A military force that fights the a war in modern warfare’s fifth generation — that is, a 5GW Army, focuses on altering the rules of the game so that the fighting of lower-generational forces proceed in a way favorable to the 5G force.

In his testimony (of which I have a pdf copy thanks to the Small Wars Council and ZenPundit), General David Petraeus describes his view of America’s role in Iraq as 5GW in everything but name:

The fundamental source of the conflict in Iraq is competition among ethnic and sectarian communities for power and resources. This competition will take place, and its resolution is key to producing long-term stability in the new Iraq. The question is whether the competition takes place more – or less – violently

The United States, and thus the Multinational Force – Iraq more generally, are fighting the state-without kind of 5GW.

Courtesy of Zen Pundit and the Small Wars Council, I was able to read the testimony and examine the presentation of the report that General Petraeus, of the Multinational Force – Iraq, gave to the Congress. The fifth slide is titled “Ethno-Sectarian” violence, and contains maps of Sunni v. Shia attacks on December 2006, February 2007, May 2007, and August 2007.

The Battle of Baghdad

What’s strange about it is that the neighborhood map does not change. The detailed color-coded representation of Baghdad, with Green for majority Shia, blue for majority Sunni, and orange for mixed appears to be the same now as it was twenty months ago.

Detailed view

Everywhere, of course, one reads about the etnic cleansing of Baghdad. So what gives? I’m assuming that those who prepared the slides for Petraeus used the last available census information for generating the ethnic neighborhood maps, but alternatively (and less likely, in my opinion) the discussion of ongoing ethnic cleansing could be overblown.

A virtual Baghdad?

Finally, presuming the violence in Baghdad is leading to ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, it would be interesting to compare a real time-sequenced map of Baghdad with theoretical work on homogenization and inter-group tournaments that’s now appearing in the academic literature.

The Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, tells us that my wife graduated in July.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

This would be fantastic news, as she travels to her laboratory daily to finish her thesis on radio frequency identification technologies. I could have sworn that she wasn’t graduating until December, especailly as it today we both filed our applications for advanced degrees with the University of Nebraska – Lincoln today.

The relevant portion of their letter reads

A review of your application, all supporting documents submitted and the SEVIS System indicates that your course of study ended July 13, 2007. However, your Application for Employment Authorization was not received until July 18, 2007. Because your application was received after the completion of your course of study you are ineligible for employment authorization under (c)(3)(i). Therefore, upon consideration, it is ordered that this application be denied. There is no appeal to this decision.

This is relating to the non-immigrant application to work, not the immigration “family reunification” visa that would allow my wife to become a permanent resident. Still, quire annoying, and angering.

I’m still trying to determine the chain of screw-ups that led to their letter of “September 06, 2007″ (postmarked September 10, and received by us on the 11th). More posts, I assume, to follow.