Some groups wished to achieve the independence of a particular national entity from a foreign colonial power (for example, the Irish Republican Army). Others desired the separation of a particular region from a larger state entity (such as the Basque autonomists). Still other factions maintained religious motivations, usually of an extreme fundamentalist or strongly orthodox nature (for instance, various Islamic “terrorist” groups, the Falangists of Spain, or the violently anti-abortion militants in the United States). Some desired the independence or separation not of territorial entities or “nations” per se, but of racial and ethnic groupings in a biological sense. One such faction, an American neo-Nazi group simply called “The Order,” carried out a series of armed robberies during the 1980s for the purpose of establishing an “Aryan” homeland in the US state of Idaho.[219] Particularly interesting has been the rise of militant resistance groups in recent decades committed to violent or extra-legal actions on behalf of environmental causes. Indeed, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation currently classifies environmental and “animal rights” militants as the primary domestic terrorist threat within the United States.[220]
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new target emerged that became the source of much hostility on the part of armed militant or “terrorist” organizations worldwide. This target was the unprecedented global hegemony achieved by the United States following the demise of its only true rival. Lacking the constraining force of the Soviet Union, the United States was afforded a freer hand in its capacity to impose its desired liberal-capitalist order on the entire world. This effort has been met with resistance by a wide range of forces, many of them the same organizations that opposed Western states or Western neocolonialism during the postwar period. The globalization of capital is offensive to dissidents worldwide for a variety of reasons. Some regard globalization as a force for greater exploitation of labor, particularly in Third World countries. Others are concerned about environmental destruction. Still others are concerned about the erosion of traditional cultural, religious, ethnic, national, racial, and regional identities.[221] The most zealous and effective opponents of the unipolar domination of the United States and its program of liberal-capitalism have, of course, been the Islamic fundamentalists.[222] However shocking such incidents as the hijackings and destruction of September 11, 2001, may have been to people the world over, it is also true that many of the world’s peoples share many of the concerns that drove some individuals to such extreme action. As William S. Lind explains:
To many of the world’s peoples . . . [the global triumph of liberal capitalism] . . . represents Hell, and they will fight it literally to their dying breath.[223]
This is true even of some within the United States itself. The journalist Joel Dyer described the US militia movement of the 1990s in the following terms:
Following [the killing of dissidents by federal agents at] Ruby Ridge and Waco, the antigovernment movement focused on the creation of militias. With its military arm in place, the movement’s next push came in the form of common-law courts. As the sovereignty concept took hold across the nation, antigovernment adherents began to form organizations that encompassed all of these antigovernmental elements—sovereignty, courts and militias. The goal is that each organization should become self-sufficient, able to fully govern its membership with no assistance from the outside world. It’s as if there are thousands of independent countries operating within the border of the United States . . . Regardless of their differences, which are substantial, these groups realize that they must ultimately support each other to avoid being crushed by the federal government . . . These self-governing antigovernment bands range in size from a dozen people to several thousand . . . The actions of these supposedly sovereign groups are often in direct conflict with the laws of the United States, which they no longer recognize . . . The longer it exists, the stronger it grows, as more and more people are choosing to opt out of the federal system, whose taxes make the difference between a family’s eating or sending its children to bed hungry . . . The government’s refusal to recognize the sovereignty of these pockets of patriots is understandable: That would lead to anarchy.
A new breed of other elements within the movement— representing perhaps yet another step in the movement’s evolution—is also seeking foreign funding. One of my contacts, whom I will call “Tom” since he spoke on the condition of anonymity, told me that he is actively seeking money abroad. Tom’s antigovernment organization, which has established dialogue with Mexico’s Zapatistas, South America’s Shining Path guerrillas, and the Nation of Islam, is the antithesis of the [Christian] Identity-driven groups. But don’t mistake Tom for a leftist—he’s not. His vision of America is similar to that of the sovereigns, with small pockets of self-governed individuals living in regions outside of any federal authority. “If blacks want to live separate from whites,” says Tom, “they should have that right. I don’t think that’s necessary, but people should be allowed to choose how and where they live.” Tom says that the American government is responsible for creating the conditions worldwide that have spawned the sort of radical organizations his group communicates with in other countries, so it’s only natural that today’s antigovernment movement should consider them as allies. In line with this vision, he says: “Who knows? Maybe someday we’ll have a standoff in Texas . . . and the Zapatistas will come to our defense. It could happen.”[224]
4. Fourth Generation Warfare and Non-State Military Actors (1989– )
The historiography and historical narrative presented thus far provides the necessary background for the direct examination of the core thesis of this article, i.e., that the state’s historic monopoly on violence and war has declined and been rendered archaic as a result of successful challenges to that monopoly by so-called “fourth generation” military forces. The concept of “fourth generation warfare” was first outlined in 1989 by the American military historian William S. Lind.[225] The “generational” division of types of warfare is used to describe the evolution of war since the rise of the state. Lind traces the beginning of the state’s monopoly on warfare to the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia. From that point on, wars were fought by states against states. The era of “first generation” warfare reigned from the time of Westphalia until the time of the American Civil War of 1861–65.“First generation” militaries were characterized by their emphasis on formality and a military culture oriented towards rank, order, and discipline. Battles often took on the character of formal gamesmanship, open-air fighting, and maneuvers involving the movement of large numbers of soldiers simultaneously. During the time of the US Civil War, the “orderliness” of battles began to dissolve and became more chaotic. The second and third generations of warfare each arose as a response to this change.
