4th Generation Warfare Manual

Stratiotes · Jul 7, 2005

I've posted once or twice on 4GW here and so I thought this might interest some of you.

A new "unnofficial" 4GW manual is available online:
http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_7_06_05.htm
And an early review that makes it sound quite good:
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/thoughts_on_fmfm_1-a.htm

Phillip · Jul 12, 2005

I think the key-word is "unofficial".

rsr · Jul 13, 2005

“Fourth Generation war demands not only the strategic corporal, but the moral corporal as well, enlisted Marines who think about every action they take in terms of its moral effects.” (FMFM 1-A page 8)

This seems implausible given the age, experience, and training of the average US Marine corporal, now or in any likely future. The courts martial of NCOs for mistreatment of Iraq prisoners suggest that we need more hands-on lieutenants and less freedom of action for corporals.

We’ll be lucky to get an adequate number of First Lieutenants with such cross-cultural knowledge, capable of acting with such sophisticated strategic and moral reasoning.

This illustrates a difficulty of recommendations given in FMFM 1-A. All wargame scenarios have easy solutions if one can conjure up sufficient resources. FMFM 1-A aspires to a US Marine Corps with the training and attributes of our elite Special Ops units.

With an army of such men we could pacify Iraq. Equally so, with the Battlestar Galactica or Starship Enterprise the Germans could have won WWII.

It’s not enough to dream of ways we can win. How can we evolve our current military apparatus to get there from here?
Click to expand...

I think most Americans would be surprised how far doctrine has changed in this direction. I Iraq it is not unheard of for lieutenants to be de facto[i/] rulers of entire cities. It is slowly becoming doctrine in the Army, though it will take a while to codify.

Another recommendation – the use of cash as (in my words) the nuclear bomb of 4GW, offers even more scope for the imagination.

Imagine the course of the Iraq war if we had assigned a Coalition Colonel to each local town, with each Colonel given ten million dollars and a simple goal: in six months that money must be spent and that town looking busy and happy. I suspect that no matter how corruptly and inefficiently the money was spent, most Iraq towns would be peaceful. Everybody loves a mad but generous Uncle.
Click to expand...

This is, in fact, what happened in Iraq. Commanders who had cash and authority were able to get quite a bit done.

4th Generation Warfare Manual

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