Fifth-generation warfare

Short description: Warfare conducted without the use of lethal force

United States Cyber-guards during training in preparation for cyberwarfare.

Fifth-generation warfare (5GW) is warfare that is conducted primarily through non-kinetic military action, such as social engineering, misinformation, cyberattacks, along with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and fully autonomous systems. Fifth generation warfare has been described by Daniel Abbot as a war of "information and perception".[1] There is no widely agreed upon definition of fifth-generation warfare,[2] and it has been rejected by some scholars, including William S. Lind, who was one of the original theorists of fourth-generation warfare.[3]

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Characteristics
* 3 See also
* 4 References

## History

The term 'fifth-generation warfare' was first used in 2003 by Robert Steele. The following year, Lind criticised the concept, arguing that the fourth generation had yet to fully materialize.[4]

In 2008, the term was used by Terry Terriff,[5] who presented the 2003 ricin letters as a potential example, but stated that he was not entirely sure if it was a fifth-generation attack, claiming "we may not recognize it as it resolves around us. Or we might look at several alternative futures and see each as fifth generation."[5] Terriff argued that the information revolution allows "super-empowered individuals" or small groups of malcontents to take matters into their own hands through Fifth Generation Warfare.[6] These individuals or groups may be able to make political statements through terrorism, but they will lack the political power to actually have their demands met.[7]

In 2017, the JAPCC published an article defining 'fifth-generation' in the context of fighter aircraft. The article describes sensors, communications and other electronics playing a key role.[8] While this is not a definition of 5GW itself, 'fifth-generation' was first coined as a military term in the context of fifth generation fighter aircraft.[9]

## Characteristics

Alex P. Schmid said that fifth-generation warfare is typified by its "omnipresent battlefield", and the fact that people engaged in it do not necessarily use military force, instead employing a mixture of kinetic and non-kinetic force.[10] In the 1999 book Unrestricted Warfare, by colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui of the People's Liberation Army, they noted that in the years since the 1991 Gulf War, conventional military violence had decreased, which correlated to an increase in "political, economic, and technological violence", which they argued could be more devastating than a conventional war.[11]

In Unrestricted Warfare, the authors also write "No, what we are referring to are not changes in the instruments of war, the technology of war, the modes of war, or the forms of war. What we are referring to is the function of warfare".[12] Additionally, a very short paper published by the think tank 360iSR mentions that “We are no longer fighting a defined adversary in a defined battlespace for a defined period of time. Instead the 5th generation mission space is a continuous global battle of narratives that will play out over both virtual and physical space and encompass a range of violent and non-violent actions and effects."[13]

In 2009, an article in the Marine Corps Gazette written by Lt Col Stanton S. Coerr described the symptoms of fifth-generation warfare as "The battlefield will be something strange- cyberspace, or the Cleveland water supply, or Wall Street's banking systems, or YouTube. The mission will be instilling fear, and it will succeed."[14]

L.C. Rees described the nature of fifth generation warfare as difficult to define in itself, alluding to the third law of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke – "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."[15]

Fifth-generation warfare has been characterized as potentially containing the following characteristics:

* Cyber attacks that may not be attributable to an actor or nation-state, or even be recognised as such by outsiders (simply being perceived as 'outages'),

* Social engineering via techniques such as gaslighting used to manipulate targets into thinking in a way the belligerents desire,[16]

* Spontaneous conflicts with no clear build-up to outsiders that may not make sense,[17]

* And attacks by non-state actors; rather than terrorist groups which make up part of 4GW, non-state actors in 5GW can also mean private corporations.[18]

## See also

* Counterinsurgency
* New generation warfare
* Radicalism (politics)
* Subversion

## References

1. ↑ Abbott, Daniel (2010). The Handbook of Fifth-Generation Warfare. Nimble Books. pp. 20.
2. ↑ Michael, George (2012). Lone Wolf Terror and the Rise of Leaderless Resistance. Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 156.
3. ↑ Abbott, Daniel (2010). The Handbook of Fifth-Generation Warfare. Nimble Books. pp. 125.
4. ↑ Abbott, Daniel (2010). The Handbook of Fifth-Generation Warfare. Nimble Books. pp. 209.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Terriff, Terry (2008). Global Insurgency and the Future of Armed Conflict. Routledge. pp. 42. ISBN 9780415413572. https://books.google.com/books?id=A8n4KWqVifUC.
6. ↑ Terriff, Terry (2008). Global Insurgency and the Future of Armed Conflict. Routledge. pp. 48. ISBN 9780415413572. https://books.google.com/books?id=A8n4KWqVifUC. ""The information revolution, and the ideology embedded in the new technology, provides "super-empowered individuals" or small groups of malcontents with the capability and sanction to take matters into their own hands (i.e. Fifth Generation Warfare).""
7. ↑ Terriff, Terry (2008). Global Insurgency and the Future of Armed Conflict. Routledge. pp. 50. ISBN 9780415413572. https://books.google.com/books?id=A8n4KWqVifUC. ""Fifth generation warriors might be able to use violence to make political statements, but their ability as individuals to perform as true political actors will be limited by their nearly universal criminal status.""
8. ↑ Harrigian, Jeffrey; Marosko III, Max (2017-07-01). "Fifth Generation Air Combat". The Journal of the JAPCC 24. https://www.japcc.org/articles/fifth-generation-air-combat/.
9. ↑ "Five generations of fighter jets and BAE Systems". 2024-12-18. https://www.baesystems.com/en/insight/five-generations-of-fighter-jets-and-bae-systems. ""While coined in the 1990s, a fighter jet generation is a term given to military jet aircraft to classify new technologies and capabilities during their time of introduction.""
10. ↑ Schmid, Alex (2011). The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research. Routledge. pp. 167.
11. ↑ Michael, George (2012). Lone Wolf Terror and the Rise of Leaderless Resistance. Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 157.
12. ↑ Liang, Qiao; Xiangsui, Wang (1999-02-01). Unrestricted Warfare. Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House. https://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf.
13. ↑ Fifth Generation Warfare: The Brave New World / The Changing Shape of the Fifth Generation Mission Space. 360iSR. 2018-01-01. https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/26db15ee/files/uploaded/5GW Section1.pdf.
14. ↑ Coerr, Stanton (2009-01-01). "Fifth Generation War: Warfare versus The Nonstate". Marine Corps Gazette: 65. https://www.scribd.com/doc/50049562/Fifth-Generation-War-Warfare-versus-the-nonstate-by-LtCol-Stanton-S-Coerr-USMCR.
15. ↑ Abbott, Daniel (2010). The Handbook of Fifth-Generation Warfare. Nimble Books. pp. 15.
16. ↑ Abbott, Daniel (2010). The Handbook of Fifth-Generation Warfare. Nimble Books. pp. 19. ""5GW: Moral and cultural warfare is fought through manipulating perceptions and altering the context by which the world is perceived.""
17. ↑ Abbott, Daniel (2010). The Handbook of Fifth-Generation Warfare. Nimble Books. pp. 77. ""There are no warnings, no communiqués, no explanations—or, at least, none that can be trusted—only events which may or may not be random. If a 5GW is successful, a target state will have so lost its legitimacy that it cannot be certain of anyone’s primary loyalty.""
18. ↑ Abbott, Daniel (2010). The Handbook of Fifth Generation Warfare. Nimble Books. pp. 186. ""I noted that Barnett seems to have a theory much like that theory often propounded here on D5GW, but that his vision assumes that nation-states and corporations can initiate the 5GW- and do so openly.""

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