This is the thread where I'll be posting links, thoughts, downloads and outlines of what I consider as a useful model towards helping solving a current problem - the framework of 5th Generation Warfare.
The biggest 'problem' of our current imes is power asymmetry - in short, our "leaders" are becoming less empowered while everyday human beings can access more information and power than ever before.
Let's take a moment to savor the flavor of Newspeak here -- "Asymmetrical Warfare" is actually the most "symmetrical" form of warfare that's ever existed, because it puts small dedicated groups of insurgents on equal footing with any military on earth. It is actually the restoration of power balance in human culture, and these birth pangs of the Kali Yuga are the sign of something better on the horizon.
The Patriot Post (http://patriotpost.us/papers/05-10_paper.asp) breaks down 5th Generation warfare as thus:
QuoteA. The technological advances represented by the Internet;
B. Scalability of impact;
C. Information as an empowering and leveling force;
D. The media as an independent organ that is stronger, more pervasive, and more independent than ever before;
E. Borders no longer impede data flow.
This convergence is neither neat nor simple, precisely because it is a multiplicity of converging factors. Calling 5GW "Information Operations" is an extreme oversimplification, because that is merely one aspect. With the exception of the Internet, these contributories are capable of historical reduction. The Internet of today can be likened to the Guttenberg printing press in the 15th Century in terms of its revolutionary.aspect for dissemination, though it is exponentially more powerful. The aspects of scalability and the decreased effectiveness of borders are absorbed into the uniqueness of this technology.
Regarding scalability, this is a factor of immense importance. At no other time in human history has it been possible for one person to destroy the functional productivity of a world economy with the push of a button; however, the "love bug" virus did precisely that, for approximately a week, before being eradicated. One programmer unleashed literally billions of dollars of damage to business across the world; however, the damage was widespread and unfocused. A small team of cyber warriors could no-doubt create incredible damage, yet limit the scope and spread of the damage with proper tools.
World-wide, the media has expanded and become independent. The mere fact of publication in a particular country no longer means that that particular nation endorses the contents. This is especially true with television and the Internet. Censorship is increasingly difficult to effect. Indeed, when media personalities seek to destroy or create political realities through sheer fabrication (Dan Rather's fraudulent documents come to mind), or the inappropriate release of national sensitive data (e.g., Geraldo Rivera), we enter a dangerous Brave New World.
The Strategist (http://www.thestrategist.org/archives/2006/06/the_architect_o.html) goes further, defining 5th Gen as:
Quotethe use of "all means whatsoever – means that involve the force of arms and means that do not involve the force of arms, means that involve military power and means that do not involve military power, means that entail casualties, and means that do not entail casualties – to force the enemy to serve one's own interest."(5) It includes the appearance of super-empowered individuals and groups with access to modern knowledge, technology, and means to conduct asymmetric attacks in furtherance of their individual and group interests. Arguably, its first identifiable manifestations occurred in the United States during the anthrax attacks of 2001 and the ricin attacks of 2004. Both sets of attacks required specialized knowledge, included attacks upon federal government offices and facilities, succeeded in disrupting governmental processes, and created widespread fear in the public. To date, no individual or group has claimed responsibility for either attack, and neither attack has been solved. The attacks were quite successful in disrupting government processes and creating public fear but, thus far, their motivation remains unknown.
Its a complex and still developing field. But I intend to try and get onto the cutting edge of this, and find out how useful it really is as a model, and what solutions and inspiration it can provide for modern day issues.
Now THIS is some fascinating stuff. While there have been hints and beginnings of this sort of thing (Vietnam showing small groups overcoming a large military machine, Iraq showing small cells disrupting and influencing military strategies), the full force of this is still only just beginning.
I think the most important thing at this stage of development is to ensure the free flow of information. Net neutrality or anything else that disrupts that flow (such as the Chinese blocked sites - working hand in hand with the large internet engines) is probably the biggest obstacle to overcome at this point. I think the best bet is to have a multi-tiered system of information sites. One level operating completely "underground", separate from most websites/servers, linked rarely if at all with limited access. Another level operating as a more publicly accessible, yet low-traffic/profile webspace - something viewable if you look for it for a bit, open to the public but only hinting at the details and plans involved in the purely "underground" repository. The third level a publicly accessible meeting-point, innocuous on the surface, that functions as a clearing-house and public (yet semi-anonymous) meeting area for any interested (pro or con) parties, that operates within whatever legal structures are necessary.
The Islamic jihadist extremists have been developing this sort of multi-tiered information flow for a few years now, so the model seems to be viable, protecting identity while still allowing the dissemination of plans/propaganda/etc. It seems to be the best current model to organize a wide-spread small-cell resistance movement, and is definitely worth looking into for adaptation.
Once information-dissemination is dealt with, how the group is organized is probably the next largest stumbling block. The proportion of organization to independent planning/action is key, IMO. Small, loosely (if at all) connected cells that are capable of independent action yet still coordinated via a central point (whether committee, group or individual) is probably the best bet, but achieving the right balance is key. Too much central control denies cells independent action, too little and the overall movement loses focus when acting towards a goal. Again, the many systems of Islamic jihad are showing some ways that balance is being achieved, with the mullah guiding the overall focus of the group, while giving individual cells the freedom to carry out actions that fit the overall goals of the particular movement. There are many lessons to be learned from what groups gain power and what groups lose it.
This is just off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts - I'm definitely interested in whatever you run across regarding this Cain. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread no doubt.
Had a few questions / rumiantions form the get go on this, while I'm reading the links:
What kind of schedule does this concept deal with?
I'd guess it suppsoes working on a one month – several years timeframe as far as going from internet and information to any act. (employment of the substance / device / technique described in a significant manner.)
Examples and a bit of reasoning seemed to point to this. Any shorter term the information is rendered useless by the preparation and training required. (ex: learning grappling from a book, but never having the conditioning or training to use it.)
Also, thought it was intersting to look at this in light of restriction of personal freedoms.
Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2008, 02:26:28 PM
Arguably, its first identifiable manifestations occurred in the United States during the anthrax attacks of 2001 and the ricin attacks of 2004.
[/quote]
Hrmmm, I think I disagree with this. Both Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh (also Terry Nichols), seem to fit the definition. Kaczynski alone, would move 5th Gen warfare back to the 1970's... and I would say that he caused as much (if not more) panic over decades of attacks, as opposed to the Anthrax and Ricen that sorta died out shortly after the attacks.
Thoughts?
TOG:
Information freedom is absolutely essential yes. I mentioned this in my post on networked warfare http://blackironprison.com/index.php?title=Netwar#Speed but it should be made explicit, yes. Multiple, redundant channels of shared information FTW.
The rest of the article also touches on organizational capacity, as it relates to netwar.
Richter:
QuoteWhat kind of schedule does this concept deal with?
In terms of an emerging paradigm, this is pretty much what is just starting to be talked about in depth right now. As things stand, internationally, its probably the next stage of conflict. Right now many people consider the War on Terror to be a version of Fourth Generation warfare - as William Lind defines it, at least. Unless you are talking about something else, of course.
QuoteI'd guess it suppsoes working on a one month – several years timeframe as far as going from internet and information to any act.
Actually, one of the principles of all modern warfare is to act more quickly and efficiently - within the enemy OODA loop. I'm going to write something on this in a bit, but part of the logic behind decentralization is so that localized groups can take advantage of new and emerging situations more rapidly.
Of course, if you are fighting an undeclared, secret war or using a sneak attack to cripple a nation, you have time to play with. But on the tactical level, it is meant to be very swift.
QuoteExamples and a bit of reasoning seemed to point to this. Any shorter term the information is rendered useless by the preparation and training required.
True. Of course, another principle of 5th Gen is anything is a weapon when used right. The idea is to use things that are already known about, but in novel and unexpected ways in order to wage one's war. Chances are very little specialized knowledge, and thus preparation or training would be required, beyond a certain level.
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 09, 2008, 05:10:00 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2008, 02:26:28 PM
Arguably, its first identifiable manifestations occurred in the United States during the anthrax attacks of 2001 and the ricin attacks of 2004.
Hrmmm, I think I disagree with this. Both Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh (also Terry Nichols), seem to fit the definition. Kaczynski alone, would move 5th Gen warfare back to the 1970's... and I would say that he caused as much (if not more) panic over decades of attacks, as opposed to the Anthrax and Ricen that sorta died out shortly after the attacks.
Thoughts?
I'm not sure. I think you have a point, but equally the anthrax attacks were more disruptive to the function of government, whereas the Unabomber seemed to fall under the rubric of traditional terrorism in his targets and aims. He went for symbolic targets and representative enemies, mostly. The main function of the anthrax was to cause problems in the running of the country and waste time and resources during a period of high concern and panic, which I think is the main difference.
