CGW has an interesting rejoinder to my suggestion for reforming xGW by doing away with the chronologic aspect. Curtis says something very striking in his post:
If xGW is merely [My italics — YH] to be a system of categorization — of label-making — we would be freed to fight however we want without bothering to think much about xGW.
I think this is a important observation, and possibly a key reason for the lukewarm reception xGW/GMW has received in academic military theory circles. It is summed up in the following reaction: “So you have come up with some categories, so what? How does that help us fight a war?” One could argue that knowing is half the battle, but still, that is only half the battle. Curtis argues that xGW should be more than a simple system of categorization and should be used for strategic decision-making. Curtis says:
One force sees its opponent’s activity, assesses itself, and seeks to develop a better method of fighting. For me, this is at heart the greatest strength of xGW.
This reminds me of the kid’s game Paper, Scissors, Rock where Paper > Rock > Scissors > Paper > ... and so on. Figuring out the relationship between Zero to Sixth(?) Generation/Grade Warfare might be the next step in the research program.
Take the strategist’s advice to Break Strategy:
So, what should be the ultimate aim [of war]? I like Sun-tzu’s idea, expressed in The Art of War: “The highest form of warfare is to attack strategy itself”. Don’t focus on something as nebulous as breaking “the enemy’s will to win” [See here — YH]. Break tangible things, like the enemy’s objectives, plans, and ideas. Break his strategy.
One has to recognize strategy to break strategy. xGW could provide the necessary tool for the breaking.
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Dan tdaxp added these pithy words on 05 Jun 08 at 12:47 pmxGW has not received a lukewarm reception in academic military theory circles. xGW has not been presented to academic military theory circles.
As for GMW, “rejected” is probably the better term.
xGW seeks to examine the dispersel of kinetic violence through society. It does this via 6 gradients, from 0GW (War in the Zeroth Gradient) where violence is almost entirely direct and not dispersed, to 5GW (War in the Fifth Gradient) where violence is almost entirely direct and dispersed throughout society.
The purpose of war is to use violence in order to achieve political ends.
Ralph Hitchens added these pithy words on 05 Jun 08 at 4:33 pmI have a feeling that too much arguing over topology is bad for business. Look what’s happened to political science—model-building at the expense of narrative.
Dan tdaxp added these pithy words on 05 Jun 08 at 11:43 pmPolitical science is a model (excuse the pun) to follow, where centuries of heuristics has been replaced by quantitative investigation that advances human progress tremendously in just a few decades.
Still, Ralph’s comment is valuable because the sort of cryptic mnemonic devices which are so useful for practitioners (such as Machiavelli’s The Prince) are different from scientific and reliable methods of understanding (such as Hibbing and Theiss-Morse’s Stealth Democratic). They are different works for different audiences.
Younghusband added these pithy words on 06 Jun 08 at 12:16 amI agree with Dan’s comment about scientific methods. xGW is a scientific endeavour, and it is the arguing that allows us to clarify the parameters and come to a deeper understanding about war. Furthermore, without the arguing, we all couldn’t make pithy cross-posts on our blogs! ;)
Curtis Gale Weeks added these pithy words on 06 Jun 08 at 1:05 pmThanks for the gloss and “the strategist’s advice”! In fact, “breaking strategy” does describe aspects of the xGW that we at Dreaming 5GW have discussed; at least, I’ve approached it that way before:
In X vs X, I gave a quick skim of why the X’s we’ve discussed were able to defeat the X-1, and concluded:
In each of these cases, the reason the previous generation fails against the newest generation is simply that the previous generational strategies cannot account for the new dimensions of the conflict, or were not formed to address the new dimensions. Rather, the previous generational strategies were formed to address the dimensions of the generation before, with no leap-frogging to x+2: When the goal is to win and the present exigencies are pressing, the need is only to be one-up, and resources will be targeted accordingly.
In any case, further study to determine exactly how this occurs, or even what are the methods that one X will use to break up the other X’s strategy, etc., could lead us in new directions beyond those I’ve used for a framework of understanding. The point is that xGW is useless unless we can make it useful. Naturally.
Younghusband added these pithy words on 08 Jun 08 at 4:45 amThis is what I am talking about! Symmetrical and asymmetrical (+1 and -1) matrices for the interactions between various gradients.
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