FOURTH-GENERATION WAR AND OTHER MYTHS

Antulio J. Echevarria II

November 2005

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 This monograph is an expanded version of an article entitled "Deconstructing

the theory of Fourth-Generation War," published in the August 2005 symposium

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iii

FOREWORD

 In an era of broad and perhaps profound change, new theories and 

concepts are to be welcomed rather than shunned. However, before 

they are fully embraced, they need to be tested rigorously, for the 

cost of implementing a false theory and developing operational and 

strategic concepts around it can be greater than remaining wedded 

to an older, but sounder one. The theory of Fourth Generation War 

(4GW) is a perfect example. Were we to embrace this theory, a loose 

collection of ideas that does not hold up to close scrutiny, the price 

we might pay in a future conflict could be high indeed.

 In this monograph, Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II provides a 

critique of the theory of 4GW, examining its faulty assumptions and 

the problems in its logic. He argues that the proponents of 4GW 

undermine their own credibility by subscribing to this bankrupt 

theory. If their aim is truly to create positive change, then they—

and we—would be better off jettisoning the theory and retaining the 

traditional concept of insurgency, while modifying it to include the 

greater mobility and access afforded by globalization.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

ANTULIO J. ECHEVARRIA II is the Director of Research, Director 

of National Security Affairs, and Acting Chairman of the Regional 

Strategy and Planning Department at the Strategic Studies Institute. 

He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1981, was 

commissioned as an armor officer, and has held a variety of command 

and staff assignments in Germany and Continental United States. 

Dr. Echevarria is the author of After Clausewitz: German Military 

Thinkers before the Great War, published by the University Press of 

Kansas (2001). He also has published articles in a number of scholarly 

and professional journals to include the Journal of Military History, War 

in History, War & Society, the Journal of Strategic Studies, Parameters, 

Joint Force Quarterly, Military Review, and Airpower Journal. He is 

currently working on two books: a study of Clausewitz’s ideas, and 

a comparison of military and civilian visions of future war before 

1914. Dr. Echevarria is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Command and 

General Staff College and the U.S. Army War College, and holds 

M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History from Princeton University.
v

SUMMARY

 Fourth Generation War (4GW) emerged in the late 1980s, but has 

become popular due to recent twists in the war in Iraq and terrorist 

attacks worldwide. Despite reinventing itself several times, the theory 

has several fundamental flaws that need to be exposed before they 

can cause harm to U.S. operational and strategic thinking. A critique 

of 4GW is both fortuitous and important because it also provides us 

an opportunity to attack other unfounded assumptions that could 

influence U.S. strategy and military doctrine. 

 In brief, the theory holds that warfare has evolved through four 

generations: 1) the use of massed manpower, 2) firepower, 3) maneuver, 

and now 4) an evolved form of insurgency that employs all available 

networks—political, economic, social, military—to convince an 

opponent’s decisionmakers that their strategic goals are either 

unachievable or too costly. 

 The notion of 4GW first appeared in the late 1980s as a vague 

sort of “out of the box” thinking, and it entertained every popular 

conjecture about future warfare. However, instead of examining the 

way terrorists belonging to Hamas or Hezbollah (or now Al Qaeda) 

actually behave, it misleadingly pushed the storm-trooper ideal as 

the terrorist of tomorrow. Instead of looking at the probability that 

such terrorists would improvise with respect to the weapons they 

used—box cutters, aircraft, and improvised explosive devices—it 

posited high-tech “wonder” weapons.

 The theory went through a second incarnation when the notion 

of nontrinitarian war came into vogue; but it failed to examine 

that notion critically. The theory also is founded on myths about 

the so-called Westphalian system and the theory of blitzkrieg. The 

theory of 4GW reinvented itself once again after September 11, 2001 

(9/11), when its proponents claimed that Al Qaeda was waging a 

4GW against the United States. Rather than thinking critically about 

future warfare, the theory’s proponents became more concerned 

with demonstrating that they had predicted the future. While their 

recommendations are often rooted in common sense, they are 

undermined by being tethered to an empty theory.
vi

 What we are really seeing in the war on terror, and the campaign 

in Iraq and elsewhere, is that the increased “dispersion and 

democratization of technology, information, and finance” brought 

about by globalization has given terrorist groups greater mobility 

and access worldwide. At this point, globalization seems to aid the 

nonstate actor more than the state, but states still play a central role 

in the support or defeat of terrorist groups or insurgencies.

 We would do well to abandon the theory of 4GW altogether, since 

it sheds very little, if any, light on this phenomenon.
1

FOURTH-GENERATION WAR AND OTHER MYTHS

 Although the theory of Fourth Generation War (4GW) emerged 

in the late 1980s, it has gained considerable popularity of late, 

particularly as a result of recent twists in the war in Iraq and the 

terrorist attacks in London, Sharm al-Sheikh, and elsewhere. We 

examine the theory here for two reasons. First, despite a number of 

profound and incurable flaws, the theory’s proponents continue to 

push it, an activity that only saps intellectual energy badly needed 

elsewhere. Rather than advancing or reinventing a bankrupt 

theory, the advocates of 4GW should redirect their efforts toward 

finding ways to broaden the scope and increase the depth of 

defense transformation. Second, some aspects of the theory have 

much in common with other popular myths such as the notion of 

nontrinitarian war, the impact of the Peace of Westphalia, and the 

existence of blitzkrieg doctrine—myths that, in no small way, have 

also influenced thinking about the future of war. Hence, a close 

examination of 4GW provides us an opportunity to expose fallacies 

common to a number of popular notions about war—past, present, 

and future.

