XGW and Torture

Cross Posted at Dreaming 5GW

When considering the use of torture within the framework of XGW it becomes clear that torture has real utility at only three gradients of doctrine.

 

0GW Torture:

0GW – Confrontation and Conflict at its most basic level is an expression of natural selection. This genetic imperative is the principle behind any doctrine that is essentially the projection of Force for the survival of an individual organism.

When considering torture from the most basic, survival, level consideration of morality has no bearing upon the use of any method that ensures survival. The imperative is the continuation of the line, therefore, so long as the subject of the torture isn’t of that line any method of information extraction is justified.

 

4GW Torture:

4GW – Fourth gradient doctrines are based upon the principle of the attainment of a functional invulnerability that prevents the opponent from being able to orient upon a threat and creates a perception that saps the ability of the opponent to function effectively.

The use of torture at the fourth gradient is premised upon the creation of a sense of dread of the unknown in the minds of the opponent. Torture becomes a method not just of gathering information, but a weapon of fear. Used as an extreme, the opponent may have a fear of capture by the 4GW actor that prevents the opponent from orienting effectively, always considering most immediately the need to be able to escape rather than the most immediate method to execute their own doctrine. The morality of the use of torture at this gradient is ignored in the necessity of its utility to inspire fear.

 

5GW Torture:

5GW – Fifth gradient doctrines are based upon the principle of manipulation of the context of the observations of an opponent in order to achieve a specific effect.

Torture at the fifth gradient takes on a different aspect from the use of torture at 0GW and 4GW. At those gradients the negative moral aspect of torture is either irrelevant or used to give torture utility. For 5GW the moral aspect of torture is the most important aspect. In most  (if not all cases) 5GW is a warfare of competing ideas and ideals. At the fifth gradient the least desirable outcome is to have your ideology linked to an overwhelmingly negative meme like torture either  through your own actions, or by the manipulation of an opponent that links torture to your ideology.

 

Do the Ends Justify the Means?

Calling it torture or “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” makes no difference, if a method is seen to be torture it carries a negative moral connotation. As it is argued above, for two of the three gradients this is either irrelevant or desirable, however, for 5GW the moral aspect is paramount. At the risk of editorializing, the United States of America is at its very core an expression of an ideology, an expression of connectivity and freedom and the ideal that all good things are possible with enough hard work and determination. As such, The United States of America in spreading that ideal must always approach any conflict or confrontation from the fifth gradient mind-set.  Because of that, the USA must never engage in a method or doctrine that has a negative moral aspect, and must always guard against an opponent’s attempt to manipulate the USA into a morally negative action,  lest that negative meme be linked to the positive ideological foundation of the country.

For 5GW the means justify the end.

Swine Flu as System Perturbation

Cross-posted at Dreaming 5GW

Rule Set – System Perturbation – New Rule Set

Going back to some of my very first considerations of Fifth Gradient Warfare (Fifth Generation Warfare at the time), this very simple three part progression is the main concept that informs the process of the directed manipulation of systems that is at the heart of 5GW.  The attention that is being given to the Swine Flu outbreak offers a very good opportunity to explore the utility of this process.

The Bad:

The worst of all system perturbations is exemplified by the Black Swan scenario. This is a system perturbation that is completely unexpected and because there a no rule sets or few weak rule sets that have been established to deal with such situations, the chaos that is created is potentially massive. It may be so massive, in fact, that the system never recovers, that new rule sets aren’t able to be created or are even weaker than before, making the system even more fragile. The H5N1 Bird Flu (or other pandemic illness) is sometimes talked about as such a system perturbation due to fears that no matter what preparations are made ahead of an outbreak, the health system will be quickly overwhelmed and cease to be effective regardless of the response. While the Swine Flu doesn’t seem to be, at this point, as dangerous as Bird Flu, it is behaving in a manner that is consistent with how a Bird Flu type pandemic might begin.

The Not Quite as Bad:

While a Fifth Gradient actor might well engineer a Black Swan type system perturbation scenario in order to influence the creation of new rule sets, there is an alternate approach known as ‘Boiling the Frog’. In this sort of scenario the system perturbation is very controlled in scope in order to place calculated stresses on a system. The point of this may be to cause a collapse of systems much like a Black Swan event, but it can also serve a different agenda that highlights the ability of Fifth Gradient doctrines to be used on multiple sides of a confrontation or conflict. In this kind of situation 5GW doctrine may be used in order to strengthen as much as weaken rule sets. Swine Flu offers an opportunity for this kind of 5GW manipulation.

