Cain's 5th Generation Warfare Project

[That One Guy]

I haven't forgotten about this either - I'm still trying to get a more complete grasp of the emerging ideas with 5th gen stuff. It's hard to figure out what WILL work since we're still right in the middle of the transition from 4th to 5th - there hasn't been that decisive weaponry technological breakthrough like with guns or the longbow that gives one side the technological advantage that has marked the transitions in the past. While the information age is ushering the transition, since it's so far-reaching there are many more factors to consider with the details.

In the next 5-10 years I think that - especially as computers and the internet continue to spread throughout the "third world" - we'll start to see theory put into practice, both on the large-scale military tactical fronts (just think what a repressive "banana republic" military can do with this stuff) and the guerilla warfare tactical front. Once that happens, it will highlight the ways 5th gen is actually progressing and start sorting out the theory from the practice.

Fascinating stuff to keep an eye on 

[Cain]

Here's an article from Dreaming5GW which tries to conceptualize the strategic base of 5GW.

Deception is 5GW's central offensive weapon—the "secret war" equivalent of the combined arms strike. Some may say this is an overstatement. Can active deception really be classified as a weapon?

Our disbelief in the offensive power of deception springs from our limited—and static—conception of deception operations. Most Western strategists believe that deception operations are chiefly used to cloak military capabilities and confuse the enemy. When we think of military deception, we tend to imagine something like the successful cloaking of the Normandy invasion in World War II. But deception is more than just camouflage and strategic feints. A holistic conception of deception operations holds that deception can sway an opponent to act against his own interests and undermine his political and military organizations.

I propose utilizing the Soviet deception apparatus as a baseline model of deception operations. 

While Al Qaeda uses tactical and operational deception for security and strategic surprise, its open-source model precludes extensive offensive strategic deception. Al Qaeda's tactics and strategic goals are articulated in the publicly available writings of senior strategists, available to anyone with Arabic language skills and an Internet connection. Translations are also available from both government (The Open Source Center) and commercial services (SITE Institute) devoted to tracking jihadist operations. Al Qaeda's relative transparency is an inherent feature of the open-source warfare model it depends on to galvanize its global movement.

For the Soviets, deception was a way of life. The Soviet Union—a secretive and paranoid totalitarian state—-sealed itself from outside influence and extensively utilized deception to mislead Western policymakers, journalists, and intelligence analysts. The cultlike nature of Soviet life has ample parallels to 5GW.

Back in the USSR

Richard J. Heuer Jr. (see the excellent volume Soviet Strategic Deception) classifies Soviet Deception efforts as Active Measures, Counterintelligence, and Maskirovka (Military Deception). Counterintelligence and Maskirovka are limited and more or less self-explanatory. Neutralizing or co-opting enemy intelligence networks is an operational mission, as is misleading OPFOR in an attempt to preserve operational security or retain strategic surprise.
 
This does not mean that Soviet CI and Maskirova did not at times assume a strategic dimension. In the 1920s, the CHEKA and OGPU created a fake resistance movement called "The Trust." It was marketed as an authentic opposition umbrella movement in the hope that enemies both home and abroad would flock to its banner. Opposition networks and foreign intelligence operatives made contact with The Trust, allowing Soviet intelligence to penetrate and neutralize their organizations. When the Trust outlived its usefulness, Moscow revealed and closed down the operation.  If The Trust itself had liquidated the Soviet opposition's best operatives, its exposure humiliated and shattered the Soviet émigré network. The West no longer trusted their expertise and they no longer trusted each other.

The example of the "Trust" demonstrates how a 5GW adversary might respond to an attempt by an opposing organization to penetrate and destroy its operational network.  If it still retains operational secrecy and surprise, the 5GW organization may simply create a dummy front that can be used as a kill vehicle. Once entrapped within the dummy front, enemy operatives can either be misdirected or liquidated.

Active Measures

The Soviet Union's main covert strategy involved in use of "Active Measures"—extensive attempts to undermine the West's unity and influence its decision-making. The battlespace was truly worldwide, ranging from the Third World to the homeland. The Soviets relied on a worldwide cabal of agents and contacts to agitate against America and her allies through a series of front organizations. The methods of agitation ranged from black propaganda to sophisticated media campaigns. Agitation meshed with strategic influence operations utilizing agents and sympathizers highly placed within government, academia, and the press to mold both policy and public perception to Moscow's benefit. Not all of the KGB's proxies were committed believers—KGB officers also developed unwitting agents of influence for the purpose of spreading messages favorable to the USSR.  

As Heuer Jr. argues, we should not conceptualize Soviet influence operations as exclusively characterized by one-way transmission. Deception was altered based on feedback from the one being deceived. Messages were altered to accommodate shifts in public opinion.

Deception operations depend on adversary mirror-imaging and a willingness to be deceived. Western analysts in both the government and the media often own force their own pre-conceived cultural norms onto the enemy with the erroneous belief that Western concepts of government, strategy, and morality are universally applicable. Additionally, elites and thought leaders already pre-disposed to distrusting their government and society were more willing to highlight American perfidy while ignoring the horrors of Soviet totalitarianism and imperialism.

Conclusion

Thankfully, the relative skill of Soviet deception operators wasn't enough to overcome the larger strategic failure inherent in the USSR's political, military, and economic spheres. History has often demonstrated that brilliant tactical and operational success cannot compensate for strategic dysfunction. Nazi Germany's armies were at one point the most powerful and skilled fighting forces in Eurasia, but that alone couldn't compensate for the Allied industrial advantage nor mitigate the Fuhrer's self-sabotaging myopia and madness. So what lessons can we take from the Soviet example?

