5GW has another appeal – it is highly *economical* for small but well-governed powers to implement.

On a 5GW field, Singapore can stand level with China or Britain. If they choose to specialize within a subfield of interest they might eclipse *all* other powers in that niche which can be leveraged elsewhere.

This allows small powers to relegate traditional military establishments toward the primary task of assuring internal security and static defense against an external conventional attack – relatively less expensive in terms of investment

Extremely good point, especially if the 5GW is “latching on” to an existing non-SecretWar (like in the example of the Nativists).

For example, the author of “Charlie Wilson's War” relates that not only the US, UK, Saudis, and Paks were involved in the Afghan Resistance, but also China, Singapore (!), and the Yugoslavs.

All were dictatorships with Muslim minorities that had much to fear from Islamic restlessness or rapid democratization. But each were able to leverage what they could supply cheaply (China labor for inexpensive weapons, the Yugoslavs old Soviet weapons, etc) in order to better secure their states against being Prague'd.

So while the Soviets knew there was a battleifled, they were ignorant of the 5GW component even after it terminated.

Also like in my previous example, the success or failure of the “wider war” didn't interest the the Chinese, the Sings, or the Yugoslavs. They wanted the Soviets hurt enough that it would end Moscovite expansion. They succeeded.

Your question cross information theory and psychology. This means it works on both the full Observe-Orient-Decide-Act loop, and the much more commonly used Observe-Orient-Act subloop.

Mammals instinctually overall irregularly spaced positive hits. So if you had a definite pattern of +++000+++000, or an irregular pattern say of ++0+0+0000+0, mammals will care more about the first than the second, even if the “+” represent something they really care about.

The gambling industry makes a fortune off this fact.

Ditto mutual funds.

So if I can turn your point around, I wonder what the effect of this ability to see too many patterns — “faces in the clouds” — will be. In war it could lead to a “paranoid style.” Is that useful, when SecretWar means ConspiracyWar?