THE FOUR GENERATIONS OF WARFARE 1GW: First-generation warfare refers to Ancient

THE FOUR GENERATIONS OF WARFARE

1GW: First-generation warfare refers to Ancient and Post-classical battles fought with massed manpower, using line and column tactics with uniformed soldiers governed by the state.

2GW: Second-generation warfare is the Early modern tactics used after the invention of the rifled musket and breech-loading weapons and continuing through the development of the machine gun and indirect fire. The term second generation warfare was created by the U.S. military in 1989.

3GW – Third-generation warfare focuses on using Late modern technology-derived tactics of leveraging speed, stealth and surprise to bypass the enemy’s lines and collapse their forces from the rear. Essentially, this was the end of linear warfare on a tactical level, with units seeking not simply to meet each other face to face but to outmaneuver each other to gain the greatest advantage.

4GW – Fourth-generation warfare as presented by Lind et al. is characterized by “Post-modern” a return to decentralized forms of warfare, blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians due to nation states’ loss of their near-monopoly on combat forces, returning to modes of conflict common in pre-modern times. (I See 4GW as a return to normalcy prior to 2GW).

~5GW – We ‘hypothesize’ this is robotic warfare where more advanced societies protect themselves by expensive mechanical means.

~6GW – We ‘hypothesize’ this is artificial intelligence warfare, under the “Collossus” rule: that politics have been removed from the decision criteria and our defense is effectively in the hands of a computerized ‘god’. So that humans are no longer accountable for retaliation. (The Russians are halfway there already)