Again with McVeigh, he was trying to create a foci of a traditional uprising, much in the vein of Che's views on warfare. Which seems to be more 4th Gen than 5th (going by John Robb).
The Unabomber had the potential to be, but never followed through. As far as I can see.
Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2008, 05:24:05 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 09, 2008, 05:10:00 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2008, 02:26:28 PM
Arguably, its first identifiable manifestations occurred in the United States during the anthrax attacks of 2001 and the ricin attacks of 2004.
Hrmmm, I think I disagree with this. Both Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh (also Terry Nichols), seem to fit the definition. Kaczynski alone, would move 5th Gen warfare back to the 1970's... and I would say that he caused as much (if not more) panic over decades of attacks, as opposed to the Anthrax and Ricen that sorta died out shortly after the attacks.
Thoughts?
I'm not sure. I think you have a point, but equally the anthrax attacks were more disruptive to the function of government, whereas the Unabomber seemed to fall under the rubric of traditional terrorism in his targets and aims. He went for symbolic targets and representative enemies, mostly. The main function of the anthrax was to cause problems in the running of the country and waste time and resources during a period of high concern and panic, which I think is the main difference.
Again with McVeigh, he was trying to create a foci of a traditional uprising, much in the vein of Che's views on warfare. Which seems to be more 4th Gen than 5th (going by John Robb).
The Unabomber had the potential to be, but never followed through. As far as I can see.
Excellent points... maybe they are 4.2 Gen Warfare ;-)
Yeah, they're definitely precursors, and edging in on it...but I'd be hesistant to put them in the same category.
Of course, 5th Gen is a very fluid term at the moment anyway, and its definition is hotly contested. But from my current understanding of the term, they don't precisely fit the bill.
Incidentally, if you want an example of what McVeigh was trying working, look at the Golden Mosque bombing in Iraq. The problem was he was all torqued up on reading the Turner Diaries and hanging out with the Patriots and thought he could kick-start a civil war. He read the social fault lines incorrectly, and the Christian Identity/Militias were not committed to anything beyond occasional standoffs with the FBI and murdering a lone Jew/Gay/foreigner/liberal when the chance presented itself.
Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2008, 05:20:27 PM
QuoteExamples and a bit of reasoning seemed to point to this. Any shorter term the information is rendered useless by the preparation and training required.
True. Of course, another principle of 5th Gen is anything is a weapon when used right. The idea is to use things that are already known about, but in novel and unexpected ways in order to wage one's war. Chances are very little specialized knowledge, and thus preparation or training would be required, beyond a certain level.
Thanks, this clarifies a good bit of my immediate application vs. delayed application questions.
So we're basically looking at tactical effectivenes being enhanced for any group which can quickly and acurately acquire, comprehend and apply vast ammounts of data?
TOG was apt to say that freedom of information is key for this.
Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2008, 05:54:03 PM
Yeah, they're definitely precursors, and edging in on it...but I'd be hesistant to put them in the same category.
Of course, 5th Gen is a very fluid term at the moment anyway, and its definition is hotly contested. But from my current understanding of the term, they don't precisely fit the bill.
Incidentally, if you want an example of what McVeigh was trying working, look at the Golden Mosque bombing in Iraq. The problem was he was all torqued up on reading the Turner Diaries and hanging out with the Patriots and thought he could kick-start a civil war. He read the social fault lines incorrectly, and the Christian Identity/Militias were not committed to anything beyond occasional standoffs with the FBI and murdering a lone Jew/Gay/foreigner/liberal when the chance presented itself.
Yeah, I guess that's what I was thinking when I mentioned him as a 5th gen possibility. I think we could consider him an Independent Actor conducting an asymmetric attack to further his and (what he thought were) other groups goals, same for Ted... though neither successfully interrupted the government for any meaningful period of time... the methods seemed to be similar. Sorta like the lines between First/Second/Third gen warfare... In the Sling and the Stone, the author discussed how every new form of warfare starts to appear in the previous war. So we see some of the 2nd gen warfare, in Germany's final plays during WWI, then those come out in full force during WWII.
So maybe McVeigh and Teddy were indeed precursors... people who figured out the medium, but not the strategy?
Of course, just as with previous wars (again according to Hammes) we usually could predict the next form of warfare, if we were observant enough to see the trend from earlier. So then, the US could have taken the two we mentioned, plus the first attempt on WTC... and, at least, made a guess that future conflict might focus heavily on non-traditional warfare. Instead we built a Missile Defense system and worked on "Nucular" Hand Grenades... ;-)
Quote from: Richter on June 09, 2008, 05:57:39 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2008, 05:20:27 PM
QuoteExamples and a bit of reasoning seemed to point to this. Any shorter term the information is rendered useless by the preparation and training required.
True. Of course, another principle of 5th Gen is anything is a weapon when used right. The idea is to use things that are already known about, but in novel and unexpected ways in order to wage one's war. Chances are very little specialized knowledge, and thus preparation or training would be required, beyond a certain level.
Thanks, this clarifies a good bit of my immediate application vs. delayed application questions.
So we're basically looking at tactical effectivenes being enhanced for any group which can quickly and acurately acquire, comprehend and apply vast ammounts of data?
TOG was apt to say that freedom of information is key for this.
Yeah, I don't know if TOG is heavily into the literature or just smart as hell, but either way he was dead on the money.
Rata: indeed. Often you see the innovations coming beforehand, because...well, Black Swan theory suggests such innovations are caused by experimentation and luck. With a sufficient social and technological gap between any given conflicts, the more conflict there is, the chance of a new system evolving approaches one, so long as people are innovating.
And yes, US government spending is one reason so many in the military are worried. China and Russia, who these systems are aimed at, are light years behind the US, and not currently a threat. Meanwhile, the people who are a thread cannot be conventionally deterred. They're trying to fight the last war.
In what we're thusfar calling 5th Gen. Warfare, it really is the lynchpin.
(Doesn't matter how much you can accomplish with a pass through a grocery store and some guts if you don't know WHAT to do.)
The only other factor I can see being readily and actively quashed is will / morale.
(Doesn't matter WHAT you know how to do without the guts to go out and do it. (Now THERE's an idea to take to heart...))
We're definitely in transition between 4th and 5th generation, highlighted by the examples in here - the Anthrax attacks being a more 5th gen, the Iraqi cells more 4th gen (as they're organized on a more structured, classic resistance-movement/terrorist framework), the Russian cyber-attacks on Estonia being one of the first manifestations of governmental 5th gen warfare from what I would call it.
Infrastructure attack has long been a pillar of warfare, from destroying bridges and supply-lines to burning crops to bombing factories. The 5th gen seems to me to take minimal initial stimulus (IE an envelope of a powdery substance, or a program that attacks another country's internet system) and uses publicly available information (a Senator's address, the IPs of the Estonian government) to get maximum results in the standard infrastructure attack tactic. It's the methodology as well as the target that makes the distinction from previous generations from what I can see. Chaos theory as tactical approach. Is that accurate or am I missing a bit?
I'm actually not really into the literature - I just think about all of this, see what works and what doesn't, and extrapolate forward. I've long been fascinated with small-cell resistance groups and their effectiveness (or lack thereof), and the internet has really vastly expanded the possibilities. I saw the precursor of some of this with the Anarchist's Cookbook back in the BBS days, and I've been keeping an eye on how the Islamic Jihadists are organizing via the web. That definitely looks to be the methodology that has the highest chance of being able to exploit the weaknesses of a large-scale military force, that which is most likely to act as the oppressor/aggressor and thus is most in need of viable resistance.
Without the ability to rapidly if not instantaneously exchange information (text messaging is HUGE for this as well and a code system can easily circumvent monitoring), none of the coordination necessary to exploit the weaknesses of the military (bureaucratic structure, hard-written response tactics, little room for improvisation of tactics quickly as orders must follow chain of command, large group size) are possible - the weaknesses are limited in duration and unless there is rapid, fluid coordination of information via whatever sources those weaknesses cannot be exploited.
Free information also allows for propaganda distribution - which helps with the will/morale factor, in either direction (increasing or decreasing). With no limitations on what information can be spread, it becomes MUCH easier for any group to spread its message/agenda/propaganda - it then falls on that group to exploit the medium(s) to spread it effectively. With control over the flow of information, such as in China, it becomes MUCH more difficult to spread information contrary to what those in power (defined as those coordinating/restricting information flow) want spread - it forces anyone that disagrees to lose the advantages that come with fast dissemination - anonymity and non-locality of both message and messenger.