Using Swine Flu to turn a Black Swan Grey:

Because Swine Flu appears to be very similar to Bird Flu yet, less dangerous (at least at this point), it offers a 5GW actor (who may have potentially created such as system perturbation or may merely seize the moment) the opportunity to stress and manipulate the infections disease response system in order to strengthen those parts of the system (rule sets) that are effective, eliminate or repair the parts of the system that are ineffective, and create new rule sets that cover situations that hadn’t been considered before (for example, the most infectious part of the Swine Flu so far has been the uninformed panic it has inspired on users of Twitter. Filters for such occurrences are being created by the community and will doubtless come into use on Twitter and in other social networking platforms in future situations).

Consider the Anthrax letters that followed in the wake of September 11, 2001. While they were undoubtedly the work of a very angry and disturbed individual, the response they caused served more to strengthen the system than it did to permanently disrupt the system. Now mail is scanned for agents such as Anthrax and potential targets of such attacks are much more aware of the risks as well as the correct response to a potential attack. Additionally, law enforcement now has the experience of responding to such attacks and what is involved in tracking those who would perpetrate those sorts of attacks.

Swine Flu offers the potential for a similar sort of  ‘practice run’ for an outbreak of pandemic influenza. The rule sets involved will now be subjected to real-life stresses that cannot be createdby any ’simulation’ and will involve, by necessity, all aspects of the response system at the same time. Only at such times can the true strengths and vulnerabilities of the system be recognized.

Recommended Reading: In Harmonium

Originally published 8/25/08 at Dreaming 5GW.

Notes Towards a Theory of Asymmetric Conflict. 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 Lots of great food for thought here that resonates well with XGW theory, specifically the concepts of perception (4GW) and context (5GW).

Demographic Warfare

Originally published 8/17/08 at Dreaming 5GW.

From Russia Policy; Trying to Make a Virue Out of Having Ceded the Initiative at Zenpundit in a comment by Seerov.

“This war is the result of the old Soviet policy of demographic engineering.  The Soviets (Especially Stalin) would “dilute” its bordering States with ethnic Russians.  This gave the Soviet leadership some “good guys” in every surrounding country.  Sometimes this demographic engineering would entail removing an ethnic group and “replanting” it somewhere in Siberia or the Caucuses.  China has similar policies towards Tibet and other breakaway regions.  They’ve relocated millions of Han-Chinese into Tibet in order to have “goodguys” there.  There’s some who accuse the US government of doing the same thing.  A working/middle class ethnic coalition of European Americans in the US is a threat to the US elite. In order to “dilute this threat,” the elites had to push by forced diversity initiatives, and remove the freedom of association from people.  The US government also uses psychological and economic warfare to make sure that the White middle/working classes accept forced diversity. 
.
This policy may have worked while the Soviet apparatus was in place, but once it fell, these groups then started pursuing their own ethnic interests, instead of “Soviet Interests.”  Of course, as the old Nation State Order gives-way to Hyper-Globalization, I’m pretty sure that more and more ethnic groups will be asking ”is it good for the _Fill_IN_THE_Blank_, when making a policy decisions. 
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Today’s Russia uses ethnic Russians in a way that constitutes some sort of Warfare(5GW?)?  I think we can call it demographic warfare?  The Soviets conducted ”demographic engineering,” as these actions were for the “health” of the State.  The US and China conduct “demographic engineering.” Modern Russia conduct’s “demographic warfare” to help control territory past its borders.  Russia can use the excuse that its “preventing genocide” in almost all of its bordering nations.”

 
I think the idea of Demographic Warfare is interesting but I don’t think it really qualifies as 5GW, rather more along the lines of ethic gerrymandering.

The 5GW approach, to my mind, would be more along the line of triggering a specific identity in a targeted individual, group or organization. We all carry around many, many identities, they come from our familes and our professions, where we went to school, the country we are a citizen of, as well as what country our ancestors came from. To be able to cause a target to think of something through the lens of a specific identity is, as far as I am concerned, is the most subtle and effective manipulation of context possible, and therefore 5GW.

(Major hat tip to Stephen Pampinella)

More 5GW Fiction: Halting State by Charles Stross

Originally published 8/6/08 at Dreaming 5GW.

Halting State

by Charles Stross

 Halting State is set in the near furure and centers initially around a bank robbery. That in itself isn’t especially SciFi or even 5GWish except that this particular bank robbery was carried out against a bank in an MMORPG virtual world by a band of Orcs backed up by a Dragon. As the investigation starts to gain a clear picture of what actually happened this has very serious national security implications.

