Warfare society. Steve Perry writing in City Pages discusses the changing thinking on warfare -- the advent of a theoretical "fourth generation of warfare" (4GW)-- and relates it to the current US political situation.

He draws much of it from an important paper by a group of military theorists and 1989 article they did sketching out a proposed future of warfare. If you suspect the strategic theories propounded by the Project for a New American Century are the blueprint for what the politicians seek in a world empire, then this document on 4GW.

At each step in the long evolution of war, the authors write, there has been a tendency toward greater diffusion of battlefields and targets, until at last we have come to this: "In broad terms, fourth-generation warfare seems likely to be widely dispersed and largely undefined; the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between 'civilian' and 'military' may disappear..." No more "collateral damage" and no more war crimes, in other words: We are all combatants, as the citizens of New York and Washington, DC learned firsthand on September 11. Full story.

More important than what the authors of "The Changing Face of War" -- and those would be By William S. Lind, Colonel Keith Nightengale (USA), Captain John F. Schmitt (USMC), Colonel Joseph W. Sutton (USA), And Lieutenant Colonel Gary I. Wilson (USMCR) -- have to say about the battlefield and tactics, is what they imply for the society that will, in their vision will become the battleground.

The distinction between "civilian" and "military" may disappear. Actions will occur concurrently throughout all participants' depth, including their society as a cultural, not just a physical, entity.

Psychological operations may become the dominant operational and strategic weapon in the form of media/information intervention. Logic bombs and computer viruses, including latent viruses, may be used to disrupt civilian as well as military operations. Fourth-generation adversaries will be adept at manipulating the media to alter domestic and world opinion to the point where skillful use of psychological operations will sometimes preclude the commitment of combat forces. A major target will be the enemy population's support of its government and the war. Television news may become a more powerful operational weapon than armored divisions
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This kind of high-technology fourth-generation warfare may carry in it the seeds of nuclear destruction. Its effectiveness could rapidly eliminate the ability of a nuclear-armed opponent to wage war conventionally. Destruction or disruption of vital industrial capacities, political infrastructure, and social fabric, coupled with sudden shifts in the balance of power and concomitant emotions, could easily lead to escalation to nuclear weapons.

And from whence will the "enemy" emerge? The military men think it will come from the far outside -- outside the military, outside politics, outside the western tradition.

For about the last 500 years, the West has defined warfare. For a military to be effective it generally had to follow Western models. Because the West's strength is technology, it may tend to conceive of a fourth generation in technological terms.

However, the West no longer dominates the world. A fourth generation may emerge from non-Western cultural traditions, such as Islamic or Asiatic traditions. The fact that some non-Western areas, such as the Islamic world, are not strong in technology may lead them to develop a fourth generation through ideas rather than technology.

To retain power, then, the western military structure must do away with the society we live in and have cherished. The traditional and cherished American freedoms are not only impediments to control and command, they can be used to undermine it, the thinking goes.

Terrorists use a free society's freedom and openness, its greatest strengths, against it. They can move freely within our society while actively working to subvert it. They use our democratic rights not only to penetrate but also to defend themselves. If we treat them within our laws, they gain many protections; if we simply shoot them down, the television news can easily make them appear to be the victims. Terrorists can effectively wage their form of warfare while being protected by the society they are attacking. If we are forced to set aside our own system of legal protections to deal with terrorists, the terrorists win another sort of victory.

And then the military men start what-iffing> they wonder: "(W)hat if we combined terrorism, high technology, and the following additional elements? ...(a) non-national or transnational base, such as an ideology or religion... (a) direct attack on the enemy's culture..(and) (h)ighly sophisticated psychological warfare, especially through manipulation of the media, particularly television news(?)."

Beginning to see where this is going? Then consider the newscasts of the recent days as the Iraq war has gone not-so-according-to-plan (which, ER, we really planned all along).

Some terrorists already know how to play this game. More broadly, hostile forces could easily take advantage of a significant product of television reporting--the fact that on television the enemy's casualties can be almost as devastating on the home front as are friendly casualties. If we bomb an enemy city, the pictures of enemy civilian dead brought into every living room in the country on the evening news can easily turn what may have been a military success (assuming we also hit the military target) into a serious defeat. Full story

This explains a lot of things -- Bush and Rumsfeld anger at Al-Jazeera's broadcast of US POW pictures; the concerted efforts by someone -- allegedly the Pentagon allegedly -- to shut down the aljazeera.net website; media embedding; broadscale efforts by corporately-controlled Congress and White House to consolidate media an few friendly hands; increasing secretiveness and deception in government, etc. etc.

There is a tendency to see the anti-war movement this time around as just that, another movement against a particular war. That should not be the case. It is important that anti-war activist look beyond the immediate to the long-term and campaign against the wider game afoot to turn his country into a full-time police and war security state.

If strategies and tactics are needed, one would do well to study what Lind, et al, have to say about it.


Moreover, it has already started. The military perception that it must exercise absolute control over information -- not just keeping secrets, but promoting lies -- as a 4GW imperative explains why were are getting more of this than ever before:

"The BBC has become so concerned at false and misleading information being put out on the war against Iraq that it has stressed to its journalists that they must clearly attribute military sources.

"According to the Guardian, BBC news chiefs met to discuss the problem after the broadcaster carried several reports later shown to be inaccurate. The misleading reports were all favourable to the US/UK forces and so their exposure has undermined the BBC’s claims to be providing unbiased coverage."

There is reason to think, then, that the next war will not be over there. It will -- is -- right here, and it will be -- is -- between the military-corporate-government complex and the people and the press.