 Over the decade-and-a-half or so of the theory’s existence, 4GW 

has reinvented itself several times, taking advantage of the latest 

developments in technology or tactics, and whatever ideas or theories 

happened to be in vogue. Described in brief, the theory’s proponents 

now claim that 4GW is an “evolved” form of insurgency, much like 

the one that has emerged in Iraq:

The first generation of modern war was dominated by massed manpower

and culminated in the Napoleonic Wars. The second generation, which 

was quickly adopted by the world’s major powers, was dominated by 

firepower and ended in World War I. In relatively short order, during World 

War II the Germans introduced third-generation warfare, characterized 

by maneuver. That type of combat is still largely the focus of U.S. forces 

. . . [4GW is an] evolved form of insurgency [that] uses all available 

networks—political, economic, social, military—to convince the enemy’s 

decision makers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too 

costly for the perceived benefit [emphasis added].1
2

 This monograph argues that we need to drop the theory of 4GW 

altogether; it is fundamentally and hopelessly flawed, and creates 

more confusion than it eliminates. To be sure, the concept rightly 

takes issue with the networkcentric vision of future warfare for being 

too focused on technology and for overlooking the countermeasures 

an intelligent, adaptive enemy might employ.2 However, the 

model of 4GW has serious problems of its own: it is based on poor 

history and only obscures what other historians, theorists, and 

analysts already have worked long and hard to clarify. Some 4GW 

proponents, such as Colonel Thomas Hammes, author of The Sling 

and the Stone, see the theory as little more than a vehicle, a tool, to 

generate a vital dialogue aimed at correcting deficiencies in U.S. 

military doctrine, training, and organization.3

 For his part, Hammes 

is to be commended for his willingness to roll up his sleeves and do 

the hard work necessary to promote positive change. However, the 

tool that he employs undermines his credibility. In fact, the theory of 

4GW only undermines the credibility of anyone who employs it in 

the hope of inspiring positive change. Change is taking place despite, 

not because of, this theory. Put differently, if the old adage is true 

that correctly identifying the problem is half the solution, then the 

theorists of 4GW have made the problem twice as hard as it should 

be. 

FIRST INCARNATION

 The notion of 4GW first appeared in the late 1980s as a vague 

sort of “out of the box” thinking. The idea was itself an open box of 

sorts into which every conjecture about future warfare was thrown. 

As its inaugural essay shows, it was nothing more than a series of 

“what-ifs,” albeit severely limited by a ground-oriented bias. In its 

earliest stages, 4GW amounted to an accumulation of speculative 

rhapsodies that blended a maneuver-theorist’s misunderstanding 

of the nature of terrorism with a futurist’s infatuation with “high 

technology.”4 The kind of terrorists that 4GW theorists described, 

for instance, behaved more like German storm troopers of 1918, or 

Robert Heinlein’s starship troopers of the distant future. Highly 

intelligent and capable of fighting individually or in small groups, 
3

these future terrorists would first seek to infiltrate a society and then 

attempt to collapse it from within by means of an ill-defined psychocultural “judo throw” of sorts.5

 Instead of this fanciful approach, what terrorist groups such as 

Hamas, Hezbollah, and (to a lesser extent) Al Qaeda actually have 

done is integrated themselves into the social and political fabric 

of Muslim societies worldwide. Hamas and Hezbollah, especially, 

have established themselves as organizations capable of addressing 

the everyday problems of their constituencies: setting up day cares, 

kindergartens, schools, medical clinics, youth and women’s centers, 

sports clubs, social welfare, programs for free meals, and health 

care.6 Each has also become a powerful political party within their 

respective governments. In other words, rather than collapsing from 

within the societies of which they are a part, Hamas and Hezbollah 

have turned their constituencies into effective weapons by creating 

strong social, political, and religious ties with them; in short, they 

have become communal activists for their constituencies, which have, 

in turn, facilitated the construction and maintenance of substantial 

financial and logistical networks and safe houses.7 This support then 

aids in the regeneration of the terrorist groups. Hence, attacks by 

Hamas and Hezbollah are not designed to implode a society, but to 

change the political will of their opponents through selective—even 

precise—targeting of innocents. Al Qaeda is somewhat different in 

that its goal is to spark a global uprising, or intifada, among Muslims, 

and its attacks have been designed to weaken the United States, other 

Western powers, and Muslim governments in order to prepare the 

way for that uprising.8 Pursuant to that goal, it and groups sympathetic 

to it have launched attacks that in 2004 alone killed about 1,500 and 

wounded about 4,000 people, not including the many victims of 

operations in Iraq; one-third of all attacks involved non-Western 

targets, but the bulk of the victims overall were Muslims.9 Still, even 

its tactics are not the psychological “judo throw” envisioned by 4GW 

theorists, but an attempt to inflict as many casualties and as much 

destruction as possible in the hope of provoking a response massive 

enough to trigger a general uprising by the Islamic community. 

 Moreover, the types of high-technology that 4GW’s proponents 

envisioned terrorists using includes such Wunderwaffe as directed 

energy weapons and robotics, rather than the cell phones and 
4

internet that terrorists actually use today. 4GW theorists also failed 

to account for the fact that many 21st century wars, such as those 

that unfolded in Rwanda and the Sudan, would be characterized by 

wholesale butchery with “old-fashioned” weapons such as assault 

rifles and machetes wreaking a terrible toll in lives. Even in the socalled information age, the use of brute force remains an effective 

tactic in many parts of the world.

 The theory’s proponents also speculated that the super-terrorists 

of the future might not have a “traditional” national base or identity, 

but rather a “non-national or transnational one, such as an ideology 

or a religion.”10 However, from an historical standpoint, this 

condition has been the norm rather than the exception. Indeed, it 

characterizes many, if not most, of the conventional conflicts of the 

past, such as World War II, which was fought along ideological lines 

and within a transnational framework of opposing global alliances, 

rather than a simple nation-state structure as is commonly supposed. 

While states were clearly advancing their own interests, they tended 

to do so by forming alliances along ideological lines. Nazism was, 

from its very outset, inimical to Western-style democracy and to 

Soviet-style socialism. So, even though democracy and socialism are 

ideologically incompatible, each saw Nazism as the greater threat, 

and formed a tentative alliance of sorts. To be sure, conventional 

forces and tactics predominated in this conflict, but unconventional 

means were clearly important as well. The Cold War is another 

example of a conflict fought along ideological lines; it followed in 

the wake of the defeat of Nazism, as the alliance between Western 

democracy and Soviet socialism ended and gave way to a subsequent 

realignment along ideological lines; this war was also fought within 

a transnational more than a national framework, though most of the 

violence occurred in peripheral wars or in covert operations. The 

Arab-Israeli wars and the Vietnam conflict, all of which took place 

within the larger context of the ideological struggle of the Cold War, 

offer still further examples: they were national struggles on one level, 

but on another level they served as the means in a larger ideological 

struggle. 