•    5GW operations on the operational level will consist of deception operations designed to sow confusion among the enemy, influence decision-making, and undermine the enemy's unity.
•    5GW organizations will utilize pseudo-operations as a countermeasure against opponents seeking to use penetrate their organizations.
•    The perquisites for defense against 5GW are holistic thinking, avoidance of mirror imaging, and a healthy—though skeptical—patriotism.

Incidentally, The Trust was genius - probably the most simple, yet effective deception in the history of espionage.  But anyway, I'm putting this up for discussion, since it seems to be the primary point on which 5GW theory - at least as it currently stands - is grounded.

[That One Guy]

False fronts, both as a way to isolate infiltrators and smoke-screen actual organizations/leaders/operations, definitely seem like the leading organizational info weapon, both offensively and defensively.

As with all other aspects of 5th gen, it's really a re-emphasis rather than an invention. Throughout history, there have always been dummy organizations meant to isolate the masses from the real intentions and organizations of the movers/shakers. 5GW just puts this at the fore since the tools to create a dummy organization - and have it propagated in the correct environment - are easier than ever with the internet.

I'll need to let this simmer a bit - I've got some ideas kicking around but they don't feel finished yet.

[Cain]

I was thinking the main difference is that deception used to be at the tactical level (ambush) or the operational level (D-Day landings).

Whereas, a strategic emphasis on warfare would involve waging war without the other side ever realizing they were in one.  If you don't know a fight is happening, you can hardly hope to counter it.

The problem then comes in how kinetic events (ie killing people, explosions, sabotage etc) are carried out.  Because I very much doubt that such warfare is going to be entirely clean, though it will likely be much cleaner than previous wars.  I think that is where the issue of manipulation comes into play.  Using other organizations as fronts or proxies, as individual pieces in a larger campaign, waged at all levels, would allow for a puppet-master character to remain behind the scenes, manipulating events to the outcome they desire.

Obviously, other elements such as propaganda operations would also form a very large part of this overall strategy.

[That One Guy]

That just seems like the standard, historical "secret society" massive-conspiracy spiel to me - the puppet-master pulling the strings in order to achieve their own ends without arousing suspicion in the masses. The power to apply the string-pulling having been opened up to a much bigger audience and the tools to both set up and manipulate the strings being more widely available and easy-to-use are what would put this to the fore IMO.

Deception has always had a place in informational war - spies (and double/triple/etc. agents) have existed for centuries, and the use of false fronts/organizations in the Cold War have highlighted the role that false fronts and disinformation have played in increasingly varied aspects of war in the 20th and 21st centuries. Now that it is vastly easier for people to both introduce and propagate things via the net, this aspect of warfare is coming increasingly to influence the overall approach to 5GW as opposed to the more tactical, physical-rather-than-informational warfare of previous models.

As far as kinetic events go, I'd guess that the best disguises would be "natural" accidents, such as gas leaks causing explosions or the structural failure of a bridge support, or "heart attacks" or other deaths by "natural" causes for assassinations if the true intent needed to be kept totally hidden. This is technically much more difficult to do than, say, using a "lone" dissident or fringe group to misdirect the true purpose of such an action, due to the high level of forensic technology and resources. Ideally kinetic events would be propagated through a front group or individual with no apparent ties to the person/organization putting forth the resources or strategy/target in order to both misdirect the response onto the front group and to misdirect either the intention and/or the perpetrators of the event.

I'd say 5GW will put assassination back into play on a much broader scale - since a small group can wield a vastly disproportionate amount of influence and power, it will become more necessary to emphasize the specific removal of the key players via assassination rather than isolation or control, which is where the ability to misdirect the response to the event becomes key.

I still think that the technological innovation that separates 5GW from previous models isn't changing things in the way that prior innovations have - it's just changing the way different historical aspects of warfare are used. Guns made previous technology completely obsolete because a thin castle wall could stop an army, but a single cannon can turn it to swiss cheese. That necessitated the implementation of other fortifications such as the ravelin and completely changed the face of warfare. While the information retrieval and dispersion advances made possible by the net are a similar technological shift, it's not the physical aspect of warfare that is changing as in prior shifts. All the same elements are still present, if a bit expanded to the "anything is a weapon" model, and even most of the tactical approaches on a physical level are very similar and have historical precedents. It's the way the elements are used and controlled - and the vastly increased potential number of users/controllers - that signifies the 5GW model to me.

It's a shift not of the tactics used, but the potential number of tacticians, at least from what I can tell. That might not be the standard definition of 5GW currently being used - that's just how it looks to me based on what I've read, and I'm still trying to flesh out some more specifics of how this seems different than past shifts to me, thus my need to let it simmer a bit more which I still need to do.

[Cain]

That just seems like the standard, historical "secret society" massive-conspiracy spiel to me - the puppet-master pulling the strings in order to achieve their own ends without arousing suspicion in the masses. The power to apply the string-pulling having been opened up to a much bigger audience and the tools to both set up and manipulate the strings being more widely available and easy-to-use are what would put this to the fore IMO.

Well, yes.  I was thinking of that as possible archtype as one way of expressing some of the ideas behind it.  But yes, the technological differences are what makes this possible, or even plausible.  In a globalized world, there are plenty of greivances and actors, and multiple interpretations are thus more common, especially with the explosion of the blogosphere.  I'm thinking an event like the Oklahoma bombing, or the Golden Dome attacks in Iraq.  Oklahoma was eventually identified, but in the first couple of days, some people still considered it an attack by Islamic organizations affiliated to Bin Laden, or Arabic terrorists linked to Iraq's security forces.