 Much like Daemon, the 5GWish aspect of Halting State involves how communications technology, MMORPGs, Augmented Reality (AR) and other concepts that people now use for, or look to be the next wave in, entertainment and work, can be easily and invisibly turned into platforms for warfare. Especially warfare by proxy.

 Not to spoil any plot aspects of the story but those interested in 5GW should pay very close attention to SPOOKS, an espionage game played by two of the main characters and STEAMING, a game that is under development at the beginning of the book.

Blog Tank: National Strategy for a Few Nuclear Weapons – 5GW

Originally published 7/15/08 at Dreaming 5GW.

An Interesting puzzle for 5GW thinking. (Hat tip: Zenpundit)

Blog Tank: National Strategy for a Few Nuclear Weapons – Expanded

by Cheryl Rofer

“Andy at Nuclear Mangoes reminded me over the weekend of my irritation that nobody has addressed the strategy of one to a few nuclear weapons. That’s a different problem than something in the range of 5-10, which is a different problem from a higher number. None of these have been addressed systematically for today’s world.

 

So let’s have a blog tank. Anyone who wants to participate should post a scenario (or scenarios) on their blog or, if you don’t have a blog, in the comments to this post. Here is the problem I want to address:

What strategies are available to a country with fissionable material sufficient for 1-5 nuclear weapons, some of which may be assembled? Take into account probable responses, and assume some sort of rationality on the holders of these weapons and material. You may specifically refer to Iran and North Korea, or any other nation, or make the scenario(s) more general. Flesh out the scenario with some support.”

 

My thinking is that it really isn’t very cost effective for a country to build a nuclear program that provided only a few useable weapons, Once the infrastructure is in place an arsenal of a few dozen weapons would likely be possible as a country plays for time, betting that the program will reach maturity before international sanctions could ruin the country. From there it just becomes a question of the range of the possible delivery vehicles. In the event of military preemption before the program reaches its production goal, the existing weapons, if used, would most likely be used tactically, a situation that already has a well developed doctrine.

A more interesting scenario to me is what would happen if a nation or organization without a nuclear arms program should happen to find itself in possession of one to five nuclear weapons, a few former Soviet nuclear artillery shells for example. Perhaps through some sort of logistical error a few of these rounds made it into circulation in the Caucasus. Several countries militarily active in the region, including Russia, have 2S7 Pion self-propelled guns and / or 2S4 Tulip self-propelled mortars capable of firing 203mm and 240mm nuclear shells respectively. The yield of a slightly larger US weapon, the W19,  was 15-20 kilotons. Reportedly, Russian weapons had higher yields than their U. S. counterparts so this range seems a good ballpark for comparison and places it in approximately the same range as Little Boy and Fat Man, the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This gives these devices a very respectable amount of potential destruction to compliment the greatest possible asset for these weapons, their portability and size. Yes, these weapons are intended to be used tactically, but is it possible to craft a scenario to use them strategically?

This situation also suggests four different types of players (aside from the pure terrorist).

1) The Outpost of Tyranny #7:  Basically, a country with an authoritarian regime that wants to make waves with the big players, yet doesn’t want to be paid a visit by the Leviathan and will use these weapons to prevent that possibility.

 

2) The Independence movement:  A country or organization that desires to set itself apart and / or establish its own country or government independent from the government that currently rules it. They want to change the map and they want to ensure that the change is permanent.

 

3) The Prince among the Paupers:  Several countries around the world are making a concerted effort to increase their connectivity and enter the ranks of the Core while their neighbors remain firmly and resolutely in the Gap. and unfortunately those neighbors only seem to export unrest and deter foreign investment. Worse they quite often become the fourth type of player.

 

4) The Covetous Neighbor:  These are countries, mired in third-world status, that see more prosperous and resource rich neighbors around them. Should they acquire the means, how could they acquire those resources, and how would they prevent the world for stopping them?

 

Looking at the problem through the problem-solving lens of XGW  a few considerations become rapidly apparent for all of these players. The opposition to the possession of these weapons will likely respond with a 2GW, 3GW or 4GW (especially in the case of player #3) doctrine. Therefore a 4GW or 5GW doctrine is required. Also, as General Sir Rupert Smith would argue, the force needs to be placed in a political context or it will have no Utility. Therefore, I propose a 4GW doctrine for the operational use of these weapons within a political context shaped by a strategy using a 5GW doctrine.

