:skull: I am not a member of the CF, though I respect you for your past and future achievements, in spite of your country's politics.
I am a member of another military force and have worked with the PPCLI in Afghanistan back in early 2002. They were great -- I wish I could remember the commander's name at the time. I respect the hell out of him.
Anyway, do not be led astray by the whole concept of "4GW." It is a re-discovery of things we have always known, but neglected to teach our younger officers and soldiers and failed to apply to the current war going on throughout the world. What is actually meant by "4GW" is Unconventional Warfare (UW) and Insurgency or Guerrilla Warfare (GW). There is an excellent discussion blog called globalguerrilas.typepad.com that has various discussions about this stuff. Some of a post of mine on that site:
FYI: COIN=counter-insurgency; SOF=Special Operations Forces; SF=Special Forces;
""The "4GW" crap really needs to stop. There are very successful tried and true concepts for Counter-insurgency (COIN), Guerrilla Warfare (GW) and Counter-Geurrilla Operations (CGO), Unconventional Warfare (UW), Foreign Internal Defense (FID)/ Internal Defense and Development (IDAD) strategies and campaigns. They were all written (by western authors) prior to 1963. The Asians had their library pretty much compete by WW2 (started 1500 years ago)by Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh, and other lesser names. The British had theirs written by TE Lawrence, though they they conventionally rejected the precepts from his articles, journals and his "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" until the 1950s and later when they were confronted by major problems in the colonies (a great example is Malaya). Even Saddam Hussein had his COIN and UW/GW manuals.
Most notably for the Americans is the USMC Small Wars Manual of 1940, as well as the other side of the coin (no punintended) as the conduct of UW/Insurgency/COIN was all-encompassingly recorded in the various 31-series manuals by US Special Forces from 1951 through 1963. It was a direct out-growth of the CIA and USSF split from the dissolution of the OSS after WW2. And that institutional knowledge came from the multi-cultural application of those theories by the British SOE and America's OSS in France with the Maquis resistiance, the SOE in Yugoslavia and by Detachment 101 in Burma.
The current UW manual (though classified) accounts for these various concepts without re-writing the doctrine for each (don't bother reading the old one -- it was a political document that was forced on the SF community by a 1990's politically-correct distaste for all things unconvetional and, therefore, dirty). Now, that being said, all the realistic and useful concepts from "4GW" are already accounted for by the publications. COL Hammes' publications are nothing more than re-discovery by the conventional military and political leadership of things already taught by a few in the military school houses and neglected by most in practice.
I am reminded of a quotation:
"There is nothing new under the sun, but lots of old things we don't know" -Ambrose Bierce, in "The Devil's Dictionary"
This is not the first time we have re-created the wheel with this. In the late 1960s and 1970s California Gov. Ronald Reagan commissioned Raymond Momboisse to research and write a paper to instruct and familiarize state officials in the seeds of social discontent and the actions, conditions and other indicators of disenfranchisement shifting toward discontent toward unrest and, eventually, upheaval and rebellion. This was in response to the explosive growth of the various California university system-based student revolutionary movements such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (which later split in 1973-74 into the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Weather Underground (aka the Weathermen) -- remember Patty Hearst?). The result of Momboisse's work was the seminal "Blueprint of Revolution." This is (in my opinion) a landmark book and seems to be a big secret. It is also hard to get a hold of, unfortunately. Read this book to understand the social dynamic of unconventional or asymetrical warfare (lately known as 4GW). As far as what to do about it from the all perspectives of national power (military, political, economic and information) our current (dated but still relevant) IDAD doctrine covers it.
Another big problem is the continued lack of emphasis in the conventional military concerning these topics. The institutional ignorance is what allows for things like "4GW" to take hold without realizing that we already "knew" this stuff. The US Army Infantry is the proponent agency for COIN doctrine development and enforcement. Yet, they do not teach it anywhere. SOF teaches it, specifically, SF teaches it. I can not speak for the Marines, but the Army infantry does not teach it to their officers. The infantry seems to enjoy keeping their officers educated at the FM 7-8, 7-7J, 7-10 and -20 levels (infantry light and mechanized tactics at the squad, platoon, company and battalion). The next level of schooling is at ILE (formerly known as Command and Gen Staff College or CGSC), and they barely even mention that UW, COIN or anything besides division-level operations exist.""
Hope this helps.