We still don't know who was behind the Golden Dome, only that blame went every which way it could.  Admittedly, those are shows of tactical deception, but I'm sure you see what I mean.  If the originators behind the attack can make it ambiguous enough, then people will automatically step into the void and hypothesize as to the aims and identity of the attackers.  Hell, they do even when the attackers are known.

Taking that onto the strategic level would involve trying to conceal aims especially.  With the lack of an obvious attacker, assuming an attack was even detected, would have to involve trying to see a pattern of what is being achieved, and who benefits from it.  It might be that Napoleon's controlled chaos strategy, turning the entire theatre into chaos could conceal those objectives which are necessary.  On the other hand, it may involve more sophisticated methods than relying on "white noise" to drown out any useful analysis.  What those are, I don't know yet, since I fell behind in my reading. 

Deception has always had a place in informational war - spies (and double/triple/etc. agents) have existed for centuries, and the use of false fronts/organizations in the Cold War have highlighted the role that false fronts and disinformation have played in increasingly varied aspects of war in the 20th and 21st centuries. Now that it is vastly easier for people to both introduce and propagate things via the net, this aspect of warfare is coming increasingly to influence the overall approach to 5GW as opposed to the more tactical, physical-rather-than-informational warfare of previous models.

Yes, the bottom-up/extra-state potential of this is possibly the newest element.  I know that occasionally individuals like George Soros or Rupert Murdoch have been touted as "quasi-5GW operatives" because of their influence over media framing of events, and the individual level of power they wield.  It doesn't exactly link up with the anonymous aspect of this, not yet, but if we consider interlocking corporate ownerships, the hiding of affiliations of contributers and analysts, ownership of multiple outlets who can create the appearance of consensus, we're coming fairly close to it.  We can also consider those blogs with exceptionally large audiences, such as the (once) anonymous blogger Guido Fawkes in the UK, who leaked Parliamentary and Whitehall gossip while affecting an anarchistic air, whereas he was in fact a Libertarian Tory with links to more than a few think-tanks supported by the likes of Rupert Murdoch. 

On a less political perspective, we can see the influence of ARGs and "games" like Neurocam, or Incunabula, which are run in secret, via the internet, and often involve recruiting people to carry out certain tasks, with which they are rewarded with more information.  Whysoserious.com, the viral marketing site for The Dark Knight, might be another excellent example too, with people showing up in various areas wearing Joker-like clown faces to help promote the movie.

As far as kinetic events go, I'd guess that the best disguises would be "natural" accidents, such as gas leaks causing explosions or the structural failure of a bridge support, or "heart attacks" or other deaths by "natural" causes for assassinations if the true intent needed to be kept totally hidden. This is technically much more difficult to do than, say, using a "lone" dissident or fringe group to misdirect the true purpose of such an action, due to the high level of forensic technology and resources. Ideally kinetic events would be propagated through a front group or individual with no apparent ties to the person/organization putting forth the resources or strategy/target in order to both misdirect the response onto the front group and to misdirect either the intention and/or the perpetrators of the event.

Accidents would probably be ideal, yes.  Fronts would alert people to the idea that "something" was going on, but I was thinking that as these things usually go, the ideal is not always achieved.

I'd say 5GW will put assassination back into play on a much broader scale - since a small group can wield a vastly disproportionate amount of influence and power, it will become more necessary to emphasize the specific removal of the key players via assassination rather than isolation or control, which is where the ability to misdirect the response to the event becomes key.

Yes.  If we accept that individuals on this side can effect large 5GW style events, or the importance of the super-empowered individual, then we have to accept its of some importance to the other side as well.  The targets would likely not be traditional ones in a war - that of politicians, security services and so on - but instead those elements who perhaps hold together elements which justify the situation one wishes to change?  Intellectuals, media personalities, religious leaders perhaps, that sort of thing.

Of course, with the internet, its much easier - you can just hack the site and shut it down with botnets, DDoS attacks and the like.  But the same principle applies - hitting the centre of gravity in terms of influence, policy making and general unity.

I still think that the technological innovation that separates 5GW from previous models isn't changing things in the way that prior innovations have - it's just changing the way different historical aspects of warfare are used. Guns made previous technology completely obsolete because a thin castle wall could stop an army, but a single cannon can turn it to swiss cheese. That necessitated the implementation of other fortifications such as the ravelin and completely changed the face of warfare. While the information retrieval and dispersion advances made possible by the net are a similar technological shift, it's not the physical aspect of warfare that is changing as in prior shifts. All the same elements are still present, if a bit expanded to the "anything is a weapon" model, and even most of the tactical approaches on a physical level are very similar and have historical precedents. It's the way the elements are used and controlled - and the vastly increased potential number of users/controllers - that signifies the 5GW model to me.

I'm still catching up with the XGW debate about epochs of warfare (I've read some general definitions, but I haven't gone deep into the discussions).  However it does seem that the difference in 4GW and 5GW is the widening of the franchise of violence and the organizational models (or lack thereof) behind them. 

Anything as weapon, while an interesting development, seems a post-3GW realization, as the 3GW model reached its zenith in the nuclear missile, and it was realized that, in doing this, a response could not be moderated according to circumstance.  Therefore, it became necessary to fit the weapon to the type of fight being carried out, which necessarily meant rethinking what we considered a weapon in the first place, and their utility.  It falls in the gaps, because the last two models are not really technologically reliant.  Well, they are, but only as a necessary step towards widening the franchise and adopting new organizational models.

It's a shift not of the tactics used, but the potential number of tacticians, at least from what I can tell. That might not be the standard definition of 5GW currently being used - that's just how it looks to me based on what I've read, and I'm still trying to flesh out some more specifics of how this seems different than past shifts to me, thus my need to let it simmer a bit more which I still need to do.

