had to go with the worst-case scenario. You didn’t know for sure who was a threat and who wasn’t. In the best of all worlds, you would wait until you got clarity. But in the summer of 2004, waiting had become an unaffordable luxury. Moving against known networks, regardless of how uncertain the knowledge, might disrupt an attack. Waiting and watching might improve knowledge in the long run, but the long run was a long way off. Therefore the argument was decided in favor of the security people. The United States was going to try to disrupt al Qaeda’s network using imperfect knowledge and imprecise tools.

U.S. intelligence had a blurry vision of Al Qaeda, but it wasn’t completely blind. On the other hand, al Qaeda could not be certain exactly how much the United States knew. Since it was risk-averse, it also drew worst-case conclusions. An interesting statistical game began. In July, the United States, working with regional intelligence and security services, began arresting suspected Al Qaeda members. From Pakistan to Virginia, people who had been on watch lists were being interrogated, arrested, deported to other countries and generally rousted about.

The United States knew that many of them had little or no connection to Al Qaeda. On the other hand, it
had enough intelligence to know that statistically, some of them had to be deeply involved. Precisely who was
involved was unclear, but the odds were that some of those being interrogated or arrested were involved.

The United States knew that Al Qaeda was watching the global operation—and that while the United States might be unclear on who was who, Al Qaeda was not unclear. They knew if the United States had captured someone significant. What they did not know is if the United States knew who they had. Neither did they know if the person might have talked. However, working from worst-case, they had to assume both, and therefore any operation that these people might be involved in or have knowledge of had to be aborted.

That was the U.S. goal. They did not expect to destroy Al Qaeda. They did expect to disrupt its security system sufficiently to abort operations that were planned prior to the election. Starting in July and peaking in early August, the United States and its allies rolled up network after network—with the networks being generously defined. Some intelligence was gained, but the hope was—and this was reasonable—that Al Qaeda’s knowledge of its own network would cause it to shut down operations.

Our real Iraq goals, Iran's real Iraq goals, Sistani's real Iraq goals?

As we have discussed, the primary point of the war was not to stabilize Iraq, and certainly not to democratize it. The primary goal was to create a base of operations that would bring overwhelming pressure to bear on Saudi Arabia, as well as on Syria and Iran. The administration’s surprise over guerrilla war in Iraq caused it to lose its balance and allow mission creep—from strategic bases to democracy. But beneath the perception, the reality of Iraq, while not pleasant, was not as bad as it appeared.

The last three months have been spent on three issues. First, and most important, they were spent in defining Iran’s role in Iraq and the role of the Shiite community. In April 2004, the United States reversed itself on guarantees made to the Iranians and Iraqi Shia about domination of the Iraqi government. This occurred in the context of a rising by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army in Najaf. The rising was encouraged by Iran and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Both were hoping that the rising would be crushed by the Americans, but would increase U.S. dependence on Sistani and Iran. The exact opposite happened: The United States refused to deal with Sadr, leaving him to fester, and refused to deal with Iran and Sistani.

The weaking insurgency? The worst insurgency? The clock-work insurgency?

There had been three major guerrilla offensives in Iraq. There was the Ramadan offensive of October-
November 2003. There was the Fallujah-Najaf offensive in April. And there has been the September-October
election offensive. It is interesting to note that the offensives were divided by four months, end to beginning.
That is not accidental. It took that long to recruit and train fresh recruits. It was also interesting to note that
each offensive was weaker than the preceding one.

The Ramadan offensive was a massive surprise, and created near panic in the U.S. command structure.
While geographically contained, it was intense and effective, involving larger units as well as small units. The
April offensive had a relatively lower level of violence, although more widely dispersed. The election
offensive, while perceived to be uncontrolled, was actually significantly weaker in small unit operations and
concentrated on relatively low-risk bombings and kidnappings.