I recently read a paper by an associate of John Boyd outlining what a military force organized on his principles of strategy would look like. ...
What I can glean from the public statements made by our strategists, the plan is to get inside the Iraqi's "decision cycle" (the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) by setting up multiple threats in different areas. When Saddam reacts to one of those threats, he will be weakened in some other area, and our opportunities in that area will be enhanced. Also, there is a strong element of psywar involved in 4GW, and I believe we can see some evidence of this in the President's appeals to Iraqi troops to not resist, and in the general's statements about how we will have instructions for any Iraqi force that wants to on how to make itself a non-target.
It's a bold concept, requiring among other things, total battlespace awareness and troops who can quickly seize unforeseen opportunities.
As a person who's pretty new to the whole concept of 4th generation warfare, this sounds to me a little like Ender's Dragon army in _Ender's Game_ by Orson Scott Card, especially the last part about quickly seizing unforseen opportunities and total battlespace awareness. Is it reasonably fair to say that Ender's strategies might be described as 4GW? My background includes very little history of military tactics, and I'm just trying to get a handle on 4GW using any comparison that I can get my hands on and understand pretty easily...
Reggie Bautista
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