It could be.  Curtis Gale Weeks had a piece up on Dreaming 5GW about his Strategic Citizen model, part of the point of which was stressing that the individual SC, who may or may not be a 5GW practitioner, is part of a network.  He denied the Grand Master conspiracy theory aim I outlined above as the archtype, but admitted there would be natural levels of influence that would come into play.  It would resemble a Grand Conspiracy from the outside, however.  There is going to be a level of manipulation and persuasion, because the 'conspiracy' is not emergent - it relies on individuals - but it relies on those individuals being able to use many other individuals to achieve their goals.

Because the individual is super-empowered, and because the technology is open to so many of us, the natural end result is going to be more people working the tactical end.  To work from the blogging example again, if we consider the main political parties as "sides", we use that as a model.  In the 90s, we had mainly just those major networks supporting their particular parties, or the individuals on those networks.  Each expression of support, however it was expressed, was by a singular tactician in the media fight for political influence.

However, blogs opened the franchise.  There are now tens of thousands of voices on each side, connecting with each other, working together, disseminating information and propaganda and deconstructing that output by enemy tacticians.  Is that the sort of thing you meant?  There is an overall goal, and some people (DailyKos, Michelle Malkin) are more influential than others, but at the same time, its a network that has steadily grown and has experimented with many different styles (vanilla blogging, debate, trolling, mockery, false-flag operations etc)  to work towards their goals.

[Cain]

Woah, mindfuck.

I've been reading primarily 3 books lately - The Pirate's Dilemma, Empire (Antonio Negri) and the US Special Forces COIN Manual, and I think I just read a paper which tied elements from all 3 together into a coherent whole.

http://www.athenaintelligence.org/op5.pdf

Its 12 pages, but worth reading.

[That One Guy]

I'll definitely have to check out that link when I have some time (probably not before this weekend unfortunately), especially if it ties all that stuff together.

I'm still catching up with the XGW debate about epochs of warfare (I've read some general definitions, but I haven't gone deep into the discussions).  However it does seem that the difference in 4GW and 5GW is the widening of the franchise of violence and the organizational models (or lack thereof) behind them.

Anything as weapon, while an interesting development, seems a post-3GW realization, as the 3GW model reached its zenith in the nuclear missile, and it was realized that, in doing this, a response could not be moderated according to circumstance.  Therefore, it became necessary to fit the weapon to the type of fight being carried out, which necessarily meant rethinking what we considered a weapon in the first place, and their utility.  It falls in the gaps, because the last two models are not really technologically reliant.  Well, they are, but only as a necessary step towards widening the franchise and adopting new organizational models.

Hmm - I too am only moderately familiar with the differing epochs of warfare. I definitely agree that the 3GW/nuclear option refocused the evaluation of what is a viable weapon (vs. what weapon is a deterrent), and 4GW definitely seemed to utilize that reevaluation in Cold War intel/propaganda/tactics. It seems like the main difference in that context between 4GW and 5GW is not the approach, but the fact that the potential number of users of that approach have exponentially increased while at the same time the scale/scope of those same tactics/approaches have had their requirements exponentially reduced.

In the 4GW model, only those entities with the vast resources required to gather info and apply it were able to do so (CIA, KGB, MI6, Mossad, etc.). The 5GW model (and the Weeks SC model by inference) gives the super-individual or small-scale organization the tools to gather the same info and apply it on almost the same scale as the 4GW model without the necessary infrastructure investment as that is taken care of by the pre-existing Internet framework.

We still don't know who was behind the Golden Dome, only that blame went every which way it could.  Admittedly, those are shows of tactical deception, but I'm sure you see what I mean.  If the originators behind the attack can make it ambiguous enough, then people will automatically step into the void and hypothesize as to the aims and identity of the attackers.  Hell, they do even when the attackers are known.

Taking that onto the strategic level would involve trying to conceal aims especially.  With the lack of an obvious attacker, assuming an attack was even detected, would have to involve trying to see a pattern of what is being achieved, and who benefits from it.  It might be that Napoleon's controlled chaos strategy, turning the entire theatre into chaos could conceal those objectives which are necessary.  On the other hand, it may involve more sophisticated methods than relying on "white noise" to drown out any useful analysis.  What those are, I don't know yet, since I fell behind in my reading.

I bolded the part that really stuck out to me as far as applying 5GW to terrorist/resistance actions. Ideally something that couldn't be plausibly explained as an "accident" will be left ambiguous enough as to the perpetrators to allow people to place blame themselves, preferably somewhere as far from the actual conspirators as possible. Hell, even in the case of "accidents" some people will still place said blame (just set a few conspiracy theorists on something and most people will automatically discredit any possibility of an "accident" being any more than just an accident/act of god/whatever). All of that can be used as an informational obfuscation of the true perpetrators - and according to conspiracy-theory types already IS, and has been for ages.

Fronts can definitely serve their purpose for this while still allowing the true organizers/perpetrators to meet their broader aims. For example, carefully constructing a fake movement/organization via the web and PR manifestos for the sole purpose of having it take the blame for future actions would allow the actual organizers to carefully tailor how that front organization will take credit for actions, and thus how those actions can be perceived by the public and media. All a fake/front organization really needs is to be able to attract media attention - once that's achieved it becomes self-perpetuating and can be maintained with no more than a handful of people if done right.

It would theoretically be possible to use preexisting front organizations, but it would be much easier to control and organize a carefully crafted fake/dummy organization and since the tools to create such things are easily possible (a web site, a handful of links, a few blogs, a few carefully crafted press releases to establish a media presence - such as with the ARGs) it seems like this is a much more viable methodology for utilizing the "false front" methodology. Admittedly, this would require a larger amount of set up in that the fake front organization needs time to become established, but it looks to me that the initial investment of resources to set one up correctly would be FAR more useful a tool than just about anything else to act as a defensive layer between the perpetrators and those reacting to the actions undertaken.

