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.



Section XX.: (The Series: Beyond Iraq Strategies)



CONCLUSIONS on War, on 4 GW and Options for Resistance





Many issues have not been addressed here – and we know of few useful sources to direct you to.



There are a variety of different and novel ways to structure your investigation of the world’s problems/solutions. This is what should be called Your Life When-You-Care-to-be-Aware – The key question is Why all these problems – from politics to ecology-racism-disease- and many more.



Is this mess that the ruling class has designed with such brilliant minds – this world we live in – the best that humans can do – does it matter how well we do things – Is everything really just a short term selfish pursuit of hedonism, pain avoidance and ?? – whatever the television advertisers tell us is important??



What drives conflict, what are the weaknesses of those in power, those who call the shots and shape conflict and the perceptions of conflict and solutions?



Why are there infinite possibilities yet people (especially alternative or quasi-radical groups) see only one or two ???



We have to use what is available – the weapons the resources the people etc… We cannot wait – nor encourage others to wait – for some perfect momment – a perfect strategy – or the education and enlightenment of the masses (every indication is that people get more confused each day) – the government – media nexus is rife with psychological warfare manipulations.



We have sought to expose and analyze the strategy, tactics and direction of the military and intelligence forces of the US and their neo-imperialist allies. It is important to understand the enemy, but it is also important to move on and consider the capabilities and skills of the insurgent forces around the world. The areas of Imperialist policies that deserve more research concern changes in US strategy, tactics and weapons – particularly those concerning counterintelligence and counter-terrorist intelligence and strategies; especially important is additional research on US and allied intelligence operations and capabilities. The inclusion of the large numbers of US Special Forces into intelligence gathering and covert operations is a troubling and difficult subject to report on. Research on the media savvy and propaganda efforts of the US is also worthwhile.



The US is spending a fortune on the war in Iraq ($300 billion by year’s end) while at the same time it is restructuring its entire military to combat fourth generation wars that will soon be common. The dramatic expansion of US Special Operations forces, the V 22 transports and the transformation of SOF into a quasi-illegal CIA paramilitary army will give the US awesome and flexible deployment options. With a wide array of listening devices and airborne - or space-borne - sensors the US will be able to attack small targets with devastation. These policies make sense once diplomacy, cooperation, compromise and any hope of a peaceful world are abandoned permanently. But this is a one-way street and the response of the adversaries will be ingenious and unexpected... and so must ours...



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. Many similar targets and thousands of expensive industrial targets await takers.



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 our 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 recognize the deadly nature of 4GW prior to 9-11-01.



If the U.S. military leaves its current hardware spending plans intact and just implements the people and ideas sections of Chester’s paper, the US/Imperialists would make major improvements in the effectiveness of forces. If the military was composed of people trained and selected on their demonstrated abilities to carry out maneuver and fourth-generation warfare, they would demand weapons more suited to these missions. The military-industrial-congressional complex as constituted today could not stand without its military component.



What sort of force would newly trained military personnel come up with? It cannot be known at this time. If it could, potential enemies would react to it, thereby causing the U.S. military to do something else. This idea of action / reaction or shaping / being shaped is central to Boyd’s philosophy, which reflects his remarks in the beginning of -- Patterns of Conflict -- that the theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the two pillars of his study of conflict, survival, and conquest (the conduct of war is the other). This suggests that one should not worry too much about what the final Boyd / Sun Tzu force will look like, but that if we get the people and ideas parts right, the force structure will naturally evolve by a process of experimentation, selection, and rejection.



The Chester paper on Boyd and Sun Tzu, shows that the set of possibilities is not empty for the Imperialists -- the current U.S. force structure can evolve towards something that is greater than that of today by carrying out a strategy focused on maneuver warfare and 4GW. But it is likely that even if it were adopted, it would be merely a way station along the path to something vastly different, that is, assuming the US gets the people and ideas part right. Soon the technology, wealth and desperation of the rich nations will combine to form a deadly – if not invincible – force – with nothing but a few rag-tag groups standing in the way of its planetary conquest.



 http://www.almuajaha.com/newswire/display/6214/index.php



The Evolution of War: The Fourth Generation-LtCol Thomas X. Hammes-Marine Corps Gazette-September 1994

 http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/hammes.htm



1.. A link to a 2nd draft of new series – ex summary – pretty good –

 http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=guerrillawar&godate=07/01/2004



2.. A link to additional weapons – PT 2 –

 http://www.tblog.com/templates/index.php?bid=guerrillawar&static=224762



3. Newest version – July 14 – final - ? of Ex Summar y – Series ( new)

 http://communitydefense.blogspot.com/2004/07/our-lives-are-war-understanding.html



FOOTNOTES SEC I.



