Gravity, Dimensions, and xGW

Curtis’s latest post on 5GW is just brilliant. Take this section, which may be partially summarized by saying “The tug of gravity weakens exponentially with the addition of each new dimension through which it may propagate”:

4GW defeats 3GW because of even more mobility: including even the option of moving among civilians or, indeed, among friendly forces. Additionally, 4GW begins to make better use of memetic engineering, or of altering observations to create kinetic responses in individuals thus oriented, kinetic responses possibly quite far from the 3GW force’s field of battle: another degree of dispersal of kinetics. The CoGs may include the morale of the population supporting the 3GW force; the CoGs may include destruction and murder within civilian populations, at any point civilians can be found.

5GW defeats 4GW by refining memetic engineering, mulitplying domains to be shaped, and thus operating outside the scope of the 4GW observational range. Changes which occur within an agricultural sector in a far removed nation-state (or T.A.Z.4 ) may ultimately lead to effects within the 4GW force’s acknowledged field of battle5 ; etc. Indeed, the 4GW force’s concept of the field of battle may be altered.

In each of these cases, the reason the previous generation fails against the newest generation is simply that the previous generational strategies cannot account for the new dimensions of the conflict, or were not formed to address the new dimensions. Rather, the previous generational strategies were formed to address the dimensions of the generation before, with no leap-frogging to x+2: When the goal is to win and the present exigencies are pressing, the need is only to be one-up, and resources will be targeted accordingly.

If there’s ever a book that compiles the best posts on 5GW/Generations of War (which there should be), Curtis’s latest post would need to be in it.

Read “X vs X: Boom and the Generations in Conflict” now.