How I learned to stop worrying and love Fourth Generation War. We can win at this game.

Summary: Looking through the archives of any website discussing modern war quickly reveals how little we have learned since 9-11, despite our futile but large expenditures of money and blood. The resistance to war with Syria (outcome still unknown) suggests that the time might have come to dust off these lessons. Perhaps America has grown weary of failure, and become willing to explore different paths.

This series expands on a post from July 2005. The other chapters:

2. We are the attackers in the Clash of Civilizations. We’re winning.
3. Handicapping the clash of civilizations: bet on America to win

Contents

1. Introduction
2. History of defense vs offence
3. A new era of defensive strategy
4. Making the change
5. About fourth generation warfare
6. About the win rate of foreign armies fighting insurgents

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(1) Introduction

In 2009 I wrote that our military’s response to 9-11 was to adopt the WW1-era cult of the offense (natural, since our military doctrine was largely WWi-era 2GW). Two failed occupations later, we continue to seek foreign monsters to destroy. The American public’s opposition to intervention in Syria indicates that the bankruptcy of this doctrine has become obvious. But what can replace it?

In both his “On War” articles, in the Fourth Generation Warfare Field Manual, and particularly in his article “Strategic Defense Initiative”, William Lind points to a possible solution to America’s strategic problems:

{O}ne matter of prime importance seemed to be agreed by all parties: in the so-called War on Terror, America must remain on the offensive. … There is little doubt that “being on the offensive” sounded good to most voters. But if the objective is to design a strategy that brings victory in the War on Terror, a different approach may have much to recommend it.

Lind quotes from Carl von Clausewitz’s On War :

“{D}efense is simply the stronger form of war, the one that makes the enemy’s defeat more certain. We maintain unequivocally that the form of warfare that we call defense not only offers greater probability of victory than attack, but that its victories can attain the same proportions and results.”

Lind’s essay develops the strategic implications of a defensive strategy. Quite sensibly, since history shows us that a defensive posture is stronger than offense. Look at Europe: since the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648 few invaders have achieved profitable victories against roughly equal opponents; all of the large aggressors have lost. This post looks at other aspects of this solution.

(2) History of defense vs offence

Bill Bonner, an American expatriate living in France, once observed that after 300+ years of French military adventures — with their dead scattered over Europe – the French have considered what they gained from this sacrifice, and find it insufficient. Perhaps the French and their neighbors in Europe have learned the impotence of 2nd and 3rd generation militaries in a 4th generation world. Their conventional wars against each other produced no victors; their 4GWs waged as colonial powers after WW2 produced only defeats.

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The futility of conventional warfare is now obvious to almost everyone. The futility of invasions and occupations in 4GW has only slowly become so, as repeated failures show that the home court advantage is decisive in 4GW. In Chapter 6.2 of Changing Face of War (2006) Martin van Creveld describes the success rate of foreign armies fighting local insurgencies:

What is known, though, is that attempts by post-1945 armed forces to suppress guerrillas and terrorists have constituted a long, almost unbroken record of failure … {W}hat changed was the fact that, whereas previously it had been the main Western powers that failed, now the list included other countries as well. Portugal’s expulsion from Africa in 1975 was followed by the failure of the South Africans in Namibia, the Ethiopians in Ertrea, the Indians in Sri Lanka, the Americans in Somalia, and the Israelis in Lebanon. … Even in Denmark {during WWII}, “the model protectorate”, resistance increased as time went on.

Many of these nations used force up to the level of genocide in their failed attempts to defeat local insurgencies. Despite that, foreign forces have an almost uniform record of defeat. Such as the French-Algerian War, which the French waged until their government collapsed.

How can we defend ourselves, if not by attacking every foe, even potential foes?

(3) A new era of defensive strategy

The world’s richest, most powerful nation remains locked in fear about tiny numbers of insurgents fighting in the poorest regions of the world. We spend on our military many times the sum of all likely enemy nations combined. We spend on counter-terrorism a fantastic multiple (probably thousands) more than spent by every terrorist group on the planet. Something is wrong with this picture.