I'd actually think that such defenses would be far more necessary in the 5GW model due to the vast amount of information able to be retrieved by various sources. Just as it is far easier to establish an organization, it is also far easier to uncover who/what is behind that organization. As such it becomes more necessary to have multiple fronts or introducing organizational Strange Loops to the false front (thus reinforcing the classical "secret society" organizational structure) in order to make that uncovering as difficult as possible.

[Cain]

Here's something of interest, mentioned almost as an aside in a paper by Matthew Barno on the global jihad:

Our US information operations doctrine was designed for a different era and in many ways simply did not fit the war we were fighting.  It doctrinally bundled together "apples, oranges, pianos, Volkswagens, and skyscrapers" into one package—psychological operations, operational security, military deception, offensive and defensive computer network operations, and electronic warfare.  This official collection of disparate conceptual entities did little to assist us in our struggle to understand and operate in a war that was ultimately about winning hearts and minds, and about keeping our side resolutely in the fight.

The enemy instinctively seemed to understand how to exploit the media (international and local), tribal customs and beliefs, rumors and cultural predispositions toward mystery and conspiracy, and a host of other subtle but effective communications. Al Qaeda and the Taliban targeted their messages to influence both decisionmakers and ordinary people—in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in the Gulf region, in Europe, in the United States, and across a global audience.  Ablatant lie or obviously false claim by the Taliban would resonate throughout the cultural system of Afghanistan down to every valley and village, and it would be next to impossible to subsequently counter such falsehoods with facts. In a tribal society, rumors count, emotions carry huge weight, the extreme seems plausible, and "facts" reported outside the trusted confines of family, village, and tribe are subject to great skepticism.

This "local" phenomenon carried weight throughout the region and is arguably the norm across much of the Islamic world. The deadly outbursts in Afghanistan following the ultimately false reports of American desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo demonstrated the emotional power of "breaking cultural news."  Widespread rioting and protests across the Muslim world after the publication in Europe of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad reflect the same powerful and emotional cultural-religious phenomenon.  Messages from "the West" were often viewed with inherent suspicion, simply because they were from outsiders. We worked hard to overcome these difficulties, mostly through exercising the most effective information operations technique—having a good story to tell, and always telling the truth.

His criticisms of the US information warfare strategy may be true, I don't know and haven't studied it in depth enough to comment (though I suspect it was more advanced, even in 2006, than the Pentagon was letting on).

However what really caught my attention was two particular lines:

"The enemy instinctively seemed to understand how to exploit the media (international and local), tribal customs and beliefs, rumors and cultural predispositions toward mystery and conspiracy, and a host of other subtle but effective communications."

"The deadly outbursts in Afghanistan following the ultimately false reports of American desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo demonstrated the emotional power of "breaking cultural news."  Widespread rioting and protests across the Muslim world after the publication in Europe of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad reflect the same powerful and emotional cultural-religious phenomenon"


The former is an interesting pointer into how propaganda is and will continue to be exploited.  There is a variant on Middle Eastern conspiracy theorism within the West currently, embedded both within the far left and far right, among populist elements of both (scheming elites - be they capitalist scum or liberal do-gooders) which could work surprisingly well.  The populist element is key I think, since populism has largely fallen by the wayside on both the wings of various political movements - highlight the presence of a shadowy elite and everyone will fill in the gaps as to their aims and afflilations.  It will be harder though, due to polarisation and more cultural influences (more inputs, mass media memes etc), but still possible, I think.

On the other hand, I know Joesph Matheny has often made the point that in the west, conspiracy theorism of the UFO/NWO/Reptilian type often fills the void of modern mythology, and analysis of that framework could give a model whereby ideas could be denied - releasing real information either about an event or group in such a way it gains the unattractive associations with the nutcase conspiracy theories, as opposed to the socially accepted ones.  Thus a 5GW group could camoflage itself by wrapping some of its real information in these kind of ideas, thus immediately relegating investigation of it into a realm of ridicule.

Anyway, the second point was that, as I recall, the cartoon riots were kicked off not just because of the cartoons, but because there had been problems with that year's Hajj - Saudi Arabia had fucked up on adequate security and safety, and lots of people got trampled.  There was a lot of anger and resentment towards the Saudis, so they seized on this months old cartoon to deflect attention.  Now, there is nothing especially new about using an external enemy to deflect from internal problems, but the really overlooked point is how Saudi Arabia sparked protests, riots and social chaos in many other countries with this action.  Hitting the right buttons could very easily paralyze a nation, so long as one picked the correct topic and released information at a time when lots of people are looking to hit someone.  The immediate chaos of the reaction will focus the media less on the cause for the release of whatever information one is considering and instead focus on its results.  Allowing those behind it to use the chaos to mask their own activities.

Just some late night thinking.

[Cain]

These links on asymmetric warfare were posted on Dreaming5GW recently.

