 |
William Sturgiss Lind,
Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism
at the Free Congress Foundation, is a native
of Cleveland, Ohio, born July 9, 1947. He
graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
from Dartmouth College in 1969 and received
a Master's Degree in History from Princeton
University in 1971. He worked as a legislative
aide for armed services for Senator Robert
Taft, Jr., of Ohio from 1973 through 1976
and held a similar position with Senator Gary
Hart of Colorado from 1977 through 1986. He
joined Free Congress Foundation in 1987.
Mr. Lind is author of the Maneuver Warfare
Handbook (Westview Press, 1985); co-author,
with Gary Hart, of America Can Win: The Case
for Military Reform (Adler & Adler, 1986);
and co-author, with William H. Marshner, of
Cultural Conservatism: Toward a New National
Agenda (Free Congress Foundation, 1987). He
has written extensively for both popular media,
including The Washington Post, The New York
Times, and Harper's, and professional military
journals, including The Marine Corps Gazette,
U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings and Military
Review.
Mr. Lind co-authored the prescient article,
"The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth
Generation," which was published in The Marine
Corps Gazette in October, 1989 and which first
propounded the concept of "Fourth Generation
War." Mr. Lind and his co-authors predicted
that states would increasingly face threats
not from other states, but from non-state
forces whose primary allegiance was to their
religion, ethnic group or ideology. Following
the events of September 11, 2001, the article
has been credited for its foresight by The
New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly.
Mr. Lind is co-author with Paul M. Weyrich
of the monograph: "Why Islam is a Threat to
America and The West." He is the author of
"George W. Bush's `War on Terrorism': Faulty
Strategy and Bad Tactics?" Both were published
in 2002 by the Free Congress Foundation.
William
Lind Article Archive
Discussion
Board
Have an opinion on this article? Sound off.
|
|
|
|
|
Your Two Cents
Submit your stories, news items, or a benefits update -- and help Military.com bring the best, most important stories to your fellow servicemembers, veterans, and family members. Contribute here
|
|
|
July 7, 2005
[Have an opinion on a William Lind column? Sound off in the Discussion
Boards.]
As regular readers of this column know, the Fourth Generation seminar
I lead has been working for several years on a Fourth Generation
war field manual. That manual, FMFM 1-A, is now
available.
FMFM 1-A is modelled on the excellent field manuals issued by the
U.S. Marine Corps when General Al Gray was Commandant, beginning
with FMFM 1, Warfighting. Our seminar cannot write an official U.S.
Marine Corps field manual, so FMFM 1-A is a manual of the Imperial
and Royal Austro-Hungarian Marine Corps. This is an old literary
device, dating back at least to Montesquieu's Persian Letters in
the 18th century. Yes, it risks confusing the literal minded; I've
always thought the litany should include the prayer, "From the literal
minded, Good Lord deliver us."
The seminar decided to post FMFM 1-A as a draft. The reason is simple:
we hope that the comments we get back on the various websites where
the manual is posted will help us improve it. When the seminar reconvenes
in the fall, we will carefully evaluate all comments and suggestions
as we turn the draft into a definitive first edition. We want our
effort to be an open process, open especially to those who are fighting
4GW in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two members of the seminar have fought
in Iraq, one as a company commander and one as an assistant division
commander; another is there now, and a fourth leaves in July for
Afghanistan. But the more lessons from actual combat we can incorporate,
the better the final edition of the manual will be.
I don't intend to summarize the FMFM 1-A here, since it is now available
to anyone who wants to read it. But I do want to explain why we
wrote it the way we did. While it necessarily deals with military
theory, some of it quite complex, at its heart lies a story, the
story of Operation David. Here, we drew on the model offered by
the U.S. Marine Corps' Command & Control FMFM. When Captain John
Schmitt brought me the original draft of Command & Control, back
in the early 1990s, I said to him, "John, the book needs a story
that illustrates the concepts the manual is trying to teach." John
wrote a superb story, and ever since that FMFM came out, Marines
have told me that they got much more out of the story than from
the theoretical parts of the manual. I'm not sure our story is as
good as the one John Schmitt wrote, but we have at least tried to
do what he did. You can judge whether or not we succeeded.
In my own view, the portion of the FMFM 1-A that needs the most
work is Chapter II, Fighting Fourth Generation War. I do not say
that because the chapter includes little on techniques; in a Third
Generation military, techniques, processes and procedures are never
doctrine. Doctrine is how to think, not what to do. My concern is
simply that this section could be better if we had more combat experience
to draw on. Again, by offering a draft, we hope to elicit that experience
and incorporate it in the final version. So if you don't like what
we have written, don't just carp; contribute.
The Russians have an old saying, "Best is enemy of good enough."
American Marines and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan need a guide
of some sort for the new kind of war they find themselves facing.
FMFM 1-A, Fourth Generation War, offers at least a starting point.
If it proves helpful to those facing the IEDs, RPGs and mortars
on a daily basis, that is all the reward the members of the seminar
seek.
 Email
this page to friends RSS feed
© 2005 William S. Lind. William S. Lind
is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free
Congress Foundation. All opinions expressed in this article are
the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.
|