Thus, 5th gen warfare - at least as far as those opposing the "powers" goes - needs that free-flowing channel of information exchange. Hell, the "powers" need it too, but as they control (theoretically) the flow of information, that makes it (again, theoretically) much easier for them to place restrictions on that flow without inhibiting their own channels. Ideally, 5th gen warfare is best won by allowing your enemy as little information-flow as possible while still retaining maximal information flow for your side. Thus the wiretapping, eavesdropping, etc. laws in the U.S., the Chinese internet restrictions (the govt there can see everything, can't they?), the U.S. prosecution of internet sites based on where they're physically hosted, etc.
Quote from: That One Guy on June 09, 2008, 06:41:29 PM
We're definitely in transition between 4th and 5th generation, highlighted by the examples in here - the Anthrax attacks being a more 5th gen, the Iraqi cells more 4th gen (as they're organized on a more structured, classic resistance-movement/terrorist framework), the Russian cyber-attacks on Estonia being one of the first manifestations of governmental 5th gen warfare from what I would call it.
Infrastructure attack has long been a pillar of warfare, from destroying bridges and supply-lines to burning crops to bombing factories. The 5th gen seems to me to take minimal initial stimulus (IE an envelope of a powdery substance, or a program that attacks another country's internet system) and uses publicly available information (a Senator's address, the IPs of the Estonian government) to get maximum results in the standard infrastructure attack tactic. It's the methodology as well as the target that makes the distinction from previous generations from what I can see. Chaos theory as tactical approach. Is that accurate or am I missing a bit?
I'm actually not really into the literature - I just think about all of this, see what works and what doesn't, and extrapolate forward. I've long been fascinated with small-cell resistance groups and their effectiveness (or lack thereof), and the internet has really vastly expanded the possibilities. I saw the precursor of some of this with the Anarchist's Cookbook back in the BBS days, and I've been keeping an eye on how the Islamic Jihadists are organizing via the web. That definitely looks to be the methodology that has the highest chance of being able to exploit the weaknesses of a large-scale military force, that which is most likely to act as the oppressor/aggressor and thus is most in need of viable resistance.
Without the ability to rapidly if not instantaneously exchange information (text messaging is HUGE for this as well and a code system can easily circumvent monitoring), none of the coordination necessary to exploit the weaknesses of the military (bureaucratic structure, hard-written response tactics, little room for improvisation of tactics quickly as orders must follow chain of command, large group size) are possible - the weaknesses are limited in duration and unless there is rapid, fluid coordination of information via whatever sources those weaknesses cannot be exploited.
Free information also allows for propaganda distribution - which helps with the will/morale factor, in either direction (increasing or decreasing). With no limitations on what information can be spread, it becomes MUCH easier for any group to spread its message/agenda/propaganda - it then falls on that group to exploit the medium(s) to spread it effectively. With control over the flow of information, such as in China, it becomes MUCH more difficult to spread information contrary to what those in power (defined as those coordinating/restricting information flow) want spread - it forces anyone that disagrees to lose the advantages that come with fast dissemination - anonymity and non-locality of both message and messenger.
Thus, 5th gen warfare - at least as far as those opposing the "powers" goes - needs that free-flowing channel of information exchange. Hell, the "powers" need it too, but as they control (theoretically) the flow of information, that makes it (again, theoretically) much easier for them to place restrictions on that flow without inhibiting their own channels. Ideally, 5th gen warfare is best won by allowing your enemy as little information-flow as possible while still retaining maximal information flow for your side. Thus the wiretapping, eavesdropping, etc. laws in the U.S., the Chinese internet restrictions (the govt there can see everything, can't they?), the U.S. prosecution of internet sites based on where they're physically hosted, etc.
I'll also be interested in seeing how this pans out once the US and interested parties high tail it out of Iraq. Both the Sunni and Shia have been using 5th gen techniques against a larger power, but what happens when they leverage that against one another? Can 5th gen fight 5th gen, or will something else develop when dealing with war between multiple non-national groups?
I think they're likely to adapt the 5th gen warfare from the large-group-enemy to the small-cell-enemy. The same tactics are necessary for both, probably more so when going against a similar force. Admittedly, the specific actions will be different but the methodology - fast response to quickly changing environment/stimuli/events - is unchanged.
Rather than coordinating an attack on a battalion of soldiers, you're coordinating an attack against a rival cell's safe-house. Fast access to information is probably MORE crucial since the other side can change more rapidly, necessitating a fast response that can be instantly adjusted if new information is available.
I'd argue that the conflict of large-scale military (using 4th gen tactics/approaches) will evolve into the small-cell model when 5th gen takes over as the predominant form of warfare. We're actually seeing this already - small strike forces with only the vaguest of mission objectives that have access to vast quantities of tactical information (real-time maps, HUDs, etc.) that allow a smaller, more mobile group to acomplish a given objective. With the advances in technology giving greater firepower in smaller packages, the large-scale warfare we're still seeing in Iraq won't last to the next large-scale conflict, especially after people on all levels have witnessed the effectiveness of small-cell warfare against a large-scale force (due in no small part to the free flow of information in the Iraqi conflict).
Quote from: That One Guy on June 09, 2008, 07:15:34 PM
I think they're likely to adapt the 5th gen warfare from the large-group-enemy to the small-cell-enemy. The same tactics are necessary for both, probably more so when going against a similar force. Admittedly, the specific actions will be different but the methodology - fast response to quickly changing environment/stimuli/events - is unchanged.
Rather than coordinating an attack on a battalion of soldiers, you're coordinating an attack against a rival cell's safe-house. Fast access to information is probably MORE crucial since the other side can change more rapidly, necessitating a fast response that can be instantly adjusted if new information is available.
I'd argue that the conflict of large-scale military (using 4th gen tactics/approaches) will evolve into the small-cell model when 5th gen takes over as the predominant form of warfare. We're actually seeing this already - small strike forces with only the vaguest of mission objectives that have access to vast quantities of tactical information (real-time maps, HUDs, etc.) that allow a smaller, more mobile group to acomplish a given objective. With the advances in technology giving greater firepower in smaller packages, the large-scale warfare we're still seeing in Iraq won't last to the next large-scale conflict, especially after people on all levels have witnessed the effectiveness of small-cell warfare against a large-scale force (due in no small part to the free flow of information in the Iraqi conflict).
I agree.
Brilliant Post.
One thing I wanted to clarify after reading all that again to make sure it made sense - when I said I'm not really into the literature about this stuff, that could potentially be misinterpreted. What I meant was that I haven't delved very much into the formal discussion of this topic, I've just kept an eye on weapons technology, resistance movements, socio-economic planning, guerilla warfare, propaganda, and tons of other things. I'm fascinated by 20th century warfare and how it both fueled and was fueled by the massive technological advances of the past 100-odd years.
If there's any literature regarding this I'd be VERY interested in checking it out. If nothing else I can see how my own observations mesh with others and see what I need to reevaluate.
All this in this thread is sort of off the top of my head, but it's mostly because this general topic is one that definitely interests me and I've been thinking about this sort of thing for a long time. It's fascinating to see how the internet age is affecting things - the comparison to Guttenberg is definitely apt. We're still seeing new uses and potentials all the time, too - not just in warfare but in art (viral marketing, laser graffiti that can take web-submissions) and culture (LEAVE BRITTNEY ALONE!). We haven't even begun to see the boundaries yet, let alone push them.
Also, I wanted to make sure this part of things
Quote from: RichterAlso, thought it was intersting to look at this in light of restriction of personal freedoms.
doesn't get lost in the discussion, both the warfare-specific aspect and the broader far-reaching aspects, as it raises excellent questions with both.
Quote from: That One Guy on June 09, 2008, 11:54:46 PM
Also, I wanted to make sure this part of things
Quote from: RichterAlso, thought it was intersting to look at this in light of restriction of personal freedoms.
doesn't get lost in the discussion, both the warfare-specific aspect and the broader far-reaching aspects, as it raises excellent questions with both.
I'm just going to air my thought pattern on this:
A populace with both will and unlimited info access, by what we're calling 5th Gen. methods, can become a solid force given enough time and talent, as long as an information source (internet) is present.
Civilian freedom to travel and easily access materials and tools (A whole separate section) enhances this capability (time frame and result wise).
Limiting personal freedoms can't totally block out 5th gen. possibility, but it will slow it down, making these things harder to access.
Consider at the same time that you could be encouraging people to be good sheep with the impulse to cower over running and fighting...
Just makes me think, anyways. If anyone can read Engineering, Tactics, and Special Operations manuals, how do you stop them from using it?
Functionally, what is the difference between a super-empowered individual and the more traditional small-cell based guerillas?
And secondly, why the heck has nobody shelled Washington yet? The information is available and the NSA can't possibly be watching every spot within mortar distance of Congress (and if they are, then just build a bigger and longer range mortar.)