 It is more than a little puzzling, therefore, that the architects 

of 4GW should have asserted that U.S. military capabilities are 

“designed to operate within a nation-state framework and have 
5

great difficulties outside of it.”11 As history shows, the U.S. military 

actually seems to have handled World War II and the Cold War, two 

relatively recent global conflicts, both of which required it to operate 

within transnational alliances, quite well. That is not to say that the 

American way of war or, more precisely, our way of battle, does 

not have room for improvement.12 Yet, important similarities too 

often go unnoticed by a facile dismissal of what are often portrayed 

as conventional conflicts. As with Germany and Japan after World 

War II, for instance, one-time failed states, such as Afghanistan, 

where terrorist strongholds have developed, still need political and 

economic reconstruction in order to eliminate, or at least reduce, the 

conditions that gave rise to inimical ideologies in the first place.

 To be sure, out-of-the-box thinking is to be applauded; militaries 

do not do enough of it, for a variety of reasons, some legitimate, some 

not. However, its value diminishes when that thinking hardens into 

a box of its own, and when its architects become enamored of it. 

SECOND INCARNATION

In the years following the theory’s inception, the proponents of 

4GW moved from speculating about the future—a fruitful exercise 

if done objectively—to trying to prove that they had predicted it. By 

the mid-1990s, the theory of 4GW had taken up Martin van Creveld’s 

egregious misrepresentation of the Clausewitzian trinity and his 

overemphasis of the significance of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, 

both of which appeared in the much lauded Transformation of War.

13

Remarkably, the theory’s proponents claimed that van Creveld 

actually had expanded upon “their ideas,” especially with regard 

to the concept of “nontrinitarian” war.14 By taking ownership of 

van Creveld’s concepts, they actually reinvented their theory, and 

began proclaiming that the “first idea” that shaped 4GW was the 

thesis that “future war will increasingly be nontrinitarian and 

waged outside the nation-state framework.”15 It is tempting to see 

contemporary terrorist groups as self-sufficient. However, as we 

have already seen, that is hardly the case. A number of states are 

clearly supporting terrorist activities with money, weapons, and safe 

havens, and the terrorists themselves rely on the support, even if 
6

passive, of established communities. Other states are instrumental 

in interrupting the flow of finances from one institution to another, 

in restricting the movements of terrorists, in eliminating their safehavens, in tracking down and arresting their principal leaders, and 

in driving a wedge between the terrorist groups and the various 

populations they purport to champion. Indeed, states are key players 

on both sides of the war on terror: their policies help create conditions 

that are either disadvantageous for, or conducive to, the growth of 

terrorist groups.

The Fallacy of Nontrinitarian War.

 The fundamental problem with the idea of nontrinitarian war 

is that it does not understand the thing it purports to negate, that 

is, so-called trinitarian war. The concept of trinitarian war has, in 

fact, never existed except as a misunderstanding on the part of 

those who subscribe to the notion of nontrinitarian war. It resulted 

from van Creveld’s misrepresentation of Clausewitz’s “wondrous 

(wunderliche) trinity,” a construct the Prussian theorist used to 

describe the diverse and changeable nature of war. Clausewitz 

portrayed the nature of war in terms of three tendencies, or forces: 

basic hostility, which if unchecked would make war spiral out of 

control; chance and uncertainty, which defy prescriptive doctrines 

and make war unpredictable; and the attempt to use war to achieve 

a purpose, to direct it toward an end.16

 Indeed, his portrayal appears accurate, for we find these forces 

present, in varying degrees, in every war, ancient or modern, 

traditional or otherwise. From the standpoint of the war on terror, 

for instance, hostility is quite a strong force indeed. Al Qaeda and 

more locally-minded terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Hizballah, 

at times have gone to great lengths to mobilize the hostility of their 

constituencies. Chance, as Clausewitz used the term, meant not 

only random occurrence, but also that, from the strategic through 

the tactical levels of war, armed conflict is a matter of assessing 

probabilities and making judgments. Recent polls indicate that few 

people are certain about which side is winning the war on terror, or 

the war in Iraq; some of this uncertainty has less to do with casualties 
7

inflicted daily by the insurgents than with the perception that Iraqis 

will not be able to come together to form a representative form of 

government, thus bringing U.S. efforts to naught.17 The purposes at 

odds in the war on terror are both religious and secular in nature. 

While many identify with the jihadist vision of Al Qaeda, or at least 

are inspired by it, others pursue political self-determination, or aims 

that are only regional or local in nature. 

 These tendencies, as Clausewitz went on to explain, generally 

correspond to three institutions: the first to the populace, the second 

to the military, and the last to the government. However, as he also 

noted, each of these institutions has taken various forms over time; 

we should not consider them only in terms of those three forms. The 

term “government,” for instance, as Clausewitz used it, meant any 

ruling body, any “agglomeration of loosely associated forces,” or any 

“personified intelligence.”18 Similarly, the term military represents 

not only the trained, semi-professional armies of the Napoleonic era, 

but any warring body in any era. Likewise, Clausewitz’s references 

to the “populace” pertain to the populations of any society or 

culture in any given period of history.19 Thus, the government can 

be a state, such as Prussia, or a nonstate actor, such as a clan or a 

tribe.20 In truth, the trinity consists of the actual forces or tendencies 

themselves, which are universal, and not the institutions, which are 

merely representations of those forces that would have been familiar 

to Clausewitz’s readers. He considered the tendencies themselves to 

be universal—common to every war—and, indeed, we find them at 

play in the war on terror. 

