(2004-12-07) Lind Defense Disorder Terror

William Lind on Dealing With Terrorism via defense.

• First, the threat America faces is not merely terrorism, which is only a technique. The threat is Fourth Generation warfare (FourGW), which is a vastly broader phenomenon... Second, no state armed forces know how to defeat Fourth Generation opponents militarily, and thus far none have been able to do so...

• Col John Boyd, USAF, America's greatest military theorist, defined Grand Strategy as the art of connecting to as many other independent power centers as possible, while isolating the enemy from as many independent power centers as possible. The grand strategic question facing the US is how to do that in a 21st century that will increasingly be dominated by non-state, Fourth Generation forces...

• The answer begins by considering why the state first arose toward the end of the 15th century. Medieval Europe was a highly ordered, cultured, and successful society. It was brought down primarily by the Black Death, a point of more than historical interest in a world where many non-state forces may be able to carry out biological attacks. After the medieval order fell, it was succeeded by disorder, which led naturally to a strong desire for order, which in time was supplied by the state.

• In a Fourth Generation world, surviving states will not be the only centers of order. One of the central characteristics of the Fourth Generation is a return to a world where culture will often be more significant than statehood, and some cultures tend toward order... In general, Isolationism will mean minimizing contacts that involve flows of people, money, materials, and new primary loyalties, such as religions and ideologies, into the United States...

• The second part of our prescription, an annihilating counteroffensive, needs some elaboration... When that is the case, it will be imperative that the employment of unconventional weapons follows instantly after a successful attack on the United States. As Machiavelli would understand, such a reaction must appear to be a "spasm" on our part, not a calculated act...

• As dangerous as the importation of Fourth Generation war into America is, more dangerous still is the Fourth Generation war that America may develop from within. To survive the crisis of legitimacy of the state that lies at the heart of Fourth Generation war, a state needs two qualities: an open Political System (Open Society) and a unitary Culture...any state that has neither is likely to experience a crisis of legitimacy... That means opening up the political system and abandoning Multi Culturalism (Cultural Pluralism?) for a policy of encouraging what used to be called Americanization (and is in fact the adoption of Anglo-Saxon norms, at least in the public square).

• From a Fourth Generation perspective, America and China are united by the most powerful of all strategic common interests, an interest in the preservation of order. China should be viewed as a strategic ally of the first importance under any government that can maintain China's internal unity.

I think his strong desire for order colors his thinking. Perhaps it's a matter of definition and measure. I think a certain amount of order is necessary for a Civil Society that's stable enough that you don't need to worry about your house getting burned down when you go to the corner for milk.