Iraq is a Fourth Generation War
“Hey, where are the enemy tanks?”
At the risk of delving into military theory and throwing around jargon, I’m going to say something about Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW to the acronym-addicted). First defined in 1989, 4GW is essentially a reversion to the modes of ancient tribal conflict, using modern weapons.
The generations of modern warfare have been described like this:
- First Generation: tactics of line and column; which developed in the age of the smoothbore musket. Example: the Napoleonic Wars.
- Second Generation: tactics of linear fire and movement, with reliance on indirect fire. Example: World War I.
- Third Generation: tactics of infiltration to bypass and collapse the enemy’s combat forces rather than seeking to close with and destroy them; and defense in depth. Example: World War II blitzkrieg.
The U.S. Army generals now fighting the war in Iraq were lieutenants when I was a lieutenant, in the late 1970s. We completely ignored the lessons of Vietnam and spent all our waking hours preparing to fight a third generation war of short duration and high intensity. Years of professional training made our Army look unbeatable during the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
But Fourth Generation Warfare is totally different. It is completely decentralized and marked by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, soldier and civilian. It’s low intensity and long duration. Most of all, 4GW signifies the nation states’ loss of their monopoly on combat forces, returning in a sense to the uncontrolled combat of pre-modern times.
One of the originators of 4GW theory, William S. Lind, has pointed out that post-invasion developments in Iraq really blindsided the U.S. military and the Bush administration. They had a tough time making the transition to fighting a counter-insurgency, and by the time they did it was too late. In order to win against an insurgency, there has to be a legitimate state structure for the people to rally around– but the U.S. occupation has pushed Iraq into “failed state” status. Lind’s analysis exposes the gap between the Bush administration version of events, and what’s really happening.
Because there is no state in Iraq, there is also no government. Orders given in Baghdad have no meaning, because there are no state institutions to carry them out. The governmental positions of Iraqi leaders have no substance. Their power is a function of their relationship to various militias, not of their offices. Maliki has no militia, which means he is a figurehead.
The Iraqi “army” and “police” are groupings of Shiite militias that exist to fight other militias and take orders from militia leaders, not the government. Government revenues are slush funds militia leaders use to pay their militiamen. All of these phenomena, and many more, are products of the one basic reality: there is no state.
Welcome to Fourth Generation Warfare.
In his testimony to Congress, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus revealed the limits on his own grasp of 4GW when he said, “We’ve got to continue. We have our teeth into the jugular, and we need to keep it (sic) there.”
Opponents in 4GW have no jugular. 4GW is war of the capillaries. What U.S. forces have their teeth into in Iraq is a jellyfish…
..To win in Iraq, U.S. policymakers must see a state re-emerge. That means U.S. forces should stay out of the way of anyone with the potential to recreate a state. Sadr is at or near the head of the list. The Maliki “government” isn’t even on it.
So what did the U.S. government do? Why, it went to war against Sadr on behalf of Maliki, of course. The American leadership cannot grasp one of the most basic facts about 4GW, namely that the splintering of factions makes it more difficult to generate a state. Should the United States have the bad luck to “win” this latest fight and destroy the Mahdi Army, it will move not toward but further away from that goal.
The Mahdi Army is very far from being destroyed. As Juan Cole points out, “right wing commentators have mistaken the Mahdi Army’s ability to melt away and lie low as a victory.” The Bush administration and its cheerleaders have underestimated the Sadrist movement for years.
