William Glenn Hill of Studebaker Group Provides an Overview Of 5th Generation Warfare and The Transition in Intelligence

In 1989, against a backdrop of a tumbling Berlin wall, Bill Lind and others published an article in the Marine Corps Gazette titled “The Changing Face War: Into the Fourth Generation.” In the article, Lind argues that as the curtains fell on state-to-state armed conflict involving well-defined military methods with predictable outcomes (3rd Generation Warfare), a new type of warfare would emerge – one that involved low-intensity guerilla warfare and terrorism. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have confirmed this theory. However, as states grapple with this so-called asymmetric warfare, a more complicated type of warfare is emerging – Fifth Generation Warfare or 5GW.

One of the earliest mentions of the term was in a 2009 article published in Wired Magazine and written by David Axe. In the article, Axe quotes U.S. Army Major Shannon Beebe, a former top intel officer for Africa, as defining 5GW as “a "vortex of violence," a free-for-all of surprise destruction motivated more by frustration than by any coherent plans for the future.” Over the ten years since the article was published, this definition has been built upon to create an idea of a type of war that many states, and indeed the global community altogether, may not be ready for but which is already upon us.

William Glenn Hill is the Group CEO of Studebaker Group, a defense contracting company with a vision to invent, establish, and define the future of defense solutions in the public and private sectors. We recently sat down with William Glenn Hill to discuss the three main areas that define 5GW.

No Clear Political Motivations

Unclear political motivations typically characterize 5GW, says William Glenn Hill. In previous iterations of war, it was mostly clear why each party was fighting – often for some political end. However, with 5GW, participants fight for fluid and usually non-political reasons. One main reason 5GW will be waged is for the pure intention of anarchy. When anarchy thrives, political systems collapse, and with them, social and economic systems. But who would benefit from the ensuing chaos?

Over the last fifty years, a shadow global economy has emerged of powerful stateless players (virtual states). These players have trillions of dollars in economic power and thrive in chaos. For example, in Iraq, instability and a discredited government makes it difficult for citizens to enjoy standard utilities like power and water. Shadow economy players step in and provide these services at a premium. In this way, such players directly benefit from a perpetual state of uncertainty, and violence.

Social Engineering

The United States and Britain are still reeling from allegations that critical civic events in their countries – elections and a referendum, respectively, were manipulated using social engineering. William Glenn Hill sees these two events as essential milestones in the emergence of 5GW. In 5GW, social engineering on a massive scale will be used to influence important state functions such as elections, referendums, and even policy formulation.

While these two examples had clear suspects, they were allegedly perpetrated with the help of stateless players. As technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous, intrusive, and sophisticated, 5GW will be a war that does not have any clear boundaries in terms of atrocities and attackers. Thwarting social engineering will be as difficult as it currently is for social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to eliminate fake news, an important tool in social engineering.

Open Source Warfare

The term open source has been used severally to describe software that is free to use, is open for manipulation by anyone, and offers portability for use in any circumstance. Open-source warfare, an essential aspect of 5GW, says William Glenn Hill, has the same traits. In 5GW, fighters will use self-organizing methods that are difficult to pattern-match, hard to track, and impossible to monitor. Insurgents using technology and global mobility will replace the Jihadist cells of the past with virtual networks of fighters spread across continents.

What makes open source warfare even more challenging to anticipate and neutralize is the fact that the reasons for fighting are also open-sourced. That means there is no central command and control or ideology. It is instead a network of fighters who only agree in the need to fight, but little less over that. One may fight for religion, another because of frustrations, another for glory, and so on. The open sourcing of warfare will do what open source did for software, democratize warfare in a way that opens it up for anyone to participate.

Last Words

5GW will engulf affected areas in a vortex of violence and fear, says William Glenn Hill. While previous generations of war emerged gradually giving states the time to build capacity, 5GW is developing like a shadow of 4GW, quickly and with no apparent time frames. Countries that hope to thwart this new wave of war will need to build capacity speedily and use high-tech methods like AI and drones as a tool against insurgents. While this may be effective in the short term, such measures may only serve to usher in direr long-term threats such as autonomous militarized AI going rogue, which may perhaps initiate 6th Generation Warfare or the war of the machines.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.