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Fourth Generation Warfare: Reality Or Myth?

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Fourth Generation Warfare: Reality Or Myth? 108 THE CORNWALLIS GROUP XII: ANALYSIS FOR MULTI-AGENCY SUPPORT Fourth Generation Warfare: Reality or Myth? Eugene P. Visco Fellow of the Cornwallis Group e-mail: [email protected] E. P. (Gene) Visco is a semi-retired military operations analyst with more than 55 years of experience. He is a co-founder of the Cornwallis Group and is a Fellow of the Group. He is also a Fellow of the US Military Operations Research Society. After retiring from the Office of the Secretary of the (US) Army 10 years ago, he continues to conduct independent research and consults for various US defense agencies. APPRECIATION Although not identified as an author of this paper, Dr. William P. (Peter) Cherry is acknowledged as a major contributor to it and as the co-chair of the discussion group held at Cornwallis XII. Also, Victor Middleton, a colleague, provided critical review and suggestions for the paper. INTRODUCTION An innovation was introduced at Cornwallis VI. It was a post-dinner session, held to maximize the opportunities for topics not fitting directly into the Cornwallis program and symposium theme to be discussed. The innovation became a “tradition” when the approach was re-introduced at Cornwallis XI, with a post-dinner discussion of globalization and how it might impact on peace and stability. At Cornwallis XII, the post-dinner discussion event concerned the subject of this paper. Unfortunately, a transcription of the discussion is not available, so any outcome of the session beyond the most general can not be put forth. One can only say the topic elicited considerable interchanges among the Cornwallis participants and the overall conclusion that the subject remains open for further assessment and a verdict from history. The following paper was designed as an “ice-breaker” to provide a background for a spirited discussion among the participants at Cornwallis XII, following the principles expressed in the Charter of the Cornwallis Group. In order to engage the participants at the symposium at the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, it was desirable to provide an overview of arguments related to the major question provided by the title. Specifically, does the recent spate of publications introducing the notion of a new generation of warfare engaging the United States and its allies throughout the world represent a true reality or are the writings the product of poor scholarship and leaps of assumptions without veracity? VISCO: FOURTH GENERATION WARFARE: REALITY OR MYTH? 109 FOURTH GENERAL WARFARE: REALITY How is Fourth Generation Warfare defined and who are its proponents? Probably its most ardent supporter is COL Thomas X. Hammes, United States Marine Corps. His cogent arguments are put forth in a well-composed book, The Sling and The Stone: On War in the 21st Century (Zenith Press, 2004). Colonel Hammes bases his propositions on more than “twenty-five years of study of the evolution of war.” (Introduction, p. xiv) Quoting Hammes directly, so as not to bias this presentation significantly, the generations of warfare are: “The first generation of war grew not just from the invention of gunpowder but also from the political, economic, and social structures that developed as Europe transitioned from a feudal system to a system of nation-states ruled by monarchs. The transition from the ‘chivalry’ of feudal knights to the armies of Napoleon required centuries. This time was required not only to develop reliable firearms but, more important, to develop the political system, the wealth-generating national economies, the social structures, and the technologies capable of sustaining the mass armies of the Napoleonic era. During this time, the first generation of modern war evolved slowly, in consonance with the societies of western Europe. It peaked with the massive armies of the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.” (pp. 16-17) “…Clearly, evolution from medieval warfare to the first generation of modern war required significant change in the political, economic, social, and technological structures of the time.” (p. 18) “Like the first generation of war, the second generation did not grow just from improvements in weaponry. It, too, required changes across the spectrum of human activity. Although the political structure of the nation-state was essentially in place at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the state’s power to tax and enforce taxes increased dramatically during the hundred years between Waterloo and the Miracle of the Marne. Even more important than an increase in the ability to levy and collect taxes was much vaster wealth to tax…The combination of increased GDP per person, major population increases, and significantly better government control massively increased the wealth available to the national governments of Europe. A great deal of this increase in wealth can be attributed to the rapid industrialization of western Europe and North America. Second-generation war required