This is a fascinating book that exposed me to a different type of author: the military intellectual. For many civilians this may represent an oxymoron. But, reading this lucid, analytical, visionary, and incredibly insightful book will convince you that it is not. There is intelligence in the military after all.
Sadly enough, the material of the book was mainly derived from two long internal essays the author generated within the military back in 1988 and 1994. So, the concepts that seemed new to me as a civilian at the end of 2004 were known within the military for over a decade. Thus, even though the author proposed a framework for restructuring the Department of Defense based around human skills able to deal with insurgent warfare instead of solely technological capabilities aimed at outdated State-to-State warfare, the DOD under Rumsfeld and his predecessors chose to go in exactly the wrong direction.
The author develops his analytical framework around its main theme: fourth generation warfare (4GW) in 17 very clearly written and sequentially developed short chapters. Near the beginning of the book, he gives his concept a broadbased historical foundation by suggesting that warfare evolves in parallel to society in general. So, just as our civilization has evolved from various disaggregated stages including: nomadic, agricultural, industrial, and finally information based; warfare has now also reached its fourth stage centered also on information and the dissemination of ideas.
Counterintuitively, the author demonstrates brilliantly that the U.S. DOD is at a huge disadvantage in this new information based warfare style. Yes, we have superior technology, we have the best weapons. But, because of our uncreative hierarchical monopolistic centralized organization we are totally incapable of exploiting our technology in a timely manner. The author takes the example of generating a surveillance request within the DOD. The turnaround for this information to be authorized and processed will be about a week. On the other hand, a terrorist group simply watching CNN and using cheap commercially available surveillance technology will have information on many of the enemies positions almost live.
The more perplexing challenge is that the U.S. with all its wealth and infrastructure and military personnel represents a huge set of targets. The insurgents in whatever shape or form are totally stealthy, mixed in within civilian populations, and often use explicitly civilians as either shields or supporting system for their warfare.
Another challenge is the battle of ideas. The 4GW combatants use the media effectively to wear down the political resolve of their enemies. This entails showing bloody civilian casualties as any result of U.S. offensive. This is also done by orchestrating spectacularly shocking beheadings of innocent civilians whose only crime were collaborating with the U.S.
The author proposes many detailed solutions to all the above challenges. They appear somewhat Herculean in the changes that the DOD will have to undertake to spend its $500 billion effectively so as to fight today's wars instead of yesterday's. The author makes an interesting comparison between IBM in the pre PC world and today. IBM was focused on mainframes where it had an unrivaled advantage. It did so for too long until mainframes became almost irrelevant. Today, the technology industry is more flexible, creative, and fast paced moving than IBM was capable of handling. But, the author feels that the DOD's obsession with developing superior but irrelevant technology at the detriment of developing the smart human skills necessary to deal with 4GW effectively is just as ineffective as IBM's former mainframe based strategy. What good is superior technology if it takes you five days to turnaround a surveillance request.
The most fascinating part of the book is his analysis of Vietnam and the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts (chapters 6 and 8) using his 4GW framework. These are the most insightful writings I have read on the subject.
I strongly recommend this book for how much knowledge it provides not only in military strategy but in the recent history of the most intractable conflicts. If you are interested in this subject, I also recommend Wesley Clark's "Winning Modern Wars"; Robert Kaplan's "The Coming Anarchy" and van Crevald's "The Transformation of War." All these books outline the changes of warfare, and complement nicely this book. But, this book serves as the core of the knowledge base regarding the evolution of warfare from a State-to-State phenomena to something completely different the DOD is ill equipped to deal with organizationally.
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Very good very interesting if you like this kind of stuff
Great book so far very detailed total page turner, I’ve read every book I can find about the Middle East and Afghanistan and this one is close to the top. Take a look at it I don’t think you will be disappointed
Top reviews from other countries
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ChristianReviewed in Germany on January 16, 2022
Auch wenn schon fast 20 Jahre her- Mit Blick auf das Generationenmodell must read
- NMWBReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2015
This book is excellent - its a slow burner
- AdornoReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 4, 2006
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