Warfare's only rule is to win, so take the war to a place where realities like nukes and wealth mean very little. Terrorism, meet the Internet, satellite TV, and the American extreme left, they'll be vehicles for war. Idiots say things like "terrorism is a tactic and we've used it, too." Terrorism is indeed defined by the type of attacks terrorists have committed--namely those meant to inspire fear, but ultimately terrorism is 4GW used by the genocidal and the depraved. I have no doubt that terrorist would love to have nuclear subs and stealth bombers, but they don't--so they use other means to fight a "total war" against those they deem targets.
Terrorism is just another way of saying they're evil and they aren't fighting fair. States have a lot to lose in conventional war and can be stopped, but if Iran gets a nuke, what keeps them from nuking Israel? If they could not be stopped, only hit back, what stops them? Right now, though, the terrorists are trying to kill us in the Media.
We invade Iraq, trying, in my opinion, to undermine militant Islam and reshape the world, but we bring the tanks. They hit the media. They gave our tanks a big dose of 4GW. Here's the kicker: We're not "losing Iraq" in the sense that advancing armies are pushing back our forces or every day we lose a hundred troops to guerrillas. We are being persuaded to lose Iraq, we are choosing. We don't want to be part of a civil war, if that's what you call what's going on over there, or maybe we think the Iraqis are lazy, or maybe we are just tired of hearing about it, or not willing to lose our souls crushing resistance and violence, or whatever. It's a choice and it will be influenced by the media. And the Media is where the terrorist substantial victories come.
The question is: now that they are fighting 4GW in full in the media, what happens to political media? Sure, we're fighting the back in the media, but when some dem gets up and says we can't win, either this year, or the one before that, or the year before that, are they moving the ball in the war? I think yes. Look it, 4GW blurs the line between war and peace. One bite at a time, they prep us for defeat and maybe even fall. So, now in the media war zone everything about the war is part of the war, blurring the line between war and politics. Politics by other means loses to war by other means. Last summer, you'd see a speech from Bin Laden, Iran, Bush, Murtha, and maybe some UN whimp, all in one night. All are trying to create the idea of victory for their ideas same as always. Except now somebody is going to blow up a bus.
Oh sure, attacks have been planned to effect politics before, but now is different. Global networks are blowing people up and beheading people and then getting the message out. You can't topple the West with a bus bombing, or even a 9/11, if you're not pushing a message and creating an idea of defeat through the media. Plus, one big change is that terrorism as we know it now has no home but the mind of the people--its a war of ideas with a body count. Gain support and weaken the people or government you mean to crush by any means with your propaganda and soft-target attacks. But then, what does that make those whose political message helps you? I don't know, but I worry.
[Ed. Note- Read genie junkie's other Fourth-Generation Warfare posts:
4GW Part 1: What is Peace?
4GW Part 2: The End of History
4GW Part 3: Losing Iraq, "non-war" war in home-front politics
4GW Part 4: Is There a There?
4GW Part 5: Pros and Neo-cons of Fighting 4GW]
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