Conflating two concepts:
Ideally, a 5th Gen attack would be in areas that live in Extremistan (Black Swan concept)?
That is, a single event that would have an out-of-proportion effect.
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on June 10, 2008, 05:28:30 AM
Functionally, what is the difference between a super-empowered individual and the more traditional small-cell based guerillas?
I think the biggest functional difference is that a super-empowered individual is a self-contained unit, capable of independent action based off accessible information, whereas a cell-based guerilla group relies on the group both for methodology and target. Either are essentially the same as far as how they would use information to attack/defend/whatever, it's just the organizational structure they use to implement the information that is different.
Quote from: LMNO on June 10, 2008, 04:52:22 PM
Conflating two concepts:
Ideally, a 5th Gen attack would be in areas that live in Extremistan (Black Swan concept)?
That is, a single event that would have an out-of-proportion effect.
From the terrorist/disruption aspect, yes. The best targets are those that have the Extremistan aspects in order to get the largest impact via the least initial stimulus. That doesn't mean that an Extremistan environment is needed - just that it makes things easier to impact.
However, 5th gen also applies to the military. When the Iraq war was still being built up, one of the selling points was that we wouldn't be using lots of troops on the ground - we'd be using our technological/informational advantage to give the "Next Generation of Warfare" a shot. Soldiers with HUD displays getting real-time satellite images on laptops of the target locations, remote drones, etc. that would be able to do the same functions as 2 or 3 times as many soldiers would have done in previous wars (which ties in with the 5th gen concepts). To an extent, that DID happen, but the reality of post-overthrow occupation necessitated a massive number of "boots on the ground" and 4th gen tactics when organizing/supplying/etc. those troops.
5th gen, from what I've seen, isn't necessarily about WHAT is being attacked or defended, but HOW it is attacked/defended. Anything is a target, anything is a weapon, and anyone can combine the two if they have the information. This seems to me to be the essential difference between 4th and 5th gen warfare, but as the terms and definitions are still being debated, that could be a different assessment from the more formal studies of this.
It seems like the guerilla tactics learned in Vietnam and in various resistance movements throughout history are being adapted to larger-scale conflicts due to technological advances, in that small groups are becoming the norm rather than the exception (the scouting platoon is now the WHOLE of the attack rather than a precursor) and are more apt to utilize any available means to accomplish and coordinate whatever task they're taking on. Essentially, the entirety of conflict is moving towards small-scale, intense battles that can be carried out wherever they are needed to be done RIGHT NOW, based off available information.
Quote from: That One Guy on June 10, 2008, 05:34:27 PM
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on June 10, 2008, 05:28:30 AM
Functionally, what is the difference between a super-empowered individual and the more traditional small-cell based guerillas?
I think the biggest functional difference is that a super-empowered individual is a self-contained unit, capable of independent action based off accessible information, whereas a cell-based guerilla group relies on the group both for methodology and target. Either are essentially the same as far as how they would use information to attack/defend/whatever, it's just the organizational structure they use to implement the information that is different.
Quote from: LMNO on June 10, 2008, 04:52:22 PM
Conflating two concepts:
Ideally, a 5th Gen attack would be in areas that live in Extremistan (Black Swan concept)?
That is, a single event that would have an out-of-proportion effect.
From the terrorist/disruption aspect, yes. The best targets are those that have the Extremistan aspects in order to get the largest impact via the least initial stimulus. That doesn't mean that an Extremistan environment is needed - just that it makes things easier to impact.
However, 5th gen also applies to the military. When the Iraq war was still being built up, one of the selling points was that we wouldn't be using lots of troops on the ground - we'd be using our technological/informational advantage to give the "Next Generation of Warfare" a shot. Soldiers with HUD displays getting real-time satellite images on laptops of the target locations, remote drones, etc. that would be able to do the same functions as 2 or 3 times as many soldiers would have done in previous wars (which ties in with the 5th gen concepts). To an extent, that DID happen, but the reality of post-overthrow occupation necessitated a massive number of "boots on the ground" and 4th gen tactics when organizing/supplying/etc. those troops.
5th gen, from what I've seen, isn't necessarily about WHAT is being attacked or defended, but HOW it is attacked/defended. Anything is a target, anything is a weapon, and anyone can combine the two if they have the information. This seems to me to be the essential difference between 4th and 5th gen warfare, but as the terms and definitions are still being debated, that could be a different assessment from the more formal studies of this.
It seems like the guerilla tactics learned in Vietnam and in various resistance movements throughout history are being adapted to larger-scale conflicts due to technological advances, in that small groups are becoming the norm rather than the exception (the scouting platoon is now the WHOLE of the attack rather than a precursor) and are more apt to utilize any available means to accomplish and coordinate whatever task they're taking on. Essentially, the entirety of conflict is moving towards small-scale, intense battles that can be carried out wherever they are needed to be done RIGHT NOW, based off available information.
I think your comments on the US in Iraq dovetails nicely. 5th Gen really seems useful for attack, but not defense. This would seem to be why Rumsfailed's plan went the way it did. A small group can inflict massive damage... but a small group cannot protect a nation. I think, in hindsight, it's plain that the invasion should have included a huge 'hold and defend' group following behind the actual strike force that cut its way to Baghdad. Gen. Zini, in his Iraq Wargame had recognized that holding the country would take massive boots on the ground, but didn't take into account 5th Gen tactics for our own troops. Perhaps, if he would have, then he and Rumsfeld could have figured this out back in 2002.
I doubt things would have turned out any differently, as the Rumsfeld/Cheney war axis had a pretty set plan in mind (go in, overthrow Saddam, be hailed as liberators, leave) and had no intentions of doing anything that deviated from that plan. They systematically ignored every single general that said they'd need more boots on the ground once the overthrow was done, and have been reticent to actually put those soldiers on the ground regardless of popular opinion about the subject.
The ones that are there, however, ARE using some 5th gen tactics. Rather than masses of tanks, air strikes, etc. that typified the invasion, the occupation has relied on smaller groups (generally 1-2 Humvees) that are given a specific mission, given access to the latest satellite and recon-drone info as well as what locations are currently most likely to offer resistance, etc. and then sent on their way. Urban warfare necessitates much of the 5th gen tactics - large-scale conflict is rendered difficult if not impossible in any dense area (whether dense from jungle or buildings - lots of places for the enemy to hide, strike from, and retreat to).
Vietnam helped usher in the advances that are currently leading to what we're calling 5th gen warfare due to the necessities of fighting a dispersed, organized group in a hostile environment non-conducive to large-scale warfare of the past. The conflicts of the 80s (Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan et al) were starting to highlight the transition since smaller invasion forces were used and utilized alternate means (hair metal and spotlights in Panama especially) to accomplish their goals.
The Gulf war of the early 90s confused the issue since traditional 4th gen tactics (massive troop movements, coordinated with air strikes repelled Saddam's forces from Kuwait) were so successful. However, it was two large-scale militaries clashing, and thus 4th gen strategies were being used predominantly by both sides. Admittedly, Saddam was starting to use some 5th gen strategies (and expanded much further on those after the Gulf war with his "programs" for biological and nuclear weapons that didn't really exist in reality but definitely influenced US policy), but the conflict as a whole was one of the last gasps for strictly 4th gen warfare.
The rise of information as warfare really started with the first spy sent into the enemy camp. It was refined in WWII with the precursors to the Intelligence services that dominated the post-WWII landscape, and has been escalating ever since. None of the 5th generation concepts are new, really. Small groups acting semi-autonomously have always been a part of warfare. What makes 5th gen a new shift is what those small groups are now capable of due to technological advances and the fact that rather than being the advance party they ARE the attackers/defenders.
As far as Attack vs. Defense goes regarding 5th gen, I really think both sides can and will use these techniques effectively. Attackers can utilize the element of surprise, but once they act, they expose themselves to reaction via the same methods they attacked with - essentially defensively using 5th gen tactics as more of a "the best defense is a good offense" style. Conflicts will probably be shorter in duration since attack and counterattack can both be accomplished quickly and effectively by both sides.
The Rumsfeld plan involved using Iraqi forces as the boots on the ground one the country was taken. This worked out poorly, since the Iraqi army mostly just went home once they could get away with it.
Quote from: Requiem on June 10, 2008, 07:35:57 PM
The Rumsfeld plan involved using Iraqi forces as the boots on the ground one the country was taken. This worked out poorly, since the Iraqi army mostly just went home once they could get away with it.
This is also a very good point.
Actually, much of the army before the invasion was Baathist and tightly controlled by Saddam. The Rumsfeld/Cheney people were so certain that the Iraqis would immediately embrace US overthrow that they'd immediately renounce all ties with the Saddam regime/Baath party. Those that didn't were dismissed from the Iraqi army - which was MOST of the Iraqi army, including most of the officer class needed to smooth the transition.
