The Only Hope is Terror: Elect Bush for Armaggeddon
A WORLD of 4GW - INSURGENCY LIFESTYLES To SURVIVE IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION
Each Section in the study:
Taking Iraqi Strategies Beyond: Insurgent Rebellions and Imperialist Strategies of War; has a summary of key points and then links to the original article and other resources....
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20040708/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_insurgency_1
It's a gripping vision of the not-so-future warfare. Latter-day Davids vs. the Empire’s Goliath with nation states fighting non-nation states -- clans or religious or ethnic groups -- in places like the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. And the Goliaths will often lose. It's not happening just on the West Bank and Gaza. A Somali clan drove the U.S. out of Mogadishu. Hezbollah ousted the Israeli army from Southern Lebanon. The Chechens have humbled Russia's army. A few thousand Iraqi insurgents have killed a thousand US troops and can continue to cost the US dearly as long as it stays in the Middle East region.
Key Words: Fourth Generation Warfare - Insurgents - 4GW - Sun Tzu - John Boyd - Imperialism - War - Clash of Civilizations - Maneuver Warfare - Improvised Weapons - Guerrilla Warfare - US National Security Threats - Intelligence - Espionage - Sabotage - Assassination - Energy Vulnerability - Fifth Generation Warfare - Blackmail - Disrupting Alliances - al Qaeda - Iraqi Resistance - High-Tech Sensors and Surveillance - Neutron Bombs; Terrorism - Terror tactics - Counterinsurgency (COIN) - Special Operations - Military Commands – CIA - Suicide bombings - Car Bombs - Conspiracy Theories - Osprey V 22 - AC-130 Gunships - Osama bin Laden - George W. Bush - Rumsfeld - Fourth World War - Islam - Moslems - Crusades - Jihad - Shahid – Martyrs - Permanent war
The owners of the black banners and the secured community” are identical to al-Qa`idah and the Taliban: “I have no doubt that the leaders of the Mujahidin of Al-Qa`idah and the Taliban are the owners of the black banners who will assist the Mahdi.”
Decide whom to support: Qa`idat al-Jihad, Taliban, and the Mujahidin? The Arab and Muslim governments and their clerics and Islamic establishments, which insist on naming themselves Muslims? Or the Crusader West and the enemies of Allah on earth.
“Who is going to support the Mahdi except these men and clerics, and their followers? After this war, which has no precedence in human history and in the fight between the community of the believers and the Devil and its followers, does anyone doubt that these are the days of the Mahdi?”
Dear citizens interested in turning the tide of USA-led fascism, I am a military strategist. I write to you because a great war is breaking out that will make or break this planet. Call it the 4th World War (4WW) - the War of Global Imperialism or the spread of fourth generation warfare -- 5th generation if the Imperialists don't win soon.
I have worked in British intelligence services and for American security firms that directed the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. I have worked for the Iraqi resistance. I am a strategist and not much of a philosopher by training, but I can tell you of my experiences. I cannot tell you which political, social or religious systems work the best -- because what is the best or even what is good for the short or the longterm has been degraded and mystified in this existence that we call the modern world. People cannot talk about the definitions of important things or about why communications/understanding are so difficult.
I can tell you what I have seen. These are stories from behind the curtain of the rich and powerful. Wherever US-UK money goes it breeds the most vile corruption. From the sex-slavery of Dyncorp in Bosnia to the same group and many other security contractors committing torture, murder and atrocities in Iraq; from the jokes about the Colombian and Peruvian airlines/airforce drug smuggling to the hilarious naivete of US activists and eco-tourists. There are 100 stories of the tragedies tolerated or promoted by the USA government and its elite classes around the world. To know the details of these evil errors (evil -- but are they errors or intentional? Ah...) is to understand why for billions of people in the world -- and millions of insurgents everywhere - there is no turning back toward (false) ideas of peace or cooperation with the West or its ruling class imperialists.
There will be war,
a fourth generation war, a war that the planet and the rich cannot win.
