1. Notes you missed : ) 07/05/2009 19:54:00
←April 30th 2009 FOURTH GEN WARFARE LOOKS LIKE THIS…..
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←TERMS THAT KEEP COMING UP
A.Systems disruption
• Attack critical networks
• Erodes target state’s legitimacy
• Key lesson of the Gulf war
o air power is useful for systems
• Air units and laser guidied missiles
o Techn for specific missions
• Small, mobile units (terorrist cells)
o Attacking critical netweorks allow small groups to be
successful
←B. Systempunkt
**comes from the blitzkrieg idea hit hard and fast, aim at
weakess and blow through, that’s the trick to blitzkrieg
o Systempunkt trick is to find the weakness in the system
• Clausewitz it would be the center of gravity
• SP it is the point that will collapse the system
o Is there a way to attack the finaincial system of America that
will cause the hole thing to collapse
o Or one switch that will kill the internet

2.  Luckily the nodes are very internconnected
• Response: redundancy
o Everything does not run through one place, nodes are
interconnected
o But this could make it easier for other countries to get into
our DOD computers bc its so redundant, there is an impotant
balance
←C. Effects-based Operations
• Measure success by effects, not percentage hit
o Doesn’t matter how many hits you get
• One effective hit is better than 100 hits
o Ex: that that one node, or the center of gravity
←D. Global Guerillas
• Very few terrorists in world, bc there goal is not terror, it’s a tactic
• Goal is to undermine the legitimacy of the state
o Beacsue if the state fails= their success
o They want to return feudal-type political system
 Tribal warlords that have been seen in Afhg
o Global caliphate means if the power of the state is gone, more
likely to push sharia law, not one caliphate, but all Muslim,
that is the goal
 As long as you have states your following by the Wests
rules
o Take control of their own destiny, ie Sharia law, tribes
o Includes transnational criminal (Narco-trafficking_
 All want weak states
• Interconnected global bazaar of violence

3. o Doesn’t matter where your from, or what your purpose, but
they all mix and interact, sharing ideas and tactics of violence
 They are trading in violence to the highest bidder
• Technology makin the global guerillas much more effective
o Application of Moore’s Law
 Connected to transitors, created in 1960, says tech
moves in an exponential way
 Tech changes which re increbilily wide
 Allow groups to take on a state and win
←E. Fourth Gen Warfare
• Allows groups to bleed state dry morally and economically
o Ex: Iraq and Afghan
 There expenses are so much less
• Martin Van Creveld (1999)
o States always loose bc we look like bullies
 Not to the terrorist groups but to the people
o States soldiers seen as “vicious”
 Sooner or later, soldiers will begin mirroring the actions
of the people they are fighting
 You can have a thousand postive incidents and one
negative one, and they look terrible
o Citizens lose feeling of solidarity with the foreign troops
 Nonstate actors outlast them almost every time
←F. Total War
• If it’s a race against time, citizens are considered “legit” target, not
for killing but for winning their hearts and minds

4. o But for the terrorists they totally think they are legit targets
bc it will get us out of their quickly or help our forces loose
support
o Ex: Guenrnica, April 1937, took out a whole city with one
bomb
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←KEY QUESTIONS IN THIS BOOK??
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←A. Which side will adapt faster? (obviously GG, US needs to find ways to
adapt much more quickly)
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←B. What effect does organizational structure have on ability to learn
adapt?....they adapt VERY slow
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←C. Can states/US compete?? Do they even have a chance?
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←IDEAS TO LOOK FOR NEXT
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←A. Long-tail insurgency
• Long-tail markets
o Short tail market means
o : demand for product dries up quickly
• Long: can continuously find buyers
o Itunes versus CD sold at a record store
• Given the internet really low costs to provide niche products
o Niche product—appeals to a very small group of people

5.  Topsy-turvy Tomato grower…
 Transvestite shoes…
o **if you did not have the internet you would not have these
• lots of small niche providers of violence
o very specific knowledge about very small specialties
 IED emplacement teams for hire
 They aren’t AQI, they are hired by them, they are
out-sourcing violence
 Mercenaries
 Terror “consultants”, can be on loan or hire to other
groups to show them how to do car bombs more
successfully
 This creates lots of opportunities to work
*military has moved towards outsourcing bc they want to
take advantage of these same type of oppurtuites that can be
had by not “learning the hard way”
←B. Open-source network
• Open-source software development
o Source code is available to all
o Anyone with the expertise can modify it, fix it, extend it
 Most done by people who have time and really like to
do it
o So costs of adapting in open source software is almost zero
 Bc they do it for free
 Ex: i-phone apps, wikkipedia
• Open-source insurgency
o Lots of cells trying lots of things

6. o Successful actions are imitated and improved on
←C. Emergent intelligence
• Highlevel capacities that can evolve unexpectedly from a complex
system
o Swarm of bees
o Flock of birds
 Whole group almost acts and thinks as one person
o Google
 Can now track flu epidemics, can map where they are
occurring by the amount of people researching it
• Group intelliegence w/o benefit of a central command function
o Mobs often act like this
o Stockmarket
• Enables global guerilla network to match or best our collective
intelligence
o Ex: pirates, no head pirates, many diff orgs with no hierarchy,
as the warships move in up north, pirates as a group move
away from the predator (interntional task force)
 Adapt and learn much faster than sitting around a table
trying to figure out what we should do
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7. 07/05/2009 19:54:00
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8. 07/05/2009 19:54:00
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