That introduced a highly-trained, very well armed, anti-invasion group at a time when such a group could have the most military impact on the volatile situation, and thus led almost directly to the civil war, with Sunni Baathists on one side, their opposition on the other (mostly Iranian Shi'ites and Shi'ite locals), one side supplied from the Iraqi armory, the other from Iranian arms smuggled across the border. Add in the other ethnic conflicts (Kurds especially) and without the stabilizing factor of the Iraqi army, chaos was inevitable.
I haven't forgotten this thread, btw. I'm just in a fragile mental state, so I will be coming back to it once I'm sure I'm capable of coherent and deep analytical thinking. In the meantime, TOG and Rata seem to have grapsed the basics pretty well. Also, because I'm busy being unemployed, it may take a while for me to tie together any fantastic theoretical insights.
Because of that, tomorrow I will put up a list of useful reading resources and introductory essays.
No rush Cain! I'm looking forward to the list, especially with a couple days off later this week :D
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 10, 2008, 06:35:37 PM
I think your comments on the US in Iraq dovetails nicely. 5th Gen really seems useful for attack, but not defense. This would seem to be why Rumsfailed's plan went the way it did. A small group can inflict massive damage... but a small group cannot protect a nation. I think, in hindsight, it's plain that the invasion should have included a huge 'hold and defend' group following behind the actual strike force that cut its way to Baghdad. Gen. Zini, in his Iraq Wargame had recognized that holding the country would take massive boots on the ground, but didn't take into account 5th Gen tactics for our own troops. Perhaps, if he would have, then he and Rumsfeld could have figured this out back in 2002.
Quote from: That One Guy on June 10, 2008, 07:06:17 PM
As far as Attack vs. Defense goes regarding 5th gen, I really think both sides can and will use these techniques effectively. Attackers can utilize the element of surprise, but once they act, they expose themselves to reaction via the same methods they attacked with - essentially defensively using 5th gen tactics as more of a "the best defense is a good offense" style. Conflicts will probably be shorter in duration since attack and counterattack can both be accomplished quickly and effectively by both sides.
This also brings European resistance to German occupation in WWII to mind. The ability to hide amongst a larger civilian population (without fear of large scale draconian reprisal), doesn't necessarily put the firepower advantage in the hands of the smaller group, but does allow them to hit and fade better.
Any defensive / counterattacking stance may not be possible against such a group without disproportionately greater resources or information.
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ - good for understanding the cumbersome nature of much of the US defence culture
http://www.dreaming5gw.com/ - self-explanatory
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/ - occasionally touches on 4/5GW and counterinsurgency theory
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/index.php - Global Terrorism Analysis
http://www.globalguerrillas.typepad.com/ - John Robb on superempowerd guerrillas and individuals, state collapse and resilience. His personal weblog with less developed musings can be found at http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/
http://www.skilluminati.com/ - countercultural take on 5GW
http://smallwarsjournal.com/ - excellent resource on lower intensity conflicts
http://www.tdaxp.com/ - war theorist blogger
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/ - one of the leading modern military theorists
http://zenpundit.com/ - another theorist blogger
http://ubiwar.com/ - unconventional views of modern conflict
http://purpleslog.wordpress.com/ - moar blogging
http://soobdujour.blogspot.com/ - blog
http://www.phaticcommunion.com/ - sort of mega-blog for some of the above blogs
http://smitteneagle.blogspot.com/ - Marine captain with Iraq/Afghan experience, who reads alot of the above blogs
I think that should do for now.
Thanks Cain! I'll be diving into those links over the next couple days :mrgreen:
Ubiwar (http://ubiwar.com/2008/04/22/al-qaeda-the-new-luther-blissett/) article:
"You are a member of 'al-Qaeda' if you say you are" - Jason Burke (2007), Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam
The franchise analogy has occasionally been applied to the decentralised nature of al-Qaeda-inspired activities and the above quote from Jason Burke neatly sums up the idea that al-Qaeda as an idea, nay, a brand, can be utilised by almost anyone should they choose to do so. Like a franchise, one assumes that the same product (terrorism) is supplied to the same standard (magnitude, degree of disruption) with the same brand values (anti-American, radical Islam). 'Al-Qaeda' as a name has to some degree become a collective pseudonym available to those who wish to depersonalise themselves under the banner of a greater, globalised movement.
For those not perhaps au fait with the Luther Blissett phenomenon, Paolo at In Media Res provides a long and thoughtful description and examination in The Luther Blissett Project: a viral attack on the modern infosphere (http://mediajuice.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/term-paper-show-and-tell-v-30/), which mainly deals with the Italian example, although his points are well-made in the international context also. (I should perhaps note at this point that the original Luther Blissett played football for Watford and England in the 1970s and 1980s.)
Over to Paolo, and some background:
QuoteThe reasons why the name of an English football player has been used to share the identity of a great variety of people are unknown. However, it is true that since the summer of 1994 many shows of performing art and media guerrilla operations were carried out under this unique name. The leitmotif, which was endlessly repeated, was "Everyone can be Luther Blissett", highlighting a sort of ideological statement aimed at the loss of individual identity. In other words, the multiple-name is an open reputation that anyone can informally adopt and share with other people, and whose performances must not necessarily have a common purpose.
The performative nature of terrorism has long been recognised. Indeed, Brian Jenkins coined the phrase "terrorism is theatre" in 1975, although its demonstrative characteristics are recorded at least as far back as the 'propaganda of the deed' of European anarchists in the 19th century. Do AQ-brand actions have a common purpose? Operationally and tactically, yes, I would argue - perhaps not strategically. I am as skeptical as Olivier Roy (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Globalised-Islam-Search-New-Ummah/dp/1850655987/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208889083&sr=8-2) as to the existence of a consistent AQ ideology and grand strategy.
Thereafter follows a list of 'media pranks' propagated by anonymous persons calling themselves Luther Blissett, whose intention was:
Quotethe construction of a myth of fighting, a folk hero whose identity can be shared and used for demonstrative actions. Luther Blissett wants to hit the system of mass communication in order to ... re-appropriate of a ludic [read, playful or spontaneous] practice and show a different relationship with mass media.
Nicholas O'Shaughnessy has written about bin Laden's manipulation of media to create just such an identity in Politics and Propaganda: Weapons of Mass Seduction (2004). Videos of bin Laden in heroic guises alternately emphasise his mystique as a freedom fighter, his authority as a mullah, his demeanour as international statesman, yet he is arguably none of these things.
QuoteLike Robin Hood, the intention is to hit and then to go into hiding thanks to the loss of individual identity. Many other groups have used a collective or multiple name in order to carry out performance acts at a social or artistic level. Some of the most influential, from which Luther Blissett takes inspiration, come from the context of the '70s. The rise of multiple-use name, for instance, is mostly evident and popularized in the '70s and '80s, especially within artistic subcultures like Mail Art and Neoism [see Monty Cantsin]. The latter is a specific subcultural network of artistic performance and media experimentalists guided, broadly speaking, by a practical underground philosophy. It operates by means of collectively shared pseudonyms and identities. Most of its activism is arranged through pranks, paradoxes, plagiarism and fakes, and, as a consequence, has created multiple contradicting definitions of itself in order to defy any categorization and historical and spatial location.
Of course, there is nothing ludic or whimsical about the AQ brand-actors. But the points about deterritorialisation and depersonalisation are too obvious to ignore.
QuoteOne of the most important aspects in the Luther Blissett performances is a deep knowledge of information techniques in order to exploit the circulation of information via mass media and, eventually, to realize its purposes. This has been largely shown in one of their most famous and complex pranks.
This was played by dozens of people in Latium, central Italy, in 1997. It lasted one year and was placed in the backwoods of Viterbo, involving newsworthy issues like black rituals, Satanism and spreading of media panic. Local and national media reported for a long time news about the activity of a satanic sect placed in Viterbo. Like the TV show about missed people, facts were not scrupulously checked. Rather, the circulation of the news helped the diffusion of panic among population, leading politicians to claim officially a war against Satanism. When Luther Blissett claimed its responsibility by means of local newspapers for the whole prank and the production of the sheer amount of evidences, Blissett activists called their act as an example of homeopathic counter-information: in other words, by injecting a calculated dose of false news in the media, they meant to show the unprofessional way of working of many reporters, and how easy was to exploit media as a resonance box for the diffusion of the panic.
