The Emergence Of Fifth Generation Warfare
Currently, no commonly accepted definition exists for Fifth Generation (unrestricted) Warfare (5GW).
However, given the rate at which change in warfare is accelerating it is reasonable to accept that Fifth Generation (unrestricted) Warfare (5GW) is already making its appearance. It took hundreds of years from the development of the musket and cannon for
First Generation (formation) Warfare (1GW) warfare to evolve.
Second Generation (trench) Warfare (2GW) evolved and peaked in the 100 years between Waterloo and Verdun.
Third Generation (maneuver) Warfare (3GW) came to maturity in less than 25 years.(4)
Fourth Generation (insurgent) Warfare (4GW) was implemented immediately upon its conception in China seventy-five years ago, around the same time that Third Generation (maneuver) Warfare was implemented in Europe.
For the purpose of this treatise,
Fifth Generation (unrestricted) Warfare (5GW) is defined as the use of
“all means whatsoever – means that involve the force of arms and means that do not involve the force of arms, means that involve military power and means that do not involve military power, means that entail casualties, and means that do not entail casualties – to force the enemy to serve one’s own interest.”(5) It includes the appearance of
super-empowered individuals and groups with access to modern knowledge, technology, and means to conduct asymmetric attacks in furtherance of their individual and group interests. Arguably, its first identifiable manifestations occurred in the United States during the anthrax attacks of 2001 and the ricin attacks of 2004. Both sets of attacks required specialized knowledge, included attacks upon federal government offices and facilities, succeeded in disrupting governmental processes, and created widespread fear in the public. To date, no individual or group has claimed responsibility for either attack, and neither attack has been solved. The attacks were quite successful in disrupting government processes and creating public fear but, thus far, their motivation remains unknown.
Today’s computer hackers, capable of disrupting governments and corporations on a global scale by attacking the Internet with malicious computer programs, may also be forerunners of super-empowered individuals and groups. They have already demonstrated that they are capable of single-handedly waging technological campaigns with overtones of Fifth Generation (unrestricted) Warfare (5GW).
The Impact Of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar
The writings of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, one of the Islamic jihad prime theorists, apparently captured in Pakistan six months ago, provide insight into not only the emergence of Fifth Generation (unrestricted) Warfare (5GW), but also the evolution of al Qaeda as the forerunner of future United States adversaries.
The impact of Mustafa Setmariam Nasar’s theories on the emergence of Fifth Generation (unrestricted) Warfare (5GW)

7)
• Nasar’s "The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance," has been circulating on Internet web sites for 18 months. The treatise, written under the pen name Abu Musab al-Suri, draws heavily on lessons from past conflicts. It serves as a how-to manual for uniting isolated groups of radical Muslims for a common cause.
• It proposes a strategy for a truly global conflict on as many fronts as possible and in the form of resistance by super-empowered small cells or individuals, rather than traditional guerrilla warfare. To avoid penetration and defeat by security services, he says, organizational links should be kept to an absolute minimum.
• Nasar says it would be a mistake for the global movement to pin its hopes on a single group or set of leaders. He clearly says that al-Qaeda was an important step but is not the end step and is not sufficient in itself.
• Nasar's theories of war call for the most deadly weapons possible, and offer a new model aimed at drawing individuals and small groups into a global jihad.
• Nasar’s theories can be seen in Casablanca in 2003, Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. In each case, the perpetrators organized themselves into local, self-sustaining cells that acted on their own but also likely accepted guidance from visiting emissaries of the global movement.
Strategic Implications
The strategic implications for the United States are great. As the events of 9/11 demonstrated, the United States can be attacked on its home territory by its potential adversaries in the War on Terror. A successful national strategy, as well as transformation of that strategy to the emergence of Fifth Generation (unrestricted) Warfare (5GW) in the information age, is necessary if future attempts to attack United States citizens and interests, at home or abroad, are to be defeated or prevented. In a protracted and continuous war of finite conventional resources arrayed against infinite asymmetrical threats, the Nation must come to understand the character of the emerging threat it faces and adapt accordingly. Failure to do so could have grave strategic consequences and invite additional challenges to American political, economic, and military leadership throughout the world.
ten rules for fighting a 5G war.
1. Speed it up. Use tools that transmit information orders of magnitude faster: as close to real-time as possible. Your enemies use email. Use Twitter, Facebook, and iPhone Apps instead.
2. Microchunk it. Small resources, like messages, are more efficiently transmitted and utilized than big ones. Your enemies use lengthy, wordy messages — seriously inefficient communications. Try 140 character Tweets instead.
3. Meta-attack. You're attacking with "facts." But facts don't matter, because your enemy doesn't value information like you do. Life expectancy's smaller in the States? So what — according to your enemies, you can't trust facts from Cuba (or France). So you have to attack not with "facts", but with meta-information about how to value facts. Start with meta-information about how to value insurance rationally — over a lifetime, not a day, for example.
4. Anti-defend. You can't defend a centralized structure against a network attack in the traditional sense (just ask Twitter). But you can anti-defend against a network attack, by decentralizing your own resources to the edges — something that, in physical warfare, is a big no-no. When resources are spread and replicated across as broad, diverse network of your own as possible, if one node goes down, the others stay up. A few blog posts at Whitehouse.gov do not constitute a networked anti-defense — but a thousand every day across the WWW might begin to.
5. Darwinian counterattacks. What happens after a networked offense? A counter-attack: the remaining nodes link up, share resources, and then launch a portfolio of different counterattacks. The fittest ones — those most threatening to the enemy — survives. It's like what hedge funds do, except it's not lame. To enable a Darwinian counter-attack, you've got to offer suggestions, tools, and methods for a range of potential counterattacks.
6. Hack your enemy's weapons. In a 3G or 4G war, you can't hack the enemy's guns, bombs, or knives. In a 5G war, you can hack the enemy's information weapons — and that's an often explosively powerful tactic. "Death Panels"? Call them "Life Panels" instead, explain that old Republican Senators already benefit from them — and enjoy your rise to the top of Google.
7. Normatize it. 5G warfare is problematic because we have no Geneva conventions to enforce norms of acceptable behaviour. And so anything goes. But it shouldn't: a powerful tactic in 5G warfare is setting norms for what's acceptable and what's not. Discuss why smears and misinformation are unacceptable; make public and transparent who refuses to accept norms of good behaviour.
8. Self-organize hyperlocally. Reality Check is a good start — but it doesn't enable self-organization. People should be able to self-organize into networks linked by the information you provide, so alliances form. These networks shouldn't just be online, but offline - because in the real world, people have shared histories. They should be real-world networks that influence and counterinfluence hyperlocally: street by street, community by community.
9. Remix it. After self-organization comes the remix — just ask any bedroom DJ. You haven't given people information in an easily remixable form, that they can distribute to others dependent on what is important at the time or to a given group of people. Making the info you provide microchunked and remixable, so it can be used and reused in more and more efficient ways.
10. Attack the base. This is a controversial tactic — but it's often the key to winning a 5G war. Physical wars have to be fought on the front-lines. But information wars don't. Your best bet is to attack not the enemy's front-lines — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Palin — but the base of hard-liners who still oppose reform — hard, swiftly, and repeatedly, with better information faster.
http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2009/08/o...to_win_it.html
http://www.thestrategist.org/archive...chitect_o.html
INDIA is also not immune to 5th gen war,she should be prepared for it
as due to growing uncertainity in pakistan & rise in extremism.