Lind’s plan

I have sometimes criticized William Lind, the prophet of “fourth-generation warfare,” for bitterly criticizing American policy toward the Muslim world while seeming to have no positive vision of his own of what our policy ought to be. Now Lind has presented his positive vision. Writing at The American Conservative, Lind says that the only attainable successful outcome in Iraq is a restored Iraqi state. America destroyed the previous Iraqi state, leaving Iraq stateless, with a Potemkin government inside the Green Zone and with the rest of the country subject to non-state “terrorists” (the scare quotes are Lind’s). In order to be able to suppress the insurgents and to avoid total catastrophe, Iraq must have a state. Who in Iraq can create a state? Lind’s candidate is the Shi’ite firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr. But the creation of a Sadr-led Iraqi state can only happen with the cooperation of Iran, and the U.S. can gain such cooperation only by (1) accepting the Iranian development of nuclear weapons and (2) withdrawing our forces from Iraq. Such withdrawal will not be seen as a defeat, says Lind, since, having become friends with Iran, we will not be seen as retreating in the face of our enemies.

- end of initial entry -

Ron L. writes:

Lind’s latest article in the American Spectator is perhaps the sloppiest thing I have ever seen by a neo-isolationist.

Lind declares that America is pursuing second-generation tactics. Second Generational Warfare was typified by WWII and Korea tactics. Today we use information technology and precision weapons. We are the leader in Third Generational Warfare. That is what astounded “media experts” about the First Gulf War. We continued the tactics of hitting the enemies command, control, computers, and informational centers in the Second Gulf War.

Lind declares that one of our goals is an Iraq friendly to Israel. Has this ever been stated by the president?

For years, Lind has hyped up Fourth Generational Warfare and has underplayed American strength. Lind, whose summary of political correctness/Gramscite tactics is among the most concise and accurate, cannot understand the threat of Islam or Islamism. He sees them noble fighting globalism, neocons, and Western decadence. He does not believe that America can or should win against Islamic terrorists. Therefore, Lind’s solution is to negotiate the best possible surrender.

If not Quisling, this behavior reminds me of Henry Wallace.

LA replies:

What Ron says is very interesting. For years I’ve picked up the fact that Lind in pushing “fourth generation warfare” never did it by way of telling America, “You’re not doing it right, here’s what you need to do to get it right.” Instead, he attitude was, “You’re a bunch of idiots for not understanding what I understand, but it doesn’t matter, because even if you did understand what I understand, there’s nothing you can do anyway. You’re a rotten country and you deserve whatever happens to you.” In short, the standard paleocon attitude of hating the present leftish-neocon domination of America so much that one hates America itself. However, I had not picked up on the actual pro-Islam elements of Lind’s thought that Ron mentions. If Ron can locate off-hand any articles of Lind along these lines, that would be worthwhile to share.

“Snouck Hungronje” writes:

Ron L. wrote on Lind:

“Lind, whose summary of political correctness/Gramscite tactics is among the most concise and accurate, cannot understand the threat of Islam or Islamism.”

However during the 2007 Boyd conference two weeks ago William Lind reportedly said: “as the conflicts today are, in Lind’s view, organic cultural conflicts of clashing ( and fractionating) primary loyalties, a new grand strategy must be offered; a defensive posture that seeks to conserve ” centers of order” ( like China, America, Europe) and isolate ourselves from those centers of ” disorder,” including immigration by culturally indigestible groups like ” Islamics.” “

Your reaction to Ron L.: “For years I’ve picked up the fact that Lind in pushing “fourth generation warfare” never did it by way of telling America, “You’re not doing it right, here’s what you need to do to get it right.” Instead, he attitude was, “You’re a bunch of idiots for not understanding what I understand, but it doesn’t matter, because even if you did understand what I understand, there’s nothing you can do anyway. You’re a rotten country and you deserve whatever happens to you.”