 As we can see, each of the tendencies in Clausewitz’s wondrous 

trinity remains alive and well, even in the war on terror, which 

is precisely the kind of conflict that scholars such as van Creveld 

wrongly refer to as “nontrinitarian.”21 Strictly speaking, then, there 

is no such thing as trinitarian war because, as any review of history 

shows, the forces Clausewitz described are present in every war, 

not just the wars of nation-states. If they are present in every war, 

then the term must fall out as a discriminator. In other words, if the 

basis for making a distinction, any distinction, disappears, then the 

distinction itself also vanishes. It follows, then, that since there is no 

such thing as “trinitarian” war, per se, there can be no such thing as 
8

“nontrinitarian” war; the initial concept or idea has to exist before 

the idea that negates it can come into being. Nontrinitarian war is, 

therefore, nothing more than the negation of a misunderstanding. 

The proponents of 4GW failed to perceive this particular flaw in 

their reasoning because they did not review their theory critically; 

instead, they attempted to augment it with whatever ideas seemed 

in vogue at the time.

The Myth of Westphalia. 

 Theorists of 4GW also bit rather deeply into the fruit van 

Creveld offered them with his exaggeration of the significance of 

the Peace of Westphalia, the treaty that ended the Thirty Years’ 

War.22 Accordingly, they asserted that one of the key ideas of 4GW 

is that the “nation-state is losing its monopoly on war,” a monopoly 

supposedly established by the Treaty of Westphalia.23 However, 

what the treaty actually did, aside from granting or confirming the 

possession of certain lands by Europe’s major powers, was to break 

apart the central authority of the Holy Roman Empire, and in its 

place grant territorial sovereignty to some 300 German and central 

European princes. It is more accurate to regard the treaty as a “new 

constitution” for the Empire, a constitution that balanced religious 

and political concerns, than as a concerted effort to establish an 

enduring state system.24 In any case, the principalities involved were 

not nation-states by any stretch, and Europe had much further to 

go culturally and intellectually before the notion of national identity 

would become associated with the idea of the state as a political 

organization. 

 The sovereignty granted to the princes by the Treaty included, 

among other things, the right to declare war and to enter into treaties 

with foreign powers; any war that should break out among the princes 

would, thus, be considered an international affair, rather than a civil 

war within the Empire. This sovereignty was not absolute, however, 

despite the teaming rhetoric in much of the contemporary literature 

that claims the opposite. The princes could not enter into any treaty 

that was “against the Emperor, and the Empire, nor against the 

Publik Peace, and this Treaty, and without prejudice to the Oath 
9

by which everyone is bound to the Emperor and the Empire,” for 

instance, and any prince who changed his religion would forfeit 

his lands.25 The kind of sovereignty granted by the treaty did not 

preclude intervention by outside powers, therefore, and did not 

provide a legal basis for autonomy.

 Moreover, what the treaty most certainly did not do was give states 

a monopoly, legal or otherwise, on the waging of war.26 Even van 

Creveld admits that “cities and coalitions of cities, religious leagues, 

and independent noblemen, to say nothing of robbers” continued to 

make war.27 Rather, the Thirty Years’ War itself showed that war had 

become extremely costly to wage, even for major powers.28 Thus, the 

sheer expense of organized armed conflict tended to push it beyond 

the capacity of smaller states and many nonstate actors, who sought 

to avoid it except, of course, to participate as mercenaries. Even larger 

states had to reorganize themselves in order to be able to continue to 

wage war, but this reorganization did not produce a monopoly on 

war.29 Once again, therefore, the theory of 4GW suffers from poor 

use of history and lack of intellectual rigor.

THIRD INCARNATION

In late 2001, 4GW was reinvented again when one of the theory’s 

principal proponents proclaimed that September 11, 2001 (9/11), 

was “Fourth-Generation Warfare’s First Blow.”30 This claim was 

both clever—in that it exploited a moment of strategic surprise for 

the United States—and supremely arrogant, revealing the extent to 

which 4GW theorists had become preoccupied with proving their 

ability to predict the future, rather than understanding the motives 

and methods of America’s terrorist enemies. The new incarnation 

professed that 4GW had become “broader than any technique,” and, 

in effect, amounted to the “greatest change in war since the Peace 

of Westphalia.”31 Forgotten was the fact that the theory initially 

started out as nothing more than a collection of vague, unrestrained 

speculations regarding future tactics and techniques.

 Unfortunately, this new incarnation repeats many of the theory’s 

old errors, some of which we have not yet discussed. First, its 

sequencing of the so-called generations of war is both artificial and 
10

indefensible. Portraying changes in warfare in terms of “generations” 

implies that each one evolved directly from its predecessor and, 

as it must by the natural progression of generations, eventually 

displaced it. However, the generational model is an ineffective way 

to depict changes in warfare. Simple displacement rarely takes place, 

significant developments typically occur in parallel. Firepower, for 

example, played as much a role in World War II and the Korean and 

Vietnam conflicts as did maneuver, perhaps more. In fact, insurgency 

as a way of waging war actually dates back to classical antiquity, and 

thus predates the so-called second and third generations (firepower 

and maneuver) as described by 4GW theorists. Insurgents, guerrillas, 

and resistance fighters figured large in many of the wars fought 

during the age of classical warfare. 

 It is to be expected that nonstate actors—whether insurgents, 

terrorists, guerrillas, street gangs, or other nefarious characters—

would try to use the increased mobility that has come about through 

globalization to pursue their ends.32 The literature on globalization 

now is quite extensive, and while scholars will continue to debate 

certain aspects of it, there is at least a growing consensus that it has 

dramatically increased the mobility of people, weapons, and ideas. 

It was, therefore, almost inevitable—and by no means unforeseen—

that a marriage of sorts would develop between terrorism and 

globalization. This marriage, in fact, is all there is to the phenomenon 

that 4GW calls a “super” or “evolved insurgency,” or a “new 

generation” of warfare.33

 Throughout history, terrorists, guerrillas, and similar actors 

generally aimed at eroding an opponent’s will to fight rather than 

destroying his means; indeed, noted experts on the topic, such as 

Walter Laqueur and Ian Beckett, as well as others have devoted 

considerable time and intellectual energy to understanding the 

various phenomena of guerrilla warfare, insurgencies, terrorism, 

and their various combinations and evolutions.34 The difference 

now is that, with the spread of information and communication 

technologies and the rise in travel opportunities, all of which have 

become associated with globalization, terrorists and other nonstate 

actors enjoy enhanced access to their adversary’s political will. The 

same can also be said, of course, for states. Regardless, the act of 
11

attacking an opponent’s will, kinetically or otherwise, still serves 

merely as a means to an end.