1. A.) Suicide Bombs – form one of the slides – www.blackwater or emergency.com – titles Improvised Ex Devices -



B.) 1. Fourth Generation Warfare (Continued)

 http://www.d-n-i.net/second_level/4gw_continued.htm



2. Grau, Lester W. and Ali Ahmed Jalali. 1999. The Other Side of the Mountain:

Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War. Quantico, VA: US Marine Corps

Studies and Analysis Division.



3. Grau, Lester W. and Timothy L. Thomas. 2000. Russian Lessons Learned From the

Battles For Grozny. Marine Corps Gazette. Vol. 84, no. 4, April 2000: 45-48.



4. a. Lind, William S., Colonel Keith Nightengale, U.S.A., Captain John F. Schmitt, U.S.M.C., et. al., “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation,” Marine Corps Gazette, October 1989; available at  http://www.d-n-i.net.



b. See also the 1997 update of the original FMFM-1, Warfighting, pub. 1989. Available on the Marine Corps site,  http://www.usmc.mil.



5. .)  http://www.g2mil.com/Jun2004.htm



6. 4GW: Tactics of the Weak Confound the Strong, By G.I. Wilson, John P. Sullivan, and Hal Kempfer - Military.Com - September 8, 2003

 http://www.military.com/NewContent?file=Wilson_090803

We live in a world of "Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW)" where the tactics of the weak confound the tactics of the strong.



7. 4GW: Tactics of the Weak Confound the Strong

 http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/comments/c490.htm



8. For other threats to US National Security see:

A. Series: Beyond Iraq Strategies: Section IV. Threats to U.S. National Security

 http://www.mblog.com/imperialiststrategy/058691.html

 http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/06/804624.shtml



9. Although 4GW concepts are still evolving, Boyd and Sun Tzu certainly believed that the mental agility, rapid tempo of operations, and consideration of mental and moral effects demanded by maneuver warfare would also carry over to what we now call fourth generation warfare.



10. Why a Fourth Generation?

• continued exponential increase in the world population

• decline in standards of living in certain Third World countries

• continuing international AIDS epidemic

• rise of mega-cities (Jakarta, Cairo, Delhi, Mumbai, etc.)

• increasing scarcity of arable land and water

• explosion in drug trafficking, with associated money flows & corruption

• fall of the Soviet Union and continued instability in the FSU

• end of the bipolar world order and of the interpretation of events through a Cold War filter

• ready availability of small arms and other inexpensive weapons

• resurgence of violent transnational ideological groups

• continued growth in wealth and influence of transnational corporations

• emergence of US as the only conventional / economic superpower

• growth of worldwide connectivity (CNN and the Internet, for example)

• ease of global transportation (24 hours between any two points)



What Will the Fourth Generation Look Like?



11.  http://www.emergency.com/2003/urban_warfare_considerations.htm

Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW): This style of warfare was based on the trends identified in the earlier generational shifts. They believe that future war would be characterized by: very small independent action forces (SIAF) or cells acting on mission-type orders; a decreased dependence on logistics support; more emphasis on maneuver; and psychological goals rather than physical ones. This latter objective of psychological warfare meant that the enemy’s will to fight had to collapse from within. Wilson, et al, posed that the “idea-based fourth generation may be visible in terrorism”. They did not propose that terrorism was the fourth generation, but rather, they suggested that terrorism would take advantage of fourth generation warfare. Finally, the authors identified three basic constructs of 4GW:

(1) the loss of the nation state’s monopoly on war,

(2) a return to a world of cultures and states in conflict, and

(3) internal segmentation/division along ethnic, religious, and special interests lines within our own society.



In a set of chilling predictions, the authors suggested that in fourth generation warfare:

(1) There will be a shift in focus from the enemy’s front to his rear;

(2) The practitioners of 4GW would seek to use the enemy’s strength against him;

(3) They would use freedom’s openness against itself; and finally,

(4) The 4GW force would not need a lot of money to wage fourth generation warfare.(8)



Characteristics of 4th Generation Warfare (4GW) and Situation in Iraq Today According to Wilson, et al, So the war has taken on a blurry admixture of strategy, operations, and tactics in fourth generation setting:

An elusive enemy who doesn’t fight “fair”

Difficult terrain –

Uncertain allies - Problematic identification of friend from foe

Experienced and hardened enemy fighters - Underground enemy (9)



Typical Tactics of Urban Guerillas and Practice of 4th Generation Warfare (4GW)

The urban insurgent works alone or in small cells.

a. Disrupting industry and public services by strikes and sabotage.

b. Generating widespread disturbances designed to stress the resources of the opposing force.

c. Creating incidents or massing crowds to lure the opposition force into a trap.

d. Provoking the opposing force into overreacting, which would provide hostile propaganda.

e. Provoking inter-factional strife.

f. Sniping at roadblocks, outposts, sentries, and individuals.

g. Attacking vehicles and buildings with rockets and mortars.

h. Planting explosive devices, either against specific targets or at random, to cause confusion and destruction, and to lower public morale.

i. Ambushing patrols and firing on helicopters.