However at the same conference Mr. William Lind also: “pointed to the need for an intellectual and moral regeneration at home and replacement of a self-serving, corrupt and politically inept bipartisan elite influenced by the tenets of cultural Marxism and political correctness “

Mr. William Lind was an advisor to the USMC in the early nineties, working on turning it into a maneuver warfare force. He sponsors books that explain fourth generation warfare that are read by enthusiastic U.S. soldiers and officers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, such as John Poole’s books (Just check the reviews on Amazon). He organises the annual Boyd conference which aim to get his message across to the militaries of Western nations. These conferences are increasingly attended by U.S. and European officers.

On top of that he understands and writes about non-Western immigration into Europe and the U.S. as a form of warfare. He connects war, politics and immigration.

If there is someone else who does more intellectual labour and who does more to increase the defense of the West and who is actually listened to by some of our leaders in our militaries, I would be glad to be pointed to him.

Mr. William Lind and his Israeli counterpart Martin van Creveld are harsh critics of our military and political establishments. They have built an intellectual framework to describe the way non-Western forces organise themselves in ways that make them invunerable to attacks of our sclerotic Defense establishments. And as such they are an essential component of the cure for what ails our armies and societies. Beyond that that have made various suggestions for improvements of our policies and forces and some of these have been implemented.

Mr. Auster: “However, I had not picked up on the actual pro-Islam elements of Lind’s thought that Ron mentions.”

Lind is not pro-Islam as his abovementioned quote shows. He is very hostile to it, and the U.S. generals that visit his conferences disagree with him. They are the ones who are blind. What you may detect in his writings and other critics of Western warmaking is admiration for the way Jihadists and Asians achieve their goals with very limited resources, compared to the futility of U.S. efforts which has 50 percent of the global defense expenditure.

LA replies:

I’m glad to hear that Lind is calling for the “intellectual and moral regeneration” of America. The fact remains that in article after aticle over the last several years, Lind’s stance has been as I described—captiously criticizing America for not understanding the importance of fourth-generation warfare, but not having positive suggestions for America, and not seeming to be on America’s side, but sounding rather as though he wanted America to lose, to punish it for not understanding fourth-generation warfare. In any case he was unremittingly negative and resentful, to the point that I stopped reading him. Now perhaps I misunderstood him and this was just the cranky demeanor of a paleocon and he really had the best interests of America at heart the whole time. But if so, he was sure doing a good job of covering it up, at least in the articles of his that I read.

Tom S. writes:

I read a lot of Lind’s stuff in the early 1990s, concerning manuever warfare. It’s my impression that Lind had some good ideas 15 or 20 years ago, but has since kind of gone off the deep end—sort of like a military Paul Craig Roberts. He has never really given a good coherent description of “fourth generation warfare,” let along described how we should wage it, and he has not produced much of value since 9/11. My impression is that he believes that the United States is so screwed up, he doesn’t really want us to win, at least not until we have “reformed.” Too bad, really—his stuff back in the early 1990s was pretty good, and our side needs all the help we can get.

Simon N. writes from Britain:

I have to say your characterisation of Lind as an Islam-lover is a travesty; Snouck is entirely correct—Lind has done more than anyone else both to raise awareness of the genuine nature of the threat, and to propose concrete suggestions; most notably separation & containment—the same strategy you yourself advocate. If he seems grouchy and ill-tempered at times, the same accusation could be made against yourself.

Lind despises neocon utopianism and the fossilised ‘2nd generation” “fire on targets” U.S. military, and admires the effectiveness of Islamist ‘4th generation” war strategy (tearing the enemy apart at the moral level), without in any way supporting their political goals, just as he admires the effectiveness of the ‘3rd generation” “maneuver war” WW2 Wehrmacht, without supporting Nazi ideology. This is a vital distinction to make; if we’re unable to even recognise that the enemy has a viable strategy there’s no way we can even think about how to defeat them. It’s totally untrue that Lind offers no solutions—apart from the current AmCon article, look at the new 4th gen war manual on dni.net.