“Second generation” warfare was devised by the French during the First World War. The “second generation” approach to battle maintains the traditional emphasis on rank, structure, and top-down decision-making. The strategic emphasis is on artillery and firepower, attrition, and occupation. The aim is to inflict large-scale casualties on the enemy. The “second generation” approach continues to dominate American military strategy to date. “Third generation” warfare also had its origins in the First World, although it was invented by the Germans rather than the French. The emphasis of the “third generation” is on maneuvers and innovation by the lower ranks. Junior officers were permitted, for example, to disregard orders from superiors if those orders proved ineffective at getting the job done. The highest duty of the combat officer was to achieve victory by any means necessary, even if it meant altering or even abandoning battle plans formulated by commanders. Firepower was also replaced by speed as the focus of “third generation” warfare, and encirclement and dislocation of the enemy, rather than attrition, became the objective of battle. “Fourth generation” warfare represents the shift from
wars between states to wars between states and non-state actors, a process Lind regards as the most important change in the nature of war since the initial obtainment of the monopoly on war by the state with the Treaty of Westphalia.[226]
To some degree, the guerrilla warfare tactics developed during the anti-colonial wars of Asia during the postwar era, such as those led by Mao Tse-tung in China and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, serve as prototypes for “fourth generation” warfare.[227] However, these do not completely qualify as “fourth generation” in nature as they do not represent a complete break from the notion of war as combat between states, but qualify as conventional civil wars with two factions within a state fighting for supremacy, conventional revolutions where one state replaces another, or where a colonial power and its domestic puppet government are regarded by the insurgents as illegitimate and are expelled with the assistance of other states. It is with the rise of contemporary Islamic “terrorism” that fourth generation warfare really comes into its own. The Al-Qaeda organization, for example, is a completely privatized, non-state military entity that managed to carry out an unprecedented attack on the American mainland, inflicting casualties on a level comparable to the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Likewise, the present-day “insurgent” forces with which the United States is at war in Iraq do not represent a particular state, nor do they necessarily represent any specific would-be successor state. Instead, they represent religions, tribes, clans, ethnic groups, familial networks, ideologies, and causes that exist independently of any recognizable state formation.
An interesting case study of a “fourth generation force” is the Hezbollah organization of Lebanon.[228] Hezbollah’s entry into the war between Israel and Hamas during the summer of 2006 marks the first time a “fourth generation” force has actually conducted an outright military invasion of an actual state. This proved to be a case where a “fourth generation” entity was able to match the firepower of a state military force and outmaneuver them. Hezbollah was also able to engage Israel in air and naval battles with rocket attacks capable of destroying Israeli planes and ships. Hezbollah did all of this while the Lebanese state sat by unable to defend itself against a massive air assault by Israel. Hezbollah is a particular well-developed fourth generation entity in that it maintains not only an independent military force but also an elaborate system of private social services, religious and educational institutions, and hospitals as well. Such a model is a likely prototype for the way in which fourth generation forces will evolve in the future. Such forces will continue to arise from strange places. A story in the April 26, 2005, issue of the Washington Times reports:
Brazilian drug traffickers have teamed up with Columbian rebels to smuggle narcotics through Paraguay, creating a lucrative new channel for distribution to the United States and Europe . . .
Using a precisely orchestrated system of flights from the Columbian jungle, Marxist rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, or FARC, are shipping 40 to 60 tons of cocaine annually to farms in Paraguay owned by Brazilian drug lords, who then put the cocaine in cars and small trucks and drive them across the nearly unmonitored border into rural western Brazil . . . in return for arms, dollars and Euros from Brazilian traffickers [for the FARC].[229]
Observes William S. Lind:
How long will it be before and other Islamic non-state forces make their own alliances with the drug gangs and people smugglers who are experts in getting across America’s southern border? Or use the excellent distribution systems the drug gangs have throughout the United States to smuggle something with a bigger bang than the best cocaine?