 We would, in fact, be hard pressed to find a conventional conflict 

in history in which the belligerents did not have as one of their 

chief aims the changing, if not the complete undermining, of their 

adversary’s political will. It is tempting, for instance, to see World 

War I as little more than a brutal contest of attrition involving waves 

of men and massive barrages of firepower, which is how 4GW 

theorists see it. However, that perspective overlooks the fact that the 

ultimate aim of campaigns of attrition such as Verdun was to break 

the political will of the other side by demonstrating that the cost of 

continuing the fight was higher than the ends warranted—much 

like the definition used by the theorists of 4GW. The problem was 

that each side tended to miscalculate the resolve of its opponent, 

believing that the will of the other was just about to break, and that 

one more major offensive would do the trick. The proponents of 4GW 

also ignore the many attempts, on each side, to bypass the trenches 

and attack the will of the enemy in other ways. German air raids 

on London in 1915 are a case in point; 6 months of bombing caused 

just over 1,700 deaths, hardly more than a routine day at the front.35

Yet, the fact that the Germans could strike London at all provoked 

widespread panic among Britons who, for a time, clamored loudly 

for Britain’s withdrawal from the war. Fortunately, the Germans 

lacked the means to increase the tempo of such attacks, and the 

British developed anti-bombing measures effective enough to deter 

the bulk of German raids.

 We should also remember that the notions of airpower theorist 

Giulio Douhet concentrated primarily on striking at an opponent’s 

will to resist—by bombing his major population centers at home—

rather than destroying his combat materiel at the front.36 In essence, 

Douhet’s theories, aside from being an argument for turning 

Italy’s air arm into a separate service, amount to a case for creating 

terror on a massive scale. That the terror such bombing caused in 

World War II fell short of achieving the capitulation predicted by 

Douhet only proves how difficult it is to calculate the strength of 

an opponent’s political will, or how it might react to certain attacks 

directed against it. The Vietnam conflict often is portrayed as proof 
12

of a lack of American resolve, but for over a decade the United States 

remained involved in a war that some of its leading decisionmakers, 

such as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, initially assessed as 

unwinnable unless the South Vietnamese could be inspired to take 

“effective action.” This shows how difficult it is to estimate the will 

of an opponent.37

 Indeed, military theorists from Sun Tzu forward have wrestled 

with the need to understand the relationship between an adversary’s 

physical and psychological capacities to resist. Collectively, theorists 

typically have affirmed that will is the most important factor in war. 

Hence, since it is so difficult to assess, most military thinkers, like 

Clausewitz, defaulted to the aim of rendering an enemy defenseless 

(Wehrlos) by destroying his physical capacity to resist. We would do 

well to remember that the jihadists and other nefarious actors in the 

war on terror also face the difficult problem of estimating the will 

of some of their sworn enemies, the United States and its coalition 

partners, for example. Underestimating that will, in fact, seems to be 

a principal characteristic of their ideology.

 That being the case, it is rather curious that the history and 

analyses that 4GW theorists hang on current insurgencies should be 

so deeply flawed. Fortunately, some of their recommendations for 

countering the current phenomenon—such as the revitalization of 

counterinsurgency doctrine; better cultural and linguistic education 

for U.S. troops; and the greater coordination of political, military, 

social, and economic efforts—though not entirely original, are surely 

steps in the right direction.38

 Moreover, contrary to what 4GW-theorists assert, Mao Tse-tung 

was not the first, nor even the most important, theorist to articulate the 

virtues of insurgency, or Peoples’ War, as it was frequently called.39

Sun Tzu, the celebrated Chinese philosopher of war, addressed 

guerrilla warfare indirectly, discussing principles and stratagems 

that one could easily apply to that form of conflict.40 Clausewitz, on 

the other hand, addressed it directly, calling it a “reality (Erscheinung) 

of the 19th century,” and provided some valuable insights into its 

nature; he even delivered a series of lectures on the subject based 

on his observations of the French operations in the Vendee and the 

Spanish insurrection against Napoleon’s troops to Prussian officers 
13

at the War College in Berlin in 1810 and 1811.41 For the most part, the 

lectures were aimed at educating junior officers on tactics appropriate 

to countering guerrilla warfare and partisan activities. He did, 

however, advocate that Prussia pursue a strategy of insurrection 

against Napoleon after the Prussian defeat at Jena-Auerstadt in 

1806; thus, the advantages of such a strategy were clearly known 

to him. Swiss theorist Antoine Henri Jomini echoed Clausewitz’s 

observations that guerrilla warfare was an effective means of resisting 

an invading force by disrupting its lines of communication, harassing 

and attacking small detachments, and destroying supply depots.42 In 

the latter half of the 19th century, the British officer, Charles Callwell, 

took a more systematic view of what he called “small wars”; among 

other things, he offered the important observation that most wars, 

in fact, typically devolved into irregular conflicts once an invader 

defeated the defender’s regular forces.43 More than a century ago, 

therefore, irregular conflict was thus perceived as a common aspect 

of regular warfare. T. E. Lawrence’s exploits as a British intelligence 

officer in Arabia at the beginning of the 20th century highlighted, 

among other things, the significance of the political component of 

irregular warfare; guerrilla warfare was, in his view, only one-third 

military and two-thirds political.44 Thus, the essential elements of 

irregular conflicts, whether known as Peoples’ Wars or small wars, 

were identified long before Mao adapted them for the Chinese civil 

war.