 

The 4GW Operation:

As noted before, the greatest strength of these weapons is their size and portability. Assuming that the devices could be modified for transportation and detonation they could be possibly smuggled virtually anywhere in the world. This capability means that the weapons could very well be pre-positioned as nuclear blackmail. To add to the confusion of where the weapons are positioned and to maintain the ongoing threat I envision a nuclear shell game, where dummy weapons (maybe enhanced with slightly radioactive medical waste) are emplaced alongside the real weapons in various points around a target with dummy weapons ’allowed’ to be discovered from time to time, or whenever an object lesson is desired on the part of the player emplacing them. Each of the players that I have described could find targets that would serve their purposes in this way. As 4GW this is a strike against the will of the target, making them choose between their political goal in opposing the ‘player’ or sacrificing something potentially very valuable to them (like the center of their capital city, military base or main shipping port). The more weapons that are available, the greater the potential for deterrence.

 

The 5GW Strategy:

 Ironically, even though the 4GW Operation benefits from more weapons being available, the 5GW strategy only requires one (and with the proper preparation you might even be able to get away with none, but that’s an advanced class). Essentially, the objective is to prove the potential of multiple weapons by openly displaying the existence of at least one weapon. Should you possess only two, one should be test-detonated and the other should be openly displayed to an authority that can realiably vouch for its authenticity. This very controlled transparency is a 5GW affect on observation that triggers existing assumptions, rule-sets and responses both in countries that are targeted and in countries that are merely in the audience. At this point even if the target believes you are bluffing your target must at least honor the threat. When that happens the shell game your 4GW Operation is playing may as well be Three-Card Monte. The key to making that happen is for the player to act in every way as if the weapons actually exist, and that the player has the ability and the will to use them. This means having a dedicated logistical and security force to service and guard nothing, exercises to employ weapons you don’t have, foreign policy that embodies deterrence by weapons that don’t exist. The reason for this is that your enemies will search relentlessly for evidence of your bluff, yet each exercise, each discovered operation, each policy decision, each and every action taken as if your nuclear capability is a reality is a confirmation that your capability is a reality.

Where You Vote and How You Vote: Proto-5GW Thinking in a Study of the Context of Voting

Originally published 6/26/08 at Dreaming 5GW.

From NPR News: All Things Considered.

Study: Your Polling Place Affects How You Vote

“June 23, 2008 · A new study shows that where you vote affects how you vote. People who vote in schools, for example, are more likely to support a school funding initiative. The researchers suggest that the same sort of psychology might affect people who vote in churches.”

This story caught my attention not only because it has to do with elections (see #3), but because as proto-5GW thinking (not secrecy-shrouded full-on 5GW) it is an observable manipulation of context. Granted, in this particular study the difference in the voting pattern is small, yet with only this one variable of context being affected there is a measurable difference in the effect. I would envision a true 5GW actor affecting multiple variables in order to achieve a desired context and an ultimate effect that has become compounded in the process.

Update:

“Contextual priming: Where people vote affects how they vote“
by Jonah Berger, Marc Meredith , and S. Christian Wheeler 
  

5GW Chess

Originally published 6/18/08 at Dreaming 5GW.

This is from a comment I left over at Phatic Communion in a conversation that had to do with Centers of Gravity (CoG).

“It seems to me that 5GW is less about looking for one particular CoG (be it stregth or weakness) but about engaging the target on as many different chessboards as possible and attacking the CoG that gains you the most advantage on each board.”

The idea of multiple chessboards reminded me of something else that I saw about a year ago on a television program starring mentalist / illusionist / magician Derren Brown and marked for possible 5GW exploration. (Actually Derren Brown could be the subject of a whole series of 5GW posts, something I may have to further explore. Stage Magic and Illusion as 5GW is one of my original topics of exploration.) The lesson to be gained from this particular situation isn’t exactly the one I was going for in the comment at PC, but there is a 5GW lesson there.

So what is the lesson? I’ll leave that to the readers to put in the comments. I know what I see, maybe somebody else will see something even deeper.

Red Herrings Note: Comment by Arherring

I don’t know if I’m jumping the gun but I’m going to put in the ‘lesson’ as I see it now. Sorry if I didn’t give enough opportunity for readers to weigh in.

I think Curtis is thinking along the same lines as I am but I’m looking at it from a slightly different point of view.

To me there was only one person in this who was being manipulated, and Brown is able to do this because he is thinking on all three levels of conflict and his opponents (or targets) are not or are actively restricted from doing so.

Tactical: This is level of each of the individual games. At the tactical level Brown is only playing one game. The rest of his opponents are playing each other.

“In truth, they really were playing and choosing their own moves, based upon their own observation of the board/pieces and according to their own understanding of the game.”