Al-Qaeda is, if nothing else, a very adept and skilled manipulator of the media. Ayman al-Zawahiri famously stated (http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:8V2puO8bA3oJ:fletcher.tufts.edu/forum/archives/pdfs/30-2pdfs/brachman.pdf+brachman+2006+high-tech+terror&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk) years ago: "We must get our message across to the masses of the nation [ummah] and break the media siege imposed on the jihad movement. This is an independent battle that we must launch side by side with the military battle."
QuoteT]he exploitation of mass media aimed at the management of reality through the press or television ... has increasingly become a profession. As Boorstin (1961) noted, one of the most relevant aspects in the field of news diffusion is the creation of what he calls pseudo-events, a 'new kind of synthetic novelty which has flooded our experience'. This kind of event is symptomatic 'of a revolutionary change in our attitude toward what happens in the world, how much of it is new, and surprising, and important.' In other words, a pseudo-event is an artificial event, created with the aim of calling attention and planned for specific purposes. The main features of the pseudo-event, as Boorstin indicates, are 1) to be not spontaneous, but planned, planted or incited; 2) that the event is planned primarily for the purpose of being reported and reproduced; 3) to be ambiguous, and this is the very kind of relation with the event and reality itself; 4) to be intended as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
... since the birth and increase of public relations, we have assisted [in] a gradual process of commodification of the information flow. As news has become something to be sold, a general shift to what is newsworthy and what is not has occurred, and the entire information flow has become dependant on business and political strategy of communication.
And bin Laden and al-Zawahiri know the processes of this far better than Western prosecutors of the GWOT.
Quote[Luther Blissett becomes] the source of information through the creation of a pseudo-event, and perpetuates the prank through the construction of a manufactured message. This practice of media guerrilla ... is played in the twilight zone which surrounds what they call the verifiable core of the news. This uncertain area is built on myths, urban legends, hearsays, that journalists exploit in order to turn a news into something more attractive, that can be sold more easily. The process of injecting a calculated dose of false news in the media is, in this context, not different from every process of information management. What is different is the lack of any commercial or political objectives to achieve, because these pranks are only a sort of act of demonstration. Furthermore, the revelation of the media bluff by means of media themselves suggests to citizens a reflection upon how easy is to manipulate the source of information, and, moreover, how easy is to create a pseudo-event aimed to attract the media interest. On the other hand, if in Luther Blissett's view the revelation of the bluff is the final stage of a general act of demonstration, for others this is the worst thing that could happen. For strategic communication, that works for commercial purposes or for taking the attention away from a uncomfortable fact, the revelation of what "lies behind" is the failure of the strategy rather than the success.
An interesting thesis if applied to AQ. Intelligence being what it is, i.e. incomplete and sometimes erroneous, certainly misinterpreted at times, we do not know what real connection there may be between AQ-brand's media broadcasts and any intended kinetic actions.
QuoteIn Postscripts on the Societies of Control (http://libcom.org/library/postscript-on-the-societies-of-control-gilles-deleuze) Deleuze points out that contemporary societies are witnessing the dissolution of every institutional boundary, leading to a process of decentralization of every previous form of power. Foucault (1980) [probably Discipline and Punish] had theorised the birth of disciplinary societies as a replacement of the previous system of sovereignty. This led to the rise of institutions – such as schools, hospitals, prisons or factories – which were able to exercise power by means of discourses. As Deleuze notes, '[t]he disciplinary societies have two poles: the signature that designates the individual, and the number or administrative numeration that indicates his or her position within a mass.' In societies of control, on the other hand, power is not fixed or centralized any more, but is rather nomadic and exercised through abstract representations like codes, data and passwords. In this context, '[w]e no longer find ourselves dealing with the mass/individual pair. Individuals have become dividuals, and masses, samples, data markets, or banks' (Deleuze). This transformation in also visible through the machines that power uses to exercise control:
Types of machines are easily matched with each type of society – not that machines are determining, but because they express those social forms capable of generating them and using them. The old society of sovereignty made use of simple machines – levers, pulleys, clocks; but the recent disciplinary societies equipped themselves with machines involving energy, with the passive danger of entropy and the active danger of sabotage; the societies of control operate with machines of a third type, computers, whose passive danger is jamming and whose active one is piracy and the production of viruses (Deleuze).
Although Deleuze refers here to the virus in the field of computer technology, I think it may be relevant to carry out the metaphor of infection to examine the nature of the antagonism of the Luther Blisset Project. In many passages of its manifesto, Luther Blissett has often compared their action with that of a virus: a calculated dose of false news (the core of verifiable news) is put in circulation. Successively, it links itself with the general process of news production and goes, at the end, to infect the flow of information, that is effectively embodied by the dissemination of moral panic for something that has never happened. What is relevant, however, is that the revelation of the prank works like the antidote to the infection which is given exactly by the material authors. All this has been made with the intention of revealing the whole mechanism: this raises several and crucial questions about who actually acts as a virus ... If these pranks are performed with the aim to make people aware of a more balanced relationship between mass media and individuals it is possible to argue that probably the real infection is perpetrated by those who seek to hide their practice and exploit news production for strategic purposes. What has been called a viral attack could be seen, at the end, as the ethical implication.
There is no prank with AQ. Or is there? As Faisal Devji has said (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/17/alqaida.academicexperts) about suicide bombs, these are 'not actions that can be seen in strategic or instrumental terms. They are not means to an end. There is no 'end', as such.' If AQ operates in an ethical rather than political space, as Devji contends elsewhere, in Landscapes of the Jihad (2005), its actions become purely speculative once they lose their functionality.
QuoteAt the same time, it is significant that, in this study's perspective, a nomadic and decentralized form of power, as highlighted in Deleuze's societies of control, leads consequently to a mutation of the concept of antagonism. Luther Blissett has noted that the simple counter-information is not effective anymore because the context and "the enemy" have radically changed. Consequently, I think it is essential to draw attention to the structure of the multiple-use name in relation to the post-panoptical form of social control. As a result, to contrast a decentralized form of power, a decentralized form of antagonism is needed.
For these reasons, I will adopt here another metaphor taken from Deleuze and Guattari [e.g. A Thousand Plateaus]. I think it is fruitful to analyze the loss of the individual identity through the lens of the concept of the rhizome. The metaphor of the rhizome is used by Deleuze and Guattari to give an idea about a way of thinking which is not centralized, but is rather characterised by principles of connection and heterogeneity, multiplicity and rupture. This kind of thinking is opposed to the [arboreal] structure, which is by contrast linear, hierarchic and sedentary. Generally speaking, the rhizome has not a centre, but many nodal points, and one of the main features is to be accessible from many entries. Furthermore, if a part of the rhizome is cut off , it is able to find alternatively new directions and to link randomly with other points or nodes.
The recent work Understanding Alternative Media has advanced a rhizomatic approach to interpret some of contemporary alternative media. One of the main feature of this interpretation is the highly level of elusiveness through which a rhizomatic alternative media works.
The concept of multiplicity constructs the rhizome not on the basis of elements each operating within fixed sets of rule, but as an entity whose rules are constantly in motion because new elements are constantly included. The principle of asignifying rupture means that 'a rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines.
Its intrinsic being constantly in motion, its fluidity and its quality of being pluri-accessible make an alternative media based on a rhizomatic structure hardly difficult to identify and, at the same time, it is complex to find the source of their message production. In this perspective, we can consider the action and the structure of the Luther Blissett Project as based on a rhizomatic structure. The loss of the individual identity and the sharing of a multiple-use name calls for the abandonment of one of the most strict parameters through which societies of control exercise their power: that is to say, the proper name. This embodies the last resort through which control can be exercised. On the other hand, the renunciation of the proper name makes it difficult to identify any physical action or intellectual production, undermining in this way every form of dataveillance. The adoption of the multiple name is, in this perspective, rhizomatic because its elusiveness and heterogeneity are disguised under the homogeneity of a unique name. In this context, any question about intellectual property is erased, and any attempt to locate a centre is undermined.
In its attempt to demonstrate how easy is to make fun of the culture industry, the Luther Blissett phenomenon has shown how much difficult is trying to locate an entity which has no centre and is rhizomatic in any development. It is impossible, in this sense, to behead something that has no head. Therefore, if everyone can be Luther Blissett, no one could be at the same time.
There is much of relevance to the global jihad in this article. I've written elsewhere about the rhizomatic nature of globalised insurgency and I think it is a useful analogy with which to approach the slippery nature of the media space in which AQ and their associates act, and in such a sophisticated fashion. Is the Luther Blissett analogy similarly useful? Perhaps ideas of pranks and revelation are too pomo to be of real analytical utility but viruses, media manipulation, depersonalised actors and decentralised information propagation are definitely, to my mind, partly why the global insurgency is so difficult to counteract. Whether bin Laden is the original Luther Blissett, or al-Qaeda, is not particularly important. No-one knows, in a technical sense, if bin Laden is still alive, for example.
