MILITARY HISTORY OF TACTICS FOR JUNIOR OFFICERS II - GENERATIONS OF WARFARE

This a second part in series of articles reflecting some ideas on history of military tactics. The series will consider the following viewpoints to tactical history:

1. Introduction to military history at tactical level
2. Generations of warfare
3. Science of war and winning from historical perspective
4. Individual, society, culture and warfare in history
5. Tactical level Command and Control in military history
6. Contemporary warfare
7. Future of combat reflected from the history

The aim of this series is to analyse the history and reflect some lessons from it for the junior officers preparing for today's conflicts. 

2. Generations of warfare, what made the change, and how long it lasted

2.1 Generations of Warfare and Forces

The participants of contemporary armed conflicts can be categorised by the tactics and arrangement of forces used in the confrontation. Five generations define most of the current armed forces and the wars they are prepared to wage. (Hammes, 2006) 

Generation	Era	Tactics	Confrontation	Example
First	1648 - 1918	Mass manpower in line, Phalanx, or column advancing and firing in order. Prefers order on the battlefield, bright uniforms, and parade drilling.	State vs State, legalising war	The culmination in Prussian operations against French 1870[1] Failure in August 1914, when the French lost 27000 men in one day.[2]
Second	1918-1940	Centrally controlled indirect fire; synchronised infantry, cavalry, and aviation manoeuvres; aiming to destroy enemy soldiers and their equipment. Seeks order and standard solutions on the battlefield. Prefers obedience over the initiative.	State vs State	3rd generation Wehrmacht[3] overrun 2nd generation Polish cavalry 1939.[4][5] 2nd generation US forces[6] fighting 4th generation Vietcong[7].
Third	1940-1970	Manoeuvre warfare (Blitzkrieg) uses higher mobility and tempo and less firepower aiming to disorder the enemy mentally and physically. Double envelope (Motittaa) enemy, divide them into smaller parts and destroy them in sequence.[8] Prefers decentralisation, judgement, and initiative in a situation over centralised, obedience, and standard practices.	Industrial State vs Industrial State	Guderian flanking the Allied Defence preparations[9] 1940.
Fourth (Lind & Thiele, 2015)	1970-2003	Guerrilla warfare, where impact takes place at physical, mental, and moral levels. War amongst people. Light infantry or special forces against networked cells of militia with light arms, toxic industrial ingredients, and improvised devices. Three-block types of tasks.[10] Prefers strategic corporal adjusting tactical action to the situation on the ground. Uses open media to impact the morale of political decision and society.	Militias, irregulars, insurgents, civilians, local government agencies, foreign military, security companies	4th generation UK Forces[11] in Borneo fighting 4th generation Indonesian troops[12] 2nd generation US Forces against 4th generation Taliban/Al Qaeda in Afghanistan 2001[13]
Fifth	2003-	Follows Sun Tzu: “War is deception, Surprise to achieve momentum, Use the indirect route.” (Gagliardi, 2005) May take the following lines of development: A.     “Free-for-all surprise destruction motivated by frustration” (Ritchie, 2019). For example, masses of refugees will generate the use of irrational violence. B.     “The secret deliberative manipulation of actors, networks, institutions, states or any earlier generational warfare forces to achieve a goal or set of goals across a combination of socio-economic and political domains while attempting to avoid or minimise the retaliatory offensive or defensive actions/reactions including powered actors, networks, institutions, and/or states.” (Shahani, 2018) C.      The automated battlefield with autonomous system platforms delivering both kinetic and non-kinetics effects. (Layton, 2017)	Varied interest groups, states and non-states, private and public entities	Remains to be seen

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War

[2] http://desrosierhistory.com/2015/06/15/august-1914-war-and-the-casualty-catastrophe-in-france/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0APrdY0G3k

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnIrT4k_vRs

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw2PenZYBuw

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLyBazkpUFQ

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfPx1jfoWjs

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_strategies_and_concepts

[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqY7nIIfFlI

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Block_War

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GylmBPzT1HM

[12] https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/indonesian-confrontation

[13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah5lnELw97w

2.2 Fighting Amongst the People (Kiss, 2014)

Since the future fighting will take place among people, either physically in the area of operation or logically monitoring events over social and other media, the tactical level needs to implement different asymmetric specific principles in combat compared to symmetric blue on red -situations.

Factors in asymmetric combat	Organised Armed Forces	Insurgents, belligerents, non-state actors
Space	Requires overall control of physical and social space in the area of operation. Cyber and information operations should support goals at physical and social areas. Limit international media. Launch communication campaigns. Institutional weaknesses: more there are components in the system, the higher the likelihood any one of them will break and create friction to all system. (Creweld, 1991)	Usually launches physical strikes to generate chaos and loss of trust at social space. After establishing a more substantial supporting population, the physical space becomes more critical. Uses cyber and information space to elaborate on the impact of lesser physical violence. (UNODC, 2012) Reaches out to international space for intervention.
Force	Traditionally trained military force has not been successful in preventing acts of terror. (Creweld, 1991) Protection of numerous symbolic targets and critical infrastructure leads to the fragmentation of force. Requires more forces than 1:50 ratio to the population to be successful once insurgents have established their operations. Needs to cooperate with other local governmental and non-governmental organisations. Needs to develop local militia and separate people from the insurgents. Requires local knowledge, permanent presence, and motivation.	Possesses the initiative to launch small team surprise attacks to impact the local population.
Time	Often finite mindset with lots of resources but impatience to gain results and a low tolerance for casualties (Creweld, 1991). Continuous small losses will sap the morale of security forces.	Forced to approach from the infinite viewpoint. With less human and material, they extend the time to grind down society’s power of resistance slowly. Longer the conflict is protracted, higher the likelihood for insurgents to achieve their aim.
Information	Only the local intelligence system based on human intelligence may provide detailed information on social relationships. Uses methods of a police investigation. Have bargaining power and incentives to offer. Establish developing intel – operation – success – more intel -cycle. Needs to be perceived firmly as a law-abiding, high-moral actor, which may lead to failure or start violating residents’ fundamental rights and lose the trust of the population, i.e. insurgents win.	Enjoys the communication advantage because of idealism, religion, or romantic freedom fighter status. Needs to get their information out first since sensational, emotion-charged, shocking footage is more important than facts and accuracy.