Ron L: “Today we use information technology and precision weapons. We are the leader in Third Generational Warfare.”

Apparently Ron L hasn’t read Lind—the U.S. military uses IT and precision weapons in the service of an advanced form of 2nd generation attrition warfare. The U.S. military has very limited 3rd generation maneuver-war capability, as evidenced by the failure at Tora Bora. Where 2nd gen warfare is about processes aimed at physically destroying the enemy, 3rd gen warfare is about an outward, flexible command focus and is aimed at collapsing the enemy’s will to fight, typically through surprise & encirclement. The U.S. military’s strongly hierachical systems mean that it is unable to improvise rapidly, so its successful battles of encirclement take weeks to plan and execute, and require an entirely static opponent, such as Iraq in the first Gulf War. A 3rd gen military cannot defeat 4th gen entities where they refuse to fight at all, but would at least be able to destroy enemy troop concentrations before they can disperse.

LA replies:

First, I don’t think I’ve said anything suggesting that Lind is an Islam lover. In fact I said the opposite, that I have no information backing up such an assertion (“I had not picked up on the actual pro-Islam elements of Lind’s thought that Ron mentions”). What I have said is that Lind never seems to take a position pro the United States—and for that characterization, there is much evidence.

Find me a Lind article written in the last five years in which he unambiguously takes the side of the United States—instead of articles by him that keep saying, you fools, you don’t understand fourth generation warfare, you deserve to be humiliated and defeated—and I’ll gladly write it up. Until then, don’t tell me my criticisms of him are a travesty.

The issue is not his grouchiness and ill-temperedness, the issue is what, in his grouchiness and ill-temperedness, he is actually communicating.

You inadvertently touch on the truth of the matter when you say that Lind “admires the effectiveness of Islamist ‘4th generation’ war strategy (tearing the enemy apart at the moral level), without in any way supporting their political goals.” In reality, his inordinate admiration for the effectiveness of the enemy’s methods, combined with his inordinate contempt for our methods, comes across, over and over again, as hostility to our side.

There is a normal instinct in us that tells us when a person is on our side and when he is not. Lind’s presentation repeatedly sends the message: I’m not on America’s side. Any occasional words of his to the contrary are drowned by that music.

If Lind wants people to believe he is not hostile to America, he needs to change the way he speaks.

And it’s not just his tone that is the problem here. In his current article at TAC, he has the audacity to say that if we make friends with Iran, our surrender to Iran—a surrender he advocates—will not be seen as a defeat! A man who urges our surrender to a declared enemy, an enemy with a genocidal, apocalyptic program, and then with blatant dishonesty says that this will not be seen as a surrender, is a man who is going to be seen as not on America’s side. I know it’s weird and irrational, but that’s just the way it is.

And the fact that he could speak of Iran the way he does shows that he has little understanding of the nature of Islam. He thinks the Muslims are hostile to America because of its blundering, interfering ways; which in fact is but a projection of Lind’s own hostility to America for its blundering, interfering ways. He doesn’t seem to grasp that the Muslims’ attitudes and behavior are determined by factors that have nothing to do with the United States, namely by Islamic doctrine.

Finally, Linds’ and his supporters’ constant repetition of the criticism of the U.S. military for its allegedly stodgy and rigid way of warfare mired in the past has itself the ring of stodgy and rigid thinking mired in the past. When I read about the actions of the U.S. military against our enemies in Iraq, they sound highly flexible and constantly evolving to meet changing circumstances—the very thing Lind says is lacking in U.S. tactics and strategy. In short, there is formulaic quality in Lind’s criticisms of the U.S., suggesting that he is not looking at reality, but merely repeating a gripe.

The same is also suggested by your reference to Tora Bora—a battle that took place almost six years ago.

LA continues:

Also, please point me to any Lind articles urging separation and containment. I am always eager to find writers whom I can add to my list of separationists.

Simon N. writes:

Some Lind on separationism—I haven’t traced his main articles but it’s in the 4th gen war theory stuff.