Indeed, they are just doing what they naturally do and by proxying them he is guaranteed to win half and lose half of the games. His opponents, by design, may only work on this level. Even if one or more of his opponents suspects Brown is playing them against each other the asymmetric number of opponents, the statement that he has been studying them individually, and that he feels utterly prepared, should be enough to keep them from saying anything at least until the event is over. Additionally, they all came to play chess, so they are already thinking of the event in that context.

Operational: Brown has restricted/redirected the Observation of his targets so that they cannot operate at his level except to observe when each game ends and who is the winner of the game. However, there is only one player that Brown needs to notice this.

Strategic: While I am not sure if Brown’s target was actually the last game to finish or not (possibly it was editing) the positioning of Robert Chan, the only opponent Brown was actually playing, at table 9 meant that it is almost a certainty that Chan will see Brown appear to beat one or more Grandmaster level players before their own game finishes. If it was the last game to finish then Chan saw Brown walk into a room full of greats and beat half of them at the same time (even though he really didn’t). This is the target and the level of Brown’s manipulation. The entire event is staged to convince Robert Chan that Brown is able to play on the level of a Grandmaster and that he is standing in a room full of giants with cameras watching. This engineered context contains the implied meme that as a chess player Chan has no real chance of beating Brown.

So he doesn’t.

XGW as a System for the Classification of Doctrines

Originally published 5/26/08 at Dreaming 5GW.

I posted this as part of a comment at TDAXP, part of an excellent discussion with several D5GW contributors and Smitten Eagle about the shape of XGW and its differences from the Generations of Modern Warfare (GMW). I’m posting it here so that I can possibly expand upon it and more easily refer back to it in the future.

0GW is the heading for genocidal/survival warfare. Individuals fight for themselves and for the right of their line to survive.

1GW encompasses projection of force to and from key geographical postions. The Spartans and Persians at Thermopylae is a good example of this as are the campaigns of Hannibal and many other battles from antiquity to modern times.

2GW covers doctrines of attrition, where force is used to degrade the physical ability of the enemy to oppose you by direct force. Agincourt is a prime example of this but so are many battles in the American Civil War, WW1 and WW2.

 3GW is for doctrines that dislocate the strength of an enemy with a strike at the essential weakness of an enemy (2GW is strength on strength, and 3GW is strength on weakness). The German bypassing of the Maginot Line is an example of avoiding strength to attack weakness and displacing the enemy. This kind of displacement may be positional, temporal, material and/or moral. The Mongols were masters of this, so was ‘Stonewall Jackson’ and Erwin Rommel.

 4GW makes the jump into the moral that 3GW starts. 4GW doctrines strike at the enemy’s perceived ability to continue fighting. Scorched earth is an example of 4GW in that even before an invader feels the pinch of not being able to provide for themselves from conquered territory (even if alternative supply can be arranged) they begin to feel unable to continue the fight in the face of such destruction and resolution.

 5GW is even more subtle, it’s activity goes below perception into the context of conflict. What a target observes is manipulated in order to cause the target to react in a specific and completely natural manner.

 Each of these Generations is, in effect, a dislocation of the previous Generation (X-1). The doctrines that fit into each of these Generations may exist concurrently with each other. A 5GW campaign may contain battles fought with 4GW, 3GW and 2GW doctrines and contain engagements of Generations 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. This is a strength of XGW.

Red Herrings Note: Important follow-up to this post - Triangulating Clauswitz and Boyd by Curtis Gale Weeks.

Another Book on the 5GW Shelf: Daemon by Leinad Zeraus

Originally published 5/5/08 at Dreaming 5GW.

There have been other works of fiction discussed in 5GW circles that, to some extent or in some part, contain elements that could be used as examples of Fifth Generation Warfare theory. Ender’s Game and other books of the ‘Enderverse’ come to mind. Daemon by Leinad Zeraus, however, doesn’t just contain elements of 5GW thought; it is a book that embodies nearly every aspect of a 5GW conflict.

  All of the elements of Fifth Generation Warfare are here. The Daemon controls a highly distributed organization that works by proxy and in secret. Even when its targets know the Daemon exists and is attacking them they themselves are forced to keep its existence secret. The Daemon uses the rule-sets of its opponents against themselves so that when they attempt to respond to it they are doing exactly what the Daemon wants them to do. The Daemon’s proxies resemble everything from multi-national corporations to Global Guerillas and are sometimes, willing, sometimes unwilling and very often unaware.

 For 5GW thinkers this is a great opportunity to see some 5GW thinking in (if only fictional) action. Truly, a must have for the 5GW bookshelf. There are that many lessons to be learned, and examples to be illustrated upon. For those who are not 5GW thinkers, this is just, plainly put, a really excellent book. One of the best reads I’ve had in a long time.