I've only read the first one (which is very good, espeically if you like map/reality metaphors) but it promises to be interesting.

http://marctyrrell.com/2008/08/13/notes-towards-a-theory-of-ac-1/
http://marctyrrell.com/2008/08/14/notes-towards-a-theory-of-asymmetric-conflict-part-2/
http://marctyrrell.com/2008/08/17/notes-towards-a-theory-of-asymmetric-conflict-part-3/

[Cain]

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/09/micro-alliances.html

Something of interest here, namely:

This shift towards economics and networks also means that small states on Russia's periphery now have a defensive trump card. They can inflict damage on Russia that far exceeds the potential economic benefits Russia receives. Any one of these nations could easily inflict tens of billions in damage to Russia's energy industry (which pays for much of the Russian government). IF these nations came together in a defensive alliance, its possible that Russian energy production could be halved and inflict damage that's counted in the trillions. Systempunkts for Russia include:

* Service relationships with energy trading partners (Europe and China). A way to evoke a diplomatic response from these countries (which, in contrast, were silent during the recent invasion of Georgia).
* The share price of Gazprom and Rosneft. Russian plans for economic expansion are tightly coupled to the share prices of these companies (downstream integration, etc.)
* Capital flows (drive the hot money and investment capital out of Russia). Recent ouflows from Russia during the Georgian campaign did more to halt the fighting than anything else.

Systems Disruption as Defense

Beneficially for these countries, the costs of maintaining a defensive posture that relies on systems disruption is nearly zero. There is no need to maintain a "toy army" or any defensive systems at all. In fact, it's likely preferable not to put up any fight at all during a Russian incursion to minimize damage/casualties. What is needed are small teams (given how may in these countries already speak Russian and can pass for Russian) that can disrupt pipelines, powerlines, etc., which are very inexpensive to maintain (another option is to purchase guest workers/criminals to do the job). Further, some of these countries have a well developed software industry and can generate cyberattacks on Russian corporate targets. Even better, these countries can invite anyone in the world offended by the Russian action, through sites that provide target lists/exploits and offensive software, to join in the attacks (bounties/rewards could be offered for exceptional attacks). In many cases, the returns on investment (ROIs) for these disruptions can top one million $ to one $.

NOTE: What isn't needed? Army, Air Force, Navy, NATO membership, missile defenses, etc.
------------------------------


In other words, criminals and software (dual use technology) may be far better options than emulating the militaries of greater powers.  Classic guerrilla warfare with a modern twist.  Cede land, don't attack their strengths and fight through weaker avenues. 

Georgia decided to take on the Russians where they were strongest (ie conventional military force) and got a beating for it.  The idiots in the Western press pushing for classical guerrilla war on the part of the Georgians, taken down so expertly by the War Nerd, are also advocating an avenue of attack where Russia has all the advantages.  Russia has a highly effective COIN strategy and no problems using torture, death squads etc and a mostly compliant media in their country would not report on it.

However, resources and electronic infrastructure are another issue entirely.  Even the infamous RBN do not have defensive measures which could match an attack by dedicated hacking groups.  As the attacks on Anonymous show, its far easier to DDoS a site than keep it running.

Edit: I do wonder though how 3D printers will change the potential for sabotage against industry, as a reaction to such a war.  Once manufacture is that decentralized, it may well be impossible to target the industral base of a country in response to warfare.  And what then?  Of course, not many countries since WWII have targeted such areas as part of an aggressive war, but in a defensive war, these would be valuable and worthy targets.  A shift to denying access to resources and using psychological warfare may be the only reasonable response.

[East Coast Hustle]

good read.

thanks for that.

[Cain]

Cross-posting from the Opensource O:MF thread:


In considering unnatural natural disasters, my primary focus, though unstated, was a consideration of the use of physical force: how could a 5GWarrior utilize physics to goad a target down a path, confuse a target, and ultimately create effects beneficial to the SecretWarrior's war on its target.  But each of the methods mentioned or implied has a weakness, since the creation of unnatural natural disasters, the application of terrorist acts, etc., are traceable.  Such acts have effects which are not only obvious — thus, may raise suspicion — but because they rely on the physical world, they allow the target to piece together physical evidence and, thus, they allow the target to build a clearer picture of the cause.  They allow the target to observe what is real even though a target may fail to do so and therefore may fail to properly piece together the physical patterns.

Framing a patsy or proxy may serve to confuse the target for a time; it might be an effective tactic, leading to a false puzzle as pieces of physical evidence are joined; but as already implied, the 5GWarrior may not want to depend so much on a patsy's complicity — and, physical evidence never lies, though a victim might fail to hear the truth.

How does a 5GW force initiate activity; or, put another way, how does a 5GW force influence its targets to take the steps toward self-destruction?  One way may be through some application of physical force, but a direct application risks discovery.  Framing a patsy risks discovery.  What if, however, another organization committed the act?  What if al Qaeda or some domestic terrorist organization could create the disaster the 5GWarrior wants to inflict (as a goad) on the target?  But then, how do you get that organization to do it?

One way might be a cross-framing, which is an old method: simultaneously commit acts against two parties who already hate each other, but make it look to each of them as if the other did it.  Done well, such a framing — or, multiple framings in quick succession — could lead to the escalation of conflict between the two parties, and once the conflict reaches a certain tempo, the original acts are nearly forgotten.  Cross-framing is a risky enterprise, however, because unless conflict escalates at a very quick rate, the target of 5GW may have time to observe the physical evidence of the terrorist acts.  For instance, 9/11 has been observed and studied, over and over, in the current GWoT; if al Qaeda had been framed — a favorite conspiracy theory — chances are good that we would have discovered this fact and tracked the evidence back to the actual perpetrators.  At the very least, we would be looking for those perpetrators.

What things are hardest to track? Answer: memes.

I think that it may only be fitting for 5GW to derive its difference, its evolutionary superiority, from the greater role of meme transference in our modern world; and that, in general, successive generations of war have developed as technologies and societies developed.  The quick media cycle has observable effects on policy and decision-making, and 5GWarriors will make full use of media.