Just as we see states coming together around the world against the non-state forces of the Fourth Generation, so those non-state forces will also come together in multi-faceted alliances. The difference is likely to be that they will do it faster and better. And, they will use states’ preoccupation with the state system like a matador’s cape, to dazzle and distract while they proceed with the real business of war.[230]
5. Fourth Generation Warfare and the Decline of the State (1975– )
Martin van Creveld argues that without the monopolization of war as the primary function of the state, it would have been very difficult for the state to achieve the level of dominance that it eventually did. It was for the purpose of waging war that the state initially instituted its programs of bureaucracy-building and taxation, and its provision of health, education, and social welfare services were intertwined with the development of its war making capacities, thereby creating a type of “welfare-warfare” state. These features, combined with the state’s monopoly over money, land, and other economic resources, fused with a legitimizing ideology in the form of nationalism, served to turn the state into the mighty (or, some would say, monstrous) entity that it eventually became. How could such an entity eventually lose its monopoly on war?
Van Creveld traces this phenomenon to five principal sources.First, the advent of nuclear weaponry and modern “weapons of mass destruction” has significantly raised the costs of interstate warfare. The gains of such warfare are now overshadowed by its risks and costs. What does it profit a nation to conquer other nations but lose itself to massive nuclear retaliation? Just as the warfare state has been excessively costly, so has the welfare state. Even the most prosperous regimes have found it difficult to maintain its established levels of social spending without the use of deficits and the acquisition of public debt. A wide consensus exists among policy makers that “trimming the fat” from public budgets will become a necessity at some point, though politicians and political interest groups do their best to delay the day of reckoning.
A third challenge to the state’s hegemony has been the internationalization of technology and innovations in the fields of technology and communications that make instantaneous commercial transactions possible by parties on all corners of the globe. The effect of this can only be to weaken dependence on national governments. Still another factor is the failure of the state to fully take root and stabilize itself in many parts of the world, notably Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The disorder generated by the failure of the state in those regions has begun to spread to other regions as well (for example, the importation of Central American crime gangs into North America and African refugees into Western Europe). Lastly, there is the decline of nationalistic ideology and a greater unwillingness on the part of citizens to sacrifice themselves on behalf of their respective states. For instance, van Creveld observes that nearly all states that have abolished military conscription have found it impossible to reinstate it due to overwhelming public hostility.[231]
Whither the state? Van Creveld suggests that the state as it has been described in this article maintains three essential attributes: a corporative as opposed to personalized institutional expression, exclusive territorial monopoly, and a monocentric rather than polycentric concept of “sovereignty” (and hence a monopoly on violence, war making, and also on rule or “law”). Van Creveld argues that the breakdown of the state will result in a proliferation of entities that are, like the states they replace, corporative in nature but also polycentric and extra-territorial. Most importantly, the state’s monopoly on violence will be forfeited and warfare in the future will likely be smaller-scale, more localized, and waged by groups whose territorial boundaries (if any) will be less clearly delineated. This new order will be neither a restoration of the medieval world that yielded to the state at the dawn of modernity, nor will it be the decentralized or libertarian utopia of the anarchists, though it may resemble both of these more closely than does the now-fading traditional state order. Will such a world be a better or worse place than the one that we are accustomed to? That would seem to be a matter of perspective. Van Creveld prefers to answer this question with a verse from Mao, who gave the following answer when asked what might follow a nuclear war:
"The sun will keeping rising
trees will keep growing
and women
w
ill keep having children."[232]
Perhaps this quote from Albert Einstein would be equally appropriate:
"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."[233]
Fourth Generation Warfare, and the Decline of the State
6. Historiography of the Decline of the State’s Monopoly on Violence and War
The Pre-State Era (Before 1300)
Government is personalized and identified with a particular individual or group. The rulers are believed to have achieved their basis on the basis of divine providence or their superior wisdom and virtue. The Greek cities and the Roman Republic serve as a prelude to the development of the state by separating the concepts of ownership and rulership.
The Rise of the State (1300–1648)
The monarchies of Western Europe achieve victory over the competing powers of the Church, nobility, city-states, and the Holy Roman Emperor. The monarchs achieve a monopoly on violence and war.
The Emergence of the State as a Corporative Entity (1648–1800)
The monarchies proceed to build a bureaucracy for the purpose of waging war. This bureaucracy, with its monopoly on taxation and information, forms the basis for the corporative state. Political theory develops in response to previous theological justifications for political authority. Government is conceived of in secular, pragmatic terms with an emphasis on the need to preserve order and protect life and property.The bureaucracy grows to the point where it overshadows the monarchy and becomes the state itself.
The Fusion of the State and Nationalism (1800–1945)
Attack the System Page 29