I've only partially commented on Paolo's article for reasons of time but I will probably return to it at a later date. He makes no mention of al-Qaeda or terrorism, but the comparisons are clear, and it may prove to be another useful avenue of research.
:mittens:
Great posts, Cain. I'm reminded of Thornley's use of the name "Omar Khayyam".
The Luther Blisset model also seems to apply to Anonymous - while not exactly a name, it's a single moniker that is used by a wide, decentralized group that uses many 5th gen tactics (DoS, trolling, imagebombing) to accomplish a given task. The way the /b/tards can organize seems to reflect what was being stated in the above Blisset model explanations, in that there is the broad "Anonymous" umbrella that covers a broad but decentralized and disorganized range of tactics, subgroups, methodology, etc. The "Anonymous" moniker seems to fit the bill perfectly - and on a much broader scale than it looks like has happened previously with the Blisset model.
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 12, 2008, 02:49:31 PM
:mittens:
Great posts, Cain. I'm reminded of Thornley's use of the name "Omar Khayyam".
I second the mittens, but I wouldn't be too hasty with the use of a "holy name" without context. In general, the use of a holy name is a means of differentiating the "normal" or mundane aspects of the practitioner from the "supernormal" or "mahadjiqual"/ritualistic aspects and is specific to one individual. The Luther Blisset model would apply if the entire group/coven/society used the "Omar Khayyam" name whenever any supernormal activity was perpetuated. Otherwise, while it definitely uses a similar strategy (a separate name used to differentiate actions of an individual) there isn't the same group application, especially since historically every practitioner employed a different holy name.
Hmmm ... anyone know of any groups in history that specifically used a group name similar to the Luther Blisset model? I know there are countless examples of using the group to subsume the individual (the Marines being one of the first examples to come to mind) as it's a standard brainwashing technique. However, does that differentiate from the Blisset model or does it reinforce it?
Quote from: That One Guy on June 12, 2008, 04:12:56 PM
The Luther Blisset model also seems to apply to Anonymous - while not exactly a name, it's a single moniker that is used by a wide, decentralized group that uses many 5th gen tactics (DoS, trolling, imagebombing) to accomplish a given task. The way the /b/tards can organize seems to reflect what was being stated in the above Blisset model explanations, in that there is the broad "Anonymous" umbrella that covers a broad but decentralized and disorganized range of tactics, subgroups, methodology, etc. The "Anonymous" moniker seems to fit the bill perfectly - and on a much broader scale than it looks like has happened previously with the Blisset model.
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 12, 2008, 02:49:31 PM
:mittens:
Great posts, Cain. I'm reminded of Thornley's use of the name "Omar Khayyam".
I second the mittens, but I wouldn't be too hasty with the use of a "holy name" without context. In general, the use of a holy name is a means of differentiating the "normal" or mundane aspects of the practitioner from the "supernormal" or "mahadjiqual"/ritualistic aspects and is specific to one individual. The Luther Blisset model would apply if the entire group/coven/society used the "Omar Khayyam" name whenever any supernormal activity was perpetuated. Otherwise, while it definitely uses a similar strategy (a separate name used to differentiate actions of an individual) there isn't the same group application, especially since historically every practitioner employed a different holy name.
Well, the first instances of Omar's name being used wasn't in reference to Thornley (if anything about Omar/Mal/RAW can be believed in any sense). Omar K Ravenhurst was, initially, an imaginary character that was blamed for various things in mindfucks perpatrated on the middle management military types. Again, assuming that Thornley wasn't full of Shit... or at least, not completely full of Shit.
Quote
Hmmm ... anyone know of any groups in history that specifically used a group name similar to the Luther Blisset model? I know there are countless examples of using the group to subsume the individual (the Marines being one of the first examples to come to mind) as it's a standard brainwashing technique. However, does that differentiate from the Blisset model or does it reinforce it?
Possibly the KKK, The Weathermen and/or the Hashishem (assuming they really existed), maybe?
Anonymous is an excellent example - as is the Omar Khayyam business. What differentiates Anonymous and Al-Qaeda from Luther Blisset or Khayyam though would be the unitary group nature of their alias. Instead of having an individual name as a calling card, they are using this group identity, which may be more reliant on certain memes and styles of speech or targets for its continued identity.
Another thing is that such a group HAS to be successful for its viral adoption and propagation. If a Luther Blisset style attempt fails, chances are it will go unnoticed. But if a group effort from Anonymous fails, or an Al-QAada attack does, it is much more damaging. Such groups seem to be predicated upon a plausible promise to achieve various goals, in which the act of achieving those goals becomes a foco for sympathetic groups which then bring themselves in under the same banner. That also brings a media element into play - the victories and methods must be published and seen by a wide audience (relatively speaking) to start this process.
If this were to be adopted by us, for example, we would need to keep those thoughts in mind.
is there a recognized difference between 5th Gen groups that were formed on purpose (Al Qaeda), and those that just sort of developed on their own before being put to any actual use (Anonymous)?
Not much, I would guess. Al-Qaeda's evolution has been forced mostly by a very harsh international campaign against it. Equally, Anonymous gained its current disposition partially through the virtue of the boards it is on, but mainly again through the various campaigns they took part in.
(threads like these remind me i should spend less time in Apple Talk)
Quote from: Cain on June 14, 2008, 09:14:34 PM
Not much, I would guess. Al-Qaeda's evolution has been forced mostly by a very harsh international campaign against it. Equally, Anonymous gained its current disposition partially through the virtue of the boards it is on, but mainly again through the various campaigns they took part in.
If I recall correctly, one of the books I read on the topic claimed that Bin Laden didn't actually use the term "Al Queda" until after he realized that the West was using it. Maybe that's false, I dunno.
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 18, 2008, 08:00:51 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 14, 2008, 09:14:34 PM
Not much, I would guess. Al-Qaeda's evolution has been forced mostly by a very harsh international campaign against it. Equally, Anonymous gained its current disposition partially through the virtue of the boards it is on, but mainly again through the various campaigns they took part in.
If I recall correctly, one of the books I read on the topic claimed that Bin Laden didn't actually use the term "Al Queda" until after he realized that the West was using it. Maybe that's false, I dunno.
I'm not sure. It was kind of a nickname, as it was established to give jihadists over the world a base level of training and expertise so they could export the Jihad worldwide. Kind of like an advanced school that people from various better known groups could visit and learn from. But there was a change in emphasis during the 90s and I'm not totally sure why, but Bin Laden decided to make his organization a terrorist group in its own right, as well as training others. I believe the training manual the FBI seized dates back to 1996, which would be when Al-Qaeda was widely used. Bin Laden was in the Sudan then, but had already started his drift to instigating the jihad by that point, instead of merely helping the effort. Maybe it was just good timing on both their parts that the name was used.
Anyway, I'll try to get back to this later at some point. Busy job-hunting etc right now, and reading the archives of the sites in question, as well as analyzing the information given and putting it to practical use is time-consuming, to say the least.
Yeah - I'm still catching up on many of the sites you listed earlier myself, Cain. There's a TON of info scattered around on all of this, and getting a good grasp on it will take a bit for all of us, probably.
Quote from: That One Guy on June 09, 2008, 11:54:46 PM
We're still seeing new uses and potentials all the time, too - not just in warfare but in art (viral marketing, laser graffiti that can take web-submissions)
Really though, in 5GW all these art ideas can be adopted quite readily to warfare purposes. If one can make a populous question its government, then it makes winning the war, and the transition of power, much easier, ie. such ideas could probably have saved the Iraq invasion from its current stalemate.
I'm still collecting ideas on this, by the way.
I have about 40 odd pages of notes, gleaned from a couple of the sites previously mentioned, the only problem is synthesizing the information, understanding the debates (alot of these people are, if not ex-military themselves, well steeped in military theory and lingo) and drawing it all together coherently, among the various debates that are still ongoing.
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 8)
Here's an article from Dreaming5GW which tries to conceptualize the strategic base of 5GW.
QuoteDeception 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.
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.
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 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.
Quote from: That One Guy on July 28, 2008, 06:44:44 PM
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. :oops:
QuoteDeception 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.
QuoteAs 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.
QuoteI'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.
QuoteI 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.
QuoteIt'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.
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.
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.
Quote from: CainI'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.
Quote from: CainWe 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.
Here's something of interest, mentioned almost as an aside in a paper by Matthew Barno on the global jihad:
QuoteOur 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.
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/
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.
good read.
thanks for that.
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.
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."
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.
I decided the best of the information was already present at Dreaming 5GW and Skilluminati, so I've basically grabbed every useful article off of those two sites (as well as some linked works), PDF'd them and uploaded.