    Dan tdaxp, quoting a song by VNV Nation:

    "Soundless:

    I'm saying nothing for the good of myself
    but I'm still talking and you're not listening"

Why are you not listening?  You are not listening, because you are already deciding, adding your voice to the chatter (if only mentally.)  Listening is a different function than hearing.  The 5GWarrior may still be talking, you may be hearing, but you are not listening.  Why?  Because you already agree or disagree with what is being said — I'm saying nothing for the good of myself.  The 5GWarrior is speaking so that you have an opportunity to agree or disagree; he is giving you the opportunity to take a position and, thus, is making you free.

In Effectors, I contemplated on one nature of the SecretWarrior: The SecretWarrior as Benefactor:

    No society is 100% homogenous, but the most influential members of the society (whether the society is a small group or a nation) are those who can promise the most benefit to the other members of society, whether the benefit is material in nature or psychological or social. To give an example: should a string of natural and not-so-natural disasters occur, those leaders, thinkers, and other members of a society who are able to mitigate or nullify the effects of those disasters are most likely to have the freest reins. They are certainly more likely to avoid suspicion — if, and only if, their efforts actually seem to lead, and ultimately do lead, to benefits.

A couple of successive comments on the Coming Anarchy thread point in a similar direction:

    arherring said:

    I agree that 5GW will be a networked organization, but I think the main weapon it will wield will be the idea of connectivity. I imagine it to be sort of viral, with each person in the organization being a vector to spread the idea be they a soldier, a diplomat, an engineer, or a relief worker.

    John Robb said:

    I'd like to offer an alternative to the above. What if GG's ignore the decision making of the government entirely (their entire OODA loop) and focus directly on the population/economy. This is the equivalent of turning the government's decision making loop into a tire in mud. You can work perfectly, but it can't get any traction.

A 5GWarrior may indeed focus on the population and may suggest methods of connecting, by offering new methods to arouse agreement or disagreement — depending on the effect he wants.  How direct will the offering be?  We certainly cannot discount the possibility of a messianic politician, celebrity, or religious figure for a 5GWarrior — nor, some powerful celebrity scoundrel, who offers the negative to reinforce our positive.  But there may be other ways to do it:  a new book is published, a new movie made, a new pop song is created, which strikes the right chord and influences large numbers of people; then, the SecretWarrior is not seen, because that actor is thought to be some member of the intelligentsia or is an artiste just doing his thing, and the new idea introduced is just "an idea whose time has come."

The 5GWarrior may operate in relative isolation, as well, as some adviser to a politician or business mogul, as a ghost writer, or as a friend or inspiration to an artist, who whispers in the ear of (media) power. This may be the most effective form.  Certainly, this will be the least traceable form.  He might be the friend of the adviser; there could be networks spanning across many fields.

Thinking of John Robb's implication in Emergent Intelligence (but also my follow-up conceptualization) that individual members of an emergent system may not even know they are members of that system — they are focused on local effects and activities, but their activities lead to the large-scale emergence — leads me to wonder if whispers in the ear might be tracked back to 5GW operatives by individuals. Those who have heard the whispers may later be able to know and remember who whispered, but because they are not fully aware of the total emergence in advance, they can't put 2 and 2 together until it's much too late to do any good.  But on the other hand...

...the 5GW network will use physical force in a way that is not traceable to the 5GW network, because others will choose to be the actors.  The patsies have chosen to be patsies, but they think they are doing their own work.  What happens when you introduce the idea of "a clash of civilizations," in the right way to the right people?  For instance.  [Not that this is actually what happened.]  So this 5GW theory is not mere politics, diplomacy, business, or punditry.  Actual force, and particularly the reaction to force, are methods utilized by 5GW actors.

The 5GW force, in order to be effective, will look for emergence in advance, and will create the memes that will lead to the desired emergence. "Emergence in advance" is potential, unformed, no-form.   In order to be effective, the 5GW force will highlight inequalities and insufficiencies which are already present although perhaps largely ignored; they will be market creators:

    A more powerful reason that innovation is related to market shaping goes back to the military idea of the initiative. Companies take the initiative in the marketplace by offering a stream of new products and services. Where do new products and services come from? The only answer possible, discounting elves and gamma rays, is through the initiative of the people who work for and with the organization. A market creator uses the almost symbiotic relationship all of its people have with its customers to generate ideas for new features or capabilities or whatever. Stalk and Hout were dead on, when in the middle of describing how agile companies become entwined with their customers, they observed that "Sometimes it's difficult to know who's leading whom." [ed. — emphasis added.]

    [Chet Richards, Riding the Tiger]

The Tao also describes the phenomenon, when describing the best leaders:

    Hesitant, he does not utter words lightly.
    When his task is accomplished and his work done
    The people all say, 'It happened to us naturally.'

    [last lines of #17, cited in Effectors]

Dan tdaxp, quoting himself in an earlier entry:

    Formless:

    In contrast to "hearts and minds," 5GW focuses on the enemy's "fingertips and gut." "Fingertip feeling," what the Germans called fingerspitzengefuhl, is the ability to know without thinking. This is what Americans call "gut feeling." To a certain extent, it means a commander trusting his intuition. It is critical in 5GW because fingertip feelings, or "hunches," will be the only way for the enemy to sense the fighter.

