Thanks for the elaboration!

Dan, are you saying that 5GW can’t be COIN, or are saying that COIN isn’t the extent of 5GW? Also, is the only doctrine to effectively counter 5GW another 5GW that degrades a hostile 5GW organization into Generations lower in the hierarchy of XGW?

5GW can be used offensively or defensively, by states or non-states. [1]

It makes sense to counter “xGW” with “(x+1)GW,” but there can be benefits to fighting symetrically (it’s relatively mindless, and so can be less risky.. especially if one has the advantage in a symetric fight!).

purpleslog,

I guess I am really seeing COIN as Counter-4GW or Counter-4GW-against-a-non-state-actor.

That’s certainly part of it, but it’s equally possible to think of 5GW as Counter-4GW against a state actor, or counter 3GW against a multinational coalition, or to counter 2GW by another state, etc.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/08/01/kinds-of-5gw.html

I guess I am really seeing COIN as Counter-4GW or Counter-4GW-against-a-non-state-actor.

You can try to counter 4GW with 2GW or 3GW, but that won’t work well.

You can try to counter 4GW with more 4GW…this is is interesting and still developing.

You can try to counter 4GW with 5GW, and 5GWers should have advantage over a 4GWer.

Thinking about it I have always seen 5GW as being the counter to 4GW and by that nature a potential COIN. I suppose that comes from my earliest thinking of the Generations of Modern Warfare where each generation grew to negate the advantages of the previous generation. That thinking followed me into XGW where if your opponent was using generational doctrine ‘X’, your counter was to also use doctrine ‘X’ or ‘X+1′.

Dan, are you saying that 5GW can’t be COIN, or are saying that COIN isn’t the extent of 5GW? Also, is the only doctrine to effectively counter 5GW another 5GW that degrades a hostile 5GW organization into Generations lower in the hierarchy of XGW?

I noticed your comparison of 5GW to COIN, which struck me as original. I hope it does not come from this line in my monograph (p6. 7, slide 14 in the PDF) [1]:

“COIN in 5GW is the preemptive, system-wide, and automatic degeneration of 5GW forces into more primitive forms of warfare. “

My meaning was “COIN against 5GW,” not “COIN as 5GW…”

Certianly if the second interpretation makes more sense you are free to argue it (a text is a text, after all), but that was not my intent.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193484036X/ref=cm_arms_pdp_dp

I know where you are going with this Stephen and I think you are on the right track. As we have discussed before the key in 5GW is ‘context’. The 5GW organization seeks to re-shape the context of Observation thereby triggering the target to Orient upon information in a specific manner.

In the quote of my comment, I was unclear about 5GW and violence. I was referring to the act of Penetration into the social relations of individuals in a state. That requires invasion of some sort which is obviously violent.

I don’t think I’m trying to disbowel or gut xGW. I’m simply trying to run with similarities between 4GW-as-insurgency and 5GW-as-Counterinsurgency, or System Administration (this incorporates nation building, state building, and law enforcement). To think that the US military learns to deal with 4GW guerrilla or ethnic war by developing 5GW suggests that other multilateral attempts to deal with intrastate conflicts that threaten global security should also follow a 5GW model.

I don’t argue that destroying group identities and reconstructing them is a process exclusive to either 4GW or 5GW. Like state building, Maoist People’s War also aspires to nation and state building by destroying civilian identification with the adversarial group and builds identification with one’s own group. I think this is the similarity you referred to, between what I described and 4GW. But, how identity is manipulated is the key difference. 4GW uses hate to polarize, 5GW uses love to reconcile. Hatred is perpetuated by increasing violence, while love is perpetuated by social order. Just because national identity and bureaucratic institutions are being constructed by both sides doesn’t make peace enforcement 4GW. But its emphasis on law enforcement, social order, and stability does make it 5GW, as the use of violence becomes increasingly rare because of the new context being created by the exchange of ideas through social interaction. This is undermining the intellectual will of one’s opponents to exist as a unique and specific social group separate from its adversaries, rather than as a coherent social whole that includes those adversaries.

I still think this is consistent with what has been written before by you and D5GW.

In the 5GW three-step model, the big battles come at the beginning, and take the form of 3GW manuever wars.

…

In 5GW, violence is directed against an ethnic group to compel them to become non-violent and accept occupation.

At this point, it is best if you would define your terms. You are using them in ways foreign to the bulk of the existing literature.

If you believing existing models are wrong, fine. But in the interest of open debate, it’s best that you begin to clarify how your conception is different from (it seems) everyone else’s, and why you find it prudent to apply new meanings to old terms.

As someone who admires William Lind’s theory of 4GW but finds his hegelian idealism disturbing, I have done this. I have argued how Lind’s theoretical foundation is so bad that it undermines his writings, and thus gutting his “generations of war” system into xGW thought is the only way to save it.

If you desire to similarly gut xGW into something new, I look forward to it. But at this point, it’s clear that such a disembowelment is the only way that your comments on the topic can congeal.

But as both 4GW and 5GW would walk through the PISRR steps, both see an increase in the intensity violence followed by a decrease.

I don’t think this is true, because of the fact that completion of either three-step models to victory we describe above (4GW and 5GW) require ‘older’ Generations of warfare that are more intense in terms of violence. Where in the three steps those 1/2/3GW paradigms are used is quite different.

In the 4GW three-step model, 4GW irregular, terrorist attacks are used in the beginning to create a mass movement, which is then turned into a regular army for offensive action against the state. Insurgency creates a regular force that can fight big battles, which I see as more violent and more intense. This is at the end of the three-step-model.

In the 5GW three-step model, the big battles come at the beginning, and take the form of 3GW manuever wars. State forces always win these since they have more technology allowing for more manuever. This is the initial penetration. Following this, the adversaries and ethnic groups think peace has broken out, yet the 5GW actor is still proceeding along the PISRR to change identity, through social interaction, communication, and discourse. This is the real weapon in 5GW, and less so for violence.

Discourse, communication, and ideas are also important in 4GW and reduce the primacy of violence from the first three Generations, but the gulf between the utility of violence and discourse grows wider with 5GW.
In 4GW, guerrilla or less intense violence is used to bait the state into using violence against civilians, which then makes guerilla discourse or narratives more appealing. In 5GW, violence is directed against an ethnic group to compel them to become non-violent and accept occupation. The Leviathan’s more intense violence makes it possible for the SysAdmin to get on the ground and attack with discourse, and once mobilized civilians theoretically go right along with it. They then do not even question the very limited acts of violence by the 5GW actor, because they have the veneer of law enforcement.

See link:

http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/05/01/boyd-08-5gw-sei.html#comment-71940

You write:

First, Violence in 4GW increases with intensity: it starts out asymmetric (terrorism), becomes defensive (safe areas), and then finally offensive (full takeover). In 5GW, the intensity decreases progressively through each step.

But as both 4GW and 5GW would walk through the PISRR steps, both see an increase in the intensity violence followed by a decrease.