Elegant Irrelevance: Fourth Generation Warfare

Abstract

Abstract : Fourth generation warfare theory models the development of warfare from 1648 to the present through the description of successive generations, or eras, of warfare. The first generation of modern warfare reflects tactics of the smoothbore musket, the tactics of line and column. That year marked the end of the Thirty Years War and the beginning of the ascendancy of nation-states in European affairs, replacing feudal and communal organizations as war-making entities. Second generation warfare emerged in the middle of the 19th century, driven by the technologies of steam, metallurgy, and mass production. This was warfare based on fire and movement at the tactical level and the institutionalization of the concept of operational art. The third generation was invented by the Germans in an attempt to restore operational freedom to the static western front in 1918. Later known as the blitzkrieg, the third generation of warfare emphasized qualitative maneuver over quantitative fire. The common characteristic of the first three generations of warfare is their existence within the trinitarian universe of Clausewitz. Fourth Generation warfare is a non-trinitarian, or post-Clauswitzian, view of the world. Nation-states are losing their status, and with it primacy as the entities that control the use of war. In their place, a broad variety of nongovernmental entities are fighting wars for their own purposes. Fourth generationists assert that this stage is born principally of political utility, technology may become virtually irrelevant, and military forces effective in the second and third generations will be largely useless in the fourth. Fourth generationists posit that the West Bank uprisings and the ongoing war in Bosnia clearly indicate the decline of the nation-state and the rise of nongovernmental organizations as war-making bodies. The author presents counterarguments for each historical period, concluding that the theory is untenable and its relevance questionable.