The Next Conservatism and Fourth Generation War

By William S. Lind
November 7, 2005

Paul Weyrich asked me to write this column to lay out a framework conservatives can use to understand the threats America faces. It is a framework I developed in the 1980s, when I was working closely with the United States Marine Corps on questions of military theory and doctrine. I call it "the Four Generations of Modern War."

Modern War began with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War. Why? Because in that treaty, the state established a monopoly on war. We now automatically think of war as something fought between states, using armies, navies and air forces with uniforms, ranks, and specialized equipment, designed to fight other state armed forces like themselves.

But before 1648, many different kinds of entities fought wars, using many different means, not just formal militaries. Family, clans and tribes fought wars. Cities and business enterprises fought wars. Religions, ethnic groups and races fought wars. They did so using many different means, including hiring mercenaries, employing assassins, offering bribes and making dynastic marriages. For the most part, there were no standing armies; when war came, you just hired people who would fight. In times of (relative) peace, those fighters roamed through the countryside, taking whatever they wanted from anyone too weak to resist them. In most places, ordinary people's lives and property were at their mercy.
First Generation war ran from 1648 to about the time of the American Civil War. In general, battlefields during these two centuries were orderly, with line-and-column tactics. The battlefield of order produced a military culture of order.

But around the middle of the 19th century, the battlefield of order began to break down. That created the central problem facing state militaries ever since: the military culture of order came increasingly to contradict the growing disorder of the battlefield.

Second and Third Generation war were attempts to resolve this contradiction. The Second Generation, which was developed by the French Army during and after World War I, attempted to reimpose order on the battlefield through centrally-controlled application of massive firepower (it is sometimes called firepower/attrition warfare). The U.S. military learned Second Generation war from the French, and it remains the American way of war today, with the partial exception of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Third Generation war, also called maneuver warfare, was developed by the German Army during World War I, not World War II, although most people know it as Blitzkrieg. The Germans broke with the First Generation culture or order and created a highly decentralized military that focused outward on results, not inward on rules and processes; prized initiative over obedience; and relied on self-discipline, not imposed discipline. One of the purposes of the Military Reform Movement was to move the American armed forces from the Second to the Third Generation, an effort which, sadly, for the most part failed.

Fourth Generation war is often called "terrorism," but that is more misleading than helpful. Terrorism is merely a technique, and Fourth Generation war is very much more. It marks an end of the state's monopoly on war and a return to war as it was before the Peace of Westphalia. Once again, many different kinds of entities, not just states, are waging war (gangs and invasion by immigration are two obvious examples). They use many different means, not just formal armies or navies. Fourth Generation fighters wear no uniforms, have no ranks, and are indistinguishable from civilians. Rather than engaging an enemy state's armed forces, they try to bypass them and strike directly against his civilian society, even his culture.

The framework of the Four Generations of Modern War offers the next conservatism a way to evaluate whether America's defense policies make sense. To the degree they move our armed forces from the Second to the Third Generation, and help them face the Fourth, they are helpful. But if they just provide fancier weapons for Second Generation war, they probably are not. If the next conservatism is to help the American state survive in the Fourth Generation 21st century, it needs to make adapting to Fourth Generation war our top defense priority.

William S. Lind is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism of the Free Congress Foundation.