The following include separationist comments:

“in a Fourth Generation world, invasion by immigrants who do not acculturate is more dangerous than invasion by the army of a foreign state.”

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_5_02_06.htm

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_5_21_07.htm

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_10_17_06.htm

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_9_18_06.htm

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_6_03_06.htm

And here’s a link to the pdf 4th gen war manual.

Simon N. writes:

LA wrote: “He thinks the Muslims are hostile to America because of its blundering, interfering ways; which in fact is but a projection of Lind’s own hostility to America for its blundering, interfering ways. He doesn’t seem to grasp that the Muslims’ attitudes and behavior are determined by factors that have nothing to do with the United States, namely by Islamic doctrine.”

Lind has stated that Islam has ‘renewed its strategic offensive’ against the West after a 300 year hiatus, so he clearly doesn’t think Islamic violence is purely reactive. He advises peace with Iran just as Nixon made peace with China; China’s Marxist ideology made it just as hostile to the USA as Iran is now, but its fear of the USSR made it amenable to an alliance of convenience. Iran may be in the same situation with the surrounding Sunni Islamic powers as China was with the USSR, although a problem with this is that Iran may now see its longed-for position as leader of the Islamic world as attainable, making a US-Iran alliance undesirable from their POV—Iran may gain more from a confrontational stance than it could ever gain from peace.

Simon N. writes:

LA wrote: “Find me a Lind article written in the last five years in which he unambiguously takes the side of the United States.” Not being American myself I may not be the best person to ask. Lind’s military analysis takes the external aspect of a historian and theoretician, it’s neither pro nor anti US. He clearly dislikes both cultural Marxism, a direct threat to western civilisation, and neoconservative imperialism, so to the extent that those embody the USA he dislikes what the USA has become. He, with Weyrich, has advocated a return to 1950s American values. I don’t get the impression that he glories in the demise of the West the way Mark Steyn does, but he seems to see the break down of the Westphalian State system as largely inevitable. He is unequivocally pro traditional American culture and the traditional American people, but not necessarily the USA as it currently exists. Basically the Buchananite line.

Simon N. writes:

Do you have any examples of Lind expressing hostility to the USA in a way you see as unpatriotic?

LA replies:

Start with these:

Exchange with a friend on the anti-war right

(The above starts with Lind and becomes a discussion on the anti-war right.)

William Lind, advisor to terrorists

Lind at rockwell, giving advice to Hamas (July 6, 2006)

Lind becomes a Rockwellite
(linking Lind’s July 19, 2006 article at lewrockwell.com, “The Summer of 1914,” in which he writes very positively about, indeed celebrates, the advantages that the non-state Hamas and Hezbollah are enjoying over the state of Israel)

* * *

Here is something I drafted last summer about Lind’s article, “The Summer of 1914,” but never posted:

In recent years two strands have been dominant in the writings of William Lind. On one hand, he has promoted the idea of “Fourth-generation warfare,” his techno-jargony concept by which he means war by non-state actors such as terrorists groups, against which, he argues, U.S. military strategy is poorly equipped to cope. He main point seemed to be that we must adjust our military thinking to these “fourth-generation” realities if we effectively to handle situations like Iraq.

On the other hand, Lind, who worked for Sen. Gary Hart in the 1980s, has become a paleoconservative in the purely negative sense of that word, that is, he is so enraged at America as it now exists that he automatically takes the anti-American side in any issue. Thus one sometimes wondered when reading Lind’s articles, was he pushing the idea of fourth-generation warfare because he wants America to understand it and so do better against its enemies, or was he pushing it just to show how hopelessly stupid and wrongheaded America is, whatever it is doing? The absence of any positive suggestions in his article lead to the latter conclusion.

Lind’s promotion of fourth-generation warfare and his hostility against America, and against America’s ally, Israel, have now been brought together by a third strand, the anarcho-libertarianism of Lew Rockwell. As Communists are to the bourgeoisie and as Nazis are to Jews, the Rockwellites are to the state. The state is evil and the source of all evil, and anyone associated with an existing state deserves whatever happens to him.