Tactical/Technical Lessons/Considerations in Urban and 4th Generation Warfare:

* Rigorous communications security is essential, even against relatively primitive enemies.

* Night operations are especially difficult to carry out in an urban environment.

* Tanks and armored personnel carriers cannot operate in cities without extensive dismounted infantry support.

* Trained snipers are very cost effective, but likely to be in short supply.

* If patrolling is central to the strategy of the security forces, it will be different from conventional combat patrolling and must be well coordinated.

* Fratricide is a serious problem when fighting in cities because it is harder to identify friend from foe.

* Major civilian structures in cities (e.g., hospitals, churches, banks, embassies) are cited in such a way as to be tactically useful locations, command key intersections, and/or are built of especially solid construction. Therefore, such facilities are especially useful to urban defenders. We have already seen examples of Iraqi usage of a hospital as a staging area and for the storage of WMD protection equipment.

* Direct-fire artillery and anti-aircraft artillery can be a valuable tool in urban combat, provided one does not care about collateral damage. Unfortunately, "collateral damage" will be used in Iraqi propaganda

* Small unit leadership, especially at the junior non-commissioned officer level, is critical to tactical success in urban operations.

* Recovering damaged armored vehicles is more difficult in urban areas.

* Intelligence, especially from human sources, is absolutely critical to successful urban operations.

* Hit-and-run ambushes by small groups are the favorite tactic of urban paramilitary forces. We have already seen such tactics in Iraq.

* Tracked vehicles are preferable to wheeled vehicles in situations where there is likely to be large amounts of rubble in the streets. Otherwise wheeled armored vehicles are faster and preferable.

* Helicopters have extreme difficulties operating in an urban combat environment (See BlackHawk Down in Somalia), but are quite useful in redeploying forces and supplies to just behind the forward edge of operations.

* The Soldier's equipment load must be dramatically reduced because urban warfare requires greater individual agility and stamina. Special emphasis must be given to ammunition loads, medical supplies, and water.

* Small arms, though not usually decisive in large battles, play a disproportionately significant role in the outcome of urban battles.

* Individual flak jackets significantly reduce urban casualties.

* Smoke enhances survivability in urban situations, but carries significant operational penalties (e.g., impedes visual communications, taxes driving skills of vehicle operators, and slows the overall rate of advance).

* Mortars are highly regarded by both attackers and defenders in urban operations, but may be less effective than supposed.

* Machine-guns may be more valuable than assault rifles for urban combat.

* Air defense guns are valuable for suppressing ground targets.

* Heavy machine-guns still offer good defense against close air attack, especially helicopters.

* Rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) are omnipresent and very effective weapons in urban combat. We can expect extensive use of RPG's by irregular Iraqi forces.

* Armored vehicles require more protection when operating in cities and that protection needs to be distributed differently than for conventional battlefield.

* Remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) can provide real-time intelligence, but analysts have considerable difficulty interpreting it correctly.

* The enemy often employs home-made weapons, even including chemical weapons, against security forces.

* Lightly protected armored vehicles are of limited value in heavy urban terrain.

* Combat engineering equipment, especially armored bulldozers, are critical assets in urban combat.

* Cluster munitions are very effective in cities, provided one is not concerned about collateral damage. (See previous note on the use of collateral damage as an enemy propaganda tool)

* Although available, artillery-fired precision-guided munitions (PGMs) were seldom used in urban operations.

* “Bunker busting” weapons can be invaluable for urban warfare.



B. 1. [10] Vincent J. Goulding Jr., "Back to the Future with Asymmetric Warfare," Parameters, Winter 2000-2001 (source from original article in Arabic).



2.  http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sd&ID=SP34402

2. A. Extensive research can be found at communitydefense.blogspot.com



B. See Section 2.5 and 2.6 from

 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-19-30/ch2.htm



C. . Counterinsurgency: In modern usage, the term (and the strategy) originated with the British campaign against communist insurgents in Malaya after World War II. In the words of Lt. Gen. Sir Gerald Templer, the British High Commissioner to Malaya in the early 1950s, “The shooting side of the business is only 25 percent of the trouble. The other 75 percent is getting the people of this country behind us” (Richard Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1991, p. 259).