 The tactics of insurgency did, after all, help the American colonies 

win independence from the British crown. It also prolonged the 

Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 for several months, causing bitter 

disagreements in the German headquarters and placing enormous 

strain on the Prussian army and the German economy.45 It played an 

important role in the histories of many Latin American states, and in 

Western Europe and the Soviet Union during World War II, as well 

as enabling the emergence of the state of Israel in the late 1940s. It has 

played a prominent role in the struggle for statehood among nations 

in North Africa and Southeast Asia, all when warfare was supposed 

to have been dominated by mass, firepower, or maneuver. Far from 

being merely a weapon of the weak against the strong, insurgency 

has also been used by the strong against the strong, as it was during 
14

the Cold War when the United States and the Soviet Union sought 

to undermine each others’ influence abroad, but to do so covertly. 

The theory of 4GW thus reflects a decidedly Euro-centric bias, and a 

distorted one at that.

 Second, even if it were valid to portray major changes in the 

conduct of war as an evolutionary progression from 1GW to 3GW, 

the next logical step in that progression would not be the sort of 

“superinsurgency” that 4GW theorists have tried to depict so 

opportunistically. Instead, the generation of warfare that succeeds 

3GW would actually have to be closer to the technocratic vision 

of networkcentric warfare once propounded by some within the 

defense community; that is, of small, high-tech forces networked 

together in a knowledge-based system of systems that enables them 

to act rapidly and decisively.46

 To their credit, the advocates of 4GW rightly criticize 

networkcentric warfare and its vacuous theoretical offshoots, such 

as Shock and Awe, for depending too much on high technology and 

for being too inflexible to accommodate a thinking opponent. Yet, 

and quite ironically, this is the very direction in which the logic of 

their particular theory of military evolution would lead them, if they 

were true to it. 

The Blitzkrieg Myth. 

 Early on, proponents of the Revolution in Military Affairs and 

networkcentric warfare made a point of using the so-called German 

blitzkrieg model as a way to articulate their transformational 

goals. They wanted to create a form of super-maneuver, through 

a combination of new technologies and new operational concepts, 

capable of rapidly and decisively defeating an adversary. While 

contemporary military analysts and commentators, such as S. 

L. A. Marshall, called the German style of fighting a “blitzkrieg,” 

or lightning war, and proclaimed it a revolution in warfare, their 

rhetoric had little substance and was intended primarily to arouse 

concern in the United States over events in Europe.47 In fact, an 

official blitzkrieg concept did not exist in German military doctrine 

at the time. 
15

 Instead, the methods employed by the German military 

were a natural continuation of the concept of a war of movement 

(Bewegungskrieg) as opposed to a war of position (Stellungskrieg), a 

distinction that was hammered out in the 1890s, and then revalidated 

in military assessments that took place after the Great War.48 The 

term itself appears to have been coined outside Germany; the picture 

of General von Brauchitch on the cover of the September 1939 issue 

of Time magazine along with the title “Blitzkrieger” may have been 

among the first instances.49 Even Guderian’s own concept for the 

use of armored forces, as outlined in his book Achtung—Panzer!, 

was organized around accomplishing a rather traditional mission, 

a breakthrough operation, which he saw as the most challenging 

operation of World War I.50 Hence, Guderian did little more than 

attempt to improve existing procedures or, in today’s phraseology, 

to refight the last war. In any case, German success on the battlefield 

depended more often than not on such factors as thorough planning, 

quality training, and decentralized leadership. 

 Ironically, the technocratic-style of warfare that Hammes and 

others rail against, however justifiably, is actually the logical extension 

of 3GW—and it is, curiously enough, not too far removed from the 

direction in which 4GW theorists initially were headed. What this 

means for 4GW theorists, though, is that the train of logic they use to 

explain key developments in the conduct of war actually undermines 

their case. That they failed to perceive this flaw in a theory they have 

been developing—or, more accurately, reinventing—for more than 

a decade is not a good sign.

 Third, by comparing what essentially amount to military 

means or techniques—such as “massed manpower,” “firepower,” 

and “maneuver”—on the one hand, to what is arguably a form of 

warfare—such as insurgency—on the other, the advocates 4GW only 

bait us with a proverbial apples-versus-oranges sleight-of-hand. In 

other words, they establish a false comparison by which they wish 

us to conclude that most of the wars of the modern age, which they 

claim were characterized by firepower or maneuver, were narrowly 

focused on military power and, unlike the superinsurgencies of 

the information age, rarely involved the integration of political, 

economic, and social power. 
16

 Yet, even a cursory review of the Napoleonic and World Wars I 

and II reveals that this is not true. Clausewitz thought that Napoleon 

in fact had brought warfare nearest to its “absolute” form, meaning 

that Bonaparte had taken war to a hitherto unsurpassed level of 

violence, mobilized the French populace to the extent possible at the 

time, and attempted to control information through various organs 

of the state.51 In Napoleon, the full political and military powers of 

the French state were brought together in one person. 

 The major wars of the 20th century also show that political, 

social, and economic capabilities were, in many cases, employed 

to the maximum extent possible. Some historians go so far as to 

maintain that World Wars I and II were, in effect, examples of “total” 

war precisely because of the extent to which the major combatants 

mobilized the elements of their national power.52 Even the theoretical 

offshoots of netcentric warfare, which 4GW rightly rejects, recognize 

the need to integrate all the elements of national power in the pursuit 

of strategic aims. The problem is that this notion of total integration 

has become the new mantra; the idea itself has almost been elevated 

to a panacea for the various ills plaguing the American way of war. 

The fundamental rub, which even 4GW advocates do not address, is 

how to coordinate diverse kinds of power, each of which operates in 

a unique way and according to its own timeline, to achieve specific 

objectives, and to do so while avoiding at least the most egregious 

of unintended consequences. It is one thing to assert that all the 

elements of power must be coordinated to meet the challenges of 

this century, it is quite another to think through the next level of that 

problem, and figure out how.

CONCLUSION

 In sum, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel with regard to 

insurgencies—super or otherwise—and their various kin. A great 

deal of very good work has already been done, especially lately, on 

that topic, to include the effects that globalization and information 

technologies have had, are having, and are likely to have, on such 

movements. We do not need another label, as well as an incoherent 

supporting logic, to obscure what many have already made clear. 
17

The fact that 4GW theorists are not aware of this work, or at least 

do not acknowledge it, should give us pause indeed. They have 

not kept up with the scholarship on unconventional wars, nor with 

changes in the historical interpretations of conventional wars. Their 

logic is too narrowly focused and irredeemably flawed. In any case, 

the wheel they have been reinventing will never turn.