A Good Defense Anticipates Enemy Offense
Rifleman democracy. 2004 --- politics as a possible link:
There is a theory of "rifleman democracy". Machiavelli set out this theory: A man without a gun is in no way comparable to a man with a gun. He also proposed the democratic republic as a practical form of government exemplified by the city-state (agglomerations less than 10 million people) and Machiavelli felt this was a very possible (positive?) development. He believed these democratic republics would be established because of the development of more accurate fire-arms, namely, rifles. One rifle is carried by one man. So, basically, one rifle = one vote. That was the format of "rifleman democracy" which enabled Napoleon to transform Europe out of feudalism. Napoleon lost as an individual, but Europe was transformed forever.
Now we have a more complicated situation when viewing democracy as an expression of, or as determined by, realities of warfare. The U.S. did not even get involved in trying to disarm Iraqis from their AK-47's. RPG's, however, that's another matter. Anti-aircraft weapons, etc., are far more important than rifles. What it comes down to is that even individual snipers require a support system (extending to helicopters and control of the air-space) in order to function in their DEFENSE OR ATTACK roles.
Traditional individual fire-arms have, for good reason, been known as "equalizers". The days when an armored knight was equal, say, to 30 yeoman --- that period of history ended with the development of the modern rifle. Of course, it has been more complicated than one man, one rifle, one vote, for some time now. Napoleon's successes depended upon his ability to recruit, inspire and utilize riflemen --- but he was also known for his unequaled use of cannon fire in connection with infantry battles. Everything changed with the development of the machine gun about a century ago. Machine guns were operated by teams, rather than individuals, and machine guns gobbled up ammo so fast that considerable supporting infrastructure is required. Thus, the theory of "superior fire power" that was developed out of World War I and the millions of men sacrificed in futile efforts to attack and take fortified machine gun positions on static front-lines. Then came World War II --- air power and control of the air space are everything.
Warfare and revolution have been transformed by high-tech. Outcomes can no longer be forecast by counting heads. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. So, to be successful, revolutionaries must think in terms of high-tech, outside-the-box (or Box-cutter!), teamwork and specialties. It's a complex calculation anymore. Falluja and Najaf/Karbala (in Iraq) support and yet also call into question this Rifleman analysis. Rifles do seem important - though the RPGs and anti-aircraft weapons (and mortars) may be more important. We are part way into a permanent war -- which is to say a long and complex war -- The Fourth World War. Groups opposed to the current power structure will have to master 4th and 5th generation mobile-chaos smart-targeting warfare. This kind of war relies on secret revolutionary/battle/sabotage cells, international media savvy, and connecting synergistically with each member and each group’s specialties: hackers, bombers, espionage, media, event-timing and logistics. The strength of Islamic fundamentalists lies in their cultural cohesiveness (teamwork) and their ability to combine cleverness, a feel for media-propaganda and news/action timing to create a powerful force to block the military power of the invader crusader (U.S.A.). The case of the FARC guerrillas in Colombia is another example of this interplay - riflemen and teamwork in a culture of resistance! = political – territorial – military - financial POWER.
Al Qaeda takes the long view that if Islam survives they win. Fundamentalist have cohesion and they have a weapon that powerfully combines the key elements of fourth generation warfare: People, Ideas and Hardware. The weapon is suicide bombers and suicide car bombers. The West has no defense against such weapons except to declare martial law and watch the global economy crumble in their hands. A sign of impending demise of the Empire is that the people at the top tend to believe their own propaganda. Hitler, for example, was told as early as 1939 about the U.S. (Boeing Aircraft) tooling up to be capable of making more bombers in a month than existed in all countries combined in 1939. Basically, Hitler was told that attacking Poland (Bush in Iraq) and starting World War II (Now WW 4) was bound to fail in the long run. Hitler fired the messenger and brought in someone who would tell him what he wanted to hear. That is the arrogance part of it. The other part of imperial break-down has to do with corruption. – A sinking ship brings out the rats…
In the fourth generation combat will be more dispersed. The battlefield will once again envelop entire societies, as it did in more primitive and ancient cultures. Military objectives will no longer involve annihilating tidy enemy lines, but rather eroding popular support for the war within the enemy's society.
Television news may become a more powerful operational weapon than armored divisions. The distinction between war and peace would be blurred to the vanishing point. Conflict will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between 'civilian' and 'military' will disappear.
The Wars We Live: Insurgency and 4GW
Understanding Iraq/Saudi War Strategies - Insurgency as 4GW,
by Jacques Dessalines and Misha B.
-- Comprehension of The Grand Strategies of the Key Players -- and the Forces They Represent –
is nowhere to be found...
