Best of luck!

zenpundit,

An excellent discussion of what Aherring calls the “operative actions” [1] of the gradients of war (xGW)!

[1] http://dreaming5gw.com/2007/10/xgw_left_of_boom_right_of_boom.php

[1] http://www.fifthgeneration.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2007/01/working_definition_v_23.php

Moreover, I think the argument can be made that 2GW forces will continue to steadily expand their kinetics until they reach either victory or an economic sticking point that curtails further increase.

“2GW exceeds 1GW in kinetics – both quantitatively as well as qualitatively. “

Could you elaborate?

“I think the argument can be made that 2GW forces will continue to steadily expand their kinetics until they reach either victory or an economic sticking point that curtails further increase.”

This was attempted during World War I and failed.

The breakthroughts that did occur in the Great War involved far less concentration of firepower — and even less firepower — but better strategy/initiative/infiltration (see hte “Blitzkrieg and guerrilla strategy” slide above).

Adrian & Isaac,

A fifth generation force works to achieve its objectives through pertburbing systems in such a war that further work is unnessary.

In the context of a state-sponsored 5GW, a state-within will generate a state-beyond that then has a logic of its own. The Military-Industrial-Leviathan-Complex is a perfect example by this. A small cadre during the Truman years were able to build up an enormous transpolitical operation, consisting of the bureaucracy, congress, and contractors [1], that survives to this day.

In the context of an insurgent-sponsored 5GW, a guerrlla core will provoke a crisis that, if all goes well, ends in a preferred outcome. The last section of “Dreaming 5th Generation War” [2] provides a hypothetical example of this.

In both cases the 5GW organization operates this way because it perceives its own weakness. In both examples I gave, the small group of 5GWs recognize that they cannot win a political (let alone a military) struggle against their opponents and cannot otherwise enforce their will.

Isaac,

“Could we not, instead of 'the state-within', consider 'post-statism' in that it's a move beyond the state, yet one we must make surrounded by, somewhat tethered to, and intimately familiar with state constructs?”

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/07/07/describing-the-military-industrial-sysadmin-complex-how-we-w.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2005/07/20/dreaming-5th-generation-war.html

2nd generation tactics continued to increase in orders of magnitude for the duration of the Great War until combatants were stymied by supply problems. This trend continued in WWII where Soviet forces, a 2nd Generation attrition-focused entity if there ever was one, assembled whole *artillery armies* ( possibly reaching artillery/rocket army corps as well but I would have to check that)

Actually, it was the French approach (for the most part) but with economies of scale in manpower.

Secondly, no one here is arguing that the Soviets were not facing the bulk of the Wehrmacht. Criticism leveled by most experts at Russian performance in WWII has to do with the rigidity in tactics that Stalin imposed on Red Army commanders early in the war that raised Russian casualty rates to stratospheric levels.