But now he is actively siding with Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel, and on what basis? On Rockwellite, anarcho-libertarian terms: the state is evil, the non-state is good. Hence the state of Israel is evil, and non-state terrorists are good. He has thus combined (1) his concept of fourth-generation (non-state) warfare, with (2) his paleocon-style resentment at America and Israel, with (3) Rockwellite anarchism, all resulting in actively taking the side of Hezbollah against Israel.

In the below passage from the article, Lind is positively celebrating the actions and wishing for the success of the non-state actor Hezbollah:

I think the stakes in the Israel-Hezbollah-Hamas war are significantly higher than most observers understand. If Hezbollah and Hamas win—and winning just means surviving, given that Israel’s objective is to destroy both entities—a powerful state will have suffered a new kind of defeat, again, a defeat across at least one international boundary and maybe two, depending on how one defines Gaza’s border. The balance between states and 4GW [Fourth-generation warfare, i.e. not state actors such as terrorists] forces will be altered world-wide, and not to a trivial degree.

So far, Hezbollah is winning. As Arab states stood silent and helpless before Israel’s assault on Hamas, another non-state entity, Hezbollah, intervened to relieve the siege of Gaza by opening a second front. Its initial move, a brilliantly conducted raid that killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two for the loss of one Hezbollah fighter, showed once again that Hezbollah can take on state armed forces on even terms (the Chechens are the only other 4GW force to demonstrate that capability). In both respects, the contrast with Arab states will be clear on the street, pushing the Arab and larger Islamic worlds further away from the state.

Hezbollah then pulled off two more firsts. It responded effectively to terror bombing from the air, which states think is their monopoly, with rocket barrages that reached deep into Israel. Once can only imagine how this resonated world-wide with people who are often bombed but can never bomb back. And, it attacked another state monopoly, navies, by hitting and disabling a blockading Israeli warship with something (I question Israel’s claim that the weapon was a C-801 anti-ship missile, which should have sunk a small missile corvette). Hezbollah’s leadership has promised more such surprises.

In response, Israel has had to hit not Hezbollah but the state of Lebanon. Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, referring to the initial Hezbollah raid, said, “I want to make clear that the event this morning is not a terror act but the act of a sovereign state that attacked Israel without reason.” This is an obvious fiction, as the state of Lebanon had nothing to do with the raid and cannot control Hezbollah. But it is a necessary fiction for Israel, because otherwise who can it respond against? Again we see the power 4GW entities obtain by hiding within states but not being a state.

What comes next? In the short run, the question may be which runs out first, Hezbollah’s supply of rockets or the world’s patience with Israel bombing the helpless state of Lebanon. If the latter continues much longer, the Lebanese government may collapse, undoing one of America’s few recent successes in the Islamic world.

For anyone who thinks that the above is not pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel, let me transpose the article into a World War II setting and ask you if you think the below is not pro-Nazi:

I think the stakes in the war between Nazi Germany and the Western Democracies are significantly higher than most observers understand. If Germany wins, the old-fashioned and exhausted Democracies will have suffered a new kind of defeat, a defeat by an explicitly anti-democratic, fascist regime. The balance between Democracy and Fascism will be altered world-wide, and not to a trivial degree.

So far, Germany is winning. Even as the other gentile and Aryan peoples of Europe stood silent and helpless before the Western Democracies’ Jewish-inspired assault on their heritage, Nazi Germany acted with stunning boldness to break the pro-Jewish Western Democracies. Its initial move, the brilliant Blitzkrieg into France, showed that Germany can take on the Western powers that once dominated her. The contrast between the Nazi Germans and other native European peoples will be clear on the street, pushing the gentile peoples of Europe further away from democracy toward Nazi-style regimes.