I think, however, that the target will not sense the fighter for a slightly different reason.  The 5GWarrior does not subvert fingertip-feeling or confuse it.  He utilizes it.  The target has a true fingertip-feeling, but he is put in the position of having that particular hunch by the 5GWarrior. Part of the positioning is the introduction of data which then causes a "click" in the psyche of the target.  The data can be a meme, and so influence rather directly; or, the data can be a physical manifestation of power created by the person who has been influenced by a meme.   Such data can play into ignorances, biases, and bigotries, much in the same way that the introduction of a new product on the market can play into insecurities, fetishes, and hungers.  Hunches are sometimes proved wrong — too late.  (So when I say, true fingertip-feeling, I'm relying on this aspect of hunches.)  In order to influence the largest number of people however, the data must be true if partial.  Its partiality may serve to confuse in a larger system, and debate may then paralyze the target; but it is certainly true from some perspective, or the debate would be resolved rather quickly.  Ideology and religion are powerful tools of the 5GWarrior, but the trappings of science may also serve the fighter. Once these things have "taken hold" of a society, tracing them back to the origin is nearly impossible.

So, then, how could a hidden 5GW force defeat a fuzzy 4GW force?  Influence it to fight another force, one it already despises  — and, preferably, one it cannot defeat.  Or, introduce dispute within it, of the sort that would paralyze its activities, create massive amounts of in-fighting.  Or, befriend it; give it real accomplishments (perhaps by surreptitiously influencing other parties who can give them these) which, nonetheless, lead to final outcomes quite different than it originally intended. Because a 4GW force tends to be decentralized, dependent on local actors and local activities, focus on influencing them. Do not try to destroy the 4GW force; focus on changing it.


5GW: No Gods, but Men.  And Women.  And Others.

    Structure is so intimately bound up with strategy that it is difficult to imagine how one could make any lasting change in an organization's behavior without first making equally profound changes in its systems.

    [Chet Richards, Riding the Tiger]

I think that, unlike 4GW networks, 5GW networks will not tend toward emergence but will consciously utilize emergence.  They will not focus on local activity and a repetition of tactics on local scales hoping for an emergence of Victory!, nor will the masterminds simply deliver grand objectives to focus their low-level warriors on those local tasks.  Because the direct application of force will rarely be a tactic used by 5GW operatives and psychological manipulation will be a primary role, each operative will be required to be a mastermind of sorts.  Secrecy will require less communication with the actual mastermind if such a person exists, although networks of communication might be established between operatives which will be the typical communications networks for the positions they have secured.  If low-level operatives are utilized, they will not realize they are being utilized, or at the very least they will not be aware of the 5GW organization.

Similarly, close-knit cells may or may not exist in 5GW networks, since quite possibly each 5GW operative will be assigned one person to influence, and operatives may be spread far apart.  Such cells may form eventually as centers of power are created; but as this occurs, the cells will become dormant for a time or at least the operatives within them will be much less active.  (If they act, they risk the discovery of the entire network.)  Whatever nodes are created, in the form of close-knit cells, may be abandoned after a certain objective is achieved; i.e., these nodes may be receptors of information which will be used by other operatives in other places.  Operatives in these cells will no longer work on manipulation, but will provide the information for those in other places who do manipulate.  However, individual operatives may be assigned to individual targets within a single organization to better gain influence within that organization — they are essentially operating alone, however, on individual targets.  (Each strategy of manipulation is highly dependent on the character, intelligence, and history of the target.)

Unlike 4GW networks and the organizations of other types of military organizations, 5GWarriors will utilize 4GW, 3GW, etc., forces to accomplish their goals, as well as financial organizations, NGO's, artists, journalists and celebrities.  This might not necessarily be an attempt at destruction of any of these other entities, since the 5GW network might actually benefit from the ascension of another force.

The strategy of a 5GW force, in utilizing emergence, is the shaping of new paradigms which will shape the geo-economic-social-political framework. The only theater of operation is global; and the only goal is global domination.  But most people will not realize that they have been dominated.

[Cain]

This may also be of interest.  Its a segment from William Gibson's Pattern Recognition which Weeks mentioned, and which I read most of last night:



    [Bigend] "This business of ours is narrowing. Like many others. There will be fewer genuine players. It's no longer enough to simply look the part and cultivate an attitude."

    Cayce has imagined something like this herself, and indeed has been wondering whether she's likely to make it through the narrowing, into whatever waits on the other side.

    "You're smart enough," he says. "You can't doubt it."

    She'll take a page from his book, then. Caltrop time. "Why are you rebranding the world's second-largest manufacturer of athletic shoes? Was it your idea or theirs?"

    "I don't work that way. The client and I engage in a dialogue. A path emerges. It isn't about the imposition of creative will." He's looking at her very seriously now, and to her embarrassment she feels herself shiver. She hopes he didn't notice. If Bigend can convince himself that he doesn't impose his will on others, he must be capable of convincing himself of anything. "It's about contingency. I help the client go where things are already going. Do you want to know the most interesting thing about Dorotea?"

    "What?"

    "She once worked for a very specialized consultancy, in Paris. Founded by a retired and very senior French intelligence type who'd done a lot of that sort of work on his government's behalf, in Germany and the United States."

    "She's ... a spy?"

    " 'Industrial espionage,' though that's sounding increasingly archaic, isn't it? I suppose she may still know whom to call, to have certain things done, but I wouldn't call her a spy. What interested me, though, was how that business seemed in some ways to be the inverse of ours."

    "Of advertising?"

    "Yes. I want to make the public aware of something they don't quite yet know that they know — or have them feel that way. Because they'll move on that, do you understand? They'll think they've thought of it first. It's about transferring information, but at the same time about a certain lack of specificity."

[Cain]

Just an FYI.

I'm going to be collecting most articles on the net concerning 5GW and putting them into a single text file.  I also intend to eventually edit that text file down, to try and identify core principles and themes.

I will upload both, if people are interested.  The first one, the major articles, is already at 350+ pages and that is collecting from one site (admittedly one of the best).  But while it is long, it is also comprehensive, and that may tide those who are interested over while I try and edit down the smaller principles of 5GW paper.