-- There are many secrets... and plans that only a select few on each of the many sides have privy to.
-- Awareness is a battlefield…
The ruling class employs three phases of escalation to control power and its uses:
Fake liberal democracy; sophisticated riot control and subversion of opposition groups; faked national crises leading to martial law and civil war. This final phase in the struggle against the ruling class will spread to most countries in a few years. At times all three phases overlap and so the government and the insurgents take advantage of tactics for influencing all three phases of popular resistance. Sorting out the grand or the priority strategies of either side -- amid this confusion of goals -- is no easy task.
The third and final phase of the struggle against the ruling class will see the development of sophisticated Guerrilla insurgencies employing Fourth generation Warfare (4GW) on the battlefield, the streets and the media: To build or disrupt alliances and to destroy the cohesion of the West and create doubt.
The measures of insurgent strength include: military capability; endurance; basic cause (self-determination, religion, ideology, nationality, class) and motivation; extent of influence on the media and through it on the target population; allies and weapon systems. A government struggling against a guerrilla movement is on its defense, from the strategic point of view. On the operational and tactical level, the struggle has defensive and offensive facets. Governments recognize their inability to destroy the guerrilla movement and make do with wearing it down and minimizing its own attrition.
A New Warfare to Fight the Permanent War of Totalitarianism: 4 GW
A Pakistani army brigadier, S. K. Malik, who elaborated on his country's philosophy of terrorism in his book The Islamic Concept of War, wrote there:
"Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet and merge.”
-- (Quoted by Dr. Ajai Sahni, in his article “War and the ‘deluge’ of Terror,” A commentary published in March 25th 2003. See on-line in: www.satp.org)
4 GW describes any way of dealing with U.S. military forces other than confronting them on the battlefield. It includes all forms of terrorism, guerilla warfare, intifada-type urban unrest -- sometimes financed by relationships with criminal or narcotics networks -- and others that will evolve. 4GW is not just guerilla warfare under another name. Perceiving war as a contest marked by the use of force is a woefully incomplete, tragically simplistic, and fundamentally flawed view ... a future war among industrialized states, even if effective and efficient, could be virtually invisible – or it could evolve into a war of insurgents versus States – a judo war of cultural attrition. Which side can stand to lose what is important to their culture (civil rights, freedom, shrines, travel, vacations, air conditioning?) for the longest period of time?
In 4GW distinctions between civilians and combatants blur, so an enemy might seek to counter an F-22 aircraft by poisoning the squadron's mess hall, blowing up its barracks (as in Beirut), or even attacking schools and PXs back at the base. 4GW, while highly "asymmetric," is not the same as "asymmetric warfare," since maneuver warfare is also "asymmetric" and calls for creating and exploiting enemy weaknesses, rather than engaging and trying to reduce his formations and fortified positions directly. Since 2001, more than 50 major active conflicts are brewing, any one of which could be the spark for commitment of US troops.
We live in a world of "Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW)" where the tactics of the weak confound the tactics of the strong. Nation-states confront criminal enterprises, fanatical opportunists, terrorists whose gang-like networks transcend national boundaries. This smorgasbord of actors often slips through the cracks of security, military, and legal bureaucracies. Sub-national insurgents use guerrilla tactics, insurrection, sabotage and terrorism to subvert nation-states and challenge the established international system. Governments, politicians, and state military-security apparatus of the West desperately want to engage their 4GW foes in the tried and true conventional ways of the past. America prefers combat where only the strongest wins. US fourth-generation foes prefer 4GW judo, avoiding a decisive fight, leveraging US addiction to technology and "throwing us" using the USA's bureaucratic weight to do so. The enemy's "weapons technology advantage" in the 9-11 attacks consisted of box cutters and ceramic knives, combined with a steely determination to die for a cause... it worked, and the modern world's vast military-security-enforcement bureaucracy was helpless to stop it… and will be again and again…
We are witnessing the early stages of a major geo-political transition. This shift is characterized by a global landscape of conflict where the division between combatant, criminal opportunist and civilian is blurred. In this potential global insurgency, the urban guerilla (not to forget their rural counterparts) may be a religious zealot or a child for hire with an RPG. As technophiles, Westerners are enraptured by modern weapons of great precision, but have lost sight that people and ideas are the essence of why wars are fought and for how long. In the traditional view, the low-tech approaches of 4GW are the "tactics of the weak." However, they have repeatedly been successful in circumventing the US military's far stronger conventional strategy, tactics, and thinking.
