5GW Theory Timeline

Summary:

The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century

by USMC, Colonel Thomas X. Hammes

Ongoing events in Iraq show how difficult it is for the world's only remaining superpower to impose its will upon other peoples. From Vietnam, French and US, to Afghanistan, Russian and US, to Israel and the Palestinians, to Somalia and Kosovo, recent history is replete with powerful military forces being tied up by seemingly weaker opponents. This is Fourth Generation War (4GW), and Colonel Thomas Hammes, United States Marine Corps, tells you all about it.

Hammes includes an overview of warfare through the ages as well as recommendations for prescriptive actions in today's world. This is an insightful book analysing the strengths and weaknesses of coventional military power against an enemy with a superior political willpower and ability to fight over time using unconventional means.

The book, which primarily considers 4GW, mentions 5GW briefly in three places near the end:

1. First, by stating that innovative leadership training will be required "not just to deal with the seventy-year-old phenomenon of 4GW but also to deal with 5GW as it evolves." [pages 274-275, paperback edition.]
2. "Only a highly flexible organization can hope to succeed in 4GW and still be prepared to deal with emerging 5GW..." & "We can continue to man 3GW organizations using an 1890s personnel system....Or we can accept that 4GW has arrived and that 5GW is evolving and organize ourselves accordingly." [page 289, paperback edition.]
3. "Fourth-generation war has been around for more than seventy years; no doubt the fifth generation is evolving even as we attempt to deal with its predecessor. We may not recognize it as it evolves around us. Or we may look at several alternative futures and see each as fifth-generation war." The bio-attacks on Capitol Hill -- anthrax and ricin -- are considered a precursor of 5GW; Hammes emphasizes the superempowered destructive individual or small group as a viable, perhaps defining aspect of 5GW. He then reiterates his belief that the U.S. should reorganize its military and societal capability for dealing with 4GW forces and 5GW forces that may evolve -- but does not suggest that America should develop 5GW force structures itself. I.e., 4GW and 5GW will characterize the opponent, not the U.S. [pages 290-291, paperback edition; last two pages of the book.]