vimothy
yurp
Future War
Democracies don’t like war. They are squeamish about casualties and in the modern world, with its globalised news organisations, the internet and near instantaneous communication, when they go to war they see a lot of casualties. Jihadists understand this and have devised their assault accordingly. Terrorists’ media orientated attacks strike at the heart of the Western “centre of gravity”, i.e. its political will and motivation. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to protect this centre of gravity because of the inherent openness of Western society. And because of the inherent closed-ness of Islamic society (lack of a free press, little history of self-criticism, parallel cousin marriage, etc), because non-state or sub-state actors (Hamas, Hezballah, Quds, etc) are being protected but not controlled by sovereign nation states and because of the proliferation of international terror networks (al Qaeda et al), clandestine by nature, it has also proved impossible for the West to locate and strike the terrorists’ centre of gravity. Bad news for the free world.
Terrorist tactics have evolved with the emergent “cyber-“ or “network-“ paradigm (globalised information channels and associated technologies, so radicalised youth in Beeston can be watching jihadist footage of IED attacks on American soldiers the very next day) and in reaction to the extreme discrepancy between their own and Western (especially US) forces. In short, jihadist terrorism is a response to the western way of war, utilising, ad hoc but with much success, western technologies. Whilst obviously medieval in their political and religious philosophies (and utterly barbaric on the battlefield: mass slaughter of civilians, revenge rapes and so on way past the point of nausea), jihadist terrorism nevertheless represents the utmost in modernity in terms of warfare.
There are numerous prescient examples of the superiority of the jihadist netwar or fourth generational warfare (4GW) approach (Iraq obviously), but perhaps the most relevant is the recent Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Hezbollah will never succeed in defeating Israel in open battle, but using 4GW methods and tactics managed to repulse Israel, inflicting heavy casualties and winning important military victories, to further damage Israel’s reputation on the international stage, to improve their own image on the Arab street, and to emerge in a stronger position than before as the most powerful terrorist organisation in the world.
Clausewitz noted that defensive war is easier than attack, and surely neither Hamas nor Hezbollah will be rolling the tanks through the streets of Jerusalem. However, success in open battle is not necessary (or feasible) at this stage. What we are witnessing is engineered shifts in the balance of power. Israeli Defence Force doctrine states that one of the goals of the IDF is to project the image of overwhelming force in order to discourage further attacks by Israel’s many enemies. But Hezbollah have made the IDF look weak: defeatable. That is an important victory in itself, for jihadism in general and not just for Hezbollah in particular.
Hezbollah utilised highly committed soldiers, unafraid of causing mass civilian casualties (on any side), created a network of short range artillery and fighters dispersed and concealed across the whole of mountainous southern Lebanon, and of course probably most importantly, through its media wing, al Manar, was adept at using mass media and modern communications networks to manipulate public opinion both in the West and the Middle East. The group was able to fire its automated rockets at large civilian targets in Israel, shutting down cities as their inhabitants hid from the random attacks in bomb shelters, whilst hiding its firepower near civilian targets in Lebanon. They skilfully pounced on any civilian casualties of Israel’s response, and used the furore to erode public support for Israel and to generate an international movement to halt the Israeli offensive. That is to say, Hezbollah mobilised an international pro-jihadist network, a fifth column dedicated to attacking Israel’s centre of gravity, its political will. Hezbollah successfully dilated the battlefield and won a defensive fourth generation war.
War continues to evolve, and the diverse dispersal of jihadist centres and networks, its cells and its media, forms a vast architecture: a rhizomatic web dedicated to fighting this new, future war. Hezbollah is but one part of this structure and its success in the Lebanese theatre last summer provides an important model of how a jihadist group, relatively well funded, armed and lead, can defeat a nominally much superior modern western military machine. And a victory for jihadism anywhere is a victory for jihadism everywhere in the ongoing cultural war, helping to form the ongoing narrative of jihad. In order to win the War on Terror the political will to do so must be generated and protected; oppositional narratives must be formed and inscribed upon the cultural landscape. The West must locate and reach out to the terrorists’ own centre of gravity: public opinion in the Middle East and in the wider Muslim Diaspora. The West needs its own fifth column, and its own fourth generational warriors capable of fighting the future war.
As it stands, no terrorist group, no state or non-state actor, could fight and win a conventional war with the West. However, according to standard insurgency principles (by now: see Mao for the origins of this theory), and looking at jihad as the “long war”, we are at Phase I of its attack on the West: the Strategic Defensive. Jihadism will continue to build strength politically and militarily, wage asymmetrical 4GW, attack the political will to confront it, and try to shift the balance of power until it is strong enough to engage the West in conventional open battle.
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The future is armed to the teeth and is highly motivated, it is dispersed across an ever wider landscape, and it is not waiting for us to arrive: it has begun its relentless assault regardless, chanting the ancient slogans of religious bigotry and blood for a vengeful god. Unless we step into it and learn to fight the future war more effectively than our enemies, we have already lost. For just as he who controls the past controls the future, he who controls the future, also controls the past.