We are at war. But of a different kind. These kind of wars are operating at some level at every level. Some visible. Some invisible. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan is perhaps the most traditional war. It is fought over a disputed land. It is fought with military weapons. It involves the frontline armed forces. Rest of the countries take sides. The bigger countries take note. International institutions step in to call a ceasefire. This type of war, once considered the most devastating, is perhaps the most easy to see, intervene and act upon. This type of war is almost antique and reserved for occasional combat between countries still struggling to keep pace with a world that has moved to wars incognito.
The World Wars I and II gave way to a new world order of more interdependence to prevent nations indulging in wars. Trading blocs were formed as deterrents to war. The European Union was made to increase trade dependence and prevent conflicts. That succeeded for a while. However, it gave rise to conflicts of a different sort. China emerging as an exporting power made many European businesses incompetitive. Similarly, Japanese cars made the American cars look inefficient and costly. This gave birth to the idea of trade wars. The World Trade Organization would struggle to deal with trade disputes. Chinese goods would be tariffed high by US to make their own products competitive. In return, the Chinese would put tariffs on American goods embarking on a countervailing war of economies.
The problem with military wars and trade wars was that they were visible and condemnable. Nations indulging in them were at the receiving end of criticism and actions from other nations and institutions. This gave birth to strategy of a third type of war and that was known as hybrid wars. These wars were a mixture of the war from outsiders and war within. The war within would be targeting the disenfranchised groups within a particular nation and create platforms of conflict and violence. Pakistan is a classic example of such wars. Post 9/11 Pakistan became an ally to US attack on Afghanistan that disturbed the already poor and marginalized northern areas like FATA. This deprivation and illiteracy was captured by India and Afghanistan to sponsor and facilitate rebel groups who would attack schools, churches, mosques etc for nearly 15 years in the name of justice.
Wars are now subtle and unobvious intrigue. As they are unobservable they are almost unstoppable. The basic objective is to create an enabling environment for an apparently natural deterioration of development and destruction of policy blunders, project collapses, lawlessness and public angst. The enablers of this war are not hidden but cannot be seen. Sometimes you spot them yet cannot apprehend them. They are close yet far off. They are working with you but not for you. They are doing all the right things yet not adding any value. The ways to overpower this disguised enemy are much more sophisticated and diverse than gun and barrel. That is why this generation of warfare is referred to 5th generation warfare.
This is a warfare that is limitless in its reach, outreach, penetration, scale and diversity. This is a warfare that crosses boundaries effortlessly. This is a warfare that creates and recreates facts. This is a warfare that pervades societies, ideologies and thought processes. The principle of propaganda is the same as Hitler's philosophy of lies, misinformation and fabrication of events to the extent of making them seem truth. The major weapons of this warfare are:
Information Highways and Higherways- Every big power has big war rooms and intense war game facilities. These hidden wars are now played on virtual battlefields. Social media is the main factory of news true and false. Fake news can be produced and tweeted, posted and WhatsApped to billions in the information highway assembly lines. The constant unrest in our northern areas is fueled by not only terrorists crossing borders but cyber encroachers posing as a voice of the masses on information highways. In 2018 DGISPR revealed that 5000 social media accounts cropped up in Afghanistan in just one day. This may have been facilitated by the high tech software force of India or Israel.
The Cyber Dealers and Facilitators- Information and misinformation is power. Data is king. Analytics are the boss. Whosoever has information on the demographics and psychographics of target populations living in target countries is the rule maker. In today's invasive world the privacy of information is a great concern. Hacking, leaking, copying has become a science for the best scientists sitting in the best labs. Already companies are finding cyber security as if not more difficult than border security. Companies like Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have been blamed for leakage of information that can change election results. Covid-19 has created even more technology kings. Zoom has been sued in California for allegedly giving its users personal data to other companies including Facebook. These "socially responsible" companies have been accused of to having covert links with the power house intelligence agencies.
The Stateless State Actors- In the earlier warfare, non-state actors played their role. In the 5th generation warfare there are actors whose role is visible but not real. These are the most dangerous. They may exist in the government, in the bureaucracy, in the advisory, in the assembly, in the minsters and ministries, in the think tanks, in the task forces, etc. They are genuine, capable, career proven men and women of high caliber doing important jobs for decades. They may be part of important decision making bodies or influencing decision making bodies. These supposed loyalists, party members are always above board but working on agendas in a subtle way to misdirect, misalign, mismanage important policies and projects in such a manner that they can never be held responsible for willful error. Errors that can cumulatively cost the government their perception and regime.
These 3 elements make the 5th Generation warfare more lethal. Without external invasion the internal infiltration of the closest rank and file create instabilities far greater and enduring than just visible and targetable external attacks. The US alleged conspiracy theory that China brought the coronavirus deliberately to de-stage US and Europe is also taking reference from the emergence of 5th generation warfare. The methodology may be new but the method behind the madness is based on hundreds of years of Sun Tzu's principles defined in the book "The art of War" saying "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting".
(The writer is consultant, coach, can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020