Generations of War

All ideas are from William S. Lind in his article: "The Four Generations of Modern Warfare"

From Lind's article he describes the evolution of warfare dating from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to the present in four categories:

The 1st Generation of War (from 1648-present): Lind describes this generation of warfare involving the state having control over all military affairs. In addition, the emphasis on order was imbedded in military culture and battles above all else. It was not until the American Civil War that the the battlefield would become less orderly and decentralized. In turn, this meant the ending of the domination of 1st Generation of war tactics and culture and an inter-period before the new generations would implant themselves.

The 2nd Generation of War (from WW1-present): Lind describes this generation of war developed by the French as one of proposed solutions of handling the contradiction of having a orderly military culture and a disorderly battlefield. This kind of warfare focused on "firepower/attrition warfare", the military being a hierarchy, and had the military officers impose obedience on their soldiers. In essence, it could be said that the Second Generation of War was an updated version of the first.

The 3rd Generation of War (from WW1-present): Lind describes this generation of war developed by the Germans as the second of the proposed solutions of handling the contradiction. This generation focused on maneuverability rather than firepower. In addition, it didn't want a hierarchy in military culture and focused on emphasizing that the soldier could discipline themselves and adapt themselves to the battlefield contrary to what their superiors ordered in order to get results on the battlefield. This warfare strived to be clever in defeating their enemies rather than imposing their will with firepower like the French.

The 4th Generation of War (present day): Lind argues that the 4th Generation of War parallels the pre-1st Generation of War tactics. Terrorism is not an orderly force controlled by a state but a decentralized and disperse entity that focuses on fighting for a culture or religion. Lind also implies that the previous generations of war and their tactics won't work against this stateless entity.

All generations of warfare are practiced today in some way.

So what is going to be the 5th generation of warfare?
 
5th generation won't be here for a couple of decades but it would be unmanned stealth aircraft attacking unmanned communication centres defended by automatic defence systems.

It may be possible to fight and lose a major war without anyone being killed in combat.
 
Or it may be possible to avoid shooting altogether, cyber-attacks could wreak havoc on improperly prepared nations.
 
Cyberwarfare will play a big part, and drones.

This is my guess too. With electronics having more and more impact on our lives, conflicts as we know it will be more digitized than they have ever been. Even now, the American military has a whole department dedicated to protecting military computers from cyberattacks. Maybe the military will soon have to fight an out of control virus that some disgruntled hacker decided to make. Soon I think warfare will be a hybrid of 3rd/4th generation. It will probably be a state(s) v. non-state(s), state(s) v. state(s), or non-state(s) v. non-state(s) and war will be more and more individualized meaning their will be less people fighting it and more entities taking their own initiative to get the final result.

5th generation won't be here for a couple of decades but it would be unmanned stealth aircraft attacking unmanned communication centres defended by automatic defence systems.

It may be possible to fight and lose a major war without anyone being killed in combat.

I agree with you that soon conflicts are going to involve less and less soldiers on the battlefield. I think aircraft, ships, and ground weapons will get better AI in the future and soon we will see debates raging on around the world on whether a weapon should be implanted with such intelligent AI. Warfare is getting scarier and scarier even if there are going to be less soldiers fighting as the trend is going right now. Weapons (excluding nuclear weapons) are not only getting more powerful, they are getting more sophisticated and harder to deal with in terms of defense.

To me it seems easier to create an offensive mechanism to deal with a defensive mechanism. This is because going on the offensive takes more proactive than reactive thinking since you not only focus on bypassing a defense but also focus on how to deal more and more disperse damage to a nation in the future. Going on the defensive is more reactive than proactive. It is difficult to make a mechanism that will supposedly defend against everything because you must know about every weapon used and what future weapons would be used for certain. This means that you must have some way of telling the future which is impossible at least for now. So making a defense requires a person to think about the present day weapons and past weapons and how to react to these weapons.

But this is my opinion so it not really absolute fact ;).
 

NothingNow

Banned
This is my guess too. With electronics having more and more impact on our lives, conflicts as we know it will be more digitized than they have ever been. Even now, the American military has a whole department dedicated to protecting military computers from cyberattacks. Maybe the military will soon have to fight an out of control virus that some disgruntled hacker decided to make. Soon I think warfare will be a hybrid of 3rd/4th generation. It will probably be a state(s) v. non-state(s), state(s) v. state(s), or non-state(s) v. non-state(s) and war will be more and more individualized meaning their will be less people fighting it and more entities taking their own initiative to get the final result.

And the thing is, Command systems will probably be more lateral, and ad-hoc, as we've at times seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, as everything becomes more networked. So you'll get more things like STRIL 90 where what gets the target lock isn't what kills you. This will help improve the quality and accuracy of CAS immensely even if there is a widespread move to using drones for such a role (which it looks like, with PCAS, and which I have reservations about, although seeing the A-10PCAS reach production in a recognizable form would validate so much of what I've said over in FH.)

Incidentally, the Small-Diameter bomb looks promising for taking out targets in densely packed civilian areas, should someone figure out how to prevent the whole issue of Dense Inert Metal Explosives being pretty much the easiest way ever to ensure that a whole block will die of some pretty nasty cancers in 20 years.

Needless to say, in all of this, the future of Guerilla forces lies in Social Media, PR departments, improvements in peer-to-peer communications (the NSA hates skype for a reason,) and the RPG-30.
"Da! Abdul, You too can defeat Active Protection Systema for AFV, at added cost of only 30 rubles per unit!"
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Also, Thermobaric devices (because Armor is easy pickings without infantry there to back them up.)
 
This will eventually get countered by computers that can prioritise, namely going after the bigger projectile while mostly ignoring the little one. Also, modernised XM214s might be able to put up just enough lead to stop them.
 
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NothingNow

Banned
This will eventually get countered by computers that can prioritise, namely going after the bigger projectile while mostly ignoring the little one. Also, modernised XM214s might be able to put up just enough lead to stop them.

So fire two or three at the same target at the same time, from the same arc. or set a thermobaric device or a flashbang full of Chaff off, and then hit it.

The only good, foolproof defense is multiple layers of NxRA on a Chobham-armored V-hull.
 
The only good, foolproof defense is multiple layers of NxRA on a Chobham-armored V-hull.

Temporarily. No good defense is effective forever; and the more effective it is, the more ingenuity and effort will go into defeating it. Sooner or later something will do so reliably, and then it's time for the next good, foolproof defense.
 
And likewise, as soon as a method of attack overcomes a defence, development will go into developing a new defence.
 
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