William S. Lind has written the “On War” blog for a number of years. He published what may be his last column, On War #326, Finis this week.
Provocative and insightful, his writings tried to make sense out of military strategy as the world’s forces move towar 4th Generation Warfare (4GW). He defines 4GW by who fights it: people who are loyal not to nation-states, but to smaller, non-territorial groups. Al Queada and the Mexican drug gangs come to mind, as do the forces in Somalia, Rwanda, etc. His full definition is,
Since 1989, the world has witnessed a progressive weakening of the state and rise of alternative, non-state primary loyalties, for which a growing number of men are willing to fight. That is the heart of my definition of Fourth Generation war. As Martin van Creveld says, what changes is not how war is fought, but who fights and what they fight for.
He makes two points in this final issue:
- First, the shift toward 4GW is accelerating. He says, “It is the biggest change in war since the Peace of Westphalia.”
- Second, the US military does not get it. It is still enmeshed in the WWII command structures. Even worse, he believes the generals “think little if at all about war. What they think about is money. 4GW does little to justify bigger budgets. On the contrary, it suggests that most “big ticket” weapons programs are irrelevant to where war is going. That is not what the brass, or the defense companies they plan to work for after retirement, want to hear.”
What has our trillion-dollar annual defense budget bought us? Anything besides impending bankruptcy?
Read the whole blog entry here.