There are many online articles that touch on fourth generation warfare. Many are directly based on the guidelines described by William Lind, who first published the concept of this doctrine on behalf of the U.S. Army. Lind's articles generally contain inaccuracies with respect to the history of war and thus the very definition what is a fourth-generation conflict. Lind, though perfectly describes the first three generations of war, does not mention the reasons which made the jump from one type to another and also miss a step, hybrid between the third and fourth generation. But let's start at the beginning.
Historicism of barbarism
The war in the modern sense can be divided into stages. A "prehistory" of the war includes any period before the invention of gunpowder, not because it is a homogeneous phase, but because each army had property strategy and everything in its formation was willing to carry it out. Think of the births and attack and retreat, the Aztecs did not kill, but take prisoners, or the Romans with their contraptions of war. From 1648 with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia was an important step in the strategy of war for two reasons:
- states monopolized the control of the war that was before practiced by clan leaders, families, etc. ...
- Religion is no longer a reason for going to war, at least in Europe
Here things start to take another look stages and we can talk more clearly with respect to military strategy:
The first stage begins with the signing of the treaty itself creates a military culture (as contradictory as it sounds the term), which occurs the distinction between military and civilians, establishing clear and formal ranks, uniforms and greetings are set according to these ranges. Even though in the formal, imposing a strict order, in practice the battlefield was much more messy than it is pretendíay was still the custom to keep lines organized so far to charge the enemy, something it was more a stampede training. With the introduction of powerful firearms and the first pieces of shrapnel artilleríay was suicidatransparente onslaught. This was applied by their own developers in Haiti, Saint Domingue at the time. François Dominique Toussaint However realiazó an excellent job of training the slaves freed by their government. While the French took Haiti, one of his plans was to reestablish slavery, which could not be achieved, even when Loverture, nickname of Toussaint, was imprisoned in France. Makes its first appearance liberation ideal as a disruptor of the imperial war strategies. What if Europe is not only defeated in Haiti, but throughout the continent?
Before the First World War was theorized a new type of strategy and during the First World War is implemented as a response to the lack of discipline and the use of artillery, which would mark the transition to the second generation of strategy. Established a centralized command synchronizing the massive use of artillery pieces to wear and once was little or no resistance the soldiers came to the occupation. Each plan was carefully synchronized and imposing discipline at any cost because of this lack of sync was putting soldiers at risk an entire operation. Does this sound familiar? According to William Lind, one of the ideologists of the fourth generation warfare, the U.S. military continues to use that mode of war.
But this kind of war would finally defeated during the Second World War. Third generation warfare was originally called blitzkrieg (lightning war) and was applied by the Nazis to occupy territories such as Poland and France. Third generation warfare is based less on firepower, but to neutralize the enemy's firepower with quick and accurate maneuvers. A good example was the German invasion of France, protected by the Maginot Line, the second war paradigm generacióny transparenteinvasoras forces defeated by Nazi war paradigm of third generation. The Germans surrounded the Maginot line and sprayed with relatively little resistance given the greater mobility of armored and air parts of troops. While the war seemed the only third generation form of struggle at the time, guerrilla warfare proved defeat. The German bases targeted by the Maquis, were fatally wounded before the Allies retook France. Even after World War II guerrilla groups proliferated in our continent were a few fatal blows to the host "state." Take for example the cases of Cuba and Nicaragua. If we analyze the guerrilla actions, possesses superior mobility to any troops on foot because his knowledge of the terrain, but has no means of transportation and air tanks in its first phase, the accumulation of forces. So, the guerrillas are better at third-generation war that national armies?
should not forget that a guerrilla army is a small group at first, rampant guerrilla warfare if and only if they can win the support of unarmed people, is this who provided intelligence on the enemy, and the vaqueanos of each area are giving the guerrillas the crucial advantage on the ground, allowing full advantage of the oppressive forces. Two cases underlying this, two sad cases I might add:
- The old confrontation between the FARC and various paramilitary armies in Colombia:
- Although there is a relative balance of power between the two sides, the paramilitaries subsist on the financing of drug traffickers and foreign investment
- The defeat of Che Guevara in Bolivia:
- His defeat was only possible when the population surrounding the camp refused because of ignorance or fear to lend their support
synthesis, the question of the guerrilla war against the armies of third generation is reduced to a point Song: "They're tiny but with hearts as big." In response, the armies have adopted new strategies prior to the fourth generation warfare.
3.5-generation
War
In 1951, during the Indochina War the French took the "Red Book" of Mao as a starting point for developing a doctrine to destroy the link between armed insurgents and their popular rear. In Algeria, where he came developing a liberation war against French rule these tactics were applied and polished. The set of tactics of torture, murder and disappearance was later called "dirty war" given its villainous nature. According to this doctrine of war were imprisoned and tortured any civilian suspected of collaborating with armed groups. He was tortured with two functions. The first was to get information if this was the goal once achieved it was killed and his body disappear. If the individual could be useful to life tortured him to break it and use later as an informant or witness. When stopped being useful as they proceeded with the first.
use brute force produced two adverse effects for the French. First, the promise of the use of torture, killings and informal distribution of drugs that are hacíaa responsible for these matters atraíaa the worst and this made them extremely unpopular. To this point were well regarded by the population instead of fulfilling its role of disruption, this doctrine only increased popular participation in the liberation movements Vietnamese and Algerian.
The second disadvantage was seen when the dirty war was exported to Europe. Although the implemented schemes such as that established in Argentina with the 1976 coup, came under its own weight. The military made the country a supply obscene investors hit, call the U.S. and international private groups. In military affairs of state were inept. Although changing the names of the leaders the military regime was still no institutional legitimacy and gave a terrible picture of American interventionism. This way of making war was, then a hybrid of the two previous generations and the next, the use of firearms was essential. Large armies were mobilized fiercely disciplined and small numbers of specialized squads dedicated to annihilate the enemy's operational capacity through force. These two "types" of the army under the second and third phase of the war respectively, but were also used psychological operations if somewhat rudimentary fit the profile of the fourth stage. Importantly, given the asymmetry of forces in conflict, the state became masked its role a terrorist state forced away his opponents and subvert reality to hide their true position in the war.
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