Nazi Germany then pulled off several more firsts. It swiftly broke through the French border and attacked the French line from the behind, even as it drove the British expeditionary force to the sea and began a daring aerial war against Great Britain. One can only imagine how this resonated world-wide with oppressed peoples who have been pushed around by Western capitalism and are helpless to do anthing about it. Germany’s leadership has promised more such surprises.

What comes next? In the short run, the question is which runs out first, Germany’s will to keep inflicting damage on the Royal Air Force or the RAF’s supply of pilots and fighter planes. The RAF may well collapse, eliminated America’s main ally in Europe.

Now, maybe some readers would say that the fictional author of the above fictional piece was not pro-Nazi, but merely admired the effectiveness and spirited confidence of the Nazis. At a certain point, however, such a distinction breaks down.

* * *

Ken Hechtman, VFR’s leftist Canadian reader, writes:

I’ve thought very highly of William S. Lind ever since I discovered him on antiwar.com three or four years ago. That alone probably proves your point …

And yes, I do find it a bit irritating when the point of one of his articles is simply that he has great insights. I’ve read over 100 of his articles. I already know he has great insights. I was just hoping that this would be one of the times he’d see fit to share another one with me …

As far as which side he’s on, I say he’s one of us or well on the way, even if he himself doesn’t know it yet.

I wouldn’t say he likes America’s Muslim enemies. But I would say he respects them for what they are. The neocon claim that we can conquer them on Monday and democratize them on Tuesday must throw him into a rage and rightly so because he knows it’s impossible on both counts.

Same way, he may like America, but he doesn’t respect it. He definitely doesn’t respect the American way of war. As long as America relies on being bigger, richer and more destructive and the Iraqis rely on being smarter, well … he won’t quite come out and say it in so many words, but his tone will imply that they deserve to win.

I don’t read much of his non-military stuff but the piece he co-wrote with Paul Weyrich six months ago caught my eye.

He wants to be a hippie. He’d never in a million years call it that, but that’s what it is. He wants to be part of a back-to-the-land, simple-life counter-culture that deliberately turns its back on a society grown irredeemably corrupt. If the trade-off for keeping his traditional values and culture intact is that he has to give up the chance to hold power over others in that outside society, it’s a price he’s willing to pay. So as they say at the Rainbow Gathering, “Welcome home, Brother Lind, welcome home!”

The Next Conservatism

By rejecting ideology and embracing “retroculture,” the Right can recover itself and perhaps reverse America’s decline.

by Paul M. Weyrich and William S. Lind

[ … ]

If the next conservatism is to reverse this decline and begin to recover the America we knew as recently as the 1950s, the last normal decade, it must do three things. First, it must aspire to change not merely how people vote but how they live their lives. It must lead growing numbers of Americans to secede from the rotten pop culture of materialism, consumerism, hyper-sexualization, and political correctness and return to the old ways of living. The next conservatism includes “retroculture”: a conscious, deliberate recovery of the past.

This recovery should not be, indeed cannot be, imposed through political power. This is the second action the next conservatism must take: putting power in its place. Tolkien’s ring of power is power itself, which in the long run cannot be used for good. The rejection of the counterculture that has become the mainstream culture must proceed bottom-up, person by person and family by family, on a voluntary basis.

The model here is the home-schooling movement. Home schooling has rescued more than a million children from the culturally Marxist Skinner boxes that most public schools have become. The power behind this important act of secession has been the only safe form of power: power of example. The next conservatism must extend that power to many other aspects of daily life, starting with entertainment, the popular culture’s poisoned well. Kirk set the example by throwing off the roof a television his wife and children had smuggled into Piety Hill.

By building the next conservatism primarily on the power of example, the example of lives well lived in the old ways, we can give honest reassurance to those Americans who fear that a vibrant cultural conservatism would impose some sort of Puritan theocracy on America. We may dismiss those fears as fanciful, but they are real.

[ … ]

P.S. If your other correspondent could direct me to Lind’s 1990s work on maneuver warfare, I would greatly appreciate it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 25, 2007 11:14 AM | Send