Well before the 9-11 attacks al-Qaeda recognized the power of asymmetric warfare and adaptive tactics for their jihad struggle. An article entitled "Fourth Generation Wars," in an al-Qaeda affiliated Internet magazine Al-Ansar: For the Struggle Against the Crusader War acknowledges that 4GW forms the foundation of al-Qaeda's combat doctrine. In doing so, the author, Abu 'Ubed Al-Qurashi, reputed to be closely linked with Osama bin Laden, cites the landmark 1989 Marine Corps Gazette article "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation" as key to understanding contemporary global conflict. Only a few Western military analysts recognized the deadly nature of 4GW
If diverse factors are driving the evolution of conflict, then solutions must lie primarily within the realms of economics, diplomacy, and law-enforcement. Military force will play a smaller role, performing specific tasks to solve problems that are intractable through other means. The West is searching for a coherent grand strategy to ensure that military (destructive) actions harmonize with their overall objectives and do not undermine the public support needed to prosecute a fourth generation war to its successful conclusion. In grand strategy, the carrot is as important as the stick, and alliances are critical factors which could favor the US in 4GW against al-Qa'ida and those who support similar ideologies. The election of John Kerry could heal the US-EU alliance, but by then it could be too late to matter.
Technology is important, and may provide options, but the fact is that lack of suitable technology cannot explain America’s poor track record in fourth generation warfare. Any discussion of 4GW, since it involves conflicts of culture and religion, is likely to generate a high degree of emotion.
.....Between advance and retreat. Hidden dragon. Do not act. [/I]--I Ching
Both sides in the 4thWW will employ-- - harmony on the inside in order to create and exploit chaos outside. Such a strategy reduces the need for bloody battles. Employing time as his primary weapon, Sun Tzu strove to create ambiguity in the minds of enemy commanders as the milieu for weaving his web of surprise, deception, and rapid switching between orthodox and unorthodox tactics... to win without fighting.
John Boyd (1927-1997) used his -- observe-orient-decide-act -- (OODA) pattern (also called decision-loop) to operate inside his opponent's decision cycles, generating first confusion, then frustration, and finally panic in the enemy ranks. Once thus set up, the enemy could be finished off with a bewildering array of distracting and probing attacks, leading to multiple thrusts aimed at destroying his cohesion and collapsing his will to resist. A primary measure of merit was prisoner -- not body count. To sustain high operational tempos he codified an organizational climate derived from Sun Tzu, the German blitzkrieg, and the early Israeli Army.
There are 3 fundamental points to the 4GW:
1. What is important is forces -- combinations of people, ideas, and hardware -- not individual weapons programs.
2. Neither Sun Tzu nor Boyd gave explicit guidance on selecting hardware, however, a hypothetical US strike force (with a hardware component) can be compared to the ancient and news ways of thinking about conflict and maneuver warfare
3. First attack your enemy’s strategy then his alliances and cohesion.
Summary of the US 3-4 GW Evolutionary Strike Force:
A. Personnel system that fosters trust, cohesion, and leadership.
[And- for insurgents - to sow suspicion, division and dead leadership among the enemy -- especially among the leaders of US strike forces]
B. Doctrine built around third and fourth generation warfare ideas.
[Insurgents and other anti-American forces will grasp this change and react by acquiring weapons and tactics best suited to fourth and 5th generation warfare ]
C. Land forces, a U.S. Strike Force, built around:
U.S. Marine Corps, Army 82nd Airborne Division, Special Forces, Rangers, Delta Force, SEALs and other unconventional forces, carrier and land-based tactical air, and Intra-theater lift of heavy armor & mechanized infantry. These would be enhanced through: Robust research, development, prototyping, and experimentation; and increased emphasis on intelligence, including revamping the personnel system to make it co-equal in stature with operations.
The core of force effectiveness lies in understanding fully -- why people fight, why they polish their fighting skills, why they refuse to quit until they have won.
Insurgents are asking themselves and their spies the same questions as the ruling class. Both sides are predicting the grasp and style of 4th Generation Warfare that the other has and which each will deploy. So far, Al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents have out-guessed the US -- though the examples of the US "surrender" at Falluja and Najaf show that the US is catching on fast!