D. DeGroot, Gerard J., “Vietnam: What Went Wrong?” Defending America, April 25, 2001 (available at  http://www.sftt.org). Dr. DeGroot is Department Chair at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and has published widely on the Vietnam War.



FOOTNOTES SEC II.:

1. Huang places the life of Sun Tzu from 534 B.C. to possibly 453 B.C., although he notes that the book may not have been written in his lifetime. Griffith places the date of its writing at between 400 and 320 B.C. Cleary merely places it during the Warring States Period (5th – 3rd Centuries B.C.). I primarily used the translation by Thomas Cleary (Boston: Shambhala, 1988) and citations without any other identifier refer to this edition. I have crosschecked certain passages with the classic translation by retired Marine Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1971 paperback) and these are identified as “Griffith,” and with the heavily annotated translation by J. H. Huang (New York: William Morrow, 1993), indicated by “Huang.”

In 1972, near the town on Linyi in Eastern China, Chinese archeologists uncovered a set of 200 bamboo slats containing a version of Sun Tzu dating from roughly 100 B.C. Although very close to later versions, there are some differences that have caused translators to revise certain passages. For more information, see Huang, 21. The basic classics of Taoism are usually known in English as the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu Book. Both are widely available in translation. A very approachable introduction to Taoism is Alan Watts’ Tao, The Watercourse Way, Pantheon 1975. For a readable discussion of the complex relationship between Taoism, Buddhism, and Zen, see Ray Griggs’s The Tao of Zen, Alva Press, 1994.

The period of nearly continual warfare known as the “Warring States” began with an attack by several states on another in 453 B.C. – Griffith’s date, (other historians use dates as late as 404 B.C.) – and ended with the rise of the Qin dynasty in 211 B.C. Two of the eight large states did not participate to any great degree. By the end of the period all of the minor states had disappeared. This period of constant experimentation in warfare among a myriad of smaller players resembles the situation in Italy which inspired Machiavelli’s Art of War or in what is now Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, which led to Clausewitz’ On War.

Readers may be interested in Griffith’s speculation on why the Chinese appeared to abandon Sun Tzu in the latter stages of the Korean War in favor of human wave tactics (55)

Blumenson, Martin, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885∞V1945, Berkeley, 1987, p. 156. Patton was very much in the Sun Tzu tradition and was considered our most dangerous general by many German officers.





2. .) A. Interested readers can download Boyd's major briefings at Defense and the National Interest,  http://www.d-n-i.net

Much of the inspiration and background for this paper came from: What if Sun Tzu and John Boyd Did a National Defense Review?; Chester W. Richards- May 2001, A product of the Center for Defense Information’s Military Reform Project.  http://www.cdi.org/mrp/, Marcus Corbin,  mcorbin@cdi.org, 202-797-5282.

Boyd’s works have not been “officially” published. Page numbers refer to his 1986 version of the Discourse on Winning and Losing. Each presentation within the Discourse is separately numbered. Citations in this paper use the following system: POC refers to “Patterns of Conflict,” SG to “Strategic Game of ? and ?,” and OD to “Organizational Design for Command and Control.” These can all be downloaded from  http://www.d-n-i.net. Boyd’s comments on Clausewitz appear at POC 42.





B. General Boyd Strategies see:

 http://www.d-n-i.net/second_level/boyd_military.htm



C. A nice presentation of Boyd (through Chester), with tables, graphs and summaries of their recommendations for a new US Strike Force is found at:

 http://www.d-n-i.net/richards/sword_4_boyd.pdf



D. The most approachable biography of Boyd is probably F. C. Spinney’s “Genghis John,” Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, July 1997, also available at  http://ww.d-n-i.net. A professional biography by Dr. Grant Hammond of the US Air War College, The Mind of War, has just been published by the Smithsonian Institution (May 2001), and an as yet unnamed biography by author Robert Coram is scheduled for release in early 2002 from Little, Brown.

F. C. Spinney, personal communication, March 2001. The Discourse is the collection of Boyd’s work on strategy. It includes “Patterns of Conflict” (1986 – indicated by POC in these endnotes), “Strategic Game of ? and ?” (1986 – SG) and “Organic Design for Command and Control” (1986 – OD) as well as several others not cited here.

Boyd’s involvement in the F-15 and the Lightweight Fighter Prototypes (which became the F-16 and F/A-18 programs) is documented in Cowan, Maj. Je


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