4th generation warfare & beyond and police preparedness

The 4GW as prescribed by Lind and his team dwelt on decentralized forms of warfare thereby blurring the distinctive lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians. Based on this concept it can be stressed that because of the present situation prevailing in the world instead of fighting a full-fledged war which is prohibitively expensive, the nations are finding it easier to wage war by dint of decentralized modes of warfare through NGOs, extremist organizations or other disgruntled groups operating in the nation to be attacked.

Pallab Bhattacharyya

(Pallab Bhattacharyya is a former director-general of police, Special Branch and erstwhile Chairman, APSC. Views expressed by him is personal. He can be reached at pallab1959@hotmail.com)

In his address to the IPS probationers of the 73rd batch at SVPNPA Hyderabad on 11th November 2021, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval highlighted the issue of 4th Generation Warfare, abbreviated as 4GW, and said, "Wars have ceased to become an effective instrument for achieving political or military objectives. They are too expensive and unaffordable and at the same time, there is uncertainty about their outcome. But it is the civil society that can be subverted, that can be divided, and that can be manipulated to hurt the interest of a nation."

The address by the NSA particularly on the issue of 4GW generated a lot of criticism in print as well as social media. Noted public activist Mrs Aruna Roy, who happened to be an IAS officer of Mr Doval's batch, strongly criticised the NSA for arbitrarily laying out a new "political" theory of war and national security, with dangerous implications and potential consequences for India. Mrs Roy who relinquished IAS in the year 1975 and became a social activist was of the view that Mr Doval "neither bothered to define the civil society he wants his officers to be at war with nor explained what gave him the authority to declare a 'fourth-generation war' on our people. He should explain himself more, but it is a theory that legitimizes efforts of the political executive and the private sector as nation-building; and paints opposition or adversarial advocacy by organized citizens' groups (civil society) as undermining development and nationalism. He wants to short-circuit the democratic, social and development safeguards in the Constitution." The heat generated by the speech of NSA circulated widely in social and print media was also caustically contested by noted retired IPS officer and Sahitya Akademi Award-winning poet Keki N Daruwalla who was of the view that the focus of Mr Doval was not on those suborned TV channels propagating fake news, putting a new narrative on almost every national event. Rather, his focus was on those people, constituting the civil society in India, who were, as if, hell-bent upon subverting the nation.

In this context, the concept of four generations of warfare is worthy of explanation. The various levels of wars fought in history in the course of the evolution of Homo-Sapiens can be explained as the first, second and third generation of warfare where the arms and ammunition, tactics etc., used were traditional. The idea of the Fourth Generation of warfare was created by a team of analysts from the USA led by William S Lind in the context of the changing face of war during the modern phase of human life. The 4GW as prescribed by Lind and his team dwelt on decentralized forms of warfare thereby blurring the distinctive lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians. Based on this concept it can be stressed that because of the present situation prevailing in the world instead of fighting a full-fledged war which is prohibitively expensive, the nations are finding it easier to wage war by dint of decentralized modes of warfare through NGOs, extremist organizations or other disgruntled groups operating in the nation to be attacked.

The role of NGOs in India has come under intense scrutiny in the Intelligence Bureau report dated June 3, 2014, under the heading "The concerted effort by select foreign-funded NGOs to 'take down' Indian developmental projects". The 21-page report named seven agitations as pursuing 'anti-developmental activities':

1. Nuclear infrastructure

2. Coal-fired power plants

3. Genetically modified organisms

4. Posco in Orissa

5. Vedanta in Orissa

6. Narmada Bachao Andolan

7. Agitations against extractive industries in the Northeast.

The report began prominently by saying that the negative effects of such anti-developmental activities on GDP growth are estimated to be at 2-3%.

In this context, it is important to highlight the present critical geopolitical situation arising out of the tussle between Russia and Ukraine purportedly due to the latter's willingness to join NATO and the former's opposition to this idea. Though Russia was a superpower earlier, it is finding it increasingly difficult to mount an attack on Ukraine. Hence it is largely felt that the separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine and the pro-Russia separatist government in Ukraine's Donetsk region are being used by Russia to already wage the proxy 4th generation war. We can draw a parallel in this regard regarding Laskar-e-Taiba's attack in Mumbai in the year 2008 with the active aid of Pak ISI. Similarly, the attacks mounted by extremist organizations of NE are sometimes strongly believed to be the handiwork of Chinese intelligence agencies.

The fifth-generation warfare is conducted primarily through non-military actions like social engineering, misinformation, cyberattacks, Artificial Intelligence etc. The misinformation campaign by some media houses as pointed out by Keki N Daruwalla and also in social media platforms indicate that humanity has already entered this phase of warfare. Given above the address by Doval should be viewed through this perspective and policemen are required to be trained continuously intellectually during their entire career which unfortunately is not happening in India. Albert Einstein's famous quote should be a grave reminder to the police and policy makers- "Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death".