ENDNOTES

 1. Thomas X. Hammes, “4th-generation Warfare: Our Enemies Play to Their 

Strengths,” Armed Forces Journal, November 2004, pp. 40-44.

 2. This tendency was particularly evident in the early white papers regarding 

rapid decisive operations and effects-based operations. There is some evidence that 

this technocratic emphasis is changing, however. Greg Jaffe, “Rumsfeld Details 

Big Military Shift in New Document: Drive for Pre-emptive Force, Wider Influence 

Will Trigger Changes in Strategy, Budget,” Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2005. In 

fact, some proponents now admit that the initial scope of defense transformation 

was too narrow. Compare Max Boot, “The New American Way of War,” Foreign 

Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 4, July/August 2003, pp. 41-58, to his more recent argument in 

Max Boot, “The Struggle to Transform the Military,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 2, 

March/April 2005, pp. 103-118.

 3. Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century, St. 

Paul, MN: Zenith, 2004.

 4. William S. Lind, Keith Nightengale, John F. Schmitt, Joseph W. Sutton, and 

Gary I. Wilson, “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation,” Marine 

Corps Gazette, October 1989, pp. 22-26.

 5. Ibid., p. 26.

 6. In contrast, most government bodies in the Middle East, generally perceived 

as corrupt and ineffective by Muslim communities, have failed to provide such 

basics. Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, 

and Coexistence, New York: Columbia University, 2000, pp. 18-26; Sami G. Hajjar, 

Hizballah: Terrorism, National Liberation or Menace? Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, U.S. Army War College, August 2002. Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, pp. 55, 

227, 230.

 7. Ed Blanche, “Al-Qaeda Recruitment,” Janes Intelligence Review, Vol. 14, 

January 2002, pp. 27-28; Paul J. Smith, “Transnational Terrorism and the al Qaeda 

Model: Confronting New Realities,” Parameters, Vol. 32, No. 2, Summer 2002, pp. 

33-46.

 8. Cited from “Al Qaeda: Statements and Evolving Ideology,” Washington, 

DC: Congressional Research Service, June 20, 2005, p. 13. Kenneth Katzman, “Al 

Qaeda: Profile and Threat Assessment,” Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, February 10, 2005. 
18

 9. U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2004, Washington, 

DC: Office of Coordinator for Counterterrorism, April 2005, pp. 7-8; National 

Counterterrorism Center, A Chronology of Significant International Terrorism for 

2004, Washington, DC, April 27, 2005, pp. 81-82. International terrorists were 

responsible for 190 attacks during 2003, down from 198 in 2002, and 355 in 2001; 

the casualty total was 1,888 in 2003, down from 2,742 in 2002, and 3,875 in 2001. 

U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism, Washington, DC, 2003.

 10. Lind, et al., “Changing Face of War,” p. 25.

 11. Ibid., p. 26.

 12. Antulio J. Echevarria II, Toward an American Way of War, Carlisle Barracks: 

Strategic Studies Institute, 2004.

 13. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War, New York: Free Press, 

1991. 

 14. William S. Lind; Major John F. Schmitt, USMCR; and Colonel Gary I. Wilson, 

USMCR, “Fourth Generation Warfare: Another Look,” Marine Corps Gazette, Vol. 

78, No. 12, December 1994, pp. 34-37, especially 34. Hammes provided some much 

needed intellectual heft to the theory at this time. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas X. 

Hammes, “The Evolution of War: The Fourth Generation,” Marine Corps Gazette, 

Vol. 78, No. 9, September 1994, pp. 35-44.

 15. Lind, et al., “Another Look,” p. 36.

 16. The trinity is only one aspect of Clausewitz’s nature of war; he also 

described objective and subjective “natures” of war. The former includes those 

qualities that every war has—violence, chance, and friction—while the latter 

consists of the means by which wars are fought. Similarly, his representation of 

the first trinity—consisting of the forces—corresponds with the objective nature of 

war, while the second trinity accords with the subjective nature of war. Carl von 

Clausewitz, Vom Kriege. Hinterlassenes Werk des Generals Carl von Clausewitz, 19th 

Ed., Werner Hahlweg, ed., Bonn: Ferd. Dümmlers, 1991, Book I, Chap. 1, pp. 212-

213. Hereafter, Vom Kriege.

 17. David W. Moore, “Majority of Americans Maintain Negative Views on 

Iraq: Believe War has made the United States ‘Less Safe’ from Terrorism,” Gallup 

Poll News Service, August 9, 2005, http://www.GallupWaronTerror_aspx.htm; E&P 

Staff, “Gallup: Only 1 in 3 Think US is Winning War on Terror,” Editor & Publisher, 

July 5, 2005. Recent polls by Newsweek, Associated Press-Ipsos, and CBS reflect 

similar results: Mark Silva and Mike Dorning, “Doubt on War Grows in US: Even 

Supporters Say Effort isn’t Worth Loss of American Lives,” Chicago Tribune, August 

14, 2005.

18. Vom Kriege, Book VIII, Chap. 3B, p. 962.

19. Ibid., pp. 962, 964-965.

 20. Vom Kriege, Book I, Chap. 1, pp. 212-13. 

 21. Creveld, Transformation of War, pp. 192-233.
19

 22. The Treaty of Westphalia was actually two treaties: the Treaty of Osnabrück, 

concluded between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Protestant king of Sweden; 

and the Treaty of Münster, concluded between the Emperor and the Catholic king 

of France. The treaties took 7 years to negotiate, and fighting continued up to the 

last moment.

 23. Lind, et al., “Another Look,” pp. 34, 35; William S. Lind, “Understanding 

Fourth Generation War,” Military Review, Vol. 84, No. 5, September/October 2004, 

pp. 12-16, especially 12.

