Fourth generation warfare: characteristics and applications

Fourth Generation Warfare

Some analysts have argued that "fourth generation warfare" is new. This author will argue that there is nothing new about fourth generation warfare. Modern military analysts have simply been ignoring it because they know how to do second and third generation warfare. Fourth generation warfare is as old as human beings. Although it was only formally defined in the famous Marine Corps Gazette article of 1989, it predates formal warfare precisely because it involves terrorist actors. Since it existed from the beginning, it was just "under the radar screen" of military analysts who were used to modern technology and tactics.

The simplest definition of fourth generation warfare includes any kind of warfare in which one of the participants is not a state but instead a violent terrorist actor. Classical examples include such as the slave rising under Spartacus. Of course, this predates the modern concept of warfare and is a classic example of this type of warfare. Fourth generation warfare uses tactics deemed unacceptable by modern warfare theory makers to weaken the advantaged opponent's will to win (Lind, "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation," p. 22).

This view has not been universally embraced. Scholars such as Antulio Echevarria II feel that we would be better embracing the old idea of counterinsurgency and that the new theoretical formulation offers nothing new (Echevarria, "Fourth generation War and Other Myths," p. iii.).

The use of fourth generation warfare of course happened even during the Cold War period, as the superpowers and major regional powers attempted to keep their grip on colonies and territories. Unable to withstand direct combat against modern weapons, non-state entities used tactics of secrecy, terror, and confusion to overcome the gap with state combatants. Fourth generation warfare has very often involved an insurgent group or other violent non-state actor trying to implement a new government or reestablish an old one over the current ruling power. However, a fourth generation war is the most successful (from the rebel's perspective) when the non-state entity does not attempt, to impose its own rule, but instead tries simply to disorganize and delegitimize the state in which the warfare takes place. The aim therefore is to force the state adversary to expend manpower and money in an attempt to establish order, ideally in such a highhanded way that it merely increases disorder, until the state surrenders or withdraws.

Fourth generation warfare has much in common with traditional low-intensity conflict in the more classical forms of insurgency and guerrilla war. As in those small wars, the conflict is initiated by the weaker party through actions which can be termed "offensive." The difference lies in the manner in which fourth generation warfare opponents adapt those traditional concepts to present day conditions. These conditions are shaped by factors such as technology, globalization, religious fundamentalism and a shift in moral and ethical norms which brings legitimacy to certain issues previously considered restrictions on the conduct of war. This combination produces new ways of war for both the entity on the offensive and that on the defensive. This has motivated authors such as Simon Murden to advocate staying the present course in the U.S. military's prosecution of the war on terror (Murden, "Staying the Course in 'Fourth-Generation Warfare'…, p. 197). Threats presented by terrorists like the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq lead authors such as Brian Fishman as well to see this as the best option for the West (Fishburn, "Fourth Generation War…, p. 7).