You can download here: http://mihd.net/198d5z4
ok even more to print out, thanks :) [this is just more than i can read off a monitor, so i'll have to wait until i get the chance and remember to print it for free :-) ]
I swear, once I get a Kindle for my birthday, I'll already have maxed out it's memory.
Thanks for this, Cain.
I've been meaning to poke my head back in here (since this thread is not only awesome, but relevant to so many other things, OM:F stuff especially) but I've been amazingly busy the last month or so. I'll definitely grab all the stuff from the link, Cain - many thanks for putting it all together!
I should have time this weekend to give it a read (or at least read a good chunk of it), and I'm looking forward to whittling down the core definitions/principles and themes from all of this. I think we've already gone over a bunch of the core approaches earlier in this thread, but this gives me a chance to see where the academics and tacticians are approaching this from.
Thanks again, and I'll definitely give it all a look shortly :mrgreen:
OK, I've gone a little further. I've uploaded what I consider to be 5GW-esque texts - fiction and non-fiction which seem to embody aspects of the method of warfare. The download is 66MB, and includes the following:
The 5GW Primer that I previously uploaded.
36 Strategems of War - T'ai Kung
The CIA's Nicuraguan Sabotage Manual
Cultural Revolution, Cultural War: How the Conservatives Lost England and how to get it back - Sean Gabb
Pure Effect - Derren Brown
Destabilizing Networks - Carley, Lee and Krackhardt
Fighting the War of Ideas Like A Real War - Michael J Waller
Game Theory At Work - James D Miller
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
Theory of Power - Jeff Vail
The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum
The Bourne Supremacy - Robert Ludlum
OSS Simple Sabotage Manual - Office of Strategic Services
The Art of Seduction - Robert Greene
Social Defence, Social Change - Brian Martin
The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene
The Re-emergence of Emergence - Phillip Clayton and Paul Davies
The Art of Memetics - Wes Unruh and Edward Wilson
The Psychology of Entertainment: Blurring the lines between Entertainment and Persuasion - L. J. Shrum
Unrestricted Warfare - Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui
http://mihd.net/jawqg51
I ran across this article this morning concerning the use of things like Twitter and other social networking sites to organize and communicate among terrorists etc.:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10075487-83.html
The article lists a few potential scenarios (taken from a US Army report (http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/mobile.pdf)) that definitely reinforce many of the possibilities raised in this thread. Fun stuff 8)
Hah, I saw that on Arms and Influence. They suggested it was the Army trying to be cool and hip and stuff, in the embarassing way 40 somethings with mid-life crises do.
Anyway, I've been slowly reading the file I uploaded, alongside After Authority. I think I may be able to articulate some basic working principles soon, with examples. Stay tuned.
I'm still in the process of working my way through all that as well (great resource by the way and thanks again!), and I definitely got a chuckle out of the descriptions of tactics in that article above (which has a link to the Army Report itself in PDF form which I plan on reading a bit later).
It's interesting for the "know thy enemy" factor if nothing else.
I'm not sure if this was already mentioned, since I just skimmed most of the previous pages, but I think that one of perhaps the most oddly effective tactics that could be used would be a purely symbolic and quite obviously nonviolent symbolic attack. 9/11 would not have had the pro-american backlash within the US had people not died. What if instead of crashing a plane into the twin towers, someone simply demolished the statue of liberty overnight, with no casualties? Suddenly, a huge segment of the american self-image would disappear. It's like a widescale physically-based memebomb that cannot be as easily denied or ignored as a written or spoken one, yet would not provoke the same kind of "I'm hurt, people are killed, let's get these bastards" sentiment that one would get in response to something with actual casualties. In fact, having that kind of feeling of getting revenge through death for something that didn't endanger anyone would be immediately, on the face of it, absurd to many people.
I think that would probably fit into the fringes of 5G warfare. That said, it's the same kind of thing that traditional terrorists/protesters have been attempting for years -- it just wouldn't be possible to do without any casualties without having the same level of integration with remote others that the internet provides.
So, I've been ignoring this for, like, months now.
But there are two good new articles up that you should read:
http://www.dreaming5gw.com/2009/05/xgw_and_torture.php
And
http://www.dreaming5gw.com/2009/06/principles_of_5gw_hands_in_the.php (edited for correct link)
The second one in particular is worth reading.
both were good reads. thanks
Good stuff. I like how it addresses expanding the concept to action with a larger group. It's easy to see how the concept could be employed by the individual, but scaling it up seems to lapse into cat herding territory pretty easily.
Any chance you could re-upload that pack of books?
Quote from: The Pariah on July 03, 2009, 12:01:14 AM
Any chance you could re-upload that pack of books?
This
Quote from: Pariarrhea on July 03, 2009, 12:01:14 AM
Any chance you could re-upload that pack of books?
Uh, maybe. I could probably upload a better selection of books, but it would take time to pick them all out.
Anyway, for the anime fans
http://phaticcommunion.com/musing5gw/2010/02/intimations-of-5gw-death-note.php
http://phaticcommunion.com/musing5gw/2010/02/intimations-of-5gw-death-note-the-rules-of-the-game.php
QuoteIt is curious that, of the characters used in the anime version of Death Note, the four principle characters in the series are amoral, megalomaniacal, monomaniacs. For an exploration of 5GW via the allegory of Death Note, this feature of the anime stands out, particularly when earlier permutations of this exploration have centered on issues such as Puppetmastery, Superempowerment of individuals, the use of unwitting proxies and unwitting pawns, and creating system-wide changes via perturbations or engineered "Black Swans", etc. These are themes repeatedly raised during discussions of 5GW, with the common presumption that either an individual or a very small group of individuals may manipulate whole systems (megalomania) via unaware proxy/pawn "hands in the field" and whatever perturbations are required toward one eventual and ultimate goal (amoral monomania.)
Quote from: That One Guy on June 09, 2008, 03:21:18 PM
Now THIS is some fascinating stuff. While there have been hints and beginnings of this sort of thing (Vietnam showing small groups overcoming a large military machine, Iraq showing small cells disrupting and influencing military strategies), the full force of this is still only just beginning.
I think the most important thing at this stage of development is to ensure the free flow of information. Net neutrality or anything else that disrupts that flow (such as the Chinese blocked sites - working hand in hand with the large internet engines) is probably the biggest obstacle to overcome at this point. I think the best bet is to have a multi-tiered system of information sites. One level operating completely "underground", separate from most websites/servers, linked rarely if at all with limited access. Another level operating as a more publicly accessible, yet low-traffic/profile webspace - something viewable if you look for it for a bit, open to the public but only hinting at the details and plans involved in the purely "underground" repository. The third level a publicly accessible meeting-point, innocuous on the surface, that functions as a clearing-house and public (yet semi-anonymous) meeting area for any interested (pro or con) parties, that operates within whatever legal structures are necessary.
The Islamic jihadist extremists have been developing this sort of multi-tiered information flow for a few years now, so the model seems to be viable, protecting identity while still allowing the dissemination of plans/propaganda/etc. It seems to be the best current model to organize a wide-spread small-cell resistance movement, and is definitely worth looking into for adaptation.
Once information-dissemination is dealt with, how the group is organized is probably the next largest stumbling block. The proportion of organization to independent planning/action is key, IMO. Small, loosely (if at all) connected cells that are capable of independent action yet still coordinated via a central point (whether committee, group or individual) is probably the best bet, but achieving the right balance is key. Too much central control denies cells independent action, too little and the overall movement loses focus when acting towards a goal. Again, the many systems of Islamic jihad are showing some ways that balance is being achieved, with the mullah guiding the overall focus of the group, while giving individual cells the freedom to carry out actions that fit the overall goals of the particular movement. There are many lessons to be learned from what groups gain power and what groups lose it.
This is just off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts - I'm definitely interested in whatever you run across regarding this Cain. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread no doubt.
The fact that the mullah is completely replacable is also vital.
Osama Bin Laden is not an important man. He is, but kill him and nothing really changes. decentralizing decision making, as long as certain goals are strived toward, means that the network is much more resilient.
Quote from: Satzanfang on June 10, 2008, 05:28:30 AM
Functionally, what is the difference between a super-empowered individual and the more traditional small-cell based guerillas?
And secondly, why the heck has nobody shelled Washington yet? The information is available and the NSA can't possibly be watching every spot within mortar distance of Congress (and if they are, then just build a bigger and longer range mortar.)
Why would they do that? Have you seen the effect that convincing some poor schlub to blow his own nuts off has had? You don't want to take out the slow incompetent beaurocracy that destroys productivity and throttles it's people, you want to make it try to hit back. Cause it'll miss and hit things you want hit.