The condition of a military force is that its essential factor is speed, taking advantage of others' failure to catch up, going by routes they do not expect, attacking where they are not on guard. Future wars will be fluid with no defined fronts or formations; decentralized armies where troops act on their own with high initiative as opposed to centralized command structures where troops ask permission and wait for orders; war designed to place the enemy in a dilemma, to suck him in to traps of his own creation, taking advantage of his stupidities and weaknesses and avoiding his strengths; war where soldiers act on judgment not on rules; war without rules; war that seeks to penetrate the enemy rather than push opposing lines backwards and forwards; war waged by a cohesive team that is like a family or tribe with a common culture and common outlook; a willingness to fight close, not just applying firepower from a long standoff, but infiltrating when the opportunity arises.
Evolving Military Strategy for Socio-Cultural Warfare
The strategy devised by Sun Tzu fit the circumstances perfectly. It rested on two major and complementary elements, one internal and one external. Harmony on the inside is The Way (Tao) of war. All else flows from this basic idea, and without it, there is little reason to press forward into the stress of military operations. Externally, Sun's goal was to create confusion in the opposing side and then exploit it. The focus was not on winning through superior tactics or individual fighting technique (although these are important), the enemy commanders must become confused and if possible, driven insane. The tool for accomplishing this was quickness, which helps create ambiguity and also increases the effectiveness of deception, security, and intelligence.
Foreknowledge enables an intelligent government and wise military leadership to overcome others even when the opponent is stronger or wealthier. Foreknowledge must be obtained from reliable people, people who know the conditions of the enemy. Intelligence, reconnaissance (air and ground) and stratagem conducted before and during combat operations can unmask and shape patterns of adversary strengths, weaknesses, moves, and intentions. If one fails to spot mismatches between what one believes to be going on and what really is, (i.e., between Orientation and the real world), one has become "mentally isolated." If adversaries can keep us in this state -- operating inside our OODA loops -- then as setback after inexplicable frustration befall us, we will become disoriented, confused, indecisive, fearful, etc. A competent enemy will create, locate, and exploit vulnerabilities leading, in the case of maneuver warfare, to envelopments, ambushes, high prisoner counts: phenomenon that suggests inability to adapt to change. Ill-treatment of POWs cannot be tolerated: A battlefield commander wants them to surrender, and needs to make it as easy as possible.
Threats to U.S. National Security
The most likely cause for introducing US military forces would be a large-scale attack against a country that the U.S. considers a "vital national interest" (Israel, Taiwan. Saudi Arabia). U.S. forces could face anything from a conventional attack to what is called "fourth generation warfare" (4GW). This term describes any way of dealing with U.S. military forces other than confronting them on the battlefield. It includes all forms of terrorism, guerilla warfare, intifada-type urban unrest -- sometimes financed by relationships with criminal or narcotics networks -- and others that will evolve.
Grant Hammond of the Air War College notes , 4GW is not just guerilla warfare under another name: Perceiving war as a contest marked by the use of force is a woefully incomplete, tragically simplistic, and fundamentally flawed view ... a future war among industrialized states, even if effective and efficient, could be virtually invisible. In 4GW distinctions between civilians and combatants blur, so an enemy might seek to counter an F-22 aircraft by poisoning the squadron's mess hall, blowing up its barracks (as in Beirut), or even attacking schools and PXs back at the base. 4GW, while highly "asymmetric," is not the same as "asymmetric warfare," since maneuver warfare is also "asymmetric" and calls for creating and exploiting enemy weaknesses, rather than engaging and trying to reduce his formations and fortified positions directly. Since 2001, more than 50 major active conflicts are brewing, any one of which could be the spark for commitment of US troops. Survival of the US does not have to be the issue; survival of the current political leadership will suffice.
Ex Summary – Series : Beyond Iraq Strategies ( new)
http://communitydefense.blogspot.com/2004/07/our-lives-are-war-understanding.html
http://www.mblog.com/imperialiststrategy/067799.html
Below is Section XIX – Assessing 4GW forces
http://www.mblog.com/imperialiststrategy/067797.html
See Section IV. Threats to U.S. National Security
http://www.mblog.com/imperialiststrategy/058691.html
http://insurgency-4gw.squarespace.com/display/ShowJournal?moduleId=31058
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