 24. Stephen D. Krasner, “Rethinking the Sovereign State Model,” in Empire, 

Systems and States: Great Transformations in International Politics, Michael Cox, Tim 

Dunne, and Ken Booth, eds., New York: Cambridge University, 2001, p. 35. For 

other critiques of the treaty, see Andreas Osiander, “Sovereignty, International 

Relations, and the Westphalian Myth,” International Organization, Vol. 55, 2001, 

pp. 251-287; Stephane Beaulac, “The Westphalian Legal Orthodoxy—Myth or 

Reality,” Journal of the History of International Law, Vol. 2, 2000, pp. 148-177; Derek 

Croxton, “The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 and the Origins of Sovereignty,” The 

International History Review, Vol. 21, 1999, pp. 575-591.

 25. Treaty of Münster, Article LXV; and Treaty of Osnabrück, Article VIII.1. 

The texts of the treaties are available in various sources; for example, http://www.

yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/westphal.htm.

 26. Culturally, the treaty does represent a change in attitudes among Europe’s 

elite: it reflected a new willingness to take matters in hand, instead of assuming 

that nothing could be done. Theodore K. Rabb, The Struggle for Stability in Early 

Modern Europe, New York: Oxford, 1975, pp. 78-79.

 27. Van Creveld, Transformation, p. 192.

 28. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and 

Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York: Random House, 1987, especially pp. 

58-65.

 29. This need to reorganize formed one of the pillars in Michael Roberts’ 

argument that this period saw a military revolution. Michael Roberts, “The 

Military Revolution, 1560-1660,” in The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on 

the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, Clifford Rodgers, ed., Boulder, 

CO: Westview, 1995, pp. 13-36; Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military 

Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800, 2nd Ed., Cambridge: Cambridge 

University, 1996, pp. 45-82, points to the rising cost of supplying war. 

 30. William S. Lind, “Fourth-Generation Warfare’s First Blow: A Quick Look,” 

Marine Corps Gazette, Vol. 85, No. 11, November 2001, p. 72.

 31. Lind, “First Blow,” p. 72.

 32. Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, New 

York: Farra, Strauss, Giroux, 2005; and The Lexus and the Olive Tree, New York: 

Anchor, 2000, p, 9, which offered perhaps the first definition of globalization: the 

dispersion and democratization of technology, information, and finance. 
20

 33. Hammes, “4th-generation Warfare,” p. 42.

 34. The following old and new works represent such efforts: Walter Laqueur, 

Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study, Boulder: Westview, 1984; Ian F. W. 

Beckett and John Pimlott, eds., Armed Forces and Modern Counter-insurgency, New 

York: St. Martin’s, 1985; Bard E. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern 

Revolutionary Warfare, Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1990; and Rohan Gunaratna, 

ed., The Changing Face of Terrorism, Singapore: Eastern Universities, 2004.

 35. James S. Corum, The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War 1918-1940, 

Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1997, p. 24.

 36. Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, Dino Ferrari, trans., Washington, 

DC: Office of Air Force History, new imprint, 1983.

 37. Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect—The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, 

New York: Times Books, 1995, p. 263.

 38. For a summary of those recommendations, see Thomas X. Hammes, 

“Insurgency: Modern Warfare Evolves into a Fourth Generation,” Strategic Forum 

No. 214, Institute for National Strategic Studies, January 2005.

 39. Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, 2nd Ed., Introduction by Samuel B. 

Griffith II, trans., Baltimore: Nautical & Aviation Publishing Co., 1992; and Basic 

Tactics, Introduction by Stuart R. Schram, trans., New York: Praeger, 1966. Other 

well-known guerrilla warfare theorists include General Vo-Nguyen-Giap, People’s 

War, People’s Army: The Viet Cong Insurrection Manual for Underdeveloped Countries, 

New York: Praeger, 1962; Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, 3rd Ed., Brian Loveman 

and Thomas M. Davies Jr., eds., Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997.

 40. Philip Short, Mao: A Life, New York: Henry Holt, 2000; Sun-tzu, The Art of 

War, Ralph Sawyer, trans., New York: Westview, 1994.

41. Vom Kriege, Book VI, Chap. 26, p. 799. For the lectures, see “Meine 

Vorlesungen über den kleinem Krieg, gehalten auf der Kriegs-Schule 1810 und 

1811,” in Werner Hahlweg, ed., Carl von Clausewitz: Schriften—Aufsätze—Studien—

Briefe, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966, Vol. I, pp. 208-599.

42. Robert B. Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, London: 

Macdonald, 1975, p. 164.

 43. Charles Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice, 3d Ed., London: 

Harrison & Sons, 1906. 

 44. T. E. (Thomas Edward) Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, 

London: M. Pike, 1926.

 45. Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France 

1870-1871, Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2004, pp. 278-293.

 46. David S. Alberts, John J. Gartska, and Frederick P. Stein, Networkcentric 

Warfare: Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority, Washington, DC: 

National Defense University, 1999.
21

 47. S. L. A. Marshall, Blitzkrieg: Its History, Strategy, Economics, and the Challenge 

to America, New York: William Morrow, 1940; Ferdinand O. Miksche, Attack: A 

Study of Blitzkrieg Tactics, London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1941.

 48. James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military 

Reform, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1992, pp. 51-67.

 49. “Blitzkrieger,” Time, Vol. XXXIV, No. 13, September 25, 1939, p. 25; Stephen 

O. Fuqua, “Blitzkrieg,” Newsweek, September 25, 1939, p. 14; William J. Fanning Jr., 

“The Origin of the Term ‘Blitzkrieg’: Another View,” Journal of Military History, 

Vol. 61, 1997, pp. 283-302. 

 50. Heinz Guderian, Achtung—Panzer! The Development of Armoured Vehicles, 

Their Tactics and Operational Potential, Introduction by Paul Harris, Christopher 

Duffy, trans., New York: Sterling, 1992 (<1937>), especially pp. 178-191.

 51. Vom Kriege, Book VIII, Chap. 3B, p. 971-973.

 52. Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, eds., Great War, Total War: Combat and 

Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918, New York: Cambridge, 2000; Roger 

Chickering, Stig Förster, and Bernd Greiner, eds., A World at Total War: Global 

Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937-1947, New York: Cambridge, 2005. 

These works are part of a series that recently has problematized both the concept 

and reality of total war.