The Fourth Estate has become the Fifth Column.
-Michael Savage
A lot has been said and written on the topic of Fourth Generation Warfare(4GW) but to the uninitiated, it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what it is. As I’ve written in past posts, warfare is three dimensional. In order to succeed, the fight goes far beyond what rifle or caliber is best, what trinkets to put in a bag, and whether or not a foreign made handheld radio is worth the $30 it costs. What’s more important is capability, commonality, and freedom of movement. The focus towards victory is at the macro level. This is not to dismiss necessary steps at the individual level that begins with and only with you; but understand that it distinctly takes a team.
4GW
4GW is defined as ” blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians.” It’s an effort to make order from chaos based on the changes in warfare based on the Marxist model, encompassing politics, media, the supporting underground, culture, and finally, your fighters. While many state that it defines the warfare model of the late 20th Century to present, I’ll argue it goes back much further- the American Civil War at many points had several elements of 4GW, most notably in the decade earlier with the large influx of Marx-influenced thinkers among European immigrants, John Brown’s raid, the use of flagrant overly exaggerated books as a psychological warfare tool to influence the population, GEN William T. Sherman’s principle of Total War, and finally, the entire Reconstruction era which still exists.
In short, it’s “all in fighting”, and while that 3% is the tip of the spear, another larger percentage must make up the spear. Keep in mind also, someone must throw said spear. It is very much a war of cultures.
This principle, famously demonstrated in 2003, is simply known as “rapid dominance”. What actually happened was the complete destruction of national infrastructure, military and civil, in order to remove its legitimacy to its constituents. What resulted was a completely broken national infrastructure which took the better part of a decade to restore. While it felt good and facilitated one of the fastest invasions in human history, it also caused immeasurable fallout of which we are reaping today. The principle of Total War never went away, it simply became more high tech. The result became a growing asymmetric fight that the West barely understands, and seeks to answer in the wrong directions with ever greater emphasis on technology and detached warfare-drones and remote technology.
Believe it or not, this is a windfall.
Two Important Questions
The goal of 4GW, logically, is to resolve two questions for both the Guerilla and the Occupier(Government or replacement for government):
- How can I get the Population behind me?
- How can I discredit my enemy?
We’ll start with the governmental response to these questions. At its start governments gain legitimacy through common ideology with the core constituency. This wears off in time. Once it does, pockets of resistance form. When governmental representation fails, gradually the disaffected become more violent. Soon an insurgency forms. The Government has two options, accommodation or repression. Repression is the response in nearly every scenario, usually in a heavy handed manner. This creates more insurgents by shifting opinion towards the insurgents at the grassroots level, if and only if, the disaffected can effectively get their message out. This is the realm of the Fourth Estate, otherwise known as the media.
This now creates a delicate balance; when the government controls the media and the narrative, in the beginning at least, it’s difficult for a movement to gain steam on a macro level by anything other than word of mouth. Knowing that alternatives exist, government agents create disinformation through the alternate channels. In the Marxist model, this usually is information guised as a genuine message but with strong undertones that may not be easily discernible to the uniformed reader.
Case in point- we all know that person in the Libertarian movement on your social media page that just blasts out whatever common meme or click-bait story they can find, usually without reading or considering what it’s actually saying. I knew one such person, who constantly posted stuff about how horrible the CIA is, that Hawaii was somehow not a state, and the best one of them all, that everything in Iraq was one big hoax, including the WMD factories(one of which I entered and saw with my own two eyes…so yeah, they exist.) Come to find out, most of this crap was rooted in overseas sources…one does not need to think hard to figure out the genuine agenda. Always ask yourself who are they not criticizing and usually you’ll find your answer.
A healthy helping of disinformation sprinkled with just enough reality to be believable is a great way to discredit an enemy- they’re uniformed rubes. The conventional media works this way too, in how they frame stories and how stories are presented. Moderators and commentators are chosen and psychologically screened prior to coming on screen, and will present a certain angle based on the way the questions are framed.
He who controls the Narrative controls the fight.
We won every battle in Vietnam, but lost the war, thanks very much to this commie right here.
From the Guerilla angle, the answer to question #1 is vital. The population must be at least 70% in your favor or your movement is toast. This is where the Underground comes in…and it won’t exist if they do not have solidarity with your movement. Knowing the Government response is usually repression, these folks are going to bear the burden of everything you do, or fail to do. They’ll be the ones going through the daily check points, getting groped at government service buildings, and dealing with officer friendly when he comes knocking looking for you and your merry band of miscreants.
You must be able to formulate first a plan to remove the enemy, then create a path to a better way. If not, your support will go the same way the Chechen support for the Insurgency went.
A couple of tips on building this is first to focus on commonality, not overbearingly, but somewhat covertly. Looking like the folks you represent and not like a wierdo will go a long way.
This man appeared before Congress in the 90s, dressed just like he is right here. Nobody remembers what he said, just how he’s dressed. The Government didn’t need to discredit this guy, he did a good job himself, no matter how great his points may have been. Present yourself like a human and not a caricature, and your success rate will exponentially increase.
Getting the people behind you also means answering what the next step is going to be. None of us like the current incarnation of the President. The issue is though, how do the very important questions get answered, such as security, who keeps the Lights on, who keeps the schools open, and who provides normalcy? This is defined as SWEAT: Sewer, Water, Electricity, and Telecommunications. In other words, whoever provides the infrastructure, provides the Government. Without a competent means to provide this, your movement may enjoy support for a while but eventually it’s going to fall. Understand?
Discrediting an unpopular enemy is really easy. Even with a controlled opposition media, getting a message out to discredit is pretty simple. Occupy Wall Street was an off-shore funded movement of Communists comprised of useful idiots. But with clever signs and pointing out ambiguities with the status quo everytime they appeared somewhere, their message got out. Marxists simply name movements based on end goals with the result being instant media coverage everytime they’re mentioned. It works by implanting engrams in your mind, like any other franchise logo.
Further, in order to discredit an enemy, simply habitually point out flaws to your intended audience. Point out how they’re failing to provide for their constituency. There’s an old maxim that states it’s easy to hate what you know and love what you don’t know. Become option #2 for the people. For another example, ISIS is a success among Sunnis for two reasons. It has a common set of values(Salafism), and it competently identifies an enemy for it’s people while providing a semblance of stability for the people adhering to it. As long as they control Baiji and the oil flows to Turkey, they’ll be able to provide. It’s not so much controlling territory as it is controlling the right territory, as well as the minds of the folks you represent. And that folks, is why it works.
What does this mean for you?
In short, win friends and influence people. Don’t be a wierdo. Right now in this country and in Europe, we have a historic opportunity to reverse the tide of Marxism and not resort to fascism, which in every previous case has been the response. Like I wrote before, this fight can be won rather easily. The makers in this nation want answers and stability. We want Liberty, restoration of the Republic, and personal Sovereignty. This is easily attainable through a competent, coherent, normalized message. The actual fight is not going to last long, but the residual challenges will last decades.