This madness suggests the time has come for change. The wheel of history has rolled to a new era in which the US can and should return to its non-interventionist roots, a defensive strategy.

• We can help allies with money, aid, advice, and other forms of support. Strong governments almost always defeat insurgents (see section 6 below).
• We can promise State attackers that they will receive devastating retaliatory strikes. Game theory suggests that “tit for tat” is one of the most effective tactics. Assured Destruction, extended over the full range of war, nuclear to conventional, probably will prove to be the winning tactic in the 21st century (as it was in the 20th after WW2).
• Terrorists without clear State sponsorship — such as the fearsome anarchists, the less effective but still deadly leftists groups of the 1960s and 1970s, and today’s jihadists — provide few targets for retaliation, but can be dealt with by police and security agencies. As all of these groups learned to their sorrow (including the real al Qaeda, not the nationalist insurgencies using that brand name).

There is no perfect safety outside Heaven. But we can achieve reasonable security for far less than we spend today, freeing funds desperately needed elsewhere.

(4) Making the change

Shifting from power projection — with frequent foreign interventions — to defensive strategy poses serious structural challenges. The military-industrial complex would need incentives to change its vision. Our Defense Department would require deep retraining in order to warrant its name.

The rewards will be large costs savings, fewer Americans sacrificed in futile foreign wars, and equivalent or perhaps greater security. Making the change takes only the involvement of the American people: will and effort. We can do it.

(5) For more information about 4GW

The original paper about 4GW: “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation” by William S. Lind, Keith Nightengale (Colonel, US Army), John F. Schmitt (Captain, USMC), Joseph W. Sutton (Colonel, US Army), and Gary I. Wilson (Lieutenant Colonel, USMCR), Marine Corps Gazette., October 1989

Field Manuals from the Fourth Generation Warfare Seminar at the Marine Corps Base, Quantico:

1. FMFM 1A, Fourth Generation Warfare, August 2009 (720 KB PDF)
2. FMFM 1-3A, A Tactical Handbook for Counterinsurgency and Police Operations, 12 August 2008 (158 KB PDF)
3. FMFM 1A-3A, A Book of 4GW Tactical Decision Games, 3 October 2008 (95 pp, 2.5 MB PDF)
4. Light Infantry, 24 September 2008 (495 KB PDF)
5. FMFM 3-23 Air Cooperation, August 2009 (1.2 MB PDF)
6. FMFM 3-25 How to Fight in a 4th Generation Insurgency, August 2009 (725 KB PDF)

Posts about 4GW:

1. A solution to 4GW — the introduction
2. Why We Lose at 4GW – About the two kinds of insurgencies
3. Arrows in the Eagle’s claw — solutions to 4GW
4. Arrows in the Eagle’s claw — 4GW analysts
5. Visionaries point the way to success in the age of 4GW
6. 4GW: A solution of the first kind – Robots!
7. 4GW: A solution of the second kind — New ideas about tactics & strategy
8. 4GW: A solution of the third kind -– New ways to shape our institution
9. About Fourth Generation Infections – Chet Richards explains the nature of outlaw organizations in the 21st century

(6) About the win rate of foreign armies fighting local insurgents

1. How often do insurgents win? How much time does successful COIN require?, 29 May 2008
2. Max Boot: history suggests we will win in Afghanistan, with better than 50-50 odds. Here’s the real story., 21 June 2010 — Boot discusses 7 alleged victories by foreign armies fighting insurgencies.
3. A major discovery! It could change the course of US geopolitical strategy, if we’d only see it, 28 June 2010 — Andrew Exum (aka Abu Muqawama) points us to the doctoral dissertation of Erin Marie Simpson in Political Science from Harvard. She examines the present and past analysis of counter-insurgency. This could change the course of American foreign policy, if we pay attention.
4. A look at the history of victories over insurgents, 30 June 2010
5. COINistas point to Kenya as a COIN success. In fact it was an expensive bloody failure., 7 August 2012

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