both the wealth generated by an industrial society and the sheer volume of output that only such a society can produce. Industry had to first design and then mass produce the weapons and the huge quantities of ammunition they consumed. Even these exceptional production capabilities alone would not allow nations to apply second-generation warfare…[T]he economies of all the participants had to expand enormously before the massive armies of World War I could be raised, transported, and supported. Further, the European nations had to develop logistically effective general staffs to combine these national assets, mobilize them, transport them, and then hurl them against the nation’s enemies. Finally, second-generation war was not possible without the patriotic enthusiasm that brought millions of men to the colors and held them there through four years of catastrophic losses.” (pp. 18-19) 110 THE CORNWALLIS GROUP XII: ANALYSIS FOR MULTI-AGENCY SUPPORT On to Third-generation warfare. “At 4:45 a.m. on September 1, 1939, The German army invaded Poland. By September 19, they forced the surrender of the last Polish army in the field. Eight days later, they completed mopping up the stubborn Polish resistance in Warsaw. The popular view is that Germany overwhelmed Poland with a massive mechanized attack that quickly overran the outdated Polish army.” [Here, Hammes points out that the German army was not heavily mechanized at the time and the commander did not use his armor particularly well.] “One of the most remarkable aspects of the birth and development of blitzkrieg is the action of the German army after its astonishingly rapid victory of Poland. Although most armies would have rested on their laurels, the German army conducted a detailed, even brutal critique of its own performance. It then began an intensive, demanding training program to overcome the deficiencies identified during its review of the Polish campaign….Due to the intensive retraining, the force the Germans unleashed on France on May 10, 1940, incorporated the lessons learned from the Polish campaign. The Germans succeeded in making these lessons part of their operational and tactical art. Although still primarily an infantry army, the Germans organized their armored forces into Panzer Corps and use them to shatter the cohesion of the Allied forces. The result was another astonishing victory. Britain was evacuating its forces from Dunkirk only sixteen days after the invasion. France lasted only another month. In contrast to four bloody years of stalemate in World War I, the German’s [sic] conquered France in weeks. The victory stunned the Western powers. They were certain the Germans had created an entirely new form of warfare. Third-generation of warfare had arrived. Yet, as with previous generations of war, it was not just the militaries’ response to specific tactical problems that drove the evolution of this generation of war. The evolution of 3GW required political, economic, social, and technological conditions to be right. The political and social atmospheres of the opposing sides were critical to the difference in development. While the politically unified state that permitted 3GW still existed throughout Europe, the social contract between governed and governors had been dramatically altered by the First World War. [It is unclear to these authors if Hammes meant 3GW in the previous sentence or 2GW.]…Although the political climate varied greatly between the future belligerents, the economic factors were similar. The Great Depression severely limited funds available during the early to mid-thirties. But the impact varied greatly, according to each government’s willingness to expend scarce resources on its military forces—and its officers’ willingness to test new concepts without the actual equipment they would use. Hitler willingly spent Germany to the brink of bankruptcy in building up his armed forces. In contrast, the French and British governments severely restricted military spending until just before the outbreak of war. Similarly, the German army worked extensively to develop combined arms tactics—even though it had to use motor cars for tanks, light planes as fighters and dive bombers, and small formations to simulate large ones. The French did little, and the British rejected the experiments they did conduct.” (pp. 23-26) Hammes provides a summary of the first three generations. VISCO: FOURTH GENERATION WARFARE: REALITY OR MYTH? 111 “In these first chapters, we traced the evolution of the first three generations of war. A couple of facts leap out. First is that none of them consisted of a sudden transformation—each evolved over time. Each could be seen developing over the conflicts that preceded it. “Second, each new generation required developments across the spectrum of society. Technological change along has never been sufficient to produce a major change in how man wages war. It requires a complete societal change—political, economic, social, and technological—to create the conditions necessary for major changes in war. “Finally, we can see the logical progression of the three generations.
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