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Chet Richards is the spider of the d-n-i.net web site, which is
the best source for material on Fourth Generation war. He is
also the only person authorized to give Col. John Boyd's famous
"Patterns of Conflict" briefing. Given that background,
it is not surprising that he has produced a useful and important
discussion of Fourth Generation strategy, in the form of a short
book titled Neither
Shall the Sword. If Washington were interested in strategy,
which it is not (its only genuine interest is in court politics),
it would give this small volume large attention.
The book begins by asking whether
Third Generation maneuver warfare is passé. As the Urvater
of maneuver warfare theory in this country, I must agree with
Richards that it is. As glorious as the Blitzkrieg was, it now
belongs to history; wars between state armed forces, while they
may now and then still occur, will be jousting contests more
than real wars. The institutional culture of Third Generation
armed services, with its outward focus, decentralization, initiative
and self-discipline, remains vital to any fighting organization.
But unless they are relieving an inside-out Islamic siege of
Brussels, Panzer divisions will no longer be streaming through
the Ardennes.
Rightly, Richards recognizes
that the challenge of the present and the foreseeable future
is Fourth Generation war. America's most pressing need is for
a grand strategy suitable to a Fourth Generation world. In Neither
Shall the Sword, Richards examines and compares the suggestions
of five strategists: myself, in my cover story "Strategic
Defense Initiative" in the November 22, 2004 issue of The
American Conservative; Martin van Creveld and his book The Transformation
of War; Tom Hammes, The Sling and the Stone; Michael Scheuer,
Imperial Hubris; and Thomas Barnett in The Pentagon's New Map
and Blueprint for Action.
Richards groups these five
positions in two major camps, containment and rollback, terms
which go back to the early days of the Cold War. Van Creveld
and I represent containment, which I can accept; Barnett represents
rollback (on steroids); and Hammes and Scheuer are somewhere
in the middle. Richards's comparison and analysis of all these
positions is thorough and insightful. For those who suspect I
may be tooting my own horn here, let me note that he does not
end up where I do.
Beyond this comparison, Richards
makes additional valuable points. One is that the Bush administration
has fundamentally miscast the nature of the conflict we now face.
He argues that war is terrorism, so a "war on terrorism"
is a war on war. We are not in a war on "terrorism"
or engaged in a "struggle against violent extremism."
Instead, we are faced with
an evolutionary development in armed conflict, a "fourth
generation" of warfare that is different from and much more
serious than "terrorism"to see the difference between
4GW and "terrorism," run this simple thought experiment:
suppose bin Laden and al-Qaida were able to enforce their program
on the Middle East, but they succeeded without the deliberate
killing of one more American civilian. The entire Middle East
turns hostile, Israel is destroyed, and gas goes up to $15 per
gallon when it is available. Bin Laden's 4GW campaign succeeds,
but without terrorism. Do you feel better?
This applies to situations
like Iraq and Afghanistan:
It's not a war followed by
a blown peace. That is conventional war thinking, even if the
war is waged and quickly won by 3GW. Instead, it will be an occupation
against some degree of resistance, followed by the real, fourth
generation war.
Much of Neither Shall the
Sword is devoted to considering what kinds of armed forces
the U.S. would require for 4GW, which varies depending on the
grand strategy we adopt. He recognizes that the current Department
of Defense, and the bulk of our forces, are untransformable.
Practitioners of real transformation
agree that in such circumstances it is better not to transform
but to start overThe sooner these fossils are put to rest, the
sooner new enterprises can rise to create innovative business
models for satisfying customer desires.
Here is where Richards and
I part company. DOD is, as he recognizes, Gosplan. But his alternative,
at least for a rollback force, includes privatizing the fighting
function. The problem with this is that as the state privatizes
security functions, for foreign wars or here at home, it strikes
at its own reason for being and thus accelerates its crisis of
legitimacy, which lies at the heart of 4GW. Once security is
privatized, why have a state at all?
Conveniently, private armies
have a long history of overthrowing states. There is good reason
why the rising state of the 17th century abolished private armies
and forcefully asserted a monopoly on violence.
Even here, Neither Shall the
Sword promotes creative thinking on the most important military
question of our time: how can states come to grips with Fourth
Generation war?
Copies are available from the
Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. (www.cdi.org).
You might want to send one to your Senator or Congressman. If
you enclose a check for at least $1000, they might even pay some
attention to it.
William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